Chronicles of a Space Mercenary 3: Vengeance (15 page)

Leethea’s claws extended and she gave the surprised reptile a full injection of venom from every finger. Her claws were buried to the knuckles but the big brute barely felt it. It looked down at its arm and then raised its head and began to laugh. “You’re pathetic venom won’t…” It began then suddenly its eyes rolled up in its head and it was dead.

The second guard was just catching on to what was happening when Leethea flung the huge reptile one-armed down the corridor behind her and used the momentum to launch herself in a spinning backward spiral. The dead reptile was flung up the corridor limp as a ragdoll to land in an inanimate heap amongst started beings as Leethea’s right hand claws raked across the face of the second guard. She landed rolling and came up just in time to catch the weapon of the next as the large reptile showed those reflexes. She caught the barrel of the blast-rifle with her left hand as the weapon came down and then shoved her right hand fully into the brute’s stomach and released her venom. Stunned eyes just managed to catch hers as she used the reptile’s blast-rifle as a pivot and flung the big brute over her shoulder and across the corridor. It lost its grip on the blast-rifle at the apex of the spin and by the time it hit the deck it was dead.

My own victim was a gimme as I sprang out of the crowd upon it as it was bringing its blast rifle down to level Leethea- and the entire corridor beyond. Left hand captures blast-rifle, push up, right hand on reptile throat, rip. Green blood sprayed everywhere as the reptile struggled for a moment to take the blast-rifle from my hand before dying but my attention had already
long since shifted to the last two guards.

They were already dead I noted immediately and Serrath already back to window shopping, this time looking in the window of a high-end jewelry store. “Look what I found.” She said when she noticed me looking her way. I threw my own victim to the deck but kept the blast-rifle and several other odds and ends including a fat credit-voucher and then turned to survey Serrath’s victims. Each had received a small nick on its face. She had simply run by and nicked them on the way.

I ignored her and took out a little pocket laser and began cutting the manacles of the prisoners though I wouldn’t gamble on their freedom lasting more than a few hours or days in the extreme. It was my opinion that the sheep came here to be sheared as much as the crooks came to shear them. The crooks couldn’t exist without there being sheep to shear and since there would always be sheep which trusted in the good fellowship of their fellow beings- despite knowing better- the shearing would go on forever. This was why I was no longer a hero. It was a war that simply couldn’t be won.

“Waste of time.” Serrath said as she appeared at my side. I hated it when she did that. She turned to Leethea who was standing there surveying her work; “Feel better?” She asked.

“Very much so.” Leethea replied, looking very much satisfied.

She smelled satisfied, I noted. It was a strong smell.

Chapter 36

By the time I had freed and got
ten loose of the very grateful females who had been among the doomed- certainly none had expected last-minute rescue- Serrath was back in front of the jewelry shop with a look on her face I recognized quite clearly despite our new differences. The look was greed. It may have been a changed and even expressionless face but her thoughts were clear without my having to smell them. Reptiles were perfectly capable of expressing themselves despite our lack of facial muscles. The tilt of her head and stance of insolent superiority meaning here was a payday if she but decided to reach out and take it but mostly because I could see her thoughts clearly within the depths of those strange wrong-slitted eyes. Plus of course there is the point that I am fully aware of her proclivities and the fact that she spends every free waking moment pursuing them. Collecting precious jewels was the motivating force behind everything she did and in my opinion was the sole reason for her existence. The thought of ever more jewelry was what kept her going, at the very least.

I’d had to
repeatedly assure the females I had released that I did not want any of them for my harem though I will admit that they had been hard to deny. Their pheromones told me of their desires and my body reacted the way a normal body reacts. It was a good thing I was wearing armor-gear and not going natural because certainly I would have given myself away. They desired me and would do anything to be with me and my body unwillingly responded- I think that was why I’d had to repeat myself over and over again- my mouth had been telling a story my body wasn’t corroborating. I
had
wanted them. They had mistaken Serrath and Leethea as harem females, a common enough thing among reptiles apparently and most of these had been eager to be my slaves. Better the wolf you know than the pack hiding in the hills. While I wondered what mad plan Serrath could be concocting I made a mental note to remember the readiness with which the freed females had wanted to attach themselves to me. Being my harem females would make them my sexual slaves as well as my soldiers. It was something to think about when clearly they would understand that as my slaves they would have to fight on my behalf if I had allowed them to join. It was a thing to think of because there were always those in need of rescue on a Kievor Trade Station and a being never knew when one might need a quick army. I was trying not to think of the other aspect because they’d had a real physiological effect on my own hormones and I was not trying to go there despite the apparent willingness of my own body.

The front hatch of the jewelry store was locked of course and probably protected by Kievor Security- most high-end businesses opted for Kievor Security and screened everyone who knocked at the hatch. It didn’t need to be said that there was no better security on a Trade Station than to be under the paid protection of the
Kievor. It cost a lot but these places made a lot. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I mentioned as Leethea and I joined Serrath to look at some of the merchandise displayed behind the thin transparent display membrane. The lack of any further signs of security other than the locked hatch led me to the sure conclusion that this would not be a good place to rob.

“Of course not.” Serrath said. “That would be ridiculously risky.”

“Not to mention impossible.” I said. “Why don’t I feel confident with your response?”

She swiveled yellow wrong-slitted eyes in the direction of a jewel bedecked reptile which walked out of the jewelry shop at that moment with several of her retainers/guards and who immediately moved off into the crowd paying us no mind. They were big reptiles or maybe it was just my perception that they all seemed large. The Fsyth weren’t a large race, though not what I would call small either. I had slightly more mass as a Fsyth than I’d had as a human though I was smaller in size. Our relative size difference to most other reptilian races we made up for in strength, speed and our overly toxic venom. There were few reptiles poisonous enough to kill another reptile and venom attacks were seldom employed by one reptile against another- though there were always exceptions to the rule. “Just window shopping I guess.” Serrath said sighing.

“That big one not have anything you want?” I asked. If there had been a spare centimeter of skin showing under the big reptile’s gold and diamond necklaces I hadn’t seen it. Making the case that Tanya and Meerla both loved jewelry as much as the average reptile made me wonder how many such big reptiles would have to die before her new
reptilian
love of jewels and precious metals was satisfied.

“Third-rate castoffs. Pretty if you don’t know what you’re looking at.” Serrath said.

“Lucky for her she’s cheap.” I said.

“Why don’t we just rob the jewelry shop itsel
f?” Leethea suggested. The looks both Serrath and I gave Leethea were long and meaningful ones. I was under the impression she got the picture but I was beginning to wonder if Serrath’s
therapy
was going to backfire on us.

Despite not knowing what the best Fsyth drug was I still managed to get quite intoxicated that night and was quite sure our activities had been noted. The best subterfuge was to play your game right out in the open.

Chapter 37

Serrath was preening over a new necklace she was wearing when I stumbled into the Bridge the next morning, though when or how she had acquired it seemed beyond my mental grasp of the
previous evening’s activities. It wasn’t a blank spot like the very first morning of this new escapade but everything was a bit fudged and not really very clear in my head. To the best of my recollection it seemed I’d had a great time.

The Fsyth had their version of a morning stimulant drink called
gurla
and I was already working on my second though I knew that by the time I finished it the first would already have me wired to the Universal network. It took a lot of intoxicant to put a Fsyth down but only a little stimulant to bring him back up. I was beginning to like this more and more.

“Pretty.” I said. “Who had to die?”

“She didn’t
have
to die.” Serrath replied easily without removing her eyes from the hand fondling the long strands of diamond and trinium which were encircling her neck and which hung nearly to her hips. It appeared to be one continuous piece but long enough to loop around her neck and drape to her hips twenty strands thick. It looked heavy, among other things and a King’s ransom no doubt. It was also equally obvious she had taken it from a very large reptile. It would take a strong being just to carry it around. “I asked nicely the first time.” She added.

“Of course you did.” I said as I sat down at a terminal to check my Kievor account balance. Things
had
gotten a little blurry at the end and though I clearly remembered winning hand after hand at the tables I had also been drinking them down pretty quick and when they’re going down fast a being can sometimes tend to lose track of just how many there had been. How much you had spent. There were apparently drawbacks to being able to pour them down your neck. However I was quite surprised when I saw that the amount in my account was more than double what had been there, and that had not been an insignificant amount in the first place- my third-cut of our full hold. Double what had been there was a significant increase.

“You did quite well last night.” Serrath said. “Remember any of it?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I lied automatically.

“Of course you do.” She said still without removing her eyes from her new necklace. She did not however need her olfactory abilities to know when I was lying. I generally lied as a rule so anything that came out of my mouth was suspect and on top of that Serrath was a normally suspicious being. It naturally followed that she would believe nothing that ever came out of my mouth. I was suddenly in a very good mood however.

“Who will have to die to satisfy your cravings today?” I asked sweetly.

“The question is how
many
more are
you
going to kill tonight?” Serrath replied as she slowly fingered through the strands of various precious stones set within the piece- memorizing each and every stone so that if even one little chip went missing she could blame its disappearance on me- but she didn’t sound like she was joking and I wasn’t close enough to smell her.

“I didn’t kill anybeing last night.” I said. “Did I?”

This time Serrath did stop fondling her new jewels long enough to look up at me but before she could say what I could see was coming Leethea walked in the Bridge. “I’ll never understand how you can sleep so soundly after the things you do.” She said as she sat down heavily. She had a gurla in hand as well. It looked to be her first.

“Rough night?” I asked.
I had no idea what she was talking about and probably neither did she- she looked pretty rough, in my opinion.

She gave me her imitation of Serrath’s look before speaking. “Check your account balance y
et this morning?” She asked then sent a meaningful look Serrath’s way.

“That’s the first thing I do and you know that.” I said. “Spill it.”

“Where do you think all those credits came from?” Serrath asked.

“I won them playing cards.” I said to a short bark of a laugh from Leethea.

“You did well on the card tables.” Serrath said. “I think you even came out ahead of your drinking.”

“Nonsense.” I said. “Where
would
all those credits have come from?”

“That is the question, isn’t it.” Leethea said.

“If I didn’t win them playing cards,” I said, “where did they come from?”

“From the bar itself.” Serrath said. “You robbed the bar and every patron in it. Those who didn’t resist, at least- those you killed. You might want to check the armory as well; you took all of their weapons. The ones which weren’t damaged in the blaster fire, at least.”

“You might want to consider carrying a few more weapons as well.” Leethea added. “I think you’re going to need them.”

“I’m hardly worried about trash like that.” I said though it was a stunning revelation. In my line of work making enemies came with the territory. “Let me get some
thing straight though,” I added; “How exactly did the credits I was stealing get from their accounts into mine?”

“You ordered them all to transfer their full accounts.” Serrath said. “Of course you remember everything you did last night.”