by Chris Bunch
“I’m sorry about this,” he said, sounding very not sorry.
M’chel let out a sob, held her hands close to her face.
Aren stepped closer.
“Now,” Riss said to King in a very calm voice.
As she spoke, one hand came off her face in guard position, the other snapped forward in a palm smash against Aren’s nose.
It squashed, messily.
He yelped, more in surprise than in pain.
Jasmine snap-kicked the first gunnie in the upper thigh. He grunted, spun.
Jasmine had the gun out of his hands, reversed it, shot the other gunman in the forehead, then blew the top off the first man’s head.
Riss grabbed Aren by the hair, jerked his head down as her knee jerked up, ruining the rest of his face. M’chel ran him forward, slamming his head into the very solid chest of drawers against one wall.
He collapsed, soggily.
To make sure, Riss snapped the side of her foot down against Aren’s neck, and the dullish snap settled any doubts she might have had.
Riss went across the room in a rush, snagged the blast rifle from the second gunman’s dead grasp, and went through the door into the apartment’s main room.
The man who called himself Rabert and one other gunman were just coming to their feet, alerted by the shots.
M’chel shot the gunman in the chest, swung the rifle to Rabert.
He was lifting his hands, possibly to protest, possibly to beg for mercy.
Two guns went off almost simultaneously, almost blowing Rabert in half.
M’chel had a tight grin on her face. She was about to say something to Jasmine when they heard the roar of an engine, and a lifter floated around the corner of the building outside.
It nuzzled against the balcony, and Chas Goodnight, wearing coveralls and a combat harness, rifle in hand, leapt from its open door onto the balcony, shot the window out, and crashed through. He had a com bud in one ear, and a throat mike on.
At the controls of the lifter was Redon Spada.
In almost the same instant, the door to the apartment crashed down, taking the frame with it, and Grok rolled through, his paw dwarfing the blaster in his hand. He also wore a com.
Behind him, also gun-ready, was Friedrich von Baldur.
M’chel eyed them.
“A little late, boys.”
Von Baldur looked around at the carnage.
“So I see.”
“Come on,” Goodnight prompted. “Less chit-chat. Let’s blow this joint.”
The two women hurried across to the balcony and were almost bodily pitched into the lifter’s cargo area by Goodnight. Behind them came von Baldur.
“I am getting too old for this,” he protested as he clambered aboard, carefully not looking down at the many stories of emptiness below him.
Grok took a bundle the size of his head from a small waist pack, thumbed a control, tossed it on the body of the late Rabert.
“Let us go then, you and I,” he quoted. “Before this dive is spread out against the sky. We have thirty seconds.”
They boarded, and the lifter banked and slid away at full drive.
The side of the skyscraper blew apart, taking three stories with it.
“And so the innocent suffer with the guilty, tough titty, tough titty,” Goodnight said. “Assuming there’s any such in these parts.”
He turned to Riss.
“Now, if you two are through playing around, I think it’s time to start straightening out the situation.”
TWENTY-SIX
“Premier Toorman will see you now,” the receptionist said.
Friedrich von Baldur tucked his viewer under his arm. It had a screaming banner reading PIRATE OUTRAGES INCREASE. He smiled graciously, made sure that his old-fashioned cravat was straight, and went toward the indicated door.
The receptionist wasn’t an attractive female, but a man who looked as if he’d be happier as a bar bouncer and two equally obvious goons waited at the door.
Uneasy lies the head wearing the crown, von Baldur thought, and went into the premier’s office, which was only slightly larger than the average starship landing field.
The premier was a small man with a twitch. He reminded Friedrich of someone — no, something. Something he’d seen in a holo. It was an earth animal called a … he grasped for the word … a wabbit.
He put such frivolity out of his mind and began his sales pitch.
Von Baldur represented a firm called Research Associates, which had already done business with Alsaoud, selling them a consignment of deep-space mines, which they’d said they were quite pleased with.
Von Baldur had heard, from “various sources,” that the system might benefit from “more hands-on service” — specifically the direct services of Research Associates — in every area from planetary defense to high-level security.
“Particularly with the problem you seem to be having with piracy,” he added, smiling like the ever-benevolent, ever-helpful, ever-protective uncle.
Toorman managed a smile, and Freddie noted that the smile, too, was twitchy.
It should have been.
Toorman, prime minister for five years, had stood for president in the recent elections, and been resoundingly defeated by a man named Flyver, who’d spent millions ensuring his victory.
The word was that it was only a matter of time before Flyver found an excuse to impeach or otherwise remove Toorman, even to the point of using violence, and bring in a replacement who would be more than willing to jig to Flyver’s hornpipe.
Von Baldur added what he thought should be the capper to his pitch: that he understood certain parties within the system — who need not be named — had dared to bring in outside agitators and organizers, which would further discombobulate Alsaoud’s happy worlds.
He did not use the word discombobulate, although he wanted to.
Even as he spoke, he realized the mention of Cerberus constituted overkill.
Toorman’s twitching grew more obvious, and now could be seen as something approaching terror.
“I find … what you’ve been telling me more than interesting … certainly worthy of my discussing the possibility of your joining us with my private advisors,” he managed. “And you may rest assured that I will take the matter under immediate advisement, and will be responding to you within … well, perhaps not hours, but a few days at the outside.
“If you’ll leave your card with my assistants outside, I assure you that you have my complete backing.”
Von Baldur knew that he’d just been turned down.
• • •
“Why, that chicken-hearted, yellow bastard,” Goodnight snarled. “Doesn’t he know that his ass is already in the whatchamacallit?”
“Tumbrel,” King said.
“He’d goddamned better tumble damned fast out of the line of fire,” Goodnight agreed. “His ass is buttermilk if he keeps on keeping on!”
“Regardless, Chas,” von Baldur said mildly. “We have just been rejected from what appeared to be the easiest, most convenient way to edge our way toward the seat of power. Does anyone have any ideas on what we should do next?”
“We must do something,” Grok said. “We cannot just stay freelance. That would only arouse Cerberus’s suspicions — not to mention that we can’t afford to do much of anything for very much longer, since we’re woefully underfunded. I’d really rather not renew my loan to us, if there’s another option.
“We need a sponsor — and I, for one, don’t see one looming on the horizon.”
Riss, who’d been fiddling with Freddie’s viewer, looked up.
“I have, I think,” she announced brightly, “a rather excellent idea.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Riss and Goodnight, bulky in space suits, hung behind the bulk of a semidisassembled light cruiser, the guts of its drive controls dangling out stern ports.
Behind them a few meters floated Redon Spada.
Around them were a dozen
other ships, in various stages of combat readiness. Some sort of economy measure had driven Alsaoud to putting the harbor of what passed for its naval fleet in deep space, rather than on some nice, sensible desert somewhere.
In theory, to the ground-hugger or bureaucrat, that increased security.
In fact, all it did was create thousands and thousands of vulnerable points, in every possible direction.
And the fleet itself that Alsaoud was so proud of would have passed — to a properly martial world, system or cluster — as no more than a light patrol squadron.
The three were eyeing, with greed in their souls, a small Sung-class destroyer, whose sleekness belied its twenty-year-old obsolescence.
But Spada knew a secret about the class that made it most interesting to him and to Star Risk.
M’chel was considering the single survival capsule linked to the destroyer that served as a watchman’s shack. Inside, out of the “weather,” were the three sentries assigned to this half of the unmanned fleet.
Too goddamned easy, she thought. But that was the way it was here in the outback — sloppy and casual until you started taking things for granted and got killed.
Goodnight flashed a signaling blip from his suit light, and the three went across the open space on low-power suit jets and closed on the destroyer.
M’chel wondered why, after all these years, she still couldn’t be in open space without a momentary, illogical, purely mental fear of falling.
Riss took position on the capsule, and Goodnight went to the destroyer’s airlock.
It had no more than a standard magnetic lock, and Chas touched a pick to the airlock’s security system and turned the pick on.
He felt vibration as the pick cycled silently for a moment, then the lock clicked, and the airlock slid open.
Spada and Goodnight went inside and closed the lock behind them.
There was air in the ship, and the two flipped their faceplates open and checked the ship for occupancy.
It was empty but fully fueled, and all vital signs — air, water, etc. — were positive.
Goodnight grinned happily, and Spada slid into a control couch.
Spada had never piloted a Sung, but it took him only a few moments to figure out the operating system and activate the drive.
Goodnight went back to the lock, cycled it, and stuck his head out.
Riss floated nearby above the “shack.” Chas flashed a signal light, and Riss replied with a double flash.
If Goodnight had been given Riss’s job, he would have undoubtedly killed the three men in the capsule.
But M’chel was softer-hearted, a trait that would no doubt lead to her unwanted demise one of these years.
Instead of blasting the capsule open and letting the occupants breathe vacuum, she maneuvered to the capsule’s tiny lock, unslung an emergency arc-welding kit, and, being very careful to not give any signs away, welded it shut.
Avoiding both the capsule’s ports, and staying away from the flat pickup for the capsule’s tiny radar, she went “below” the capsule, found its emergency exit, and sealed that as well.
Then she used the welder as a cutting tool, and severed the two cables linking the capsule to the Sung.
The capsule should have had a com of sorts, but Riss, feeling very sentimental, attached a small suit emergency beacon to the capsule, with a timer to set it screaming into life in six hours.
Rejoicing at a job well — and sneakily — done, she entered the ship.
“Let ‘er rip,” she told Spada.
Spada fired up the drive.
He punched in a course that would take the ship, on secondary drive, behind Alsaoud’s nearest moon, where the Star Risk yacht waited.
“Now we’ve got the tools,” Goodnight said, “we can begin our new career.”
“Aaaar,” M’chel agreed happily. “Just call me Captain Kiddo.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“While the children are out getting new toys,” Jasmine King told Grok, “I think we could well be pursuing other pastimes.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the persecution and assassination of one Frabord Held, since we still don’t have a clue as to why Cerberus is scheming in the Alsaoud System.”
“Umm,” Grok said thoughtfully. “If we kill him, which sounds like an interesting pastime, will it (A) tip Cerberus that we are back in the game, and (B) worsen our situation?”
“It will certainly (C) make me feel better, at the very least,” Jasmine said, but looked at von Baldur for an opinion.
Friedrich considered, also examining his reflection in one of the Excelsior suite’s mirrors and deciding he looked appropriately dignified and warlordlike.
“Killing — or, more linguistically soothing, perhaps — readjusting Mr. Held’s biomass, is an interesting thought,” he mused.
Jasmine decided Freddie was feeling particularly pompous that day.
“The major drawback is that it could bring on a worse, that is, more skilled, antagonist,” von Baldur continued. “From what you two have told me, Held is a worthy opponent, and not to be taken lightly. I am not assuming, though, that he is the ultimate Cerberus operator. There are, no doubt, Cerberus executives available who are more canny than he is. Our more than occasional opponent, Walter Nowotny, comes to mind.
“However, consider that any organization will develop a bit of a twitch if one of its managers is removed from the field in a sufficiently spectacular manner, which is a positive accomplishment. It might also make them, or rather their personnel, angry.
“Rage does not improve reasoning.
“So why not? Go ahead and conspire on Mr. Held, rather than just sitting here waiting for our friends to return.
“Besides, Jasmine, your mention of (C) is always important.
“Finally, idle hands can make for a devil’s playground.”
He looked about, got the scorn he deserved, and shrugged.
“All right then,” von Baldur said, “let us begin to scheme. First, I suppose, is figuring out what means we will use to discarnate this gentleman.”
“No,” Jasmine said. “Both you and Grok mentioned a concern about who might be Held’s successor.
“So let us start by preparing our skein. I would assume that we have some time before Riss and Company find a starship that meets their requirements.
“After Held is removed, I’d assume security around President Flyver’s palace will be even more stringent, since if we lay our plot right, everyone will think he was the real target.
“We should now make our surveillance of the palace especially — pardon the pun — bulletproof, since we will need to be on the alert for Held’s replacement.
“Then we may consider the next stage.”
For the next couple of days, various elderly men in every stage of repair from impeccable to wino, and young women ranging from lovely to shuddersome lurked around the palace, unobtrusively leaving more bugs in their wakes.
Star Risk reaped an unexpected side benefit, since as King was planting one of the last of the devices, a particularly clever holo pickup that masqueraded as a statue of some sort of friendly small Alsaoudian creature, across from the main gate, she spotted Held coming out. Jasmine went to duck-and-cover mode, since she was hardly an anonymous Figure, and Held knew very well what she looked like.
By great good fortune, von Baldur was providing her with a mask at the time, since the statuette was rather bulky.
He saw her slide for shelter, and, a second later, saw and recognized Held and began trailing him.
The Cerberus executive, having no particular reason to feel paranoid, was no more than reflexively careful about checking his tail.
Von Baldur followed him to what was evidently one of Cerberus’s safe houses.
A stakeout of the house, a secluded villa in a wealthy residential area, over the next two days, suggested this was Cerberus’s main safe house, and probably Held’s own residence.
Back at the Exc
elsior a message from M’chel, Goodnight, and Spada waited, reporting they’d successfully acquired their ship and were proceeding to jump it out of system to have it modified — or rather, retrofitted — to Star Risk’s requirements.
“Now we can proceed to debate the methods of murder,” Grok said.
“A bomb is generally the easiest,” von Baldur suggested. “That is, assuming a certain level of expertise in its construction, which we have; a certain level of, shall we say, subterfuge in its planting; and, finally, a certain level of luck in its detonation, which we are more than due for.”
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “A bomb. Or a long arm. With a flat-trajectoried solid slug. Or an explosive bullet. A nice quiet place for the gunner with a line of sight on the killing floor, timing, and …” she grinned nastily.
“There must be,” Grok said meditatively, “fifty ways to tag your target. That might be worth a song.”
Von Baldur looked at him, and at King, and swore they were both licking their lips, although what surrounded the alien’s mouth barely qualified as such.
TWENTY-NINE
The secret of the Sung-class destroyer about which Redon Spada had happened to learn in his travels was quite simple: The ships had been cleverly designed for a culture that was short on manpower, but long on imperial ambitions.
So the Sungs had been designed and built to be operated by a minimal crew — less than four, in an emergency — and was almost completely automated.
Why the designers hadn’t gone ahead and merely built them as remote-piloted ships was a mystery to everyone but Spada, who explained, “They’ll never build unmanned spacecraft for war. Young pilots don’t get to parade around wearing white scarves and waving their hands around in bars telling war stories, and generals and admirals don’t get medals up the ka-giggy for flying a control panel through shot and shell half a light-year away.”
So the Sungs had gone into service — and then a wee mistake had been discovered. The ships’ automation had a regrettable tendency to disregard the tiny crew’s welfare, up to and including loading an unwary crewman into a missile launch tube on occasion.
