They cut a diagonal across the plaza. It was only as they neared the buildings facing this side of the square that they heard frantic orders from the line of legionaries, followed by blaster bolts that kicked chips out of the pavement at their feet.
Enthree zigzagged as she scaled the side of the building, flinging the spacer out like a streamer. He was a heavy man, but the Muryani’s neck seemed to be made of reinforced ceramalloy because even with the weight of two men hanging off it, she barely seemed to notice.
After hurling themselves onto the roof, they took shelter behind a low ornamental wall, which concealed a gutter. The occasional blaster bolt whined over their heads, but the full fury of the Corrupted legionaries – if that was what they were – was being unleashed upon the civilians.
The blaster volley was so fearsome that the shrieks of the bolts flying through the air almost drowned out the screams of the dying.
Almost.
To Bronze’s surprise, Enthree popped her head over the parapet, holding it out in clear view for over a second before dropping down under cover. An answering blaster bolt slammed into the wall in front of her, shattering the stone.
“Bug out!” shouted the spacer.
No kidding.
They dragged themselves by their elbows across the flat roof, the sounds of the massacre hitting them harder than the blaster bolts that passed harmlessly overhead.
“Why?” said Bronze, not expecting an answer, nor receiving one. “Why herd civilians safely out the city but murder those trapped inside?”
The two humanoids took a firmer grip of Enthree this time, and together they descended the far side of the building.
“Perhaps they have corrupted enough for their current purposes,” Enthree said when they reached the ground. “Which is unusual. I suspect they have an urgent objective we do not yet discern.”
“Who does?” said the spacer. “The Rebellion?”
“Of course,” said Bronze.
“Who else could we mean?” added Enthree. Unwisely.
They put a couple of blocks between them and the massacre. The screams were a little quieter there and they paused to catch their breath by the edge of a miniature version of the main plaza.
The spacer turned on Enthree and threw his hands to the sides. “Wow!” he said. “Hell’s Fire, you big insect. That was some getaway. I know a captain who would hire you in a heartbeat. You ever thought of a life of adventure sailing the star lanes?”
Bronze pushed in front of Enthree and stared at the spacer. “Do you know the location of Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam?”
Behind the spacer’s sunshades, Bronze could tell he was rolling his eyes as if he was asked this question a hundred times every day.
“A helluva time to be asking questions, kid. What are you two, debt collectors? No, don’t answer. Let’s get out of here first.”
“Not until we have located Captain Fitzwilliam,” said Enthree.
“Figures. You and a thousand others want a piece of him. Look, guys, you did me a good deed back there and the ship’s chaplain is always telling me to repay such favors, so I’ll tell you what I know. I heard he was in Sector 12 hunting cargo.”
When the others looked blank, the spacer shook his head. “Oh, come on, stop kidding me. You come looking for Fitzwilliam and you don’t even know the lay of the land. Sector 12, children. It’s the northern shore of the seaport. Escaped the worst of the violence so far.”
“Thank you.” Bronze studied the man. He didn’t trust a word he said, but his accent was a unique mix of the Coreward Marches and old money aristocracy. Bronze couldn’t tell where the lies were falling. “Did you hear where Fitzwilliam was in Sector 12?”
“I might have done, but… I’m sorry, my young friend, but my ears aren’t what they once were. They need… Aargh!”
Bronze’s straight blade knife was drawing a thin line of blood down the back of the man’s ear. But Bronze offered temptation as well as threat. In his other hand he held a small pile of high denomination credit chips.
“I’m sorry, my spacer friend,” said Bronze, “but my patience isn’t what it once was. It needs… Satisfaction.”
“Okay, okay. You make a compelling argument. Fitz was angling for a deal with Polar Blue Logistics. Their main warehouse is on McCarthy and Elmes.” Face screwed up in pain, he pushed away Bronze’s hand with the credit chips. “He was supposed to meet me in the Vortex Plaza to discuss the deal. Never showed up. What a jerk. Look, son, I could take your coin, but I’ve been around this galaxy long enough to know that people who smell as bad as you don’t take kindly to being given bad intel. If he’s still in the city, then my money is on Sector 12, but I don’t know that for sure. Good luck finding him. If you do, ask him to tell Izza hi from Pendog, and remind him that he owes me two thou. And if you happen to break a few of his teeth in your discussions, so much the better.”
Enthree yelled out, “Meatbolt!”
Bronze turned and saw the corrupted trooper leading a group of humanoids and Littoranes armed with clubs.
But Meatbolt had entered the city armed, like the rest of Chimera Company. He drew a blaster carbine and shot Enthree in one of her mid-limbs.
The Muryani hissed like a high-pressure boiler about to blow.
“Cease fire!” Bronze bellowed. He stormed over to Meatbolt like a general approaching an enlisted soldier who’d just royally pissed him off.
Meatbolt held up his hand and his Corrupted mob lowered their clubs.
“Leave the insect,” said Bronze. “She’s not important.” He breathed deeply of the air and sensed the pull of summoning was strongest to the northwest. In the direction of the spaceport?
“Follow me,” he said and led them away in that direction.
Poor Meatbolt, Bronze mused. Why couldn’t you just fade out of the picture? He drew his concealed twin-crescent poison blade and steeled himself to finally resolve the problem.
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
“Ah there you are,” Fitz said to the trash can mounted on hover skirts as it caught up and matched his owner’s fast jog. “I’d begun to think I’d lost you, Lynx.”
“Would you miss me?” asked the droid, whose correct designation was L1-iN/x. He added a pitiful groan from his gravitic repulsors for effect.
Fitz shot out a door lock with his pistol and kicked his way inside what he hoped was a deserted building. “I’d miss you more than that pair who snatched me away from Vortex Plaza, just as I was about to get us both out of there.” The two of them scanned what appeared to be the entrance lobby of a municipal building. They were alone at last.
Fitz lowered his blaster. “What took you so long?”
“Self-extraction from the plaza was more challenging than you might expect. I didn’t get to ride piggyback on a Muryani.”
“Don’t expect one now, either. The big insect’s been shot, and the human ran off without so much as saying goodbye. He’s the one who’s giving me heartburn, though. The human. Did you see him shoot that Littorane near the temple? Double tap with that ridiculous ‘C’ clamp grip. The man might just as well have sat himself down and started smoking a clay pipe. He’s a Special Missions operative or I’m a shaved Jotun.”
The droid tilted up its body and regarded Fitz through its slowly pulsing red eye slit. “Do you think SpecMish is behind this mayhem?”
Fitz blinked in shock. Is Lynx right? It would certainly be SpecMish’s style. Hell, I should know.
He beckoned Lynx closer. Questions later. Ass saving now. “Secure comms to Izza, if you please, Lynx.”
“Yes, master,” the droid drawled in a sultry feminine voice.
“And will you stop with the ‘master’ thing? Izza is convinced I taught you to say that, and in that sexy voice too. I’m about to be in enough trouble with her as it is.”
“Oh, your impending marital difficulties are such a shock, Captain Fitzwilliam. Do you intend to deceive Lieutenant Zan Fey this time, or merely break some of your
promises to her?”
“You, droid, have a serious attitude problem. And for the record, I have never deceived my wife.”
“No, master. I understand. You merely elide the universe for her benefit. You have explained this at length.”
“Better. I can have you rebooted, you know.”
“Rebooted?” said Izza’s voice out of Lynx’s smooth metal head. “Is Lynx toying with you again? Darling, it’s good to hear your voice. Are you safe?”
“For now, my lady. We need to bring forward our departure.”
“How far?” she growled.
Fitz winced. Izza liked to pretend that she hated being called my lady, but this time it wasn’t proving enough to distract her from what she hated most in the galaxy: missing out on a contract fulfillment payment.
“Spool the engines,” he said. “We need to take off the second I get back on board the Phantom.”
“Fitz!” she snapped. “Grow a pair, why don’t you? If we wait, our contract payout is lucrative, and we have more than enough people in this galaxy wanting us dead. We can’t afford to make an enemy of our client too.”
“I want nothing but sweetness and soft kisses for our client, my darling, but I’ve encountered some troubling old friends.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Nyluga-Ree is the most dangerous being in the sector, but she wants profit first, second, and last. So what if Ree sends a few ruffians to keep you on your toes? If they hurt you a little, I’ll kiss your bruises better and then kill your attackers myself. No, Fitz, we hold our nerve and pick up the client when he’s good and ready. The fee will be enough to get Nyluga-Ree off our backs for good.”
“I wasn’t thinking of our Commerce Guild friends.”
“Then who?”
“Not so much who as what. Legion Special Missions.”
Only the blue light on the side of Lynx’s head indicated that the secure link was still active. Izza remained silent for two full seconds before the words spilled out rapid-fire.
“Run, Fitz. Run! Run! Run!”
BRONZE
Open mouthed with horror, he stared at his trembling hands in front of his face.
What have I done?
The smooth surface of the crescent blade in his right hand reflected the flames from distant fires. Its poison remained in the reservoir. Its surface was clean.
There was no blood on his hands either.
He’d let Meatbolt go.
He’d ordered them all to the spaceport and let the Corrupted bodies live.
Which made him a failure.
Why had he done it? Meatbolt was already dead. He knew that. Hell, even Enthree understood that. He’d hardly known the trooper anyway.
Sucking at his lower lip, he sheathed his blade.
No, this wasn’t about Meatbolt. This was still about Sarah. All that he’d gone through since and still that damned woman wouldn’t get herself out of his head!
He’d let himself become weak. No wonder SpecMish had cast him to the outer reaches of the Legion.
Bronze slapped himself in the face repeatedly, trying to shock himself back into action.
Come on, Zy Pel. You still have living comrades who need you. Get over yourself, you selfish piece of shit!
“I’ll kill you next time,” he announced to the deserted street, but he no longer trusted himself to know what he’d do if he met Meatbolt again.
He sprinted back to the location where he’d left Enthree and the humanoid spacer who was either Captain Fitzwilliam or knew more about their contact than he was letting on. It was only a few hundred yards away, but when he got there, he saw no sign of either.
There was a splash of alien blood on the ground where Enthree had been winged, and that was it.
Bloody marvelous.
He was about to call in over the radio when approaching footsteps made him shrink into the deepest shadow he could find with his blaster ready.
It was only Enthree, favoring one side heavily and with one mid-arm of her jacket cut away and a wound pack doing its business where the bolt had winged her.
But it wasn’t her jacket that caught his attention: it was the ragged coat tied around her middle. The same coat that had kept Bronze alive on the trek from Fort Iceni.
“You, Muryani, are a revelation. I hope we don’t go to war with your people in my lifetime.”
She gave him an angry tilt to the head but threw the coat to his feet. “You said your garment was important, so I made use of the time and retrieved it.”
“I appreciate my coat back, but shouldn’t you have been guarding the spacer?”
“No. I thought we had finished with him. He left while I was dressing my wound and you were… called away.”
Bronze hung his head. The Muryani assumed he’d killed Meatbolt and he was too ashamed to put her straight on that.
“I also contacted Sergeant Arunsen,” Enthree said. “The Chimera group is headed our way.”
“Then maybe it’s best that Pendog – if that’s really his name – set off on his own.”
He activated his headset. “Zavage, this is Bronze. Do you copy?”
VOL ZAVAGE
“This is Zavage. What’s your status? Over.”
“Enthree’s walking wounded. City’s on a one-way jump into hell. And I might have found our contact. He’s in disguise and going by the name of Pendog, but it could be our man. I’ve planted a scent tracker on him.”
“The city air is choked with heavy smells. I doubt I can track him. I have your location now, and if you’d planted a radio tracker, I could have tracked him too.”
“No go. He would have detected it.”
“I’ll give it my best shot, Bronze. What scent did you use?”
“Female Kurlei sex pheromone. High strength.”
“You bastard.”
“Can you track him, Zavage?”
A shudder went through him. “You know I can,” he whispered.
Just the idea of a female of his race in a frisky mood felt as if a chain of toxic addiction had been passed through his nose. From there it tugged at the back of his throat and descended deeper to pull at his stomach from the inside.
Some joined the Legion because they wanted a life of glamor and adventure, not realizing that both were exceedingly rare in the careers of most peacetime legionaries. Others joined because they liked blowing shit up, or from a sense of duty to family and Federation.
Vol Zavage had joined the Legion to avoid women. Specifically of the Kurlei variety.
With his kind, once a relationship had passed beyond the fascination and irresistible pull of the rituals of attraction — admittedly a more concentrated burst of pleasure than most humans would experience in a dozen lifetimes — the pairing would be unbreakable until the bitter end. And once one pairing was established, Zavage would himself become irresistible to other Kurlei women. Irresistible, in the sense of being a target they would fight tooth and claw to claim favors from that he would be unable to resist offering up. In a big enough community, once a pair formed, it could attract a score or more women to form a miniature tribe that would last for generations.
The first male might last for a year or so, but his doom would be inevitable, worn down until he was no longer able to satisfy his mates, upon which either they would disperse, abandoning his worn-out husk to die, or one would kill him and become male herself, taking her turn to share his fate.
No wonder the Kurlei race was almost dying out in their transplanted home of the Federation. No thanks. Loving was something Vol Zavage would reserve for other species as long as possible.
Green Fish. Why would he ever wish for more than her?
“Zavage. Zavage! Answer me!”
He saw a blurry image of Green Fish, but when the details came into focus, it wasn’t her pretty human face staring back at him but the angry visage of Sergeant Sybutu.
Zavage shook his head. “Sorry. The scent… it’s so overwhelming. You humans don’t understand what
it’s like, and I have it in my nose. The man Bronze thinks could be our contact is close by. I can smell him.”
TAVISTOCK FITZWILLIAM
“Sir, please halt. We are being hunted.”
“Sir, is it? Azhanti! This must be serious. Who is it this time, Lynx?”
“Unknown.” Flaps opened in the droid’s head dome through which he launched three short-range sensor drones. “I suspect a group we have not encountered before.”
“Perfect,” said Fitz as he watched the drones circle overhead like bats on a length of string. “Izza’s always saying we should have more guests over.”
The drones dove back inside Lynx’s head. “We are being enveloped,” warned the droid. “Follow me!”
Lynx tilted forward, wobbled like he was going to fall, and then shot off down the street they had just jogged up. Fitz sprinted after the annoying tin bucket but couldn’t catch him.
The little droid seemed to have decided that stealth was no longer a viable option, because he was pushing his gravitics so hard that the ground was throbbing, making Fitz feel sick to his stomach.
Or maybe it just hadn’t occurred to Lynx that anyone not currently being massacred would hear his gravitics from five blocks away.
Fitz’s money was on the latter. Ever since the emergency recoding job he’d performed on Lynx after acquiring him in unconventional circumstances from Nyluga-Ree, sinkholes sometimes appeared in the droid’s common sense.
A grenade exploded fifty yards ahead of the droid, the shrapnel on the edge of the blast wave rattling his metal body.
Lynx took a sharp right through a shadowed archway and into an interior courtyard.
Fitz followed, slamming into Lynx who had stopped suddenly.
“How nice of you to drop by, Captain Fitzwilliam,” said a voice Fitz had hoped never to hear again.
Thanks for nothing, Fitz mouthed at the droid who’d led him here, and then turned and faced the SpecMish man, trying to flash the classic Fitz grin that had won Izza’s heart and secured a hundred deals throughout the Federation. He was everyone’s favorite rascal of an uncle, the ever-so-slightly wayward son. No one would dream of harming a man wearing a smile this charming.
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 29