They reached a flight of stairs heading upward, and Shil took them two at a time. A burst of gunfire greeted her, but nothing hit her shield. Araven popped his head up, located the firer, and snapped off a pair of pulses which tore open the guard’s chest and stomach. Shil advanced to the doorway the man had fired from, seeing the faint heat image of another man through the wall. They were in habitation, that was for sure, and this was where the bulk of the guards were. As the man stepped out to fire, his yell was cut off as Shil rammed her sword through his stomach, clear through his vest. His eyes bulged and he coughed, blood flecking his lips. Then Shil ripped her blade free and the light went out in his eyes before he collapsed onto the deck.
There were more of them, but they were not trained to handle someone who was apparently bulletproof and a man with a ray gun. They fired off volleys of bullets, and Shil’s shield absorbed the impacts without flinching, and then Araven would fire back. No one was getting up from a solid hit from the rifle, but the corpsman was running out of power as they got to the top deck and discovered the cells.
Each was a small cubicle, similar in size to the cells aboard the Cantarvey, but here they were barred instead of having a force field over the entrance and it made them look smaller. And each had a human inside, a scared human who hunkered as far from the bars as the cell would allow when they saw Araven and Shil.
‘We need to get them out of here,’ Shil said.
‘Yes, but we need this area clear f–’ Araven’s words were cut off as three electron blasts hit Shil’s shield. The one aimed at her head flared brightly across her shield and stopped, but the second and third burned through, severely weakened. Shil felt the heat against her shoulder and back, as her suit absorbed the hits; from the front, she might have been in more trouble. She turned, plucking a thin blade from her boot, and threw it. Down the corridor, D’vol let out a shriek of pain as the blade sliced into his right arm and his pistol fell from his limp fingers. He turned and started running back the way he had come.
‘See to the prisoners,’ Shil yelled, starting down the corridor after D’vol. ‘And take care of any more guards. I’ll get D’vol.’
‘Thadic and D’nova are here somewhere!’ Araven called back.
‘Yes, but they’ve never met anything like me. I’ll handle it.’
The scent of blood led her to a ladder near the end of the corridor. It dropped between decks, all the way down as far as she could see. Good place for an ambush. D’vol could be on any of the floors, though he had lost his pistol. Then again, he might have run to Thadic; the reports had indicated that the two had been working together for some time and that Thadic was very loyal to his employer. Oh well.
Gripping the ladder, Shil braced her insteps against the metal and slid down. She went past one deck, then another, and that was when she sensed the grenimal’s presence behind her. It was the scent: Narad had, she realised, smelled better than this one, but there was a distinctive scent to grenimals. Testosterone and sweat, or whatever the equivalent of testosterone was in that species. Aggressive masculinity. She pushed her feet away from the ladder, soaked the impact with the deck through her knees, and pushed backward. As she twisted, rotating as she arched backward, she took in the rifle the big man was holding: the same design as Araven was using. It was trouble. It could do her significant damage through her suit. She landed on her hands, curling as she went and then pushing out hard as she tumbled toward Thadic. Her boot heels slammed into his rifle, cracking the muzzle housing before she pushed off and rolled to her feet.
Thadic pulled the trigger on his gun, but all he got was a warning tone from the weapon: Shil had damaged the containment system and it would not fire. He grunted his displeasure and threw the rifle aside, but he was actually grinning as he pulled a long knife from a sheath on his thigh. ‘Always prefer to do this with my hands,’ he said in Gadek Taved. He was huge: bigger than Narad, and that was saying something. She estimated six-foot-ten and over two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. The knife looked kind of small in his hands, but if he could actually stick it in her, it was going to hurt. Still…
Shil slipped her sword from her back. ‘If you give up now, I won’t kill you,’ she said in Fortin, Thadic’s native tongue. ‘Uh, don’t worry. I know you won’t give up. Grenimals are just that stupid.’
He lunged, driving the blade at her chest. Shil twisted, letting his weapon slide past her chest as she extended her sword, hard and fast, into his chest. ‘What?’ he said, and blood spattered from his mouth as he spoke.
‘You’re dead, arsehole,’ Shil said as she pulled her blade free and spun on the balls of her feet, whipping the sword around as she went. He saw it coming right for him and tried to get his arm in the way, but he was far too slow. An instant later, Thadic’s head was flying free and Shil was ducking from the blood pumping out of the severed arteries in his neck. Shil barely paused, sweeping on past the falling body as she headed for the open door beyond.
P’taric D’vol was there, in the control room of the ship. He was holding another blaster in his left hand. Blood dripped from the wound in his right arm. He aimed the weapon at Shil, but it was shaking.
‘Thadic’s dead,’ Shil said in Daddari. ‘He actually gave a shit about you, but I somehow doubt you’re bothered about him. Well, aside from the issue you now have.’
‘Stay back,’ D’vol said, rather uselessly.
‘Or what? You’ve shot me with one of those before. Didn’t get you very far, did it? You’re going to get one shot before I can get to you and carve my displeasure out of your hide. Or… You give up and I’ll even get your arm bandaged before they lock you in a hole for the rest of eternity.’ She took a step closer. ‘What’s it going to be, P’taric? Life, or death?’
For a brief second, it looked like he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. If he had been a grenimal, Shil figured she would be dodging electron pulses, but D’vol was no grenimal. His arm dropped to his side and his pistol slipped from his fingers.
Shil crossed the space in a few strides, grabbing his tunic and sliding the edge of her sword up to his throat. ‘Good. Now, where’s T’ney and my friend?’
Shuttle, Outbound from Earth.
The shuttle was a fairly standard, jump-capable vessel designed for passenger trips between systems. With the relatively short travel times afforded by jump engines, full life support was not really required to get people from one system to another. This shuttle had been transported to Earth in one of the Gasparat’s holds and then moved to a nearby valley in case T’ney and the others had needed to vacate the planet in a hurry. And that was what T’ney was using it for. Of course, they had intended to take several of the trained slaves with them if they had to leave quickly; the shuttle could carry eighty people plus two crew on the flight deck, and even fifty people to sell would have covered at least some of the costs. As it was, T’ney had been forced to go without. Mostly.
He unbuckled the straps holding him into his flight chair and pulled himself up and around, pushing off for the hatch at the back of the control room. The shuttle was a relatively cheap model, without artificial gravity. A couple of hours in free fall was not going to hurt the average traveller, though some found it uncomfortable and the better companies used better shuttles. So, T’ney pulled himself through into the passenger lounge by the handholds set in the deck and walls to check his single prize. He had already decided that, even with the potential for profit, he was not going near Earth again: the place was bad luck.
Lindsey sat, silent and vacant, strapped into one of the reasonably comfortable passenger seats. The metallic slave band was still around her head, making sure that she was perfectly happy with her circumstances so long as someone told her what to do. T’ney had told her that she was perfectly happy, just to be sure. She would do whatever he ordered, and that took a lot of the challenge out of it. With Sheila, he had used his skills in manipulation to keep her under control. Sheila had done whatever he ordered beca
use he had spun a web of lies which had left her too scared to do anything else. And what had changed there? The Sheila who was apparently working for StarCorps was not the timid girl he had plucked from Earth.
Anyway, Lindsey would probably sell reasonably well. Not, perhaps, for as much as Sheila, but for far more than a typical slave. Lindsey was blonde, a mix of pale and slightly darker strands which fell straight to her shoulders. That was a plus since the veda had had pale hair. She was fit, which was good, but she did not have Sheila’s breasts, and bigger was better in most circles. She was also not quite as attractive as Sheila, but T’ney knew that the buyers he had in mind would look at that pale skin and not see the little flaws. Anyway, a little rejuvenation treatment and some cosmetic work would have her looking just the way anyone wanted. Yes, Lindsey would sell for enough to make it worthwhile. And with P’taric and Thadic out of the picture – likely dead – there was no one else to share the money with.
And he knew where to sell her. It was a risk, going back to Dromeli, but he had appropriate fake IDs and the ship would raise no red flags. No, Dromeli was the best place to handle this transaction and he was confident he could pull it off without getting caught. In a few hours, T’ney was sure he would be flying away from Dromeli thousands of units better off and heading somewhere StarCorps would never find him.
The Gasparat, Romania, Earth.
Shil stalked onto the flight deck of the freighter with a deep scowl on her face. Araven spotted her almost immediately and had a sudden urge to be somewhere else, and he was nominally her boyfriend.
‘The shuttle wasn’t there,’ Shil said. Her eyes were glowing: the Huntress was ready to kick some butt, or chop some butt into small pieces. ‘I found the depressions where the struts were, so it was there. I’m guessing something around three hundred tons, maybe a Taravol. D’vol said it was jump-capable.’ Orange eyes flicked up at Araven. ‘I see your people made good time getting here.’
‘They were on standby,’ Araven replied.
‘Good. They can take care of things here while we go find T’ney.’
Araven frowned. ‘You know where he’s gone?’
‘I don’t, but I have a very good idea. He took Lindsey with him, which means he plans to offset his losses with her before he vanishes.’
‘Dromeli? The authorities there will lock him in a pit in Veldro if they find him.’
‘Yeah. If. You really think he doesn’t have a fake identity set up? And Dromeli is the best place for him to sell her. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if she’s lucky, he’ll want to try out the goods before he passes her on. It’ll give us more time to find them.’
Araven nodded slowly. ‘Okay. The corpsmen here will handle the victims. They already are.’
‘Great,’ Shil said. ‘That means we don’t have to wait. Cantarvey, two to beam up.’
The Cantarvey, Dromdaria Spaceport, Dromeli, 254.1205 Local.
There was a cop on the flight deck. Araven was there, sure, but this was a captain in the Dromdaria PD, and he was being a real arsehole. Actually, he was being a slightly nervous arsehole, probably because he was trying to argue with a barely dressed woman with skin like a veda, and eyes which were turning more red than orange.
‘Yes,’ Shil said coldly, ‘I completely understand that I left Veldro prison without permission and stole a ship from this spaceport. However, I was a different person then, an illegal immigrant. We both know that that status was set up as a political solution to the growing use of Dromeli as a centre for the trafficking of sentients. It gave you a reason to avoid granting rights to the victims of a heinous crime, and it makes the dromelan government look like an uncaring bunch of bastards. I, however, am no longer an illegal immigrant. I have a job. When you get out of my way, I’m going to do it, before another person of my species ends up in your shitty prison with about as much chance of ever going home as a snowball’s chance in a nova.’
The cop bristled. ‘Policemen don’t get involved with politics. I am required to take you into custody until this matter can be resolved and–’
‘You could do that,’ Araven said, ‘but Shil is here on StarCorps Special Circumstances business.’
‘That doesn’t–’
‘And if she were detained while a known criminal, a serious criminal, is on your world engaged in the sale of a sentient being, I would be required to make a report to my superiors indicating why that fugitive escaped.’
‘Cops don’t get involved in–’
‘Politics. Yes, you said. Do you like your job, captain? Because, when StarCorps come here with an investigative committee to go through your legal code with a fine comb, your superiors will be looking for someone to blame it on.’ Araven smiled. ‘You’re it.’
The captain paused. Now he was worried as well as nervous. ‘T’ney D’nova has not landed in this spaceport on any vessel.’
‘Sure,’ Shil said. ‘Because your spaceport security is so good that your system is known as the best place in the galaxy to ship trafficked sentients through. I know precisely where he is, captain. I’d invite you to come along and help take him, but I’ve seen at first hand your idea of a trafficking raid. I’m fairly lucky I survived being rescued. Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting off my ship, I have a navidad bastard to take into custody with extreme prejudice.’
The captain gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘You should contact immigration before you leave the planet. They can probably sort out your status.’ Then he turned and started for the door. Shil escorted him down to the airlock, as she had escorted him up, but this time Araven came with her.
‘I’ll take care of the warrant on you before we leave,’ Araven said when the airlock was sealed up again. ‘Call it a perk. Uh, you said you were taking D’nova into custody?’
‘I did.’
‘Did you mean that?’
‘I did, but you left out part of what I said. I mentioned “extreme prejudice.” If T’ney has decided to do anything to Lindsey beyond the kidnapping, he might survive being taken into custody, but if he does, he’s going to wish he hadn’t.’
~~~
Cantarvey’s sensors had spotted the shuttle as it came in to land. It was a three-hundred-ton Taravol jump-capable shuttle, but there were a few more of those around the spaceport: cheap passenger transport companies used them a lot. This one, however, had been put down at one of the outer pads, away from the main concourse. That suggested private use, and no one used an 80-seat shuttle for private transport. Neglecting things like that was one of the reasons Dromeli was easy to ship slaves through.
‘You know,’ Shil said while she worked on the locking mechanism on the rear hatch, ‘it’s moderately obvious that there’s some government collusion with the traffickers here. Someone’s told the cops to make it easier. I’m not necessarily talking a vast conspiracy, but some idiot at the top figures any trade enhances the economy.’
‘Yes,’ Araven replied. ‘That’s why that captain didn’t want to risk a StarCorps investigation. There’s going to be one anyway, but that kind of thing always gets pushed back because something more urgent comes up. I could probably use your case to push it, just like that incident on Tholdaria pushed them to the front of the queue.’
‘Politics.’
Araven nodded. ‘Politics. How are you standing there in that suit, in this temperature, without freezing to death?’
‘Talent.’ Shil flashed him a grin. ‘My blood is teeming with tiny computers. They put out quite a lot of heat when they wind up to full power, and they can do so artificially to keep my body temperature up, if it’s needed. That “incident” on Tholdaria? I was wandering around that icebox dressed like this.’ With a click and a hiss, the hatch opened up, levering down to reveal the flight of stairs built into it. Shil looked up into the shuttle’s hold. She drew her sword. ‘Shall we?’
The hold was empty. Seventy-five tons’ worth of empty space, which was good for two reasons. It was obviously easier to cross the spac
e to the inner hatch with nothing in the way. The duo moved quickly, but quietly, toward the ladder at the other end. The other thing was that Araven had figured out how T’ney and the others had planned to transport their merchandise. Two of the people in the cells had been sedated and wearing a neural induction helmet: they were being brainwashed into servitude. There was also a capsule on the ship designed to put someone into nanostasis, a technique which essentially encapsulated someone in plastic for indefinite storage. It had been used, and the StarCorps team on the Gasparat were looking for the hidden sections of hold which a smuggling ship surely had, in order to find the victims who had already been through the process. T’ney had, it seemed, had no time to get any of them out to bring with him.
The hatch was secured, but not locked. Shil popped it and allowed it to slide aside, looking out into the passenger compartment beyond and seeing no one. Still, she drew her sword as soon as her feet were on the deck: the door had made a noise opening, and someone up in the control room might have noticed. She waited for Araven to climb up beside her and take his pistol from its holster before she started down the aisle between the seats.
A scent caught Shil’s attention. It was one she realised she had not smelled since leaving Earth, but it was also one she would recognise anywhere: Lindsey. There was another scent there too, a masculine one, and she was sure that was T’ney. She did not know his scent as well as Lindsey’s, but both of them were here, or had been. It was not until Shil got to the first row of seats that she confirmed that Lindsey was still here, and her heart sank for an instant at the sight of her friend.
Lindsey looked up as the two people appeared beside her from the back of the ship, and there was nothing in her eyes. The band was still around her head, taking away her volition, and Shil reached for it, and then stopped. She glanced at Araven and then pointed her sword at the cockpit door, getting a nod. ‘Stay there, Lindsey,’ Shil whispered and started for the door.
The Eyes of the Huntress Page 20