Pairs of docking booms of various sizes fringed the
lip of either half, berthing capacities increasing towards
the station's stern. The Castellan's pilot system followed
the guidance beacon in towards a boom dock on the
leading edge with a learned grace. Grapplenets unfurled
from the booms, snared then drew the small ship
through the glitterglow of an atmosphere shieldfield and
into an auto-adjusting cradle. From the viewport Kao
Chih could see three levels of walkways running the
length of the dock and wide gantries extending tongue-
like between the berths.
Excited, Kao Chih made sure he was first at the air-
lock as it went into equivalence mode and opened fully.
Across the gantry was their neighbour, a Makhori organ-
ics miner, its hull resembling a glued-together cluster of
large, leathery-brown and misshapen ovoids entwined
in numerous cables and ribbed pipes. Engrossed in it, he
had just stepped through the lock with his left leg when
someone collided with him. Reversing out of reflex he
caught his heel on the edge of the hatch and fell back
inside, thumping into a protruding lower drawer handle.
He uttered a strangled cry, assaulted by pain from both
foot and shoulderblade.
'Please, please, please, can you help me? . . . please
help or they'll . . . they'll take me and . . . and . . .'
Grimacing with the pain, Kao Chih sat up and saw a
slender young woman, a human female, cowering inside
the doorway. She wore a zip-pocketed canvas jacket
over a grubby blue teklabourer onepiece, a little shoul-
der bag of some transparent material, and a pair of
heavy, paint-splashed miledriver boots. Her disarranged
hair was a rich brunette and her face, smudged with
something oily and stained with tears, was arrestingly
beautiful.
'You are Human, aren't you?' she said, almost plead-
ing.
The linguistic enabler Tumakri had given him a few
days ago was clearly working perfectly - he hadn't even
noticed that she was speaking Anglic.
'Yes,' he said carefully. 'I am. Who is it that wishes
you harm?'
'They're . . . they're . . . horrible monsters! - they
took my friend Telzy and cut her up . . .' She began
weeping again and darted along to the cockpit. 'Don't
let them take me, please!'
Kao Chih got to his feet and went after her, hearing
Drazuma-Ha* say:
'Young woman, you may not stay here. We have
come to Bryag on serious business and cannot leave you
in our craft alone ...'
'Why not?' Kao Chih said. 'I'm sure we could lock
out the controls and avoid any accidental tampering and
leave our guest with some food and water while we go
and find this Milmil S'Dohk.'
'Of course, Gow-Chee, this is your vessel and your
mission - I merely anticipated that you might wish to
keep the ship as secure as possible. My apologies for . . .'
'Please don't leave me alone,' wailed the girl from
beneath the console where she had wedged herself.
'What's your name?' Kao Chih said, starting to feel
harried.
'Co ... Cora,' she said between sobs. 'They were fol-
lowing me! - they might come here! Please help me,
please please please ...'
'Okay, okay .. .'
'Are they coming? Are they here? Please, you've got
to close the hatch ...'
'Wait, just wait,' Kao Chih said, heading for the air-
lock. 'I'll take a look . ..'
Quickly he ducked out of the hatch, scanned the
walkways in either direction for any commotion and
saw nothing out of the ordinary. There was a heavy
thud from inside followed by a fearful cry, and when he
re-entered the cockpit he saw Drazuma-Ha * lying on
the floor, his field nimbus rippling with silver and red
distortion patterns. Cora was tearfully watching it from
the other side of the cockpit.
'There's . . . something wrong with your droid,' she
said.
'Don't worry,' he said, crouching down beside thi
dumb-bell-shaped mech. 'He should recover his systems
soon . . .'
Just then he felt her fingers press something against
the side of his neck. He whirled round, even as a cold
numbness flooded through his limbs, and he slumped
over to sprawl on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye
he saw Cora, now composed and grinning, lean over to
say, 'And now there's something wrong with you,' just
before he passed out.
When he came round he found he was strapped
into the copilot couch with hands and ankles bound, an
ache in his head and an awful taste in his mouth. The
background chorus of shipboard hums and the hexago-
nal patterns of the viewport shield told him that they
were under way, back in hyperspace. Next to him, in the
pilot's couch, was his captor, watching him with unrul fle< 1
amusement, her hair now silver-blonde and braided tightly
against her scalp. Her clothes, the jacket, onepiece and
her boots were all the same and she was still as beautiful as
before but Kao Chih knew from something in her eyes that
he was in terrible danger.
'Awake, KC? Good. Mouth taste like month-old
spew?'
Kao Chih grimaced. 'Somewhat, yes.'
'I'll give you a drink soon - I may even untie your
hands. But see these?' She took out a paper strip of
white circular patches. 'I took you down with one of
these - give me any trouble and I'll slap another one on
you. Clear?'
'Who are you? How did we get away from Bryag
Station? Where . ..'
'Whoa, too many questions for cargo - okay, I was
recording everything you said from the moment I got
here, fed it into a digimask then used it to tell Docking
Control that news of a death in the family meant I
would have to depart immediately.' She made a mock
sad face. 'They went for it and here we are, KC, on our
way to meet my business associates.'
'What kind of business?'
'Well-paid business,' she said. 'Oh, and I'm Corazon
Talavera, and you are my cargo.'
When Kao Chih heard that he suddenly recalled that
moment back in Avriqui's hold when he was on his
knees before Manuuk and the hooded buyer on the
screen behind him. Is that what this is about} he won-
dered. Is this Manuuk's doing?
'What did you do to my mech?'
'Used a stasis limpet,' she said. 'Strigida drones have
a reputation for being tricksy so I had the limpet con-
figured and it worked perfectly. Two valuable pieces of
cargo, all neatly packaged, ready for delivery.'
'Delivery to whom?' he said, desiring yet fearing the
answer.
'Hmm, I shouldn't really tell you ... but what's the
harm. To certain revolutionaries of my acquaintance
who are always in the market for new recruits.' She
laughed. 'Which I suppose makes me their recruiting
sergeant!'
Kao Chih swallowed. 'But I'm not trained for fight-
ing - I've never even fired a weapon.'
She smiled and gave him a little pat on the cheek.
'KC, for what they've got in mind for you, that hardly
matters.'
Kao Chih looked away, stomach knotted with fear,
mouth dry, throat feeling irritated.
'Can I have that drink now? I assure you that I will
be no trouble.'
She nodded and a moment later he was sipping from
a hot cup of the ship's Roug-style infusion.
'Your name is Chinese,' said Corazon. 'What were
you doing out here - scouting for some big Earthsphere
gongsiV
Kao Chih thought quickly. 'I'm freelance now -1 was
on my way to collect articles for a client. . .'
There was a thudding jolt that Kao Chih felt through
the solid frame of the couch as well as underfoot. Cora
suddenly directed all her attention to the instruments.
'What was that?' he said. 'It sounded like something
hitting the ship, but debris drops back into normal
space, doesn't it?'
'Shut up,' Cora said, emptying out the contents of her
transparent shoulder bag and fitting together some odd-
looking objects.
Tense silence followed for some moments before
there was a second thud, making Kao Chih jump. Then
a hum that he took a few seconds to realise was the
sound of the airlock's outer hatch opening. His heart
began to race.
'Are we . . . being boarded?' he said, feeling panicky.
'How can we be boarded in hyperspace? That is not
possible . . .'
'Shut up,' she said again, pointing a peculiar, skeletal
handweapon at him. 'Keep silent or it's narcopatch time!
Yes, it's supposed to be impossible but I've heard
rumours . . . never thought I'd get to see one though . . .'
By now she was along the side passage, poised near
the airlock's inner hatch, weapon at the ready. Seconds
ticked away and Kao Chih found that sweat was prick-
ling his neck and trickling down his back . . .
The airlock popped and slammed aside and a grey,
bulky figure flew out, arms spread. Cora got off one
shot which knocked the attacker sideways, just before a
foot came swinging out of the airlock and kicked the
odd gun out of her grasp. As it bounced and clattered
back into the cockpit, Cora lunged after it.
Kao Chih was trying to make sense of what he was
seeing - the first boarder lying still and sprawled at the
end of the passage as a second one, garbed in dark blue
body-armour and a face-concealing helmet, dived on
Cora. Then they were half inside the cockpit, fighting on
the floor, Cora with the gun in one hand, her attacker
grabbing at it with one pair of hands while a second pair
fought to choke her throat. . .
He stared, realising with horror that they had been
boarded by an Ezgara commando. He had never
encountered one but everyone on the Retributor had
heard the rumours about these fearsome, quad-armed
mercenaries. It was said that a company of them carried
out security tasks aboard the Suneye trading station that
orbited Pyre.
So who is this four-armed monster after? - me or her}
Then Kao Chih saw that the Ezgara was gaining the
advantage. With his partly untied hands he loosened
some of the couch straps, allowing him to move round
and start lashing out at the helmeted commando with his
bound feet. Yet he was still too far away, only managing
to clip its arm. It wasn't even distracted.
But he kept thrashing away in hope that seemed to
collapse when the Ezgara managed to wrench the
weapon out of Cora's hand. In response she arched he
back, heaving her attacker off with unexpected ferocit).
pushing his upper body sideways in Kao Chih's direc
tion . . . just as his tied-up feet swung round and
connected full-force with the Ezgara's chin. The hel-
meted head twisted savagely, there was an audible crack
and the four-armed commando sprawled motionless on
the floor, helmet knocked off by the tremendous impact.
Kao Chih was only wearing deck shoes and his toes
were throbbing with pain, yet he let out a whoop that
was equal parts relief and exultation. Then his gaze fell
upon the Ezgara's head and he saw an exposed ear, nose,
side of a mouth, eye and hair that looked very Human.
'Is he dead?' Cora said, scrambling over to the still
body. 'Is he ... yes, he is, you idiot!'
'He looks Human . . .'
'Noticed that,' she said, manically dragging the
corpse along towards the still-open airlock hatch. 'And
you had to kill him.'
Kao Chih stared in confusion. 'But I thought yo i
wanted him dead.'
'I wanted him unconscious,' she gasped, hauling the
commando over the raised edge of the hatch. 'But now
that he's dead, a binary liquid explosive is mixing up
and down his intestines and will blow this ship apart if
I don't get him out in time . . .'
She slammed the airlock shut and hit the cycle-
through button. The servos hummed, there was a brief
sucking sound of the airlock contents evacuating to
hyperspace vacuum. For a second Kao Chih imagined
that the body had snagged on the hatch exit and was
about to explode and tear open the Castellan's hull.
Then he heard Cora sigh and knew that the danger was
past, and when he glanced down he saw that her gun
was lying a few inches from his left foot.
Without hesitation he picked it up and straightened
to see her watching him coolly from the passage. They
looked at each other for a moment.
'I don't want to hurt you but I will,' he said.
She shrugged, put her hands in her canvas jacket
pockets and leaned against the bulkhead.
'You're in charge,' she said.
'He was Human, the Ezgara,' Kao Chih said. 'Did
you know that they were Human?'
'There's always been lots of rumours surrounding
those goons,' Cora said. 'But the Hegemony's been
known to use genetic material of other races to breed
useful servants of one kind or another. The fact that
they seem to have done that with Humans, their biggest
ally, just stinks of very nasty politics, which I don't want to
know anything about.'
'How did they find us in hyperspace? And why?'
Cora smiled. 'Has to be you, not me. You've got the
ship, which is easier to track. They probably used a
hyperspace leech-probe adapted to carry an operator
rather than a shipkiller payload. They went to a lot of
trouble just to get at you -1 wonder why.'
Kao Chih frowned, worried that his family and the
rest of the Human Sept back at the Roug homeworld
were at risk. Then he tried to reassure himself by imag-
ining that the Roug would not allow them to be
endangered.
'Okay,' he said. 'First, I want you to undo my ankles,
deactivate that stasis device.'
'Hmm, I don't think so,' she said as she moved casu-
ally towards him.
Kao Chih pressed the fire stud several times but noth-
ing happened. Cora firmly took the slender weapon
from him with one hand while the other came up and
thumbed a white patch against his wrist.
'Party's over - time to go bye-byes.'
He tried to speak but it came out as slurred nonsense
as Cora and the entire cockpit turned grey and tilted
away from him.
33
GREG
'It is terrible, Gregory, absolutely terrible. I have never
known such a feeling of... of dread,'' his mother said
on the comm. 'And that horrible murder at Port
Gagarin last night - God knows I remember how bad it
was before the Winter Coup but it was nothing like this,
not at all. At least that was just us fighting among our-
selves, but this? - did you see that battleship on the
news? . .. The size of it...'
'Aye, Mum, I did,' he said. 'So much for all the
Hegemony talk of peace and cooperation.'
He was standing in the large stone window in the
north face of Giant's Shoulder. Behind him the passage
ran straight through the rock to the icy room of pillars,
beyond which was the warpwell, as Chel had called it.
Chel and Listener Weynl were there now, according to a
message he'd got earlier that morning while reassigning
the sector surveys. Most of his Uvovo field researchers
were involved with this Artificer business, but luckily
the Rus and Norj teams had agreed to take up the slack.
Vaguely irritated by Chel's message, Greg had been
on his way to the winch-lowering spot at the wall -
now covered by a gazebo - when he got a call from his
brother Ian asking him to call their mother and say
something to ease her worries. Once he was down in
the passageway he had done so, only to find himself
agreeing with her bleak outlook. He had seen a news
summary that morning and all of it, from the slaughter at
Port Gagarin to the Brolturan troops fortifying the
Hegemony embassy, was grim.
'Surely the Sendrukans and the Brolturans and the
Earthsphere people won't let this get worse,' Greg said.
'Sanity has to prevail.'
To his surprise, she laughed. 'Only if sanity is backed
by heavy weapons, my dear. Do you remember your
Michael Cobley - Humanity's Fire book 1 Page 32