Even so, that first attempt had failed due to Jarred’s interference at the Isyss outpost and the Sect had then tracked him here . . . or had they? Jarred had seemed so sure that they hadn’t, and even if he was wrong, that didn’t explain how they had managed to locate her docked ship. That fact alone suggested Durak somehow already knew where to find them. If he did, that meant that the Sect knew about their mission to bring Orna in, which wasn’t a stretch considering her suggested importance. Had they been on to the operation from the beginning, allowing Kam and Meera to bring her as far as they did? The only other possibility was that they had been given up, and if that were true it meant that somewhere within their faction there had to be a leak, a possibility that did not sit well with her at all.
Sierra felt a shove from behind and glared back at the soldier urging her forward with his rifle. They had been escorted, along with all of the refugee residents, up to the building’s docking platform where a number of Sect transports and a hover tram were waiting. Durak’s shuttle was just preparing to lift off with its patrol craft escort, to meet with whomever it was that had summoned him. For the life of her, Sierra couldn’t think of who would possibly have the authority to summon the High Commander, but it must have been someone important considering how his mood had changed upon hearing the news of their arrival, and how quickly he had departed afterwards.
Returning her attention to the landing deck, she watched as all of the refugees were being loaded into the cars of the hover tram, the boarding being supervised by the small Trill who had been at Durak’s side in the tavern lobby.
Traug. She knew his face. He brokered deals for one of the system’s largest development corporations, which dealt in everything from commercial and military ship and weapons contracts, to planetoid construction and terraforming. It had struck her as odd that someone of his high corporate stature would be present for this sort of siege, unless he had something substantial to gain from it. As the tram across the deck continued filling up with potential free labor, her questions on the matter were put to rest. She concluded that he was somehow, at least partially, responsible for leading the Sect to them and Orna, but how and to what extent, she did not know. In any case, she owed him one. Those faceless refugees now being stuffed into the hover tram were obviously some kind of payment from Durak to him, the idea of which only infuriated her more.
Sierra noticed the woman and boy who had been traveling with Jarred being herded into one of the tram cars with the remainder of the refugees. She felt bad for them, having been dragged into this mess, but there wasn’t anything she could do for them now. They would be taken off to one of the numerous manufacturing plants or mining stations throughout the system and forced into a life of expense free, slave labor. She grimaced at the thought and watched as Traug walked away from his new slave acquisitions to join Durak aboard his shuttle, and promised herself that, if she survived, she would make the time to pay him back for his part in all of this.
* * *
Jarred’s limp body was dragged through one of the, now abandoned, living block’s corridors by one of two Sumarian soldiers. The second followed further behind the first, examining the possessions he had seized from the dead bounty hunter.
He came to a stop as they rounded a bend in the corridor that led to the level’s disposal chute and grumbled for his counterpart to continue on while he waited. Being superior in rank to the other soldier, he felt it beneath him to handle this type of grunt work and had assumed a supervisory role in the matter, letting his inferior carry and dispose of the body.
While waiting, he continued inspecting the bounty hunter’s belongings, which he had of course claimed for himself. Another benefit of his rank. He looked over each of the numerous firearms, knives and grenades, stuffing them all into the pouches on his utility belt. Finally, he held the bounty hunter’s sheathed sword out in front of himself, pulling the short weapon free with his free hand. Examining the blade for a moment, he pressed the hilt’s actuator, causing it’s segments to shift and snap back into place, elongating the weapon’s overall length. Grunting to himself, he attempted a few unskilled swings, cutting the air clumsily. Such a weapon would do him no good in a fire fight and would violate proper soldier armament protocols, but he knew a number of antique vendors who would pay handsomely for it.
He heard a loud thud from down the hall and grunted impatiently for his counterpart to hurry up. Receiving no response, he stepped around the corner and was stunned and more than a bit confused to see the dead bounty hunter, instead of his counterpart, staring back at him.
Before he could do anything, the human moved in a blur of motion, striking him with something, and his body suddenly became numb and cold. He glanced down at the sword handle that was protruding from his chest armor and then to his empty hand which had only a moment earlier been holding it.
The confusion remained as his vision faded to black and in his last, dying moments, he found himself wondering how the dead bounty hunter had managed to move so quickly.
* * *
Jarred looked down at the blackened hole burned through the center of his vest, poking two fingers into the tender, scorched flesh of his wound. It was healing rapidly, but the plasma blast had still been enough to knock him unconscious. A few inches higher and he wouldn’t have been so lucky.
He had awoken only a moment before being shoved through the door of a disposal chute, the two Sect troopers who had been unlucky enough to be the ones trying to put him down it, taking his place instead. Durak obviously hadn’t wanted to leave a dead body behind as one more question for the local authorities to ask, and a murdered citizen with a legitimate working license would have raised a few. Not like the disappearance of a couple hundred nameless refugees.
He made his way discreetly out of the refugee block, finding the corridors and all of its living quarters deserted, as he had expected them to be. Durak had captured his quarry, so the Trill had obviously received his payment, confirming Jarred’s suspicions about his involvement in the sieges.
Coming to one of the building’s rear exits, he carefully surveyed the area for any sign of Sect activity. Finding none, he quickly moved out onto the busy walkway, blending into the crowds of pedestrians. Glancing upwards to the roof of the residential block, he spotted a number of small Sect troop transports with patrol escorts and a four car cargo tram just starting to depart. He imagined the tram would be packed, wall to wall, with the block’s unfortunate residents.
Jarred’s mind flashed to an image of Elora and Ethan mixed in with all the other refugees and the fate that awaited them. Cringing, he shook the thought from his mind. There wasn’t anything he could do for them now and dwelling on it wasn’t going to change that fact. He was lucky to have made it out of the whole mess with his own life and didn’t intend on risking it again.
Orna was no longer his problem, he had no more unwanted passengers, and a brand new ship was docked and waiting for him to get back to what he was doing before meeting any of them. From one point of view, he was actually better off for everything that had happened, coming out ahead with the new transport, though he would have to return it to Taliss at some point,
with
Mac in tow if he wanted to survive the exchange. He should have felt good, or at least better about the way things had turned out for him, but for some reason he couldn’t shake the hollow, cold feeling that was growing in the pit of his stomach.
He turned and glanced back up at the cargo tram that was now gliding off along an invisible skyrail and let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. There was no use fighting it. In the last two days, something had changed in him, or more accurately, he’d simply been shown a side of himself he had worked extremely hard to bury and ignore. He could no longer look the other way. Not this time.
His mind made up, Jarred glanced around himself, thinking quickly, and spotted just what he would need.
* * *
The attendant working the refueling station situated in front of the Silver Hawk tavern, withdrew the charge nozzle from his customer’s XR5 Stinger hover bike and stood there a moment, admiring the sleek, single passenger transport, a skyway version of the famed circuit racer.
What he wouldn’t do for a vehicle like this, if only he had the credits. It’s owner was obviously some high roller from the upper echelons on Trycon’s elite. He blew out a whistle and turned to replace the refueling nozzle back into its charging mount.
The hover bike started so quietly, he barely heard it, turning instead as he felt a cool gust of wind blow across his back. Where the Stinger had just been, he saw nothing but air, looking forward to see it fading away into the distant traffic ahead. His face contorted in a look somewhere between confusion and disbelief as his customer exited the station’s vendor kiosk, looking off in the same direction with an expression that mirrored his own.
* * *
Transport boosting wasn’t normally Jarred’s style, though he seemed to be doing a lot of it lately, but if he was going to catch up to Elora and Ethan and attempt some kind of rescue, he couldn’t afford to hail a taxi. He found himself doing a lot of things he normally wouldn’t as of late, and for reasons he couldn’t explain. Not that it really mattered at this point. He would have lots of time to contemplate the reasons for his own actions later, if he made it out of this mess in one piece.
Jarred punched the Stinger’s throttle to maximum and accelerated up into and through the busy levels of skyway traffic coming from all different directions. He dodged from side to side, missing speeding transports by mere inches as he pushed the agile craft to its limit. He had to admit, the little crotch rocket had some kick. As he pondered the possibility of fitting the hover bike into the hold of the, soon to be renamed,
Fancy Girl
, he caught a glimpse of his target, dead ahead and one skylane up.
The cargo tram was being escorted by two small, Sect patrol craft, as was one of the half dozen Sect troop transports behind it, the one which he assumed Orna would be aboard. At his current speed, he was gaining on them all rapidly, so rapidly in fact that he would risk being noticed by the patrol escorts if he didn’t ease off a bit.
Dropping the Stinger back to a reasonable speed that still left him gaining on his quarry, he remained in the lane below theirs. This position would allow him to move in on the party from a blind angle, taking them by surprise, or at least that was what he was hoping for, but to do what exactly, he wasn’t quite sure of yet. He was hoping a plan would form itself when it came time to put it into motion.
As the Sect party wove its way through the city sky scrapers the cargo tram began to ascend along with the shuttles flying escort, the skyrail diverging on a different path from the free moving transport lane. Jarred was about to hit the accelerators again, preparing to pull out of his lane and follow the tram, when he heard the sound of a whaling siren coming up from behind him. Glancing at his Stinger’s rear display, he saw the police patrol cruiser that was tailing him and let out a curse.
Now
the police decided to show up.
The cruiser accelerated and maneuvered into a position next to him so that Jarred had a clear view of the Ancheewon officer through the open side door. With two of his arms on the flight controls, the officer reached over and pulled a comm from its mount. As he spoke, the cruiser’s amplification system began to burp and gargle in a language Jarred couldn’t comprehend.
With his fourth arm the officer reached over and adjusted the amp’s translator, but as he spoke again, a new, even less intelligible barking sounded out. The officer became noticeably irritated by the malfunction and began punching the translator console in a frenzied manner while continuing to yell into the comm. The result was an interchanging variety of strange alien babbling, growing more unintelligible by the second. If he were in another less critical situation, Jarred may have actually found the whole thing humorous.
Finally, the officer got the setting right and began to speak again, though the translation still sounded irritated.
“
Human motorist,”
the officer began.
“
Kindly pull your illegally acquired vehicle over to the side of the skylane in a prompt and conscientious fashion, where upon you will be taken into police custody
.”
Jarred shook his head at the absurdity of the situation. “Sorry!” he apologized to the officer, shouting loud enough to be heard. “I can’t right now! I’ve got to catch a train!”
“
Negative, human motorist
,” the officer argued.
“
It is essential that
you pull your vehicle over immediately, so that you may be properly detained and prosecuted in accordance with Trycon City by-law 117-B of the unlawful vehicular acquisition act.
”
Jarred was about to respond again when suddenly the police cruiser erupted into flames and exploded, laser blasts spraying it from the front. He reflexively veered away, narrowly avoiding the remainder of the laser volley, and looked up in time to see the two attacking patrol craft shoot by. Looking back, he saw them turning around for another run and punched his throttle up, rocketing forward through the traffic ahead.