Minon’s mouth turned up and the corners indented. It was not a smile.
The streamer was a casualty of the fight at Beven’s, and genuinely mourned, but a ten-spot could inflict damage too. Casually he thumbed the primary function to a narrow high intensity beam, never once dropping Ellis’ gaze. His smile never flickered.
With her eyes still captive he shot Mark in the calf.
They both crumpled.
* * *
Sam oofed out of his comfy doze as agonising cramp burst through his leg.
Somebody screamed. Somebody screamed his name.
He stretched and scrubbed the aching leg muscles till the pain went away.
Yawning, he dropped back to sleep.
* * *
Minon dragged Ellis upright, snorting as she stumbled free of his grasp.
“What a little charmer,” he applauded. “No wonder he doesn’t give a shit.”
Mark, are you… He was rolling onto his side, struggling to kneel.
I almost had him there, keep going.
At last a reaction. A properly racing pulse. Minon rubbed the silver muzzle against Ellis’ throat. They were finally back on-script. This was what traditional sadistic taunting was all about, this was Chapter One in the manual. He liked this. Barrel tickled artery, traced blue veins down the V in her shirt. It was still hot from the blast. And inevitably...
The gun lazily hooked the key’s leather thong. “Oh look, what have we here then?”
Swaying crazily, just about balancing on all fours, Mark looked up.
* * *
Sam!
Sam’s head exploded. He jerked awake screeching his own name.
* * *
Minon twisted the muzzle in the leather threaded round Ellis’ neck and yanked.
The thin loop snapped. She gasped in pain.
He took a step backwards with the bright key dancing on the end of his ten-spot. The loosely tangled thong slipped and he caught the key neatly in his other palm as it fell.
Life was good, wasn’t it? He nodded at the waiting guards.
They clicked their guns to the same grade as Minon’s and stuck a buzzing nozzle into each of the two Donn’s temples. Minon watched complacently. “My boss,” he said, “is going to be so pleased to have this delivered before he sees you. Thank you.”
He savoured Ellis’ horror-struck expression and life tasted downright delicious.
* * *
Pounding unsteadily to the ZR’s flight-deck, Sam flung round the corner and skidded to a giddy halt, clutching the hatch-frame for balance. He stumbled and almost fell.
Jenson whipped round.
Tam, discovering the ZR’s unfixed problem with the cloak, merely glowered.
“It’s Mark,” gasped Sam. “We have to go. Get back, to Imperious. Now.”
* * *
Down, down, down and round, round, round wound the procession. Eight armed men escorted two Donn, one limping, down a maze of dim passages to the heart of the Dome. Four stunners were aimed directly at the captive’s heads. One thing you could say about an order given and taken by Autocracy trooper, they were very efficient and there was absolutely no room for misunderstanding. Never once did their aim waver from their target.
For a long time, at least a thousand years, nobody spoke.
I know this passage, ventured Ellis hesitantly, we’re going to the keyholes. This was the way we came before. Tam found some S-II Autos along that passage over there.
Great. Mark lapsed into freezing silence.
Since a smirking Minon had bowed politely, taken the key, and vanished, Macluan had kept up an icy detachment. Ellis could feel him simmering underneath it, but he never came to the boil. She had to admit he had every good reason to boil. Ellis would’ve been livid with Ellis. Ellis was livid with Ellis and battling shame and... How’s your leg?
How do you think? I’ll need new boots. He was showing off a trick shot, the idiot nearly missed. It was almost true, the gash stung but he’d dealt with worse.
Has Sam told the others to get back to Imperious and tell your boss?
Yes.
March, march, march, march… And never did the aim falter. Guns purred steadily and arms maintained inflexible distance and angle. Tokkers, any deviation from orders or an unpredicted action and they’d fire. Ellis began to calculate desperately. We could try to…
No. They were being escorted to where they needed to be. It was enough.
Crunch went their feet. Pairs of feet marching in exact time crunched on loose grit and muck, Mark and Ellis had unconsciously fallen into step. The musty air grew minimally warmer as they burrowed deeper into the Dome’s roots and a faint taste of battery acid lingered on tongue and in the nostrils. Lamps were elderly and added to the dismal mood.
Suddenly Ellis couldn’t take it any more. Mark, I am so sorry.
So am I. He was too. Sorry he’d been distracted and that Sam hadn’t answered earlier; sorry he couldn’t actually think of a way out at the moment because now it was all down to him and he couldn’t wrap his head around a plan no matter what. Most of all he was sorry that he hadn’t turned that snivelling shit Minon into a suppurating mess and used the man’s own ten-spot on one bleeding, puss-filled, whimpering wound after another. Mark had survived the purges by suppressing emotion and now he was surviving for Ellis as well and nothing could interfere, not even her. It did occur, after a few more steps, that perhaps she deserved some response. I wonder what Carolli wants with us now he’s got the key?
He wants to gloat, she snapped. The snide sod never could resist it.
When he didn’t reply her gaze slid sideways and she saw his face was as smooth and unforgiving and immobile as a statue. Ellis scowled. There should have been some kind of reaction, he should’ve shown something and there was nothing. He petrified her.
Silence. Crunch, crunch, march, march; swing left, march, march, march…
In strict time and rotation, the party rounded the last corner.
Flanked by guards Carolli waited, leaning heavily on his ebony cane. He’d used the key; the anganite door at the back of the alcove was raised to reveal the lighted control room beyond. The glow made him old, ancient as he watched their approach. The last Donn, the last joined Donn, faces scoured like old bone. So here they all were. The last traces of a once proud race and the very last Latent it had created. Who would despise a poor Latent now?
Emir Carolli had won. The Latents had won.
Chapter Forty-four
The Tokker squad hadn’t stopped long at Beven’s inn before leaving with Dandy Minon, after shooting out the bar’s ceiling and press-ganging a fair percentage of the patrons. Well, it was one way of restoring order, Sheek supposed, he’d laid low then and lower now, overseeing Beven’s shambolic clean-up attempt from the shadows. The drunk, the very drunk and the even drunker mingled with a few deluded fools loyal or wary enough to stick by the vindictive old bloater. The last shock had taken out the outhouse and half the beer cellar would have to be dug out of the wreckage. It still hadn’t impinged on Tye Beven that this was the end, the very bitter end, and that there was no future for him here. Why would it?
Attitudinal U-turns were the order of the day.
Tokkers? They drank, didn’t they? Everyone needed the other services Tye offered.
Earth rumbles, aftershocks? People got thirsty when they were frightened.
From his place in the dark corner at the end of the bar, with one hand possessively resting on the till, Sheek watched while Tye bellowed orders and strutted like the arrogant old turkey-cock he was. Every so often the Giag’s wily paw deposited small fortunes of credit bars in the pockets of his robes. He recognised the end. He’d seen more ends than Beven could imagine and survived every one of them, emergency enrichment his trademark. While Tye bawled and chivvied, Sheek drew his conclusions and grew steadily richer as his robes got heavier. The stash he’d amassed over the years waited down by the cove and he guessed he could take his
pick of many shiny Aqua-cats begging to be liberated. It was time to go but who could say nay when opportunity like a wide-open till knocked on your door?
The landing had been smashed, but the stairs still existed, and the three mad Dome women Tye had locked away and forgotten at the top of them, had finally managed to gouge their way out of their prison. Rejects they might have been but they yet answered the Autocracy’s call, though perhaps a sense of injury had seeped into their ruined world. They descended in a slow procession, nothing stopped them and nothing could. Battered, faces pulped, hands ripped, splintered and bleeding, the sad brides came to the bar. One brandished a smashed and bloodied bottle; there was a blunt, but heavy fugee lamp; a ripped chair-leg...
They gave no warning. Their weeping had always been gagged.
Inevitably it was Sheek who spotted retribution emerge from the debris at the top of the stairwell. Conscience twanged; snagging a clearer-upper, he pointed. “Tell Tye.”
The man looked up, his eyes saucered. He scurried over and yanked Beven’s arm so hard he almost got a thwack. Tye turned, catching sight of the women.
He glazed like a stuck pig.
Sheek discovered, quite unsurprised, that several more high denomination tenster bars had leapt into his pocket and patted a hip to check that his stunner was ready if it should be necessary. At the exit to the cellar and the quiet rear entrance, he made the cardinal error of looking back over his shoulder, a bad habit he believed he’d broken. It was the nearest thing to notice to quit Beven was likely to get and it left the Giag with a sight that would stay with him for as long as his life lasted. Tye Beven blocked the stairwell flourishing nothing but a bloated roar, a flatulent stomach, last night’s sour beer-breath and a broken chair-leg.
The first world-weary Dome’s bride raised her bottle.
Behind her a jagged shard flashed, a wooden slat threatened...
Sheek left.
* * *
Speed take-offs were HStJ Jenson’s speciality. Going up was not a problem and so far the lift-off was going like a dream. “Feel it,” he crooned. “What is she giving us?”
“Her guts?” suggested Harris, less ecstatic and more shaken. He was trying not to see varying crescents of Harth Norn’s four moons collide on the screen, as he sifted through power-cones to check their defence status. “Front shields, ok,” he reported laconically. At the same time a smaller angry light blared and he slapped it down. “Sam, buckle up.”
Sam, sunk in the third-leg’s seat, finally managed to engage webbing.
“If he passes out or chucks up he’s out the hatch,” said Jenson.
“Rear shields also deployed.” Harris inadvertently glanced out the front screen again and glimpsed one moon setting down while Harth Norn disappeared up. They were aiming for a tragically narrow window between the two globes. It was tight, but Jenson was right, it was just possible on this course they would not alert the whizzing nest of Darts.
“We’re upside down,” moaned a voice from third-leg.
“No upside down in space,” Harris explained absently, whilst trying to coax the reluctant cloak into life. “Once all the way up the ZR makes her own gravity and when we clear atmosphere it kicks in. You’ll be able to move freely again soon, don’t worry.”
“Inertia theory? This is a junior educational outing?” Jenson grinned.
Sam’s chin squared even if it was a pasty green, but he wisely kept quiet.
“You know what?” Tam snapped. “You fly the way Ellis steered the Aqua-cat.”
“There is an essential difference.”
“What?”
“I’m a genius, she is not.” A mere tick later, “Crap.”
No need to query the final flat expletive. They’d navigated the Dart infested space around the nearest moon and should have had a reasonably clear run to home. No. Arrayed between them and Imperious, blocking the way, was line after line after line of Darts.
It was a barricade. A good old fashioned Autocracy blockade.
Jenson spun a dizzy left into moon-shade. “How’s that cloak Killer was fixing?”
“Sick,” replied Harris shortly. “She patched it but it didn’t have time to knit.”
The fundament was unsound. Or that was what Tam thought might be going on, but anything Harris thought he knew about SC was probably hogwash and moonshine.
“Oh.” Jenson chewed on this. “How sick?”
“We may be able to dodge.”
“But not weave?”
“Not so much. Or fire and maintain shields. Not and use the cloak.”
“No cloak?” Jenson made up his mind. “Here comes every young boy’s dream, we’re going to run that blockade. Sam, this is your chance to take second turret in a dog-fight.”
Tam glanced over his shoulder and his heart plunged. “It’s ok, it’s not a real turret, Sam, we’re just gunning so H can dodge and doesn’t have to worry about shooting.”
You could hear Sam’s bones creak. He shook his head very slowly.
Clicking SC cone control to auto, Tam disengaged both webs and whirled out of his seat, hauling Sam relentlessly backwards. “Welcome aboard, Sam. Here we go.”
* * *
On Imperious’ bridge Phyllis Kent would have sympathised.
She wasn’t Kent any longer she was just a worn out cog in a machine. Apart from the time that Navigation had got carried away jumping away from the frontline and she’d bounced off the deck like a ball, she had been glued to her post. She’d forgotten when her shift had started and had gone past caring about its end. Next to her Timmis, together with a select band was breaking all the rules trying to get WuVane on-line. Kent and the rest were left with everyday carnage, providing necessary back up for Stanson and the temporary AE relays. That was scary. There were no words for how scary that was. At last her board went silent and she would’ve slumped but she was far too stiff. Kent sighed and ran a hand through her hair. It was a mess. The whole thing was a mess. She was a mess.
“What a mess,” she murmured dispiritedly.
“If you’re not busy you can boost me eight cycles extra on tab-three off-planet four-to-zero-sub. Thanks.” Timmis made not busy sound like a crime.
Kent had only covered the foundation course on combat communications and battle strategy but she was picking it up fast. And not busy was a crime. Fingers flew.
“Almost,” she reported as a weak signal flickered then died.
“But not quite.” Timmis bent back over his task.
She frowned. “It’s us, isn’t it? They think we’re slip-streaming them and they’re wrong. It’s a ghost. If anything they’re reading a piggy-backer that’s not there.”
He didn’t even grace the glaringly obvious with a sarcastic I know.
A dull boom punched the deck. Kent’s terminal flip-flopped along with most of her stomach. Damage warnings shrieked and she boomeranged reports to Tech-control.
Timmis glanced over, and sucked air through his teeth. “Rear gun ten-Delta? They’re practically shaking hands with two Command Spitters in that sector already.”
“Thanks. I was trying not to notice.”
Then she frowned. Shaking hands, huh? Shaking hands? Without asking, because it was just an idea, Kent’s fingers, diffident at first, then faster as confidence grew, flew over her board. Finally she hit the secondary relays and sat back. It worked. She checked.
It still worked.
Something went brrrp so quietly she had to crane to hear it.
“Ok,” she breathed, hardly daring to believe. “I think I’ve got it. Lieutenant?”
He hardly credited it with a glance.
“Lieutenant!”
He looked. His eyes narrowed. “What? No, it’s too simple. It’s a child’s patch.”
“Complex wasn’t getting you anywhere,” she snarled, too ground down to ignore the slight. Then suddenly she spun him a real smile, a genuine smile not a mantrap. “Oh come on, live dangerously. You must’ve heard of beginner’s lu
ck, it always works in this kind of situation. Please?” She batted her eye-lashes, shamelessly mocking her normal tactics. “We could do it together. Go on, live a little, just for sweet, innocent, little old me?”
Timmis was marble. It looked as if her simplicity was right. He should’ve expected this. The ultimate cliché. The beginner licked the expert, saved the day and they lived happily every after in perfect harmony. It should come with a High Council health warning and be avoided at all costs if you valued your career prospects. “Fair enough. On three?”
“Right.”
“Three,” said Timmis, embracing the cliché with bonus cynicism.
He hit his board a skinny second before Kent hit hers. A burst of static crackled and Kent’s channel erupted in a zinger of aural lava. A lurid ripple shot over Timmis’ screen and began to dance. Kent gawped unbelievingly as her’s flat-lined and blanked out.
Timmis, on the other hand, had a board triumphantly showing intermittent vision without sound, generously backed by wheezing audio bursts. From Harth Norn.
A disembodied voice yelled triumphantly, “Commander, I think we got’em.”
It was B Q Timmis.
“Bastard,” spat Kent, with all her heart and soul. “I will never forgive you.”
* * *
“Right,” said Harris, making it as straightforward as possible because he realised Sam wasn’t taking in much of anything, so why bother? Automatic reactions usually kicked in fast enough. “Here is your induction training. Listen and learn. Point the target leveller, there, line up the trigger, squeeze this button, here, and bang-bang. Baddies all gone.”
“Which button was that?” Sam asked doubtfully.
“That one. Ok, forget the technicalities. When I yell fire, point the yellow handgrip at the nasty black whizzy things and press the little red button. Have you got that?”
“No,” denied Sam vehemently. “I have not.”
“Good,” congratulated Harris warmly. “Well done, Sam. You’ll be fine. Just fine.”
* * *
Carolli waited while the Donn were pushed into the complex control room behind the double lock, and then followed them in, as the guards withdrew to the outside passage to wait to escort him to the surface. The rear wall was transparent plexi-glass, predominately navy blue. It looked like a fish-tank the day before you clean it. Hazy shadows eddied hinting at the lumbering no-fish within. The battery acid smell that permeated the lower levels of the Dome originated here. It made lungs clench, eyes water and noses run and wrought havoc with concentration, but that might have been the point. The Autocracy always overkilled their interior decoration, recollected Ellis inconsequentially, taking swift notes on their surroundings. I’ll handle the gloat while you work on a quick exit. Right? I know him best.
The Horseshoe Nail (The Donn Book 1) Page 31
