by Jucha, S. H.
Training told her to remain absolutely still. It was amazing how many people were oblivious to her presence, even walking right past her, while she went about performing deadly business. “Now,” Lydia whispered on her ear comm.
“Now, Lenny,” Toyo sent in the open over the comms net when he received Lydia’s cue.
Lenny saw his people hit the deck. He took careful aim and lightly stroked the firing stud. To Lenny, the eruption of the powerful energy blast was better than sex — nothing could beat the pleasure of seeing the blue sizzle streak from the muzzle, burning and consuming everything it hit, until its energy was dissipated or, as Lenny thought of it, until it went to sleep.
The plasma blast blew out the corner of Lydia’s corridor, killing or maiming several of Kadmir’s people, and scattering debris down the main concourse. Dust and smoke swirled into the corridor, and, amidst the confusion, Lydia raced forward. Her stun gun was holstered, and her two targets were holding forearms over their mouths to prevent choking on the dust.
Lydia’s slender blade was in her hand, and she slid it quickly in and out of the woman’s neck, without a pause to watch her drop to the deck. With the edge of her hand, she chopped the officer’s forearm and his stun gun fell to the floor. Lydia shoved the man against the wall and laid the thin knife against his cheek. “Poison blade,” she whispered, her face close to his. “You want to live?”
“Yes,” the officer whispered, careful not to move his head. He glanced at the female guard, who had been his lover. Her dead, surprised eyes stared back at him.
“Good choice,” Lydia replied, grabbing the officer’s uniform collar and marching him down the corridor and back the way she had come.
* * *
Toyo watched Kadmir’s people stagger out into the main concourse, disoriented by Lenny’s blast, and his people quickly cut them down. The use of the plasma rifle spread fear through the defenders, and they melted away, down the main concourse or side corridors, abandoning the blue lift to Toyo.
“The lift is ours, people,” Toyo commed. “Set up defenses around it, now.” You better have that officer, woman, Toyo thought.
“Nice job, Lenny, you’re a real artist with that weapon,” Toyo sent over the comms. “Now, get back up here.”
Lenny arrived wearing a huge grin, his eyes shiny and bright. “I did good, huh, Boss?”
“Real good, Lenny, and I’m going to give you a chance to use that rifle of yours again.”
“Sure, Boss, you just tell me when and where. I’ll do it good for you, Boss.”
“I know you will, Lenny. Now, here’s the problem. We’ve got adversaries coming at us from the rear.”
“Who are they, Boss … more of Kadmir’s people?”
“No, Lenny, they’re the Harakens, and they’ve already killed sixteen of our people, including your friend, Chestling,” Toyo said. Attributing sixteen deaths to the Harakens was a lie, but Toyo wanted Lenny motivated.
“Chestling’s dead?” Lenny asked, crestfallen. The unpopular man was Lenny’s one and only friend inside Toyo’s domes.
“Here’s what I need you to do, Lenny, to help me … to help all of us … and revenge Chestling,” Toyo said. He leaned close to Lenny and placed a fatherly hand on the back of the man’s neck.
* * *
“You wanted an officer, Boss?” Toyo heard Lydia say. He turned around as Lydia shoved the dust-covered man forward. “Name’s Oslo,” Lydia added.
“Well, Oslo, fortune is with you today. Most of your comrades are dead or have run away, but you have a chance to live … if you’re useful to me. Can you be useful, Oslo?”
“Sure, sure, Mr. Toyo. Will you let me go if I help you?”
“Of course, I will, Oslo, but only if you’re invaluable. First … do you have access to all levels of these domes?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Excellent, Oslo, you’re already of help to me.”
“Next, do you know where the Haraken fems are located?” When Oslo paused, Toyo added, “I don’t like it when people hesitate to answer me. Zafir here doesn’t like it either.” That was Lydia’s cue, and she stroked the side of her blade alongside Oslo’s cheek. He flinched away from her, and she laughed.
It wasn’t that Oslo didn’t know where the women had been housed; it was that he knew they had gone missing and were still unaccounted. “I know the suite where Mr. Kadmir put the girls … dome four, level six,” Oslo said, putting conviction behind his answer.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard was it, Oslo?” Toyo didn’t bother to watch his captive’s reaction. Instead, he turned to Lydia. “You hold this location until I get back with the fems. I’m taking one car full of our people to get them and leaving the rest here under your command to keep control of the lift.”
“What about the Harakens?” Lydia asked.
“Don’t worry about them. I left those pretty blue uniforms a nice little surprise … Lenny.” Toyo was surprised he didn’t get an argument from Lydia. It appeared she wasn’t unhappy to lose out on the bonus for Racine’s head, and it made him realize how much the Harakens had unsettled her.
“But who’s watching over Lenny, Boss?”
“The boy knows what to do. I laid it out for him, point by point.”
Lydia held her tongue but she was thinking this was not the time to be caught without an environment suit — located in a surface dome with an unsupervised Lenny, who was armed with his plasma rifle and had orders to attack the Harakens.
“Make sure you clean up Kadmir’s wounded and collect their weapons,” Toyo ordered, as he shoved Oslo toward the lift. He called out to seven of his people to join him.
* * *
Boker was ordered by Kadmir to support the defense of the blue lift. He worked to stay out of the thick of the fight, instead directing Kadmir’s people in how to trap the attackers with overlapping fields of fire or with flanking movements. His efforts slowly succeeded, and Kadmir’s people warmed to his instructions, despite the deadly fire from Toyo’s weapons, which were paralyzing limbs or killing people.
Operating in the corridor that teed into the concourse nearest the blue lift, Boker saw the lead man at the corner drop his weapon from a numbed arm, and his comrades hauled him back. He regretted not stealing a pair of the stunners for himself, but, then again, he felt he should be satisfied with having gotten away from Toyo alive. And here I am fighting for my life again against Craze. Some things never change, Boker thought.
Boker’s thought was hardly completed, when an arc of energy punched through one wall of the corridor and tore through the other side, exploding two of Kadmir’s guards into pieces of flesh and bone. Three others, standing just in front of Boker, were hit by flying structural debris and body parts.
Thick smoke and dust filled the corridor, disorienting those still standing, and Boker struggled to see and breathe. His legs collapsed, and he sat down heavily. He pulled a small water bottle from his belt pack and wet a cloth to cover his mouth and nose to ease his breathing. But, instead, he coughed a quantity of blood into it.
Hearing the crack of Toyo’s stunners, as the attackers dispatched Kadmir’s people who had stumbled out into the main concourse, Boker leaned away from the sound and crawled away, seeking a hiding place. Every movement of his limbs brought agony, and Boker struggled to remain conscious. An office door was left ajar, and Boker, using the last of his reserves, crawled into the small room and hid underneath the desk.
Taking stock of his injuries, Boker felt wetness running down his left arm and touched it gingerly. His hand came away thick with blood, and he ripped off the shirtsleeve. A piece of bone with a small bit of flesh clinging to it stuck out of the meat of his upper arm. Wincing, he yanked it out, throwing it away in disgust, and then used the shirtsleeve as a makeshift bandage to tie up the wound. The exertions exhausted him, and he paused to recoup.
Suddenly, voices and the cracks of stunners reached Boker from the corridor. The attackers were checking for wounded an
d dispatching them. He chuckled, recognizing that fortune had deserted him today, but the action caused him to cough gouts of blood down the front of his uniform. End of the run, Boker, he thought, but, always the fighter, he was determined to take his dispatcher with him.
After making his preparations, Boker fought to remain conscious while he waited. Finally, from under the desk, Boker saw a pair of boots and the pants legs of a Toyo uniform. He watched as Lydia Zafir carefully lowered herself a meter away from him.
“Well, well, lookie who we have here,” Lydia said, a wide grin forming on her face. “A traitor … a traitor, who is going to make me a pile of credits.”
Boker waited for the blast from the stunner, but Lydia holstered her weapon.
“Looks like you took a beating from Lenny’s plasma rifle there, Boker, old pal,” Lydia said, eyeing the dust-covered body of her ex-fellow assassin. She examined the extent of Boker’s injuries. He was bleeding from several wounds, including one in the head, the blood making furrows in the dust alongside his cheek, and his chest held a slick pool of fresh blood. A pierced lung, Lydia thought.
“You’re not going to make it, Boker. Too bad. Toyo would love to have had a long conversation with you back at his domes. But, if I’m going to collect the bonus for your head, I better leave my mark so everyone knows it was me who finished you.”
If Boker could have smiled, he would have, but it would have given his plan away. He knew he was dying, but he needed whoever found him to believe he was incapable of resistance with his death imminent. That it was Zafir who discovered him made his impending death a sweet moment. Zafir’s technique was to nick her target with a poison blade, and then, as they succumbed, she would carve her first initial deep into their guts, slicing through their organs.
Boker summoned a cough, which wasn’t difficult under the circumstances, and spewed more blood onto his chest.
“Guess you don’t need a nick in the neck at the rate you’re going under. I hope you enjoy this,” Lydia said, an evil grin on her face as she pulled her heavy blade. “For you, Boker, a special treat … I’m going to carve both my initials, and I would love you to stay conscious until the end.”
Boker steeled himself for what was to come. Lydia jammed her knife deep into his right side to make her first cut. White-hot pain lanced through his brain.
“Hurts, doesn’t it, you traitor,” Lydia said, leaning close to Boker so she could look him in the eye.
With a quick flick of his head, Boker’s lips brushed Lydia’s cheek. She jumped back, yanking the knife with her, and Boker nearly passed out, but there was one more moment to savor.
Lydia pressed her hand to her cheek and examined her fingers. They held a smear of blood.
Boker bared his teeth at Lydia, displaying a small, edged, piece of alloy clamped tightly between them. He spit out the poisoned razor and chuckled, blood dribbling from his lips.
Lydia screamed and drove her blade deep into Boker’s chest. She yanked her knife out, dropped it on the desk, and grabbed her med kit. Shaking it out, Lydia sorted through it and pulled out a small vial. She tilted her head back, and dumped its contents on the wound. If Boker’s weapon was coated with one of the more common poisons, her concoction might save her.
As the moments passed, Lydia gained confidence that she had evaded disaster. She stood up, but her vision swam. She reached out for the desk, but her hand grazed it before falling to her side. Lydia collapsed to her knees, staring dumbly at Boker’s dead body. Then, succumbing to the deadly nerve toxin, Lydia fell face forward into the pool of blood on Boker’s chest.
-30-
It wasn’t that Lenny didn’t hear and understand every word Toyo said to him. It’s just that Lenny’s brain worked with a different set of priorities than normal people, including most criminals.
Lenny heard Toyo quite clearly stress that he was to secret himself in an office or room in the outer curve of the main concourse and aim his shot inward. Except, those instructions presented Lenny with a problem. Being right-handed, Lenny would either have to expose most of his body to take the shot or shoot blind by extending his rifle out the doorway and pointing it in the Harakens’ general direction.
Neither choice satisfied Lenny’s sense of what was important. Giving the Harakens a broad target, namely his body, scared him, and shooting blind wasn’t an option either. Typically, Lenny was carefully supervised and directed how and when to shoot.
Once Lenny was told to target a person, and it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. A whole person disappeared — like in a magician’s act that he saw in a vid. The prospect of firing his plasma rifle at an entire group of people had Lenny so excited, he couldn’t help but stroke the weapon’s firing stud over and over in anticipation.
So Lenny was ensconced in an office in the concourse’s inner curve where a minimum of his body would be exposed as he leaned out the doorway with his weapon and, most important, where Lenny could witness the devastating effect of his weapon on lots of people. He sat still, except for the twitching of his trigger finger, listening intently for noise from his targets, sure that he would hear their voices as they approached.
* * *
Alex eyed Renée with concern. The Harakens had heard and felt a blast shake the walls, uncertain as to what had caused it — and them without an environment suit among them.
Catching Alex’s pained expression, Renée sent,
When Alex’s people put another 30 meters between themselves and the ambusher, Tatia stepped close to Alex and whispered, “We’re outmatched here, Alex. I tried to prepare us for some subterfuge on the part of Kadmir and his people. Instead, we’ve walked into a biter’s nest.” Tatia’s reference to the voracious New Terran colony insects was a concept that Alex readily grasped.
“So we need reinforcements,” Alex whispered back.
* * *
Alex’s comm call to the sting ship’s controller was transferred to Reiko.