by Mel Odom
“What kind of history do the SOG people have on him?”
“Not much. Rangha is a figurehead, for the most part. The Phrenorians figured Makaum for an easy win at some future point. The only reason Rangha’s out here is to amass more glory for the Phrenorian Empire by being in charge when that victory rolls around. And to get more accolades for himself. Since he’s yaloreng, the Sting-Tails want to inflate him, give their people someone to look up to.”
“Sounds like he’s already sitting pretty.”
“He is, but Rangha has developed some interests outside of acceptable Phrenorian limits. He’s likes wealth, and he’s been involved in some of the black-market activity taking place onplanet, investing through fences and managing to allow shipments to be made. Rangha has pulled a small crew of like-minded Phrenorians together. It would be death for the other Sting-Tails to be found out, but I’m betting General Rangha’s involvement would be overlooked or covered up.”
“How did you find this out?”
“Mr. Huang.”
Sage knew Huang. In addition to making noodles at his shop, Huang was a first-class independent spy who sold spicy meals and secrets. The old man was a veteran of wars out in the frontiers. In his youth, he had been a soldier, but whatever name he’d gone by had been deleted from files. Now he was Huang, the noodle maker.
“Yes. As you know, Mr. Huang has other uses,” Halladay said. “He tipped me off to General Rangha’s little sideline a few weeks ago, but I didn’t know how to use that information until now.”
“What did you do?”
“I arranged to have Mr. Huang turn the information over to Wosesa Staumar.”
Sage couldn’t place the name. “I don’t know who that is.”
“No reason you should, Top. Staumar is a civilian mover and a shaker in the Makaum trade interests, and he’s also pro-Phrenorian. On top of that, he’s deep into the black market onplanet.”
“What makes you think Staumar will inform on Rangha?”
“Getting Rangha out of the black market will leave a void. Nature, and greed, abhors a vacuum. Staumar will happily move into that void to add to his own profit margin. He’s also been trying to curry favor with Zhoh.”
“Why?”
“Because when push comes to shove on this planet, you can bet Zhoh will be leading the Phrenorian warriors, not Rangha. Staumar knows that. He wants to side with a winner.”
“So you’re betting what? Once Zhoh finds out about the black market deals Rangha’s been doing that he will inform the Phrenorian Empire?”
“I don’t know, Top. That’s what we’ll be waiting to see. At the very least it should create some confusion and give us some breathing room while Zhoh tries to figure out what to do with that information. If we get really lucky, we might be able to find out who is among Rangha’s inner hierarchy and grab one of those warriors for information about what’s in that complex. Before Zhoh steps up as the new Phrenorian military leader.”
“That’s risky. Doing this could accelerate whatever the plans are for that base.”
“We have to hope that accelerating those plans leaves some weaknesses too. If we wait till they hit their timetable, we’re too far behind what’s going on to do much about it.”
Sage silently agreed, then he had another thought. “What does General Whitcomb say about this course of action?”
“The general doesn’t know.” Halladay grimaced. “If I told him we think the Phrenorians have a base out there, the general might jump the gun and send out a drone swarm to check it out. Or he’ll kick the intel upstairs to Terran Alliance Command and let them deal with it. Which means we’ll be sitting here till they figure out what they’re going to do. We’ll be vulnerable. I don’t like either of those ideas, so until we find out exactly what the Phrenorians’ plans for that installation are and can pass that information on, we’re going to keep this between ourselves.”
“Command will hang us both when they find out.”
“Let them try. By that time I figure we’ll be up to our ears in Phrenorian warriors and they’ll all have more pressing concerns. I know we will.” Halladay blanked the PAD and Rangha’s image faded. “In the meantime, you and I have to meet with Quass Leghef to figure out our next move regarding the people who attacked our fort.”
SEVENTEEN
Red Light District
Makaum Sprawl
5819 Akej (Phrenorian Prime)
Zhoh didn’t like skulking. He was a Phrenorian warrior and skulking didn’t suit him. He was born to walk onto a battlefield and take up arms against all opponents who had the courage to face him. Then he would destroy all who dared face him. That had always been the way of things after he had forged his patimong.
Tonight, though, required a more deft touch. He was capable of that as well, but he didn’t like it.
Cloaked in loose-fitting clothes under the shadows cast by the moonslit night, Zhoh knew he could pass without being immediately recognized as Phrenorian. Many offworlders wore such cloaks against the incessant barrage of night insects. The wearing of the disguise chafed him and he pulled irritably at the garments with his lesser hands, keeping his primaries folded next to his body and his weapons.
Hiding himself seemed cowardly, but he knew the value of an ambush. He settled on thinking of this as a surprise attack and felt only slightly vindicated. He preferred a foe he could call out onto a battlefield, but the person he searched for tonight was not so inclined.
Mato Orayva and five other Phrenorian warriors Zhoh knew from previous campaigns, spyrl members he felt he could trust who would stand at his side, walked along the meandering plascrete road between offworlder houses.
Of them, Zhoh trusted Mato most. They had grown up together, and became warriors at the same time, after their fourth lannig. Mato was the son of Zhoh’s mother’s sister, and that bond was tighter than most on Phrenoria. Mato was a good warrior in his own right, but many officers would have been threatened by his skills, thinking that he would soon surpass them. Zhoh had no such concerns. Mato had long ago tied his fortune to that of Zhoh’s, so Mato was as much interested in returning Zhoh to a position of power as Zhoh was.
Senses alert, Zhoh scanned the neighborhood around him with distaste.
Most of the Makaum people still lived in the houses they grew out of the trees and brush, but many others who had chosen to liaise with the offworlders lived in prefab buildings dropped there by corps who wanted front men to represent them with the populace. This newer part of the sprawl was constantly changing as it was added to, and it was showy with wealth and possessions.
Zhoh’s own home, until it and his lands had been taken from him in his disgrace, had been small and clean, made of stone and carboweave and set next to the Eron-urn Ocean, the most ancient of the Phrenorian seas. Those lands and his home had been a place of honor, earned by the blood he had shed in the name of the Empire, by the victories of his progenitors. Skulls of conquered opponents from dozens of worlds had lined the walk leading to his door.
Angrily, Zhoh put the thoughts of that house and the dreams he’d fostered there from his mind. Sxia and her twisted genes had ended all of that for him. But some of those things might be able to be won back. He would lay his foundation for that here on Makaum, and the first head he would take would be that of General Rangha.
The being Zhoh wanted to see tonight was a Hoblei trader named Sazuma. The Hoblei were materialistic beings whose sole drive was to accumulate as much wealth as they could. Their worlds were divided up into great trading houses that sent emissaries out to buy and sell goods and companies, and they were good at it because they had so many connections. Those connections were also used to fund and supply wars, because they could transport people and weapons and credits into and out of places no one else could.
Zhoh was of mixed feelings about the information Mat
o had brought him. Mato was more gifted in espionage than Zhoh was, and Zhoh readily acknowledged that. As soon as Mato had landed onplanet, he’d started building up a network of informers.
Wossea Staumar, the informant for tonight’s mission, was one of the Makaum trade counsel representatives. The man reminded Zhoh of a krayari, always snuffling around underfoot for choice bits of detritus left by others that he could use to his advantage. He was fat and focused, a being whose desire for things and power could never be quenched. But he was also not a being who would come as a warrior would: boldly and sure of himself.
No, Staumar was a gasyg, a sly blade, a poisoned weapon an assassin would pull in the middle of the night to strike at a warrior from behind. Or, better yet, while the warrior was sleeping or wounded. Killing an enemy or a rival without risk was a gasyg’s greatest desire. Normally, Zhoh did not suffer a gasyg to live around him, but occasionally they had their uses. Those who wielded them had to remember that, like a blood-covered patimong, the blade could twist with the greatest of ease at the wrong moment and cost dearly.
As Zhoh crossed the plascrete road, he wondered if Staumar’s story about General Rangha’s improprieties was true. Or perhaps this was only bait in a trap. Rangha himself was not so clever, but the general had advisors, warriors placed with him by the primes to ensure his success. One of Zhoh’s lesser hands caressed the hilt of his patimong while another slid around the butt of his Kimer pistol.
Small Phrenorian drones flitted over the houses, the alleys, and the road. Their vids fed into Zhoh’s HUD and he tracked the overlay constantly. Several pedestrians walked the road as well. Most of them wandered in small groups from the bars and sex clubs in the red light district, and only a few traveled alone. No lights lit the road along the housing area because they drew masses of insects that clogged the air-conditioning units.
With the sharp night vision that came with being a Phrenorian, Zhoh negotiated the road without mishap and easily read the address for the Hoblei trader. Sazuma lived on the fifth floor of the Calthea Building. All of the buildings in this block were named after Terran flowers, and the area was one of the more affluent. A nano-wafer exterior covered the plascrete walls, turning the structure into a glamorous mountain of artificial ice. According to Staumar, the Hoblei female kept six live-in guards and rented the whole floor and roof.
The door was locked and required an access key. The building also had a top-of-the-line exterior security system and two Turbellan guards in the evening on the door.
Turbellan sec men used chems to alter their growth, turning them into muscle-bound monsters. They wore armor and carried Garond needler machine guns.
As Zhoh put a foot on the steps, one of the guards challenged him. The guard’s face was broad and long. Chrome showed where added armor had been implanted in his flesh.
“I do not recognize you.”
“I am a guest,” Zhoh replied as he kept moving.
The guard shifted the needler up into firing position just as Mato shot him in the throat with a concealed coilgun that short-circuited the Turbellan’s brain functions. One of the other warriors did the same to the other guard.
Mato turned and put up a no-peek barrier that bent the moonslight away from the entrance. Passersby might notice some movement in the area but they wouldn’t be able to tell what it was in the darkness. The no-peek didn’t work except in lightless areas, and even then it couldn’t fool thermographic or infrared vision.
Four of the warriors grabbed the dead guards and carried them around to the alley. The waste container creaked open and the thud of the bodies being thrown in sounded a moment later.
“The security is a Bannyad system,” Mato said with a hint of admiration as he knelt to examine the lock. “There’s a monk sect living on that planet that does nothing but dream up intricate puzzles for their locks.”
“This system is hard to break into?” Zhoh hadn’t considered that getting inside the building would be a problem. Mato was good with locks and sec systems.
“It is exceedingly hard to break through one of these.”
“But you’ve had experience with them before.”
A spicy fragrance wafted from Mato that indicated his satisfaction with himself. “Of course. Give me a moment.” He pulled a small device from inside his cloak and attached it to a lock that was bigger than one of Zhoh’s primary hands.
Lights flashed on the lock and Mato used his lesser hands to manipulate the device he used. Zhoh didn’t know what the symbols on the lock’s viewscreen meant, but he assumed Mato did because there was no hesitation in his efforts.
After dispersing the warriors accompanying them so they wouldn’t stand out so much, Zhoh divided his attention between the device Mato attached to the door and the overlays provided by the sec drones zipping over the area. Five minutes passed and Zhoh knew they were in danger of drawing attention from the passing pedestrians. They could not stand there so long.
“Mato . . .”
“A moment more, triarr,” Mato responded. Triarr meant “family of my family,” and it was used only by close family members. It was almost a sentimental thing, something that Zhoh didn’t allow from anyone but Mato. “I almost have it.”
True to his word, the lock snicked open in one of Mato’s lesser hands. As he put the lock manipulator away, he drew a Lyduc gauss pistol set to stun.
Inside the building’s foyer, Zhoh stationed two of the five warriors outside the door. The sec drones would provide early warning, but the warriors would make certain the way remained clear.
Zhoh glanced at the cams watching over the foyer, which was clean and held wall holos advertising products and corps from several galaxies. The trade sector that had come down on Makaum concentrated on selling everything it could.
“We are being recorded,” Zhoh said.
“It’s not a problem.” Mato crossed the foyer to the bank of three elevators and pressed a button. “I have a program that will eviscerate all of the security vids from five minutes before we arrived till after we leave.”
Even though he knew Mato was capable of doing exactly what he said, Zhoh didn’t like having to trust complex solutions. He would have rather dealt with things personally, the way he was going to deal with the Hoblei trader colluding with Rangha.
The elevator arrived with a melodic chime and the doors separated. Mato stepped inside and turned his attention to the chrome access panel by the control box. Tools filled his many lesser hands and the access panel popped off into his hands. He took out wire cutters and a solder torch and began patching in a small PAD.
“Hold the elevator for just a moment,” Mato said.
Zhoh shoved a foot in front of the door and blocked it from closing.
“You have company,” one of the warriors outside the building warned.
Zhoh checked his faceshield overlay and saw a squat Wedoid turning toward the building. “Let him pass.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Mato . . .”
“I see him. There are other elevators.”
The Wedoid strode through the doorway, paused only a moment to finish a conversation on his wristcomm, then headed for the elevator where Zhoh and his group stood. “Hold that elevator.”
Zhoh didn’t like Wedoids. They took up a lot of space and they smelled bad. Despite their large mass, they moved deceptively quickly. Their native planet’s gravity was twice that of Makaum’s, so they moved even more easily here.
The being’s head massed two of Zhoh’s and looked like it had been plunked down tight onto his shoulders so there was no neck. His body was a meter and a half across and only a little more than that in height. He wore business clothing, something in subtle shades of turquoise, but none of that disguised the massive muscles beneath a soft layer of fat.
The Wedoid looked at the wires and at the PAD in Mato’s ha
nds. “Is something wrong with the elevator?”
“You chose the wrong one tonight,” Mato replied.
Too late, the Wedoid realized the trouble he was in. He tried to flee the elevator, but Zhoh wrapped a primary under his massive chin and dragged him back.
Partially breaking free, the Wedoid whipped around and reached in his pocket. He had nearly pulled out a Birkeland mini-coilgun, which was named for the weapon’s size, not for the particle charge it produced. The pistol was meant for close defense and could take out a raging kehund, a noxious predator that could smash small boats on Phrenoria.
The hum of the pistol’s arming phase rang inside the elevator. Zhoh seized the Wedoid’s wrist before he could pull the weapon free of his pocket, trapped it there. Following through on the attack, Zhoh whipped his tail around to pierce his opponent’s eye. The curved tip of his stinger missed the Wedoid’s eye, but it buried in the soft flesh at the side of his nose. Zhoh knew the nasal channel led to the brain as well, so he evacuated venom and yanked his tail free.
The Wedoid’s constitution allowed him to continue to grapple for a time and he bore Zhoh back against the wall. The three warriors had hold of the being by then.
“Leave him,” Zhoh commanded.
When the warriors released the Wedoid and stepped back, Zhoh thrust his right primary up against the being’s arm that held him pinned to the elevator wall. The Wedoid’s grip on Zhoh’s neck was not immediately life threatening. He breathed through spiracles on his mesosoma, not his head like a human or Wedoid.
Provided the being did not rip Zhoh’s head off.
Zhoh hit the Wedoid’s arm twice more, and on the last blow he heard the being’s elbow crack. By that time, the Wedoid was losing strength as the venom shut down his brain. Zhoh kicked his opponent’s leg out from under him and yanked, toppling the being over. The Wedoid gasped for breath, then seized up and lay still. His eyes glazed.
