by John Shirley
He frowned at the floor. She suspected he was thinking of sending her down to Bigjaws as soon as he left the room. That was something she wasn’t quite ready for.
“Way I remember it,” she said quickly, “is Mordecai made sure he was going to be able to check in with me from time to time, on the ECHO. And on vidcam. If I’m gone . . . he won’t be motivated to do a damn thing for you.”
She hoped that was true. There was that roomful of money he might be inclined to think of.
Jasper grunted, shrugging. “Perhaps. I shall wait. We shall see. It may be you’ll change your tune after all . . .”
He turned and stalked out, his men backing up to follow him—none but the Nomad willing to turn their back on her, till they got safely through the armored door.
And they were right about that.
• • •
Mordecai had stopped the outrunner a good distance out from the target. He just sat there, staring up at the rising slopes, the crenellated heights of Tumessa. The place was one big warning—everything about it said, Don’t try it.
It was cold out here—but he needed to get colder yet, inside. He was burning with an inner fury at Jasper. And Mordecai was angry at himself for feeling that way.
Anger—uh-uh. That’s not how you got the business of killing done, not with any efficiency. You had to be frigid as ice inside—and maybe you let a little fury loose if you had to go hand-to-hand.
With sniping, quick kills—you had to be chill for that. You had to be calm and collected, without a tremble in your trigger finger.
Trouble was, right now, looking at the rising mount that was Tumessa, he had a strong impulse to bust out the rocket launcher and blast through the place’s outer defenses, accelerate the outrunner to the top of the fortress, blast his way into Reamus’s inner sanctum, blow the bastard in half, cut his head off, and take it back to Jasper. Just get it done.
But of course, if he tried that, he’d likely get killed long before he got anywhere near Reamus. And if he got killed, so would Daphne. And what good was he then?
“Calm down, you damned fool,” he muttered.
He was about a kilometer out from the nearest gate into Tumessa’s giant lozenge-shaped hill—a small, oblong-based mountain, more than a large hill, an anomaly in this flat land. It was rather suspicious, to Mordecai’s mind. Must be artificial, he figured. Eridian, maybe? Or was it Reamus’s creation?
He could see guard towers to either side of that front gate. If he took those guard tower men out, there’d be an alert, probably. Alarms, the whole shebang.
Suppose he pretended to join Reamus—try to sign on with him?
But there wasn’t likely to be time for all that—he had to get this done fast to make sure Daphne was safe.
And besides, Jasper wouldn’t trust him if he signed on with Reamus, undercover or not. Boss Jasper had hired him for the other kind of infiltration.
There was another consideration, too. From what he’d heard, Reamus had some men working for him who’d once been employed by Gynella. And they’d remember Mordecai. They’d kill him first chance they got if he tried to infiltrate by joining up, shoot him in the back.
No. It had to be completely covert penetration. He had the auto-camo, he had the right weapons. And they weren’t going to be expecting anyone like him. They were outfitted to repel a big fighting force.
Not that this was going to be easy. He couldn’t even take along a shield—it’d interfere with the camo, for one thing.
The sun was sinking, seeming to extinguish in the ashen horizon, and lights were flicking on, all the way up the great mound that was Tumessa. The night wind rustled itself, stretched, and came skirling across the plains with a low moan.
Mordecai growled wordlessly, deciding he had to get closer and move in—then stiffened, feeling a warning prickle on the back of his neck.
Something was coming. Something . . . from above. Buzzard, maybe. Or a drone.
He grabbed the assault rifle, turned, raised the muzzle to the sky . . .
And Bloodwing landed on the muzzle of the gun, like a parrot landing on its perch.
She cocked her head and looked at him curiously. As if she were saying, What?
He snorted. “So you did see my signals.” She squawked and moved down the barrel of his gun, walking down it on her claws, and butted her head affectionately against his. “Good girl! Thanks for showing up! Wouldn’t blame you if you’d blown me off.”
Bloodwing leapt up to his shoulder and settled in place. He put the rifle aside, started the outrunner, and drove to the southwest, almost randomly picking an approach to the fortress town known as Tumessa.
He felt a little better with Bloodwing on his shoulder. At least now he wasn’t completely alone in this.
And she’d be useful in this operation. She was good at attacking under cover of darkness. Bloodwing could be silent and deadly as a razor when she wanted to.
And right now, Mordecai needed all the edge he could get.
How in Skagzilla’s Arse had she come here in the first place? How had she ended up in this strange, circular room?
Daphne almost laughed, thinking about it. She’d fought her way across half the galaxy to be stuck in this little dome of a bedroom with a gigantic cannibalistic monster a few inches underfoot—and another kind of monster, not far off, who wanted her to be his little bed slave.
Maybe it had all started back on the homeworld, the day she’d come home and found her brother shot to pieces, breathing his last, left to die on the bloodstained landing pad outside the house.
And inside the house she found what was left of the rest of her family. Terrible things had been done to them . . .
She’d known instantly who it was. Her father had warned them; had planned to get them all off planet, take the money he’d skimmed from the Creel Organization, start over somewhere out in the galaxy, somewhere they wouldn’t be found.
Dad figured he had time before the cartel found its head bookkeeper was stealing from the cash flow off the slave trade. He knew they’d bust him for it eventually—the big man had asked for an audit, purely in-house—but he thought there was enough time to . . .
There wasn’t. There was no time at all. Creel found out about the embezzlement faster than Dad had expected.
An example had to be made. They sent their worst—the best of the worst. They sent the ones who liked the job. They sent men who made sadists look like monks. And Daphne had happened to be away from the house.
She was already a good shot, a quick study at martial arts. She’d thought of working for Creel herself. But not now. Now all she wanted from Creel was revenge.
She went to Creel’s enemy—to his rival, Kirk Bluestone. She’d said, “I can get in, and I can kill him, and his top men. I have my own reasons. But I’ll need money, afterward, to get off planet. Creel has a big organization—one of his men will come after me. Loyalty’s a funny thing.”
Bluestone had laughed at that last remark—but then he’d shrugged. “You manage to do it, I’ll pay you. But chances are, girl, you’ll never get that close to the bastard.”
“I’ll be in touch when it’s done,” she said.
Bluestone nodded. “Deal.” He was a thug, was Bluestone, a member of the most ancient criminal organization on the planet—but he was known to keep his word.
Daphne changed her appearance, just enough, and signed on to interview for Creel’s personal . . . entourage. Creel changed his harem once a year and word was, he was hiring. He liked young-looking women, teenage girls if he could get them. And she was barely nineteen.
She was quickly hired, she went to bed with him—and first chance she got, she knocked him out cold, with the steel spike of her high heels. Then she tied his hands and cut out his tongue with the smuggled-in knife.
She didn’t kill him quickly. She woke him, then cut him open, throat to groin, as he lay there, struggling with the ropes and gurgling. She made sure he knew who she was and why s
he was doing it.
Sure, it made her sick. But then again, she was glad to get it done. He’d butchered her family, after all.
His two top men were in the next room with the other girls. She dressed, then finished Creel’s lieutenants off with their boss’s own gun—two quick shots through the head apiece. She let the girls go, of course.
Then she melted into the night.
And Bluestone paid her, once the story of the killings hit the news—he paid her well. She ran for the stars, deep space, and traveled through two systems . . . before someone caught up with her. But it turned out they didn’t want to kill her.
“You’re good,” said the man in the gray hood. “Impressive work with Creel. You could be even better. Work for me. I’ll train you . . . and we’ll get rid of some more assholes. And we’ll do it for good money. I need someone like you, to take special assignments . . .”
That’s how it had really started. She’d gone from being Daphne Kuller, fugitive, to Kuller the Killer. She’d gotten good at it—she had a talent for murder. Maybe what she’d seen back home had turned her heart to ice and her hands to talons. Or maybe she was simply a natural. The Gray Hood hired her out to the cartels—to take out men in their organizations who had to go, or others in rival organizations . . . and they never knew what hit them, or who. Until she went independent.
The man in the Gray Hood didn’t like that. He warned her—come back to work for me. Or else.
She ignored him. He sent word to several cartels. “The one who took down your man? That was Kuller. Daphne Kuller . . .”
So several of them came after her.
One in particular.
Daphne ran to Pandora, to hide out till things cooled off. But found herself face-to-face with Gynella, running rampant on Pandora. Gynella hated Daphne Kuller for taking out her husband. It’d taken Roland, Brick, Mordecai, and Daphne working together—but they’d taken down Gynella’s little army. And Gynella had burned to death out in the wastelands.
She should’ve moved on to another world. But she’d gotten caught up in Mordecai. He was a man she could respect, as good as she was at what she did. And he was sweet hellfire in the sack.
But he’d lacked ambition . . . and he turned to drinking. And walked out on her . . .
Then came Jasper. And now here she was.
Mordecai hadn’t meant to leave her. Not really. She knew that. He wasn’t going to leave her this time. He was sure to come back for her, get her away from Jasper.
He had to. Unless, of course . . .
• • •
The steppes weren’t as flat as they looked from the air. There were shallow ravines, draws here and there. Mordecai had parked the outrunner in one of the shallow ravines, within a quarter klick of the nearest outside corner of Tumessa. He performed a ritual that went back thousands of years—he used charcoal to darken his face, smearing it evenly, so it wouldn’t stand out against the dark, shadowy backdrop. Hopefully the auto-camouflage would take care of the rest.
“Time to move in, girl,” he told Bloodwing. “Keep as quiet as you know how to be . . .”
She made an errr sound, low, close to his ear, to show she understood. He climbed out of the outrunner, stepped around to the back, and selected the Dahl Terror sniper rifle, which he’d had specially outfitted to his preferences, a belt of grenades, including two smoke grenades. He had a silenced Thanatos machine pistol on his right hip. In his backpack was extra ammo, some Dr. Zed med hypos, two food bars, and an electronic telescope. On his belt was a brace of throwing knives. He regretted he couldn’t bring along the rocket launcher and the Eridian rifle, in case things went sideways—Brick would’ve brought them, but for Mordecai it was just too cumbersome.
He set out on the first leg of the mission, Bloodwing hunched low on his shoulder.
The moon had broken through the clouds. But he had his auto-camo on. The suit adapted to his background, nano-digitally altering, split second by split second, faster than a chameleon, so that even in moonlight he was almost invisible as he climbed from the ravine and trotted across the plain toward Tumessa.
He covered the distance quickly, barely breathing hard as he reached his first goal: a low, ice-coated boulder that rose from the plain within about fifteen meters of the outer ramparts of Tumessa, some distance from the main gate. The Bruisers were around the main gate—with luck he wouldn’t have to deal with them if he approached from the flank.
He threw himself flat behind the boulder—Bloodwing skillfully hopping off him as he did this—and crept up the boulder, on his belly, to scope out the rest of the approach. He could make out the silhouettes of sentries along a scaffoldlike structure just inside the razor wire. Was there really razor wire all around this thing? And acid moats, farther up the hill? This was paranoia as architecture.
No one seemed to have spotted him. He heard a machine-created humming sound, though, overhead. Nestling close, Bloodwing made that errr sound again. “Just a drone,” Mordecai whispered. He turned on his back—he could see the delta-shaped drone, about as big as a large rakk, silhouetted against the moonlight-silvered clouds. It didn’t seem to have spotted him—it moved on, without circling back, probably on a set course around and around Tumessa. He waited till it moved on, then said, “Bloodwing—fly on up to the top of that big fence pole there. If anyone takes a shot at you, then duck for cover, act like you’re wild.”
Bloodwing leapt into the air, flapped up, higher and higher, quickly moving away from him so she wouldn’t call attention to him if she were spotted.
Mordecai watched the sentries’ movements—and chose his moment, when they were turned away from him. He leapt up and sprinted to the wire, sniper rifle in his right hand, his left hand reaching over his shoulder, plucking the cutting tool from its loops on his pack.
He got to the fence—the sentries were tramping on wooden scaffolding, above the razor wire. Where he stood, it would be hard for them to see him—especially with the auto-camo. He used the cutting tool, snipped the wire as quickly as he could, moved the wire aside with his gloved hands, pushed his rifle quietly through, and slithered in after it, replacing the tool in his pack.
He listened, heard the footsteps passing close overhead. They were unhurried—no one suspected him yet. He could hear two men bitching to one another as they passed in opposite directions.
“Cold as polar roadkill out here.”
“At least you go off duty pretty soon, Rotty. I’m out here two damn hours more. I got extra duty from Gromster. Never got clear on why.”
“He’s a dick, all right.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“That’s the nicest thing you could say about him . . .”
The other one laughed and the two sets of footsteps moved away from one another. Mordecai looked out from under the scaffolding toward the upslope of Tumessa. He couldn’t see much of the high, oblong hill from here, just a gravel road going past, between the guard posts and the escarpment of the fortification’s next level.
There were lights at the top of that escarpment, shining on the road that wove its way up this side of Tumessa. Above the lights was a row of buildings made of tin, steel, synthetics, and other scrap; some were block shaped, some igloolike humps of concrete; typical thrown-together Pandora housing.
There were guard towers up there, on that next level, and some light that looked like pink and blue neon—a bar maybe. He could just make out the shapes of sentries in those guard towers; their lights were shining on that open road between him and the escarpment. They might see him and raise the alarm. Pretty easy to pitch them outside the fence once he’d taken them out. There was a ladder up the side of the scaffold, not far away.
He listened, waiting till the footsteps were close together again, the men passing one another on their patrol, muttering something. Then he drew the silenced machine pistol, stepped out into the road, sighting on the two men who were almost lined up—one of them saw him. “Sorry, Rotty
,” Mordecai muttered, and squeezed the trigger four times, his weapon hissing four rounds through the two men. He hit the nearer one up angle, striking under the man’s jaw, blowing his brains out the top of his head; the other one, turning startled toward Mordecai, caught the rounds in the roof of his open mouth. Lost his brains the same way. Do it right and a man goes down silently.
Both guards collapsed like mannequins cut off at the ankles.
Mordecai holstered the pistol, put his sniper rifle’s strap over his right shoulder, and quickly climbed the ladder. He got off the rungs and into the dimness of the scaffolding as fast as he could.
Wasting no time on stripping bodies of valuables—as he might have, out in the wilderness—he simply rolled them both off the scaffolding so they fell outside the fence. He looked both ways—saw no other sentries yet. But there’d be more, farther along.
He remembered the drone. It occurred to him that it might read the heat signature off the sentries’ bodies, or spot them through remote camera if it was equipped to supply security monitoring direct to the fortress. Besides, the thing could change course—it could spot him . . . they often had infrared spotters. His suit didn’t do anything about his heat signature.
But it was a risk to take the drone down. If that were noticed, someone might raise an alarm. There was a way, though.
He gave a screeing whistle through his front teeth, high-pitched and distinct. Bloodwing heard it and soon flapped down to him. “Good girl. Listen—that drone—that thing up there—” He pointed to the drone’s flight path. She knew what he meant—she was alert to everything in the sky. “See if you can take it down. Make it look like an irritable rakk did it maybe . . . Claw open the maintenance panel on the top . . .”
She gave a soft squawk and leapt into the air, flapped upward.
He mused again on how well she understood him. Had to be partly telepathic.
He stepped over a puddle of blood and brains and moved down the wooden platform of the scaffolding, looking for a better ingress into Tumessa. He came to a place where it cornered, and he paused there, peering carefully around the edge. Two more sentries, talking, down that way. Mordecai drew back, evaluating the situation.