The Scoundrel Worlds: Book Two of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  “Eat dirt!” Goodnight said, and obeyed his own command, chewing carpet, as the gun’s crew aimed and fired. The shell shattered the mansion’s enormous front door, smashed through the foyer. It was an armor-piercing round and tore on, not exploding until somewhere in the rear storerooms.

  The gun moved forward and smashed into the wrecked lifter. It pulled back, smashed into it again, trying to push it out of the way.

  Von Baldur had a throwaway anti-track launcher popped open. He came up in a shattered window, fired. The rocket shot out, hit the SP gun on its heavily armored mantle. It ricocheted upward, not penetrating, and exploded harmlessly.

  “Out the back!” von Baldur shouted. “We shall bust it from the side.”

  He motioned to a guard, and each of them grabbed two launchers. They doubled through the house, and went through the tunnel into the garage. Von Baldur started to pry the door open, and blaster fire chattered around him.

  “Damnation! They appear to have discovered our secret,” he said, and the two went back the way they came.

  The SP gun was still battering at the lifter, slowly moving it aside. The gun fired again, this time high, and took off a good percentage of the mansion’s roof.

  “Urban renewal,” Goodnight managed, trying to see if he could go bester and get out the front for a flanking shot.

  A grenade arced through a window, hit, and bounced. Riss watched it roll in slow motion, then it exploded. The blast caught King, sent her rolling back, and shrapnel ripped into Goodnight’s leg. He screamed, went down. Jasmine King lay motionless, then she moved slightly without getting up.

  Riss was on her knees, and she spotted the two Masked Ones who’d gotten close enough to throw the grenade. One of them was about to throw a second grenade. Her burst took both men down, and the grenade fell out of the man’s hand, blew up.

  “Thanks,” Goodnight gritted, trying to sit up. “Get some of those launchers … third floor, side bedroom. There’s a plating to go across into the place next door.”

  “So that’s why — ”

  “You didn’t think I was cultivating that old bat for her sex appeal,” Goodnight said. “Now go, goddamnit! Be sure and tell her I sent my love, and that we’ll pay for damages.”

  He slid back behind the crew-served blaster. His loader lay moaning beside it. Goodnight let the rest of a drum blast out into the yard, spattering bolts across the SP gun, which was slowly bulldozing the lifter aside.

  Riss saw ten guards scattered around the front rooms, shooting at the Masked Ones, who seemed content to let the gun do all the preliminary work, as she went upstairs, a launcher in each hand. Behind her came Grok, effortlessly carrying a crew-served on its tripod in his arms, a pair of drums under one arm.

  M’chel made the third floor landing, ran down the hall, and kicked the unused bedroom door open. It was empty except for a long, heavy steel strip with a dropper harness lashed to either end. The bedroom had double windows, and Riss booted them open.

  Less than four meters away was a jutting turret of the next door mansion. Riss turned on the dropper antigravs, and she and Grok slid the strip across, crashing through the other house’s turret windows.

  The Masked One’s artillery piece fired again, and the mansion rocked.

  Riss slung the two launchers, ran across the gangplank, and jumped through the broken window. She fell down into a nursery filled with dusty, old-fashioned dolls. Behind her came Grok, delicately balancing as he walked across, the strip bending under the bulk of him and his weapon.

  M’chel pulled him into the turret, and they found stairs, went down them. A frightened face peered out of a door, the door slammed closed before Riss could give Chas’s greeting.

  Part of Riss’s mind noted the house’s musty smell, dust and unwashed body, and then she was at the front door and had it open.

  The front garden was overgrown, bushes and trees reaching high — perfect cover. The two went down the walk to the locked gate. Riss shot it off its hinges with her heavy blaster, the noise buried in the battle-din next door, and they were in the street.

  Two Masked Ones, crouched behind a lifter, turned startled faces before Riss killed them.

  Grok braced his crew-served gun on the rear lid of the lifter. About thirty meters distant was the entrance to their mansion, the self-propelled cannon slamming at the lifter like a crazed robot. The crew in the open gun tub was concentrating on the gate.

  Riss took the safeties off a launcher, aimed carefully. The crew of the gun was loading a shell into the cannon’s breech.

  Things became very slow.

  Riss noted, as she depressed the firing key, a crew member turning, seeing her, lifting an arm, mouth opening to shout a warning. The rocket crawled out of the tube, crossed the space to the SP gun, struck the cannon just inside of its shield, and exploded.

  There was a double blast as the shell also exploded, tearing the tube off the gun mount and sending it spinning away. The crew in the tub vanished in the blast, and then the gun’s engine caught fire.

  The Masked Ones along the avenue gaped in shock for an instant, then Grok opened up with his blaster. That broke them, and, as they’d done before, they pelted away, up the avenue.

  M’chel Riss aimed carefully and fired her second rocket.

  It took the woman she’d aimed at in the middle of the back, tore her in half, then struck a parked lifter and exploded.

  Grok sent the rest of his drum, then another, after their attackers.

  Bodies and burning lifters strewed the street, but there was little sound but moans, the crackle of flames, and the occasional pop of a round going off in a fire.

  Only then did the “rescuing” sirens start.

  • • •

  The toll was heavy.

  Of the twenty guards, six had been killed, eight were wounded badly enough to warrant their contracts being paid off, and wound bonuses paid. The mansion’s staff, to a person, insisted this was far too risky a job, regardless of pay, and demanded they be given the return ticket to their home worlds and released.

  Jasmine King lay on a couch, Riss and one of the two doctors von Baldur had brought to the mansion next to her. Without opening her eyes, she said in a little girl’s voice, “I don’t like these people.”

  Riss lifted an eyebrow.

  “Concussion,” the doctor said. “She’ll be wobbly for up to a week. I’ll be coming by daily to check on her.”

  Chas Goodnight sat on another couch, watching the second doctor finish splinting his broken leg. He looked around the room.

  The mansion was somewhat of a shambles, missing a good percentage of its roof, all the windows on the front and side, plus suffering extensive interior damage from blaster bolts and the cannon shells. Plaster dust hung thick in the air.

  “I think,” he observed, “our insurance rates are about to go up.”

  He winced. “I’ll have another of those pain pills, if you please,” he said.

  “In a moment,” the doctor said. “I just want to make sure I don’t get any of you in the splint before I seal it.”

  Jasmine opened her eyes, struggled up. “Everything is going roundy-round,” she said, still in the little voice, then: “I think we’re going to have to do something about this Mr. L’Pellerin.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  But doing something wasn’t exactly that easy.

  L’Pellerin’s DIB building was reconned, and regarded as invulnerable except for a full-out attack by a space fleet or a burrowing nuke. The headquarters was also protected by guard posts hidden in the surrounding buildings. Very alert snipers, relieved every hour, were stationed on the rooftops around it.

  When L’Pellerin went out, he was buried in bodyguards, and traveled in lims that were armored personnel lifters with civilian paint jobs.

  “Besides,” Grok said, “killing him will solve nothing, except that Torguth will not have their easy in to the secrets of Dampier. In fact, simply assassinating him, assuming that we’
re prepared to accept this as an option, will more likely make him a martyr to the sanctity of Dampier … a man who gave his all … and so forth. The matter needs considerable thinking.” There wasn’t that much else to do.

  King recovered fully, although for two months after the grenade blast she would still have periodic headaches. Goodnight was also recuperating. The shrapnel wounds were healing nicely, his doctor said, and his leg was knitting. Goodnight didn’t help the process any, furiously stomping around the shattered mansion, growling about not, goddamnit, being able to do his job.

  Riss said, sweetly, that there was no problem. She could take on the load, since, “After all, a soldier’s task is light compared to a Marine’s.” She patted his cheek. “I know you’ve been having problems with Caranis, either tying him in with the spy ring or proving him innocent. Ooo don’t have to worry yer little knickers about it. Riss has the situation well in hand.” That didn’t improve Goodnight’s mood at all.

  The damage to the mansion was quite considerable, and the owning agency was just as unhappy as Goodnight had predicted. But workmen, each watched by a Star Risk employee, swarmed over the structure. Goodnight insisted on putting up a banner across the driveway: NICE TRY, with a Masked One’s face mask at either side of the banner.

  The casualty count for the Masked Ones was dreadful — the police who belatedly arrived dragged away some eighty-three bodies in various stages of disrepair. The self-propelled gun had been stolen, so von Baldur was told by the authorities, from an arms depot by Masked Ones who’d had military training. Von Baldur didn’t embarrass them by scoffing except in private.

  • • •

  There was one piece of good news: Cerberus Systems, evidently feeling well out of things, quietly withdrew from the Dampier System, with never any indication of what their assignment had been.

  “Beat without even a face-to-face,” Goodnight chortled.

  “Let us hope,” Grok said, “all our enemies fade away like boojums.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. It’s poetry. Ancient poetry.”

  “Yaak. Damned right I’ll never mind. Probably the kind of shit that doesn’t rhyme, either.”

  • • •

  The campaign was going hot and heavy.

  The Universalists were running on a platform of continuing prosperity, keeping the peace, and business as usual, with, as Reynard had predicted, Faraon leading the campaign. They were ignoring the incident on Belfort, saying that it was unfortunate that the Patriot League building had gotten blown up in some sort of industrial accident, but, after all, that was what happened to thugs who were willing to go beyond the law.

  Reynard’s Independents took quite a different tack. What happened on Belfort was clearly an attack by Torguth commandos on the League, which, even though it espoused methods beyond the law, had some good, solid patriotic points.

  The switch by both parties must have puzzled the thugs with masks, and von Baldur chortled at the convolutions L’Pellerin must be going through to keep his dunces with truncheons happy.

  Reynard promised if the Independents were returned to power, “Dampier would have to face the price of its freedom and independence.”

  Universalists hissed that Reynard’s adventurism would bring war, and that the first thing he and his fellow crazies would do, after taking office, was to order mobilization, and who knew what Torguth would respond with?

  Reynard, interestingly enough, didn’t deny that the current “classes” — men and women of a certain age — might well be called into the service.

  The Masked Ones, so far, had played little part in the campaign, only attacking a few Independent rallies, and those were quickly broken up by the Independent’s own security.

  The theory around the mansion was a bit different — that the Masked Ones and the DIB operatives undercover with them had taken such a beating they were still stumbling around in shock, licking their wounds.

  The holo ads seemed about equally split. Normally the Universalists, since they were the party of the rich, could blanket the frequencies. But with Reynard calling for increased military presence, a number of defense contractors changed sides, knowing on which side their weapons systems would be buttered.

  Also, Fra Diavolo’s propaganda machinery was in full swing, and his followers were requested to give a bit to the Independents.

  Naturally, Montrois’s police kept a carefully neutral stance, or so they claimed.

  “Wittgenstein with a bubble pipe,” Grok said. “I’m glad we run our government differently. There seems to be no logic on either side, no talk of peace talks with Torguth. It’s either ignore them or start shooting.”

  “How do your people run a government?” Riss asked.

  “We discuss things thoroughly, make sure everyone is in agreement, and then whoever seems to want a position is free to take it.”

  Riss shuddered. “That sounds too much like a dictatorship. It wouldn’t work for humans, since we don’t seem to be able to agree about anything for longer than a week or so without somebody bringing out the rubber clubs for persuasion.”

  “I have heard it said,” von Baldur put in, “that democracy is the worst form of government, and its only virtue is it is better than all the others that have been devised.”

  Grok snorted.

  • • •

  The voice asked for M’chel Riss. There was no picture. Riss took the call.

  The voice, clearly feeding through an alteration device, said: “I heard you are interested in the doings of Division Leader Caranis, of Strategic Intelligence.”

  “We are.”

  “Twelve kilometers beyond Tuletia, on the S’kaski Road is the Montpelier Inn. Tonight, at eight. Be early.”

  The com cleared.

  “And who was that?” King asked curiously.

  “Either a trap,” Riss said. “Or one of Diavolo’s little footsoldiers doing what his master asked him.”

  “Who’ll you take for backup?”

  Riss shook her head. “Don’t know. I’ll have one of the patrol ships in a high orbit, for certain. On the ground … if Caranis is going to be there … he’s seen Grok and von Baldur, and I don’t want to think about what would happen if our Chas went bester with a busted leg. Maybe one of our rent-a-goons?”

  “I’ll go,” King said.

  Riss considered for half a second. “Surely. Why not. We could both do with an evening in the country.”

  • • •

  The Montpelier had been somebody’s elaborate country manse, tastefully converted into a restaurant, clearly intended for the wealthy, judging from the expensive lims and lifters parked in its tree-thick grounds. There was no sign of Caranis’s Sikorski-Bentley.

  Riss landed their lifter, pointing it out for a clear, fast takeoff. It was just 7:30.

  “Good place for an ambush,” Riss said, as they sauntered up the steps.

  Both women were dressed formally, if a little on the sensual side. It was Riss’s theory that the more she could get men reacting through their gonads, the better chance she’d have. Riss wore a black skirt with a cream blouse, and a black jacket. King had formal pajamas on, in green and white. Both women wore flats, for ease in running if they had to, and carried a pair of guns hidden in various places.

  “Ours or theirs?” King asked.

  “Either one,” Riss said.

  “I think,” Jasmine said, “maybe you’ve been around the military too long.”

  Riss thought about it. “There’s no maybe to that,” she sighed. “Wouldn’t it be nice to come here, and not be thinking ‘boy, that tree could put up a couple of snipers, and I’d emplace my mortars over there,’ and so on and so forth. And we can’t even go and get drunk.”

  King patted her shoulder. “Later there’s time for almost everything.”

  They were greeted at the door, escorted to the bar, since they deliberately didn’t have reservations, where they asked for a window seat.

  Riss
ordered a very light liqueur with sparkling water, King a glass of wine. Both nursed their drinks, made idle chit-chat. Five minutes before eight, a long, black lim grounded.

  The driver and one man got out. The driver looked about warily, while the other man came into the inn, looked around, and evidently saw nothing to worry about. He went back to the lim, and a third man got out. He was older, very tall, with a shock of white hair. The man came into the inn, looked in at the bar.

  Riss and King gave him friendly smiles. He raised his eyebrows in interest, smiled back broadly, went into the dining room.

  Two minutes later, a Sikorski-Bentley landed. Again, two men got out, cased the inn, went back to the lifter.

  King had to suppress a case of the giggles. “These people really trust each other,” she whispered.

  Division Leader Caranis got out. He was dressed casually, but expensively. He came into the inn, didn’t look in the bar, went into the restaurant and sat down with the older man.

  One bodyguard covered the back of the restaurant, one just inside, the third the front entrance.

  King and Riss decided it was time for dinner. The dining room, in mid-week, was only about half-full. The women were seated, by preference, across the room from Caranis and the older man.

  Both men had three drinks apiece before ordering dinner. The two women finished theirs, and ordered. The men ordered sparkling wine, and the older man poured lavishly.

  “Don’t we wish,” King said through motionless lips, an invaluable trick, “we had a bug on that table?” Riss nodded, laughed as if her friend had told a very funny joke, and they ordered. Riss was thinking hard about what to do next.

  Halfway through the meal the older man burped politely, and got up to use the restroom.

  Riss had it. She waited a minute, excused herself to Jasmine, and went for the other restroom herself. She went in and waited, listening.

  She downrated the bodyguard at the door. He should’ve been dogging his client, waiting outside the restroom. But maybe the older man didn’t think he was in any particular danger.