Despite, or perhaps because Howell’s felt like his kind of place, Fitz’s hand instinctively sought comfort from his F-Cannon. But, of course, his holster was empty.
“This station is home to Joint Sector High Command,” he told himself as he walked past a brace of security droids on door duty. “And the 4th Fleet is stationed just outside the hull, which makes this place as safe as a deep space stealth convoy.”
He ascended the scuffed metal of the low-grav helical staircase. Walkways speared out from the central stairwell, leading to blast doors marked with names written in sorcerous runes that pulsed with energy: Salon Slayed, Panopticon, The Ibson Arena, but no Cordovan Room where he was supposed to meet Nuysp.
The door to Salon Slayed opened, releasing a raucous cacophony of fun and mouthwatering odors of roast spices. Fitz had to peer down through the staircase railings to the Salon’s level, but he could see a shaggy six-limbed creature emerge with a head like a tiger. If it wasn’t so small, he would have identified it as a Jotun: an ancient predator race with a complicated history with humanity in which the aliens played the parts of both saviors and genocidal murderers. In practical terms, Jotuns were difficult to swindle and therefore rarely of interest. Anyway, the figure was far too small. Could it be a Jotun infant?
“Hey!” hollered the figure in a delicately crystalline voice. “Captain Fitz. Wait up!”
“Catkins?” It sounded like his erratic chief mechanic, but it looked nothing like him. “Is that you?”
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
While Catkins passed on the warning that someone had ordered a hit, the eyes in the fake Jotun’s head swiveled to regard Fitz, and its lips rose to reveal powerful fangs. The costume would have been convincing, even intimidating, if not for the fact that by raising its lips, the dummy head revealed the Gliesan inside looking out through a fringe of fake fangs.
“Where are the others?” Fitz asked.
“They’ve gone to find Lynx and prep Phantom for takeoff. The lieutenant is on her way here. Are you going to wait for her?”
“Now, let’s see. That would be the prudent course of action.”
“But you’re not going to do it.”
He grinned. “No, my friend. After careful consideration, I think it’s best if I scout out the area myself first… if I could just find the Cordovan Room…”
“It’s up top. In the roof. The Cordovan’s gravity plating is in the ceiling. Come, I’ll show you.”
With his Jotun head jiggling from side to side, Catkins started to race up the stairs, but Fitz was too busy thinking to laugh.
Who was trying to kill him? If it was Nuysp, then maybe he should swallow his eagerness and wait for Izza’s backup. But that made no sense. Nuysp had never been in the Firm, but even Fitz had been aware of his reputation of making his kills fast and certain, and that kind of attitude rarely changed. No, if Nuysp wanted Fitz dead, he would already have struck. Maybe it was a faction connected to the mess on Rho-Torkis. The admiral could be a powerful ally if Fitz could win him over, but that might prove tricky if he brought the cosplaying Jotun along.
Catkins halted. “What’s the matter?”
“You keep watch from here, Chief Mechanic. I’m going in alone.”
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
“Very amusing, Obinquin.”
Fitz poked his head through the sliding ceiling hatch into the upside-down Cordovan Room.
Set against the tops of the walls, banks of comfortable sofas were glued to the room’s ceiling. Gaming tables were folded away, but a dozen play booths flashed invitations to gaming nirvana inside. The neon smear of District Metz’s simulated night streamed through the colored glass set in the sloping outer wall, spreading dazzle patterns over a slate lying on the work table by the window. Admiral Nuysp was sitting by his slate – slouching to be exact – in a dark wingback chair. And all of this was on the ceiling above Fitz’s head.
Fitz was a spacer; he was used to non-contiguous gravity fields. After reaching the top step, he jumped up as high as he could.
“Obinquin,” he called a little louder when the admiral didn’t immediately acknowledge his entrance.
At first, the gravity plating from the main stairwell pulled him down, but then the plating set into the ceiling started fighting for his mass. Making a half-somersault in the null-grav zone where the two gravity fields cancelled, his sense of up and down flipped, and he landed lightly on a ceiling that had become a floor.
His heart flipped too, but it was nothing to do with gravity. The admiral hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t moved.
“Oh, no!” groaned Fitz. “Not you too, Obinquin.”
He raced over to the window and confirmed his fears. A line was slashed across the admiral’s throat from which he had bled out. Fitz realized that he was standing in the man’s blood. With the place illuminated in such crazy colors, he hadn’t noticed the crimson pool.
Fitz closed Nuysp’s eyes.
“Whatever you did and whatever you failed to do sixteen years ago, I forgive you, Obinquin.”
He stared at the dead man who might have become an essential ally. “Now what?”
Kanha Wei had bribed him to come here, to collect up his passengers once they’d been debriefed, and fly off into exciting galactic adventures at the head of Chimera Company.
Well, she could go stuff herself with her precious jump coordinates. If his enemies could kill Nuysp, they were all in danger. He was going to collect Izza and his cosplaying chief mechanic and get the hell off this station.
Fitz grabbed the slate and ran.
He was halfway across the room and about to leap for the hatch when the windows blew in, spraying him with fragments of colored glass and throwing him into one of the sofas.
No matter how much he shook his head, he couldn’t clear it of buzzing motes of light.
An armored gauntlet grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off the sofa and onto his knees. Someone else pulled Fitz’s arms up. He kept his hands open and high for all to see.
The Cordovan Room was full of armored legionaries shouting at him, but their voices seemed to come from far away and he couldn’t understand.
But the PA-71 rifles aimed his way spoke eloquently.
The buzzing in his head cleared a little, and he heard one say, “DNA confirmed. The deceased is Admiral Nuysp.”
A jack ripped off Fitz’s shades.
“Well, will you look at that? It’s a damned mutant. Devil eyes like him are born guilty.”
The legionary removed his helmet. The man inside could be the twin brother of Osu Sybutu. But then he spat on Fitz. Sybutu might be an arrogant jack, but he would never do that.
“Your kind disgusts me. But… maybe not for much longer. Eh, lads?”
That comment won a knowing chuckle, which choked off when one of the jacks interrupted. “Sir, I’m getting reports of a disturbance in the lower floors of this building.”
“Well, well.” The jack who’d taken Fitz’s glasses crouched down in front of him. “Looks like your friends have come to rescue you, mutie. You stay there and watch them die. Martinelli, if he opens his mouth, shoot him dead. Everyone else, cover the entrance.”
The officer replaced his helmet.
The hatch slid open.
“It’s a trap,” Fitz whispered without moving his lips, hoping desperately that Izza’s sharp ears would hear.
Four rifles covered the hatch. She didn’t stand a chance.
He shut his eyes, unable to witness the soldiers slaughter his wife.
No one fired.
Fitz opened one eye and immediately dropped his jaw because the figure in the hatchway looked nothing like his lady.
“What the hell?” said Martinelli.
Fitz looked straight at Martinelli. “Didn’t anyone warn you?” he said, ignoring the instruction not to speak, because in the circumstances surely even this Martinelli jerk couldn’t begrudge Fitz his moment. “Always expect the unexpected if you mess with the a
ffairs of Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam.”
“Huh?” Martinelli clubbed him to the floor with the butt of his PA-71.
Fitz stayed down, grinning, and watched the show.
Caught in mid-air, with his Jotun tail tied to a step, Catkins appeared to be dangling from the ceiling while juggling oversized gaming dice. He’d judged it just right to use his cosplay claws to spin the dice around in the null-gee zone.
It was a cute trick. And a great distraction for Izza to come bursting through the hatch, weapons blazing.
Fitz readied to spring into action, but the jacks sliced off the Jotun costume’s tail and dragged Catkins down to the ceiling.
Izza hadn’t come.
His chance to escape had gone.
“We’ll take the buffoon in the fancy dress back with us,” said the officer. “Not you, mutie.” He drew his handgun.
“Let me guess,” said Fitz, “I’m about to be shot dead while resisting arrest.”
“A most regrettable outcome,” replied the officer insincerely. “But you brought it upon yourself, Fitzwilliam. You know too much to live.”
Fitz stared resolutely at the pistol as it was raised to his head.
“Time’s up,” the officer told him. “Say your prayers, freak. You’re going home… to hell.”
At the last moment, Fitz’s courage failed him, and he looked away.
His head filled with a gunshot’s roar.
NEXT ISSUE: Battle stations!
Dyson Ring Diagram
JSHC Schematic
NEXT ISSUE
Season 2, Issue #3.
Out 22nd Oct, 2019.
Available to read or pre-order now.
USA | UK | CA | AUS.
For bonus stories and the latest information, check on the Chimera Company webpage.
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Chimera Company - Deep Cover 2 Page 5