Star Risk - 02 Scoundrel Worlds (20 page)

The lifter was silent except for drive-whine and the blast of wind as Riss and the others listened to the repeat of von Baldur's cast, badly broken by the interference.

Riss was scribbling numbers from memory on the back of the lifter's handbook. She grimaced, read out her intermittent decryption.

"That does not fill me with joy," Grok announced. "At least one thing. They will want us alive."

"No," Bracken said. "They want Cahamla and the children alive, I would think. I don't think anyone cares about the rest of us."

"I thought religion was supposed to fill you with joy and comfort," Riss said.

Abihu started crying, and her brother followed suit.

"Wonderful," Riss muttered.

"So where can we go?" Grok asked.

"If it was just us," she said, "I'd suggest we head for some town and go to ground. But with all of us� that's not a very good option."

"You are being most polite," Grok said. "I think that I might stand out, even if we didn't have friends with us."

Riss gnawed at her lower lip. "I have an idea," she said. "We can try to reach Fra Diavolo. He's got enough room� not to mention people� to hide us out."

"And he is how far from here?"

"About an hour, I'd guess. Maybe two. Uh-oh."

The lifters were closing toward them, like a gigantic noose.

"I don't think we're going to be given that option," Grok said. "There are three ahead of us."

M'chel looked down at the ground.

"And of course, there's no nice safe town to put it down in," she said. "Just goddamned jungle."

"We're not afraid of jungle," Abihu said. "Hasli and I are Pioneers."

"That," Elder Bracken explained, "is our church outdoor youth group."

Riss looked at the two children, then at Cahamla, who smiled sheepishly. M'chel's lips were moving, but fortunately, she wasn't vocalizing.

"Awright," she growled. "I have been pushed around enough!"

She slid into her combat harness and reflexively checked it. Blaster� spare magazines� fighting knife� six grenades, two flash-bang, two lethal, two gas. It was not quite true that Riss never went anywhere�including out for a hot romance or to the bathroom�without the harness.

She pushed the power through to emergency, and sent the lifter down in a screaming dive.

This time it was Hasli's turn to yip gleefully and shout "Roller-coastie!"

"When we land," M'chel ordered, "I want everyone out, and following me. We're going to run away from the ship as fast as we can, and then hide."

"Hide and seek?" Abihu asked doubtfully.

"Hide and seek," Riss said as the lifter smashed through branches. She flared the lifter, went to full lift, and the ship stabilized a few meters above the ground. Riss sent it darting forward, under the cover of a huge tree, then landed hard.

"I wish to hell we had this turd rigged for a booby trap," she said as she opened all four doors and jumped out.

The other five followed her, zigging, away from the lifter into thick brush. Riss wanted to run like a track star, but remembered the children, and slowed to a trot. She heard the sound of ships coming in behind her.

Riss looked out through the bottom of a bush at the line of men and women sweeping up the bluff toward her. They weren't wearing the uniform of Dampier's military, but dark gray coveralls. But they moved to shouted orders and carried standard-issue blasters.

Dunno, she thought. No idea who they're working for. She slid back to the others.

"Here's the first thing we'll try," she said. "We're all going to crawl into the heart of that thicket over there, and nobody's allowed to make a sound, even if they get prickers in them.

"I hope that these people aren't very good, and they'll sweep right over us. Then we'll run back the way we came, and toward that town that we passed over just before I landed. All right?"

Everyone nodded solemnly, and began worming their way into deep cover.

The search line got closer and closer, and M'chel, pistol ready, ducked her head into the dirt, and thought bushlike thoughts.

It almost worked.

She heard underbrush rustle, almost beside her, then bootheels moved on past. Riss gave it an eight-count, lifted her head. The sweepers were about ten meters past, almost hidden by brush.

Then Hasli got to his feet, stepped on a branch, which cracked loudly.

A man spun, saw the boy, and lifted his blaster.

Elder Bracken was up, yanking Hasli down, as the man fired.

The bolt caught Bracken in the stomach, and sent him flopping down.

M'chel blew the shooter's chest into pulp, shot the two on either side of him, then yanked the others up, and they were running, as the beaters realized they'd almost lost their prey, and turned and came after them.

It was nearly dusk. M'chel had led the others into a shallow cave, not good enough for a hide, but good enough for a moment's shelter, while she thought about what she'd try next.

"Is Elder Bracken dead?" Abihu whispered.

"Yes," Riss whispered back. She saw Cahamla's lips moving in prayer.

"He'll be rewarded for saving Hasli, won't he?"

"Yes," Riss said.

"I didn't mean to�" the boy started.

"Hush," M'chel whispered. "It was an accident."

"I've decided," Abihu whispered, "that when I grow up I want to be an Elder like Elder Bracken."

"You could do a lot worse, kid," Riss said, letting her rage build. "You could do a lot worse."

She beckoned to Grok. "I'm getting tired of being chased."

"I also," the alien said. "And so much for the theory that they want us alive."

"Unless," M'chel said, "he was the clown�there's one in every outfit�who never gets the word."

"Are you prepared to gamble on that?" Grok asked.

"Hell no. Here's what we'll go for. We'll get into deep cover," Riss said, "and wait for full dark. Then we'll see what they do next. Maybe they'll just leave."

"If they don't?" Grok asked skeptically.

"Then there's gonna be a whole bunch of gray corpses scattered around the frigging landscape," Riss said, not knowing her teeth were bared like a feral animal.

No one heard any orders, but the gunnies surrounding Star Risk's mansion came to their feet, loaded back into their lifters, and the aircraft took off.

"Now what brought that on?" Goodnight wondered.

King and von Baldur shook their heads.

None of them said what they feared�that whoever was after M'chel and Grok either had caught them, or had them trapped.

Campfires dotted the forest, and whoever was after Riss and the others had brought in heavy gunships. Three starships orbited overhead. There were sentries posted.

Riss left the others with their instructions, then slid out into the night. She went through the sentries like a hot wire through butter. Not bad for an old broad, she thought. Guess all that Marine horseshit sticks with you.

Once through the loose picket line, she made for one of the gunships. Military issue, she noted, not jerry-rigged. Armored, with a chaingun on each side and a heavy blaster in the nose.

There was a sentry posted. He gurgled in complete surprise as Riss's knife went into his stomach, driving upward into his heart, and he was dead.

Riss pushed his body under the skirt of the lifter, eased the lifter hatch open, entered.

There was a bored gunner at one of the chainguns, yawning, hungry, looking out at his teammates outside the ship, around their cookstove.

Riss pulled his head back, knifed him in the throat, yanked him to the deck, and slid behind the chain-gun controls.

Not a breed of lifter she was familiar with, but a chaingun was a chaingun was a chaingun. It was on half-load. She turned the power on, full-loaded the gun, making sure the canisters for the six barrels were firmly locked in place.

Then she waited.

Contrary to what the late gunner might have thought, his teammates weren't happy. They kept looking out into the darkness, and unconsciously pushing closer to the fire.

"This is screwed," one woman said. "Who are these mad bastards we're working for, anyway?"

"Shuddup," her team commander ordered.

"Like hell I will, L'ron. You're two days' senior to me, and there's no reason you should have a stripe when I don't.

"I think it's shitty when we're told off to follow some asshole who's wearing nothing but coveralls, and not even a goddamned name tag, and go chasing some kids and some women."

"Look, you dumb bitch," the other woman said. "You ever hear of the Masked Ones?"

"Heard," the first woman said. "Some kind of terrorists."

"Don't be calling them that," the team commander hissed.

"Don't get stroppy with me," the first woman said. "I'll call frigging civilians what I want to. And what I want to know is who gives them the authority to yank all of us out of training, and send us out here to fart around?"

"The reason I'm telling you to shut up," the second woman said, "is because these bassids are stone killers. They'll cut your throat for a laugh. I know. I'm from Tuletia, not some pisshead place in the outback like you are.

"I've seen them at work, and don't ever want to see it again." She shivered. "Two whole families in my block got butchered, shot down, men, women, kids, because they went and got political and tried to get the plant where three of �em worked unionized.

"And they've got pull. Pull enough to get us sent out here chasing up and down the hills. I'd guess if they've got that kind of weight, they could probably leave your sorry ass out here under a bush without even thinking about it, and there damned well wouldn't be any search parties looking for your body. Now shut up, and see if the stew's cooking."

A wind whispered across them, and the team leader shivered and looked out into the blackness.

It was too dark.

There had to be something out there.

There was.

Something darker than the night loomed at the soldiers. One person had time for a scream, another was running, and the team leader was grabbing for her rifle.

Grok shot her in the head, gunned down the man next to her, nipped the switch to full automatic, and sprayed the rest of the group.

He roared mightily, like he imagined a horrid creature of the night should, and vaguely wished he had more of an anthropophagous bent than he had.

Now the screams were louder, and soldiers were pelting away, shouting the alarm.

Grok lobbed a pair of grenades after them, thrown very high, very far, landing in front of the fleeing soldiers.

Other troops heard the screaming, and were up, fear spraying adrenaline through their system.

M'chel Riss opened fire from the lifter, the chaingun spraying lines of fire through the night. Other gunners opened up, firing at they knew not what.

Panic washed over the half-trained soldiers, and they trampled their officers and the Masked Ones who'd brought them into this forest. They ran, not sure which way led toward safety, but anywhere that might be away from this nightmare.

"Come on," Grok shouted, and the Sufyerds ran toward him.

Riss had the hatch of the lifter open. "Let's go visiting," she said, and the Sufyerds piled aboard. Other ships were taking off blindly into the night.

"You know how to fly this pig?" Riss called.

"I think so," Grok said.

"Good. I'm not through killing assholes yet."

"M'chel," Cahamla said. "It is ill to kill more, and will not bring back Elder Bracken."

"No offense, Sister Sufyerd," Riss snarled. "You mourn Bracken your way, I'll mourn him mine."

She slid back behind the controls of the chaingun, found a target, and sent cannon fire chattering into a crowd of frenzied soldiers trying to cram themselves aboard a troop lifter.

"Of course we'll take care of the good Sufyerd's family," Fra Diavolo said. "They'll be content here, or wherever we choose to conceal them� well, as content as they can be, knowing Maen Sufyerd's troubles.

"Perhaps they can even teach me something of the Jilanis faith," he went on. "I've always been intensely curious about their practices, and now might be an opportune time to learn."

"Good," Riss said. "Also, Grok and I would like to hide out with your people. I think there's a good chance we're very, very hot, and might need to call in a certain ship we've got standing by in orbit and make our getaway."

"It would be a pity to lose you and your friend," Diavolo said. "Particularly when things appear to be warming up."

"I agree," Grok said. "I am thoroughly enjoying all the scoundrels that we have been meeting of late."

But there was no hue and cry. M'chel never knew how the casualties were buried on the army's rolls. There was no mention of the firefight in the forest, nor was there any arrest warrant for Riss or Grok.

Riss and Grok said goodbye to the Sufyerds, M'chel reminding Abihu of her promise to grow up like Elder Bracken.

"Quite an admirable pair of offspring," Grok said as they flew back toward the capital.

"They are, aren't they," M'chel said, secretly very glad of her solitary state. "But being around kids� anybody's kids� for more than an hour makes me nervous."

"That's interesting," Grok said. "I have never mated for progeny, so have no idea what my opinion might be."

They returned to the mansion and a riotous welcome from von Baldur and the others.

"With you safe, and still operational, we are moving on to the next stage," von Baldur told them. "Which shall begin with our Chas attending a masked ball."

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THIRTY-NINE � ^ � Chas Goodnight stopped at the top of the steps, catching a reflection of his dapper self in a window glass. He took a moment to admire the way he looked�immaculate in formal whites, clawhammer jacket, pants, and black cummerbund with a matching neck scarf.

His pack of burglar tools showed not at all. Nor a smallish, fairly harmless bomb stuffed down the back of his pants, or the small gun holstered inside the cummerbund.

He also admired his plan.

Goodnight desperately wanted to see that pack of love letters between the Universalists' Premier Ladier and Hyla Adrianopole, his mistress, whose murder trial had begun the day before, since there was supposedly information about Sufyerd in them.