by T. R. Harris
Riyad shook his head. “I know him. He’s cautious to a fault.”
“However, you didn’t see him stabbing you in the back,” Sherri pointed out. “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.”
Kaylor had already left the building a couple of times, as he began to draw too much attention just sitting in the lobby waiting for someone who never showed up. He went to the other buildings to mix things up, but after nine hours he’d exhausted all his options. He apologized to the guards, saying his meeting partner was late, but that he had to remain. He would show up eventually. The guards were beginning think Kaylor was one of the homeless, and simply pulling a scam on them as a way to stay out of the cold and rain. He had to show them a decent stack of Juirean credits to prove he was otherwise. He eventually had to tip them to let him stay.
On the roof, Sherri stood up, catching a blast of bitter wind on her cheek. She pulled the hood closer to her face. “I’m calling it quits. Thanks, Riyad, looks like we’ve just lost the biggest score of the century.”
“And not to mention the most-deadly weapon in the galaxy,” Adam added.
“Hey, if I hadn’t shown up, you’d both be dead by—”
The sound of a spacecraft dropping though the thick cloud cover above caught their attention. Sherri ducked back down and took out a pair of computerized binoculars. Both Adam and Riyad already had theirs aimed into the sky.
It was a black-hulled Marauder—Angar’s ship.
“I told you,” Riyad said. There wasn’t much boast in his voice, but a whole lot of relief.
Kaylor, Adam called out through his ATD. Angar is landing. We’ll let you know when he reaches the building. Be careful that he doesn’t see you.
Understood.
It took Angar fifteen minutes after landing to leave his ship. A small caravan of four transports pulled up to the cargo bay. Adam couldn’t get a good view of the ship; it was only visible through openings between other ships parked on the field. But after a few minutes, the transports pulled away. Through the windows, the Humans could see several pirates filling three of the transports, with Angar alone in the back of the fourth. It was a lot of security if he didn’t have the collector with him.
The drive from the spaceport to the cluster of buildings only took five minutes. Adam checked his weapon for the tenth time. Everything was ready. Once Kaylor found where Angar was in the building, they would move.
Then there came another loud roar and vibration from above, strong enough to rattle the building and everything around it. Something big was coming down through the black clouds, made even darker now by the approach of nightfall. Adam and his team watched in wonder as a large starship broke the cloud cover; a beautiful ship, shiny and new. It was so rare to see anything that even looked new this far out in the galaxy. Most vessels were twenty years old or more. Starships were expensive, so they were kept in service as long as possible.
“It’s MK,” Sherri reported. “I’ve seen that ship before, or one just like it.”
The ship landed in the south section of the field, barely fitting between the wall parallel to the outside road and the end of the landing port. Angar’s pirate vessel—as well as all the others on the field—looked tiny by comparison.
As soon as the landing smoke cleared, a back panel on the ship rolled away revealing a large cargo bay. An alien truck pulled up and was quickly surrounded by upwards of fifty armed guards from the starship. Others from inside began to move identical crates from the ship to the truck.
“You don’t think that’s what I think it is?” Sherri asked.
“The money,” Riyad said with awe.
“Over a hundred million credits….” Sherri’s voice trailed off.
Adam watched mesmerized as the boxes were moved from the MK ship. They seemed to just keep coming. He had to admit, he had no idea how many crates it would take to hold over one hundred million Juireans credits; he laughed, thinking it would take a lot if Angar wanted them all in small, unmarked bills—plastic chips, in this case.
As he looked down at the rapidly loading truck, he let out a sigh. “Only if….”
Then the plan formed in his mind, almost instantly and with detail.
“Let’s get it,” he said to the others. The excitement on their wet faces matched that of his own. They were thinking the same thing.
“Listen up. We still need the collector, but I think there’s a way we can get both the DMC and the money and make it look like Angar double-crossed MK.”
Riyad was ahead of him. “You’ll need to make it look like Angar’s crew took the money.” He smiled. “You’ll need uniforms from his ship.”
“You guys have uniforms?” Sherri asked. “But you’re pirates.”
“Angar and I didn’t wear them, but the crew does. It comes in handy during boarding parties so friendlies don’t get shot. You’ll have to get in the ship first.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Adam asked.
“No, you and Sherri go. I’ll get Kaylor and go after the collector. Besides, I owe Angar a personal visit. Can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees my handsome mug.”
“Sounds good,” Adam said. “Stay in touch through your ATD…and be careful.
“Careful is my middle name.”
“I thought it was dickhead?” Adam said.
“That’s my other middle name. Now…let’s go make a fortune.”
“Roger that, dickhead.”
73
Sherri and Adam slipped down the outside of the building while Riyad gained entry through a once-locked door on the roof. Alien doors seldom stayed locked with Humans around.
The rain had let up, but it was getting darker. From the thick cloud cover, night came early on this part of Woken. Adam and Sherri ran across the nearly deserted street to the wall of the spaceport and followed it to an opening south of the buildings. There was a guard on duty but he paid them no attention, entranced by the bluish glow of a monitor inside his warm and dry security shack. Angar’s ship was to the west, near the edge of the landing field. The spaceport wasn’t normally this crowded, but with the pirate ship and the MK vessel, there was little room left for anything else. Adam was sure neither party would be hanging around long after their business was concluded.
The Marauder was a hundred yards long by half that wide and stood sixty feet into the air. It had very few exterior features except for the bridge viewport, a pair of additional portholes along each side, seams for hatches and landing bays and a short fin in the back holding various sensors. The focusing rings for the gravity drive were located in a compartment below the bridge and the dual engine rooms were just forward of the landing bay and cargo hold. Adam could see the round covers for several flash cannon dotting the surface, closed now when not in use.
Through his ATD he was able to detect hundreds of flash weapons inside the ship. Most were in the aft section, in the armory. But there were twelve clustered amidships, with some changing position as the armed crew moved about the ship.
Sherri and Adam took out there weapons, even though they had no intention of using them. One flash from an energy bolt, either at the airlock or seen through one of the viewports, would alert the MK crew. Already on guard with the transfer of the credits, they would take action. Adam would disable the pirate’s MKs, and then he and Sherri would use their Human super strength to take them out.
The truck with the money was sitting a few rows of spaceships away, surrounded by a phalanx of guards with the loading complete. It wasn’t moving; waiting now for the word from the bosses that it was safe to proceed. A caravan of long, dark transports drove away from the ship toward the spaceport exit, ostensibly taking the negotiators and their escorts to meet Angar.
“You ready?” Adam asked Sherri.
She took a deep breath and smiled. “Let go kick some alien ass.”
Adam winked, and then activated both the inner and outer airlock doors at the same time with his brain-interface device.
Th
ey stepped inside quickly. Adam shut the outer door and locked out the controls. He didn’t want any of the pirates fleeing the ship and raising the alarm.
They reached the spine corridor without seeing anyone and turned aft, toward the common area. The pirates were hanging out there, waiting for instructions from their captain. With twelve on the ship, that left eighteen—plus Angar—at the building. Adam had relayed this information to Riyad before he and Sherri entered the ship.
Now they stood at an open portal, watching the pirates as they drank, ate or otherwise were engrossed in datapads resting in their laps. It took a moment before anyone noticed them.
The reaction was swift. MKs were pulled out, targeting computers activated and weapons locked on. The only problem: none of the firing circuits were intact. The guns didn’t fire.
Adam should have realized that these pirates would recognize Adam and Sherri. Although this crew was made up mostly of newbies, the veterans had worked with the Humans before, and they had been commanded by Riyad for the past year. They were familiar with Riyad and his friends, not only from firsthand knowledge but from stories which spread more rapidly and lasted longer with the quasi-relationship the pirates had with the Humans.
This was a long way of saying the pirates didn’t waste time trying to figure out why their MKs weren’t working. Rather, half of them threw their inert handguns at the Humans while everyone charged. Four of them concentrated on the smaller female, while eight plowed into Adam.
Even with his Human strength, quickness and coordination, eight aliens attacking at one time was too much, even for him. He was thrown to the deck, while a series of hits and kicks pummeled his body. He could take the blows, at least for a while, being more immune to the hits than Sherri. He was still enjoying the aftereffects of having a small amount of Panur’s mutant brain cells in his head. Although they were gone now, his body had learned from the experience, at least to a degree. He figured he’d had around a twenty-percent increase in most bodily functions, including strength, toughness and even intelligence, above his prior state. Now he struggled to use his added physical abilities to get the upper hand against eight vicious and desperate aliens, all of which knew they were fighting for their lives against the Human.
Both his arms were pulled to his side and held down. He tried to roll over so he could free one of them, but the aliens held firm. Two were straddling him, raining fists down on his bloody face. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. These guys were better than he expected.
One of his arms broke free, along with a leg. Adam rammed a foot into the crotch of one of the aliens standing over him. This was often a hit or miss proposition with most aliens, but this time it paid off. The pirate grunted, grabbed his privates and then threw up…all over Adam.
There was a slight break in the fighting as some of the pirates recoiled from the vomit. Another arm came free and Adam began wailing away with both fists and legs. He wasn’t looking for a target; there were so many of the enemy around him that he was making contact without even trying. Five of the eight aliens were either dead or writhing in pain on the deck. At that point, Adam got a chance to look over at Sherri to see how she was doing….
The four aliens had been able to press her against a bulkhead before laying fists to her face and knees to her midsection. She slipped to one side, placing a pirate between her and the other three, using the alien body for cover. A well-placed kick had taken out one of her attackers, but then another picked up a long knife from the galley and lunged at her with it. Sherri was able to spin the closest pirate toward the blade, which sliced into his side, followed by a piercing scream. The cut didn’t kill the pirate, but when Sherri ripped the knife from the hand of the attacker and ran it across the throat of the wounded being, he was done.
Sherri hoisted the dead alien off the floor and tossed his limp body at the alien that once held the knife. He raised his arms in defense…and a moment later found a twelve-inch blade embedded in his chest. That left only one pirate to contend with. He backed away and then tried rushing past the blood-covered Human to reach the air lock. Sherri crashed a shoulder into him, bouncing the frail body off the metal bulkhead. Stunned, the pirate was an easy target for a fist to the back of the neck, severing the creature’s spine.
Sherri turned to Adam to see how he was doing.
The remaining three pirates in Adam’s contingent were now on the deck, two silent and still, with another moaning and crawling toward one of the couches in the common room. Adam was on his feet, bloody, bruised and aching.
“That should have gone easier,” he said. Angry and frustrated, Adam stepped over to Sherri’s knife victim and withdrew the blade from his lifeless body. He made quick work of the five wounded pirates. They couldn’t leave any witnesses.
Adam and Sherri looked at each other and laughed. They were cut, bruised and covered in blood. Fortunately, there were plenty of pirate uniforms around, either in lockers or on the bodies of the non-bloody dead. Adam and Sherri cleaned up and then changed into the pirate uniforms.
The outfits were quite stylish, consisting of charcoal gray tops with a wide swath of black accenting the garment. The pants were also black and made of a flexible elastic fabric. They were comfortable and allowed for freedom of movement. Adam wondered if Riyad had designed them….
Adam picked up several of the flash weapons scattered about the deck and reactivated their firing circuits. The Humans had just taken on twelve aliens in hand-to-hand combat. Another fifty or so awaited them at the money truck; however, with them they could use their MKs. Adam would disable the alien’s weapons before they made their move. After that it would a headlong, guns a-blazing assault on the truck.
Riyad made it down the stairwell of the ten-story building without incident. Kaylor—who had ducked into a side corridor when Angar and his large entourage of uniformed pirates entered—met him near the guard station.
“This is the being I have been expecting. Thank you, we shall now proceed to the meeting.”
Kaylor used his ATD to communicate with Riyad in private.
I saw a cart and a container on top when the pirates passed by. It could be the collector, he thought.
Good, we’re in the right place.
But there are so many of them, Kaylor thought, worry evident in the emotions Riyad could sense in his mind. He didn’t want to get flippant with his alien friend and make some boastful remark about the more the merrier. Kaylor was nervous enough and wouldn’t see the humor in it. Instead: It’ll be okay, Kaylor. I’ll look after you.
Belsonian and Human hurried down the same corridor Angar had passed through moments before. The pirate’s large contingent could be heard through several floors, making them easy to follow. It took all the elevators and two loads each to move them all to the fifth floor, where the elevators stopped.
Riyad and Kaylor ran for the stairs, but just as they entered, Riyad called them to a halt when he heard more noise coming from behind. He looked out the stairwell door as another horde of aliens filled the corridor. But these were different aliens, not pirates. The ones in the front wore expensive white suits, while the guards behind sported leather and metal uniforms, all brand new and tailored. These would be the Maris-Kliss people, strutting down the hallway like the owned the place. For all Riyad knew, they did.
He and Kaylor hurried up the stairs.
74
Adam and Sherri’s uniforms provided camouflage in the deepening gray of night. They moved among the silent starships to get closer to the truck and the surrounding sentries. Adam began the process of disarming the weapons, which included a handgun for each guard plus a Xan-fi flash rifle. There were other crewmembers at the landing bay ramp, but they were unarmed. Each weapon had to be individually targeted, and Adam was about halfway through when the unexpected happened.
The truck drove away.
Adam had a moment of panic. He scanned the electronic components of the truck for a way to stop it. He had plenty of optio
ns. The problem: he’d never disabled a truck before, and certainly not so he could repair the damage quickly, allowing Sherri and him to drive off in it after disposing of the driver. As a consequence, the Humans stood helpless as the truck continued along its journey unimpeded.
They began to run, moving parallel to the truck, but a row of spaceships away. They believed they were unseen in the gray uniforms but apparently someone in the huge MK starship saw them and raised the alarm. Two dark figures, running along with the truck full of credits, looked suspicious enough for the guards to spring into action. The ones whose weapons still worked moved into position and opened fire.
Flash bolts splashed off the hard ground of the landing field, as well as the metal surfaces of the spaceships around them. Adam found it hard to run, dodge incoming balls of plasma and concentrate on disabling Xan-fi rifles all at the same time. And then the side of a starship to their right exploded from a brilliant flash cannon bolt. The two Humans were thrown to the ground by the concussion, setting the left arm of Sherri’s uniform on fire. Adam rolled her and patted out the fire.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…hurry, it’s getting away!”
The truck was at the spaceport exit and turning north along the frontage road. Sherri and Adam got to their feet and raced off again, dodging another powerful flash cannon blast from the huge MK starship. Obviously, the aliens didn’t care what they had to destroy to stop them.
The wall along the north side of the spaceport was ahead of them; Adam lowered a shoulder and crashed into it. He bounced back, dazed. However, his added strength and Human durability had managed to break away the mortar holding the concrete blocks together. The wall caved outward but not completely. Adam recovered, and with Sherri adding her weight, they hit the wall again. This time a hole opened up and they stepped through.
There was a road running along the north side of the spaceport that connected to the main one along the east face. If they hurried they could get to the frontage road before the money truck raced by.