‘I know. I know,’ said Kal. He plopped back into the chair, putting his backside in the lead for the moment. ‘But, it’s really not that tough.’
Kal ticked off the points on his fingers as he went down the list. ‘First, I don’t kick the Earl of House Ulanti in the groin if he spills wine on my shirt. Second, as much as I would like to, I should refrain from giving the Duchess of House Greim an open-mouthed kiss upon meeting her. Third, should the princes of House Ty and House Ko’Iron get into a duel, I should certainly not begin taking bets on who will live and who will die. Fourth, under no circumstances should I shoot any member of House Catallus, as we are trying to curry their favour. And fifth… hmm, it seems there is no fifth, so I guess its open season on House Ran Lo.’
Valtin clapped his hands three times. ‘Very funny, uncle,’ he said. ‘But there’s more to political manoeuvring than simply not killing people.’
‘Look,’ said Kal, ‘I don’t know anything about surviving in this political quagmire. That’s your job.’ He stretched out his legs and propped his feet up on a pile of papers at the edge of Valtin’s desk. Closing his eyes and dropping his chin down onto his chest, he added, ‘For my part, I will try my best to suppress my urges to kill or kiss or bet on everything that crosses my path.’
‘Kal…’ started Valtin.
Kal opened one eye. ‘I’ll be a good boy,’ he said. ‘I’ll stand up straight, not spit, wash behind my ears, and bow when I meet people. Okay? Can I get some rest now? My head hurts…’
Valtin jumped to his feet. ‘No. No. No!’ he said, shaking his pen at Kal. ‘I told you this already. You don’t bow when you meet people. You never bow. You’re the Lord of the Hive. People bow to you…’
His tirade was cut short by a knock at the door.
‘What?’ screamed Valtin. ‘What is it?’
Kal glanced over his shoulder as the door opened a crack. Valtin’s assistant peeked her head just inside the room. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said the girl, a slight quiver in her voice. ‘But you wanted to know when that, um, thing was happening.’
‘Yes,’ said Valtin. He dropped the pen on his desk. ‘Yes, of course. Thank you, Cait.’
Valtin moved around from behind his desk. ‘I have another meeting,’ he said to Kal. ‘Can you find your way back to your quarters?’
Kal smiled. Not only was he getting a break from politics class, he got to go to break with his favourite classmates, Candi, Brandi and Sandi. ‘I’m sure I can manage,’ he said. Kal dropped his feet off the desk, taking most of the stack of papers with him. As he followed Cait out the door, Kal added, ‘Make sure you knock when you come back for me.’
He practically skipped his way through Cait’s office, stopping only when Valtin’s assistant said, ‘Have a good morning, my lord.’
My lord. Kal actually liked the sound of that. He looked back at the cute, young girl. She had a round face with just the tiniest hint of baby fat still present. Her brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, accentuating her round face and long neck. Cait’s eyes shone brightly as she smiled at Kal and he sensed something behind those eyes. She was a smart girl. Of course she would have to be to rise to personal assistant to the Lord Chamberlain. He filed that away for later.
‘I certainly will,’ said Kal. ‘I have a date with some grapes and nothing will keep me from that bowl of fruit this time.’ He opened the door and stepped out into the corridor but hadn’t the faintest idea which way to go.
‘To the right, my lord,’ called Cait. ‘Up one level and then follow the corridor around to the left.’
Kal waved and started down the hall. The directions had sounded easy, but after a while of following the corridor through many twists and turns and side halls with no stairs, he decided it was time to retrace his steps.
As he turned to find his way back to Cait, Kal saw a shadow move around the corner ahead. It was subtle, and he almost missed it. Life in the Spire had already dulled his survival sense. He hadn’t checked behind him once while walking the corridors. That would get you killed in the Underhive, as someone was always trying to sneak up behind you.
Kal flattened his back against the wall and slid his sword out of the sheath. He inched down the corridor, keeping an eye on the corner. He heard nothing, but was certain someone had ducked out of sight just as he turned. Perhaps it was just Cait, coming to help him find his way. With Kal’s luck, it was more likely to be someone coming to kill him or worse, collect a debt.
Then he saw the shadow again. But it wasn’t a shadow so much as a wrinkle in reality, as if the wall had folded over on itself for a moment. Kal stopped. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but felt certain it didn’t bode well for him.
He continued to stare at the spot, but began backing up just in case. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw another wrinkle. This time it was like a shimmering light against the windows to the side.
He turned, just in time to see the barrel of a gun peek out from the folds of shimmering nothingness, seemingly floating in mid-air.
‘Oh scav!’ said Kal.
‘Give me a low pass over that battle!’ said Katerin into the cockpit. He couldn’t fit through the door as he had donned his Orrus rig. His massive, tank-like body had doubled in size in the armour and he loomed in the doorway. He’d had to order Dobbs to open the door for him, as his huge gauntlets couldn’t do anything more delicate than smash holes in walls.
‘No way,’ said the pilot. ‘We’ve already lost one transport today.’
‘I’m not asking,’ yelled Katerin. ‘I’m ordering. I need one… No. Make that two, low passes – now!’ The order given, he turned his back on the pilot and left the cockpit, grumbling about ‘flyboys’ and ‘chain of command.’ He turned to his men. ‘Heavies to the rear,’ he called.
As the men moved to take position by the rear hatch, Katerin turned to his second-in-command, the female noble named Stache Mageson. The slight wisp of a girl, who’d claimed the role of his second through determination and warrior instincts he hadn’t seen since his own early days, now looked like an avenging angel in her Yeld spyrer rig. The rig’s wings, which were currently folded behind Mageson, provided sustained flight. They were also razor-sharp, making for a nasty surprise on strafing runs.
‘Mageson,’ he said. ‘Launch during the second pass. Provide covering fire as the troops hit the wastes and air support during the assault.’
‘I’ll cut ’em down to size,’ she said, extending her wings out to their full length. The razor-tipped edges cut into the plasteel wall next to her.
‘Careful, Mageson,’ snapped Katerin. ‘These rigs aren’t military assets. They’re on loan from the Lord Chamberlain himself. Considering the importance of this operation and the fact that one royal transport has been shot down already today, he deemed it prudent to allow their use. That’s why you and Stein are on this mission. I needed three nobles for the three rigs: you, me, and Stein.’
‘Where do you need me?’ asked Stein, whose aids had just finished strapping him into his Orrus rig. Like the rigs, Stein was also on loan from the Lord Chamberlain; some young noble who, like Mageson, had recently risen into a position of authority in the house. The fact that he always had a smile on his face and that he had become an indispensable aid to the Lord Chamberlain, made Katerin instantly suspicious of Stein.
‘Stay with the rest of the guard,’ said Katerin, ‘and help in their advance through the enemy.’
‘Where will you be, Captain?’ asked Mageson. She seemed surprised Katerin wouldn’t be leading the charge into battle.
‘I’ll meet you both in the middle.’ Katerin smiled despite his worries about Stein. He didn’t even mind the sweat beading on his brow.
‘Beginning our first pass,’ called the pilot.
As the transport tilted forward into a dive, Katerin tromped to the rear. When the transport levell
ed out again, he pulled a large, red lever. The entire rear wall of the transport creaked open from the top, lowering on hydraulic pistons to each side. He and his heavies crept forward as the wall turned into a ramp.
‘Fire,’ called Katerin to his men as soon as he saw the rear lines of the enemy muties.
A dozen grenade launchers unleashed explosive rounds at the same time. A moment later, twelve explosions ripped through the mutant horde.
‘Fire,’ said Katerin again, and watched as another dozen frag grenades arced out into the muties.
He could see those near the explosions begin to panic, as the savages ran into each other to escape the barrage.
‘Fire,’ said Katerin. A third salvo flew out of the transport, hitting close to the front edge of the mob of muties below. He turned and called out to Mageson.
‘You direct the grenade launchers on the next pass,’ he said. With that, Katerin pushed his way through his men and stepped off the end of the ramp.
Wotan padded down the stairs again. Some odd subroutine in his mechanical brain had ordered his mouth to open up and his rubber tongue to hang out the side. A small piece of the fat man’s trousers still clung to his front teeth.
The women all moved back and some screamed again as he jumped onto the landing from the third step. He ignored them, although part of his vision routine ordered one eye to keep the small lady with the yellow skin in sight at all times.
He was searching for someone else. He’d heard a male voice say Jerico’s name shortly after he bit the fat man. The voice had registered as familiar in his memory core, but the sample had been too faint and brief to lock in a positive identification.
He scanned the room. There were still a few half-dressed men standing in the corner, desperately pulling on trousers or shirts or shoes. He’d seen all of them upstairs. Then he saw a small man with short-cropped hair, pale skin and slightly rumpled, brownish clothes, just outside the door. Wotan’s memory circuits completed a quick scan and found a match. Bobo.
Wotan barked a single, sharp, tinny bark. The girls screamed again and the little, yellow lady advanced on him with the remnant of her stick. He turned and growled. The lady gasped and crumpled to the floor. Wotan leaned over and licked her face before turning towards the door and loping off after Bobo, stopping briefly at the door to gain the little man’s scent.
‘Read those directions, again,’ said Yolanda. She looked up and down the docks, her brow furrowed so hard the wrinkles threatened to swallow her gang tattoo. Scabbs could tell she was lost, but like Jerico she was too proud to admit it or ask for help. The two of them were so much alike it was no wonder they couldn’t stand each other.
‘It’s not so much directions as code,’ said Scabbs. ‘It says “Big Score – HC docks, third column, last row, at the wall. Enter at loose board, keep right, except for final left”. Sounds like gibberish.’
‘But that gibberish is our only lead to the Spire artefact Sonny told us about.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t have killed him so fast,’ said Scabbs. He kept reading the note they’d scavenged from Sonny’s belongings. It seemed like a wild goose chase to him.
Yolanda ignored the comment and walked back towards the docking bays. She stood with one hand resting on the hilt of her sword and the other fingering the laspistol on her other hip. Scabbs thought it looked like a very Kal Jerico pose. A breeze from a passing transport even made her leather loincloth and vest flutter slightly. Scabbs smirked, thinking: Kal couldn’t have done better.
‘This is the third row,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t see any loose boards back there.’
Something in that statement sounded odd to Scabbs. He looked at the note again and slapped his forehead. A cloud of dead skin fluttered down onto the note. ‘Not third row,’ he said. ‘Third column.’
He looked around a bit to get his bearings. ‘Ah, I’ve got it. Follow me.’
‘About time,’ said Yolanda.
Scabbs led the way down to the very end of the docks. The warehouses at the end looked as if they would fall over if you leaned on them. They weren’t much more than sheets of thin metal tied or, rarely, bolted to poles driven into the floor of the dome. None of them looked like they had seen much use in the last decade or more, and the area was completely deserted.
‘This looks better,’ said Yolanda.
‘Down here, I think,’ said Scabbs. He walked down the last row, counting the narrow alleys between warehouses. ‘One, two, three. Right here.’
The warehouse backed up to the dome wall. The door had been nailed shut with a plasteel barricade. A sign on the boards stated the warehouse had been condemned and closed by order of the dockmaster.
Yolanda pushed Scabbs out of the way and pulled at the boards. Nothing moved. As she pulled out her laspistol, Scabbs cleared his throat.
‘Ahem,’ he said. Yolanda held her gun at the ready, but looked back at Scabbs. ‘You need to think like a ratskin, not an Escher.’ Yolanda glared at him. ‘Try lower,’ he added.
She waved him towards the door. Scabbs moved in, pulled at the bottom of several boards, until one of them rotated up. As the board turned, he heard a click from inside and the door, barricade boards and all, opened towards him.
They moved in and Scabbs closed the door behind them. He slapped his hands together twice and smiled, but both self-congratulatory actions were lost in the darkness of the abandoned warehouse.
‘Now what?’ asked Yolanda.
Scabbs snapped his fingers. ‘This is the old smuggler’s entrance,’ he said. He began picking his way towards the back of the warehouse, towards the wall of the dome. ‘Kal and I tried to find these guys a few years back, but we never figured out how they moved their goods into and out of the hive. There must be a tunnel back here some…’
Scabbs fell into a hole in the floor. He skidded down a steep slope, coming to rest a few dozen metres below the warehouse. ‘Found it!’ he said. ‘Watch the first step…’
Above him, Scabbs heard a yelp and then the sound of another body coming down the slope. Before he could cover his head, Yolanda slid into him, her big boots kicking him twice in the head as she tried to slow herself down.
Scabbs truly wanted to say something witty and sarcastic about her big feet, but he was too busy falling unconscious.
Kal dove into a side corridor just as the floating laspistol fired. A chunk of plaster vaporized behind him as he rolled forward down the hall. As he came to his feet, Kal looked at the sabre in his hand and wondered why he’d brought a sword to a lasgun battle. He had no time to switch weapons now.
He looked back over his shoulder, but saw nothing there. Kal had seen stealth tech before. The Yeld spyrer rig somehow bent light around itself, rendering it basically invisible. If he was up against a spyrer, Kal knew he was totally scavved.
As he zig-zagged down the corridor, another las blast hit the wall next to his shoulder. He dived to the right and rolled again. As he came up, Kal twirled around and threw his sword back towards the invisible assassin. He didn’t really expect to hit anything, but even a momentary dodge might make his pursuer pause long enough for him to make the next corner.
The audible ‘oof’ from behind Kal came as a complete surprise. Not only had he hit, but the assassin had felt the impact. This was no spyrer. That changed everything. Kal concocted a plan as he came to the next corridor intersection.
As he rounded the corner, Kal grabbed the wall to help him turn more sharply. With his free hand, he tugged at his leather coat, slipping it off one shoulder. He skidded to a halt with his back to the wall as the jacket slipped off his other shoulder. He grabbed it by the lapels and waited.
Kal tried to control his breathing, both to mask his location and to calm his nerves for the upcoming fight. A moment later, he saw the shimmering air come around the corner. He flung the coat into the air towards the shimmer. As the
coat fluttered towards the invisible assassin, Kal whipped his hands around and down towards his holsters.
He either missed the mark or the assassin was quick enough to sidestep the heavy, leather coat. Instead of landing on the invisible assailant’s head, it looked like it glanced off a shoulder. In that instant, before the coat slid to the ground, Kal could see the outline of half of the assassin’s body.
Kal’s laspistols were already out of the holster. With his arms outstretched, he leaped to the side, firing three times with both weapons as he flew through the air. Two las blasts scorched the air above Kal as he hit the ground next to the far wall. As he rolled away from the battle, trying to get back to his feet, Kal heard a thud behind him.
He came up, both laspistols aimed down the corridor, but saw nothing. He scanned the corridor for the shimmer, his muscles ready to spring should he see the assassin’s weapon. Then he saw it. Not the weapon or the shimmer, but a pool of blood on the floor that seemed to spread of its own accord.
‘Oh scav!’ said Kal, rushing forward. He grabbed his coat from the floor just before the blood reached it. As he flipped the coat over his back and slid his arms into the sleeves, Kal kicked at the air above the spreading blood. He hit something soft. He kicked again, harder this time, but got no reaction.
‘Now, let’s see who you are,’ said Kal. He bent down and poked around in the air, and felt something soft, like silk. As he pulled at it, he saw the air shimmer around his hand. Kal yanked on the cloth and pulled it away, revealing a dead female wearing Delaque body armour.
‘Nice gadget,’ said Kal, looking at the shimmering cloak in his hand. He fumbled with it, trying to determine which end was up, so he could put it on. Something heavy pulled at one end. He reached around until he felt a small box-shaped object hidden in an inner pocket. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘A holo-projector. I wonder how you turn it off?’
When he hit the ground, Captain Katerin sunk into the ash up to his waist. Unperturbed, he launched two explosive bolts from his wrists into the dune and then simply climbed out of the hole.
Lasgun Wedding Page 7
