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Decker and Darhad left the underground club by a dingy back corridor that opened on a garbage-strewn alley. Full night had fallen over Hadley, and the moonless sky held nothing to ease the gloom, save for a smattering of stars bright enough to pierce the polluted atmosphere.
Raisa's sensitive Arkanna eyes found the way without hesitation and, holding Zack's hand, led them to a street lit only by grimy light globes long due for an overhaul. The teeming city never truly slept, and a low buzz filled the air, a mixture of distant hovercar fans, snatches of music from late night bars, police or ambulance sirens. Drunken shouts rang out now and then as human beings beyond hope quarreled simply to feel alive. Distant coughs sometimes ended a dispute when one of the participants used the ultimate argument.
They changed direction several times, passing through small side streets that stank of urine, hopelessness, and despair. Zack was preternaturally alert to danger. Hadley's slums were not a healthy place: dark shapes, hidden in the shadows, watched them with hungry eyes as they passed by. The gunner didn't have his blaster in its usual place under his left arm. Pacifica frowned on private weapon ownership, for reasons that had nothing to do with the sky-high crime rate. That didn't mean no one had guns. Only that honest citizens didn't. Then again, honesty was a relative term on Pacifica.
More than once, the small hairs on the back of his neck rose in alarm, as a sixth sense told him they were being followed. He also thought he heard footsteps behind them the few times they stopped while Raisa took her bearings.
For some reason, Hadley's concrete canyons unnerved him more than any guerrilla-infested jungle ever had. Marines didn’t like cities. The tall office and apartment blocks could swallow an entire division and spit it out piecemeal. Far better an open battlefield on a sparsely populated world.
A beggar wearing a dirty, tattered suit stumbled across their path, drugged to the gills. His dilated pupils saw reality through a meth fog, and he ignored the two spacers. Zack shook his head in a mixture of pity and disgust. By morning, he would have been mugged and beaten, perhaps several times, as the lowest scum tried to feed on what was left of him.
They turned onto a street lined with abandoned apartments. The pavement was crazed and split from a continued lack of maintenance and hardy native grasses grew through the cracks. A partially disassembled hovercar sat on the curb, its fans and fuel cells long since stripped off and sold, leaving gaping holes in the dented, discolored chassis.
Zack sensed a human body inside the wreck, watching them. On the opposite street corner, a trio of hunched junkies warmed their hands over a fire burning in an empty fuel drum. They gave Zack and Raisa a passing glance and returned to their whispered conversation.
Decker had seen war zones with more personality than Hadley's slums, and he wondered how the poor could live like this without revolting. He asked Raisa as she scanned a row of decrepit, windowless tenements.
“Secret police, Zack,” she replied distractedly. “Any hint of rebellion is crushed without mercy, and in complete secrecy.”
Decker shook his head in disgust.
“I thought we were supposed to be the good guys, with sentient rights for all.”
“Welcome to Pacifica. It and the other Coalition members are the modern wave of industrial feudalism. Come, I have found our destination.”
When they reached the scarred steel door, she pushed the call button and waited.
“Yeah,” a raspy, hostile voice asked from a wire-covered speaker.
“Friends of Harrah, coming to see Korden.”
“You the she-wolf?” The voice asked.
“Yes.” Raisa spat out a single word in Arkanna to confirm her claim.
“All right. Take the stairs down and turn left at the bottom.”
The door clicked once, and Zack pushed it inwards. It closed behind them with a snap that sounded final, as if it were the door to a prison cell, or to Hades.
A low murmur of voices rose from the darkness, like demons of the deep crying out in torment. Raisa took the lead once more, her eyes glowing eerily as they saw the way.
A strong stench of urine and cheap soy grub assaulted Zack's nostrils, and he grimaced with distaste. His right hand reached instinctively for the absent blaster under his left armpit, and he swore, both at his own ingrained reflexes and the stupid laws that ensured only criminals had guns on this cesspool of a planet.
The stairs proved to be much longer than Decker expected. But by the time they reached the bottom, several meters below ground, he had other things to wonder about. They passed a sound baffle on the final landing, and a wave of noise washed over them.
Where they expected a basement, or a hidden setup like the club, the gunner and his mate found an underground casbah, alive with activity.
Wide corridors went off in all directions while small stores and stalls spilled into the walkways, selling wares of all description, most of which, Zack figured, were stolen. A mouth-watering mix of food smells hovered over the crowd, making Decker's stomach rumble.
Bars, brothels, and amusement places for all tastes filled the spaces between the stalls, painting the walls with pulsating lights, and throbbing music. A few seemed tame, but others made him turn his face in disgust.
Peddlers tugged at their sleeves for attention, offering everything from discount stims to vibrablades to forbidden sex.
“Do you think the government knows about this place?” Zack asked Raisa, as they passed another intersection teeming with sellers, buyers, and their often-compliant victims.
“Probably and making a healthy profit in taxes. A lot of money changes hands down here every night.”
“This sort of place will give you political trouble one of these days. All it takes is a flaming revolutionary to turn the casbah into a fucking guerrilla hidey-hole.”
“It's not our problem, Zack.”
“It will be, one day. People will not stand for this sort of life forever, and when they’re fed-up, watch out.”
“Then we shall try to be far away when the day comes.”
“Yeah.”
They stopped in front of a narrow storefront advertising custom electronics and, pushing aside a bead curtain, walked in. An acne-scarred, sallow-faced man in his late thirties sat behind a counter littered with appliances. Most of the gizmos were in various stages of disassembly and had seen hard use. Decker recognized several items that were illegal on most planets.
The man looked up at them with washed-out, tired eyes, brushing his shoulder length hair out of the way. When he saw Raisa, his eyes widened almost comically, and he dropped the small palm pad he'd been examining.
“You the she-wolf?”
Raisa nodded.
The man glanced at Decker and turned his attention back to Raisa. Clearly, her dangerous, alien beauty fascinated him. He ran a trembling hand through his greasy hair while a tic tugged at his right cheek, giving him a manic cast.
“I'm Korden. What can I do for you?”
“We need information about a certain planet outside the Commonwealth, a place that is probably not in any general access database. And we need that information with nobody knowing we're interested.”
“Right,” Korden nodded. “That's why you came to me. I can pull anything out of the Pacifica net, including stuff the Families, the military and anybody else thinks is secure.”
Net-freak, Decker decided, after running a critical eye over the man, one of the people who spend their lives hooked up to computers and knew how to navigate the data streams. It was like a drug. They forgot to feed or care for themselves properly, and their nerves became brittle. Until they finally died. Or their consciousness merged with the net. No one had ever been able to tell.
“My price depends on how hard it is to obtain the information you want. I can only tell you that once I'm done.” He blinked nervously, eyes still fixed on the Arkanna.
“Fair enough,” Raisa gave him a predatory smile. His Adam's apple bobbed a few times beneath his stubbly chin.
“C'mon to the back.” The net-freak led them into a room even more cluttered with electronic junk. A debris and tool covered workbench occupied one wall while an unmade bed was pushed against another. The aroma of unwashed socks and stale food seemed almost like a physical presence.
Korden dropped into a chair facing a terminal and placed a metallic band over his head. Small connected with metal ports set in his skull, hard-wiring his brain to the computer. Contact with the machine seemed to infuse him with renewed energy, and his voice was steadier when he asked, “What's the name of the planet?”
“Ventos Prime.”
The man nodded once, then his face muscles went slack and his eyes lost focus as his mind merged with the net. Data began to stream across the screen at high speed
Feeling edgy, Zack wandered around Korden's place, poking into dark corners and examining the technological debris the net-freak had accumulated. The sounds of the casbah filtered through the curtain and created a backdrop of white noise that grated on the gunner's nerves.
He didn't enjoy playing spook. Some Marines entered that line of work and transferred to Fleet Intelligence, from where they never returned to a line unit. Not Zack Decker. He preferred the direct way of doing business, with a gun in each hand, and a troop of armored Pathfinders behind him.
Zack's peripheral vision caught a movement on the other side of the grimy window. But when he turned to look, the face was gone. He couldn't be sure of what he'd seen because there was simply too much activity in the alley. Yet he couldn't shake the idea that someone had been watching him.
“Zack!” Raisa's call shifted his attention back to the net-freak in the back room. He joined her behind Korden.
“He’s broken into Amali's classified systems and discovered a dense data pack on Ventos Prime. Look.” She pointed at the screen.
As they read the scrolling words, Zack's heart sank into his stomach and bile rose in his throat. What he saw on the screen just couldn't be real, but his own sensor had shown him the evidence in Shokoten's cargo hold. It all fit. And it imperiled the very survival of the Commonwealth.
“My God, Raisa,” Decker sounded hoarse as he whispered. “What have we done?”
“We could not know. When smuggling becomes second nature, we forget to think about the consequences of our actions. The important question is — what do we do now?”
“Damn if I know. Who the hell will believe this crap? And more to the point, how the hell will we find someone to tell it to?”
A sound behind them made Zack turn and drop into a crouch, hand reaching again for the non-existent blaster.
“I believe I can solve that dilemma for you,” a very familiar voice said from the shadows of the doorway.
“Aw, shit!” Zack swore as Nihao Kiani stepped into the room, a large bore blaster pointed at them. She wore a simple black outfit of trousers and high-collared jacket that blended so well with the background, Zack knew it had to be stealth cloth. In the low light of Korden's back room, her cruel smile and narrowed almond eyes twisted her features.
“Please move to the side.” Kiani motioned them over with the gun's thick, heat-blackened barrel. The net-freak, still plugged into the data stream, was oblivious to the sudden drama in his shop. His slack face still stared through unfocused eyes at the glowing screen.
When Kiani had a clear bead on Korden, she pulled the trigger twice. The first shot took off the top of the hacker's head, plasma vaporizing his skull along with the headband. Grayish-pink matter splashed against the wall with a sickening sound in a wide fan of droplets. Before his body had time to slump, the second shot burned through the terminal and fried its electronic innards, producing nothing more spectacular than a few sparks.
“Why the gratuitous murder?” Raisa Darhad hissed, talons and fangs bared.
“Oh, not gratuitous, my dear first officer,” Nihao's smile was mockingly cruel. “And neither will your deaths be. Not that anyone would care down here. Pacifica, and in particular Hadley, has one of the highest murder rates in the Commonwealth. Three more corpses in the morning will disturb no one. Nor will the police care much. They're of the opinion that anyone who risks the casbah and dies there got what he or she deserved.”
Kiani seemed to relish the situation, the awful odor of charred human flesh and voided bowels, and the anticipation of more death. Her dark eyes glinted with a madness Zack had seen before, in Pathfinders who took too much pleasure in killing. Men and women like that had always given him the creeps, but no one as much as her. The change from when he last saw Kiani was too radical. He shuddered.
“You will understand that my superiors cannot afford to let anyone who knows about Ventos Prime live,” she continued, “to tell the Navy.”
“Why are we a danger to you and your masters?” Decker asked sharply. Anger flared within him and his fight-or-flight reflex took over, leaning heavily towards the fight option. Marines never ran from a confrontation.
She laughed with delight.
“So naïve, Zack, yet such a good agent. The Fleet chose well in you. So much better than Lokis.”
“Hah,” Zack snorted, “that's where you have your wires crossed. I haven't worked for the Fleet since they pensioned me off.”
She stopped laughing abruptly.
“Then why are you pursuing this?”
Decker shrugged. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Raisa move slowly away from him, preparing to rush Kiani.
“Since you’ll shoot me anyway, why not tell me what this is all about,” he suggested, more to distract her and give Raisa an opening, than to satisfy his curiosity.
“The villain telling his victims all about the plan before attempting to kill them works only in cheap spy novels, Zack.” Kiani seemed amused. “Where you're headed, the knowledge will be of little use. So why waste my breath?” Her eyes snapped over to Raisa, and she smiled again.
“Ah, I see. Sorry, but it won't work.”
“If you intend to kill us, then do it,” Raisa growled back at her.
“Soon, you alien bitch. But I wish to enjoy myself a bit first. Incidentally, you may be pleased to know that I will miss Zack as much as you will. He is quite a lover though I believe he prefers human women to alien animals.”
“I beg to disagree. He has a weakness for females, but his acts with you were only normal physical reactions from a healthy, heterosexual male.”
“So our gallant gunner has told you.” Kiani's smile grew in size and cruelty. “But you're wrong about his motivation where I'm concerned.”
“No,” Decker replied, voice low and menacing. Pure rage was building within him. He could no longer stand her attempt to hurt Raisa by rubbing his betrayal in her face.
“I may be a dummy, but I've figured out you have one hell of a talent for manipulation, Nihao. You thought I was a Fleet agent, so you needed a way to ensnare me. It didn't take a fucking genius to see that Zack Decker is a horny bastard with an eye for the ladies. You wave it in my face long enough, and I'll bite. But that's all. And since I'm not a Fleet Intelligence type, your bedding me was wasted. It was sex, mediocre sex at that, nothing more.”
He glanced at Raisa and saw a profoundly moving look in her eyes. Something soft, adoring, brushed his mind. It was the other half of Raisa's talent, something he felt for the first time. The sensation filled his eyes with tears because of the intensity of her love for him and because he knew they would not consummate that love ever again.
Kiani smirked.
“How touching. The tough Marine and the murderous Arkanna going soft over each other. Perhaps you'll meet in Hell if the demons have a tender spot for lovers.”
Something else brushed Zack's mind, an idea of coiled power, of animal rage, and he understood Raisa was preparing to pounce before Kiani shot them. She wanted him to keep the purser distracted for just a few seconds more.
The combat veteran in Decker wanted to obey. A slim chance was better than no chance at all, and someone had to tell the Navy. But the part of him that had become joined to Raisa knew she would die in the attempt, die trying to save his life. Kiani was too tightly wound to be caught unprepared. And at this range, she couldn't miss.
“Tell me one thing before I die, Nihao. For who do you work? The Amalis? This seems a bit too big even for them.”
Kiani frowned, apparently expecting another maneuver from either or both of them. Then she shrugged.
“All right, because you were such a good little boy in bed and pleasured me so well, I'll tell you. I work for the Sécurité Spéciale.”
Decker opened his mouth to ask what that was when Raisa Darhad pounced like a wild beast, like a female protecting her mate. The gunner saw a flash of black silk and gleaming talons, then the bright flash of a plasma shot illuminated the room. Raisa's momentum brought her down on Kiani, and both women fell to the floor. By the time Zack put his brain and limbs in gear, she had sunk her fangs into the purser's throat and buried her talons in her face.
Kiani let out an anguished, burbling howl of pain, arms and legs thrashing about, but she couldn't shake Raisa off. Zack saw a clear opening and kicked the purser in the side of the head with his steel-toed boots, caving in her skull and ending her suffering. The stench of blood and death became overwhelming.
Decker dropped to his knees and gently took Raisa by the shoulders.
“You got her good, you crazy she-wolf,” he whispered. Blood from Kiani's torn throat flowed into a dark pool beneath her head as her lifeless eyes stared up at the grimy ceiling.
He turned Raisa over and cradled her in his arms. The front of her skirt was stained russet with blood where Kiani's shot had pierced her pelvis. Zack knew it was a fatal shot, had seen it even as she took down the purser. A fully equipped starship sickbay could have saved her, but down here...
Her impossibly blue eyes focused on him and he sensed her gentle mind brush again. This time, he cried openly.
“Tell them...,” she whispered, the life force oozing out of her with every breath.
“Yeah,” he sobbed, “I'll tell the Fleet and stop the bastards. I swear it!”
A smile briefly appeared on her lips. “I... am... pleased... my mate.”
Then her body relaxed as her eyes rolled up. She was dead.
Zack screamed with a rage and a sense of loss he had never experienced before, holding her head against his chest as he rocked on his knees.
*
He lost track of time as he knelt by her body, tears running down his cheeks, oblivious to the life teeming just a few meters away in the Kasbah. The only woman who had genuinely loved him, and who he had truly loved since his wife left him so long ago, had died saving his life. No, not only saving his life, Zack realized as shock set in, but also giving him the chance to warn the Fleet.
He turned numb as his mind shut those mental functions that kept him from moving fast and staying alive. It was something that happened every time death surrounded him. Emotions locked away behind the need to survive, Zack rose and took stock after gently depositing Raisa on the floor.
No one had heard the brief fight, or if they had, they'd wisely ignored it. He was alone with three corpses in a shabby shop, in one of Hadley's underground Kasbahs, an illegal playground for every crook, pervert, and hopeless slum dweller in the city.
He picked-up Kiani's blaster, popped the magazine to check its load, worked the receiver to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and then stuffed it into his jacket's inner pocket, after making sure the safety was on. Then, he rifled through the dead purser's pockets, ignoring the bloody shreds of her torn throat, but careful not to stain his boots or pants with the blood thickening on the floor. His search yielded a packet of chips containing almost a thousand creds, two spare magazines for the blaster, a pocket knife of good steel and little else of use.
He crouched by Raisa's body. She looked peaceful in death, and a twinge of pain tugged at his heart, but his sharp survival instincts crushed the resurgent anguish of loss. Still, he couldn't just leave her there, to be found and used in who knew what fashion. Zack took the money she carried in a skirt pocket, and the combat knife hidden in a slit on the outside of her left boot.
By the time he was done, he had figured out a way to dispose not only of her body but of the others as well. Face set in granite, he left the shop and waded through the packed alley to a small shop he'd noticed earlier, thrusting aside the merry-makers with his powerful elbows. Those who looked at his eyes and the set of his jaw moved aside to let him pass without protest.
A shifty-looking man with a receding chin, greasy hair and a twisted nose looked up at his imposing bulk with calculating eyes when he walked into the gun shop. He was alone in a room empty except for a counter built from scrap plas sheets.
“I need a molecular disruptor,” Zack stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Those things are illegal on Pacifica, buddy,” the weapons merchant replied, eyes looking everywhere but at Zack. “What makes you think I'd be dumb enough to sell any?”
The gunner leaned over the counter and grabbed the little man by a grimy shirt collar, lifting him off his feet and away from whatever weapon he was about to use. Face a few centimeters away from the merchant's weasel-like features, Zack stared him straight in the eyes.
“Listen, fuckhead. If you can't get molecular disruptors, you aren't worth shit as a dealer and the people running this place wouldn't let you set up shop. Now show me a fucking disruptor. I'll pay a fair price for it.” Eyes promising death, Decker's hold tightened.
“Okay, buddy,” he finally replied in a half-choked voice. “I'll go look in my stockroom if I have any.” The man's breath was as foul as his appearance, and probably his morals.
Zack shook him.
“If you have a stockroom, I'm the fucking grand admiral. You have a list of your inventory in that piece of crap you call a brain. Now do you want to make money, or not?”
Something in the dealer's eyes told Decker he'd rather make the money by killing him than selling him a disruptor, but he nodded anyway. Without gentleness, the gunner let him drop to the floor. Weasel Face picked himself up and vanished behind a grimy curtain. He was back a few moments later with a dented and scarred metal box. Depositing the box in front of Zack he smirked.
“That'll be two thousand creds, plus another hundred creds for each power pack you want.”
“You're selling me this,” he opened the box and pulled out, as he had expected, a battered, ancient and probably broken Shrehari disruptor, “piece of shit for two thousand, without power packs?”
“Hey,” he licked his lips nervously as he glanced over Zack's shoulder, “disruptors are hard to get, bud. Take it or leave it. You won't find anyone else selling.”
The dealer's eyes widened slightly, and his lips parted as he stared behind Decker. With a smooth, practiced movement, the gunner pulled out his purloined blaster and whirled around, falling into a crouch.
The leather-clad tough guy, a local enforcer for whatever mob controlled this Kasbah, brought up his gun as he stepped into the room and squinted at Zack. He never finished his motion. Decker's blaster coughed once, drilling a large hole through the bravo's forehead and flash-boiling his brain. With a thump, he fell to the floor, face down, the back of his skull gone. A dark stain appeared on the bravo's trousers as he voided his bowels and bladder in death, filling the shop with a nauseating stench.
Weasel Face made a retching sound and spilled his dinner on the floor, adding to the poisonous reek. Ignoring both the dead enforcer and the gun seller, Zack holstered his blaster and picked-up the disruptor. He'd handled this type before and stripped it with ease, examining each part. It was clapped-out, as he'd figured, but there were still a few shots left in it.
“Hey asshole,” he snapped at the merchant, still on his knees, retching, “I need a power pack for this piece of junk and I need it now.”
Weasel Face looked at him in terror. When the words sunk in, he nodded and climbed his feet, wobbling.
“Don't go calling any more tough guys, shithead,” Decker warned, “or I'll blow your fucking brains out too.” The dealer took one look at the corpse by the door and retched again before doing Zack's bidding.
Within seconds, he was back, an old, but fully charged power pack in his trembling hand. Zack took the palm-sized rectangle and slapped it into the disruptor's pistol grip. A red light on the receiver winked. The gunner raised the weapon and pointed it at Weasel Face.
“I figure I need to test this baby first, don't you think, considering you've already tried to screw me.”
“N-not m-my f-fault,” he stuttered, looking like he was about to die of sheer fright. “B-boss m-man wants to know 'b-bout people wanting illegal g-guns. 'S-specially o-off worlders.”
“Sure,” Zack smiled cruelly, the shadows transforming his face into a grinning skull.
Weasel Face fell to the floor with a loud thump, face first in his own vomit. He had fainted.
Decker pointed the disruptor at the enforcer's body and pulled the trigger. A short, dull blue beam of energy lanced out and struck the body near the waist. Flesh and bones dissolved under his eyes as the disruptor charge broke the complex molecules composing a human body into their constituent atoms. It was as if someone with a giant, invisible eraser was rubbing out the corpse. An eraser with a crackling blue edge of energy. A few seconds later, all that remained was a small pile of dust gently settling on the dirty floor.
Zack pulled out his wallet and dropped five hundred creds on the counter. It was a fair price for a gun that had only a few more shots left, even if Weasel Face had called the mob on him. The gunner grinned again. Now he'd have two organizations after him: Kiani's bunch, and the local mafia, who were sure to check out whatever happened to their man. No doubt they already had a summary description of him. When Zack Decker got himself into trouble, he did it right.
No one had entered Korden's shop while he was gone, and the three bodies were still in their individual poses of death, slowly stiffening. Zack pointed the gun at the Net-Freak and pulled the trigger. He might have been a computer addict who had probably helped many crooked people, but he didn't deserve to die like this.
When Korden's body had vanished, he shot Nihao Kiani and watched her disappear too, blood pool and all. Kiani would have earned whatever fate the Kasbah’s scum reserved for the newly deceased, but Decker couldn't bring himself to leave her body to the vultures.
Only Raisa remained as beautiful in death as she'd been in life. Surprising himself, Zack offered a prayer to the God he had long ago abandoned, asking him to make sure her soul joined those of her kind, in whatever heaven collected Arkanna when they passed on. Then, with a death howl, he pulled the trigger and watched his mate's body vanish forever, leaving him alone. When it was gone, his iron control reasserted itself.
The computer was destroyed, the information found by Korden irretrievable. But Decker had it memorized. Not that it mattered. Those at Navy HQ, who would want his information, knew all about Ventos Prime. What mattered was the data encrypted on a much-used data chip, hidden away in his toolbox on board the merchant starship Shokoten.
He glanced around the room, making sure he left nothing incriminating behind and shoved the disruptor in another of his jacket's roomy cargo pockets. If the Hadley fuzz caught him with it, he was fried.
Heck, he was fried on Pacifica, anyway. Kiani had said she belonged to a secret organization that worked for the likes of Amali. Which meant, unless she was a lone wolf, that this Sécurité Spéciale not only knew of her suspicions about Zack Decker but also knew where she was tonight, stalking him in Hadley's slums. She may have a backup agent somewhere.
First order of business, return to the ship and grab his stuff. Second order of business, find a way off Pacifica. Overriding consideration: stay alive until he could talk to someone at Fleet Intel. Zack nodded to himself, it was a plan, even though it was damn sketchy. He'd have to do a lot of improvising. Good thing Pathfinders were trained to think on their feet.
As he stepped out of Korden's shop, he let his eyes roam in a one hundred and eighty-degree arc, searching for anybody who seemed to pay him too much, or too little attention, anybody who didn't look like a drunk, drugged, or fucked-out reveler. Someone who looked like he, or she, worked with Nihao Kiani.
Nobody. Which meant nothing, since Decker wasn't a spook, with spook training.
Head rearing above the throng, the gunner made his way to the stairs leading back to the real world. His eyes never rested, and his body remained tense, ready for action, ready to kill. Something within him had snapped with Raisa's murder, and he had turned into one of those Pathfinders with the dead eyes and the casual love of death, the ones who had frightened the hell out of him because they had lost their souls.
*
Decker walked out into the night, unmolested, and took a deep breath of fetid air. His mind’s eye saw the way back to the spaceport and set off, ears and eyes alert. He turned into a garbage-strewn alley smelling of rotting fish a few blocks down and saw a gang of six youths smoking a stinking weed. As he passed them, they whispered among themselves and followed him.
“Hey, man,” one of them said in an arrogant drawl, “you gotta nice jacket there, dude. I think you’d like to give it to me, because I'm a nice guy.”
The other youths, three boys, and two girls tittered at their leader's words.
“Yeah, hey,” one of the girls chimed in, her high-pitched voice echoing between the walls. “Fedor'd look great in that jacket, and you don't. If you make him a nice present, I won't rip off your balls.”
Without stopping, or changing pace, Zack replied over his shoulder, “Why don't you piss off and go to bed like good little kiddies. Maybe then, I'll leave you alive, even though you shitheads are a fucking insult to the gene pool.”
“This man's not nice.” The leader of the gang, the one called Fedor, sounded sorrowful. “I figure we’re gonna hafta kill him for insulting' us.” He closed the distance with Zack.
This time, Zack stopped and turned around, drawing his blaster in the same movement, pointing it at Fedor's forehead. The youth stopped, mouth hanging open.
“One more step, fuck-face, and I’ll put a nice hole right between your eyes. I'll be doing humanity a favor by making sure you don't pass your shitty genes to another generation of dickheads. It's up to you: do you want to die tonight?” Decker's face and voice were frighteningly cold.
“Hey, take it easy, man,” the girl made to step closer, fear dancing in her reddened eyes, “we were just joking' like, you know.”
“Yeah right,” Zack didn't take his eyes or his aim off the Fedor. “Stay where you are, little girl and no one gets hurt.”
“Do it, Gabbi,” Fedor’s choked voice was barely audible. The acrid stench of urine suddenly banished all other odors as the gang leader pissed himself.
“Sure, man,” she backed off, hands held chest high, palms outwards.
Decker, moving faster than the kids could follow, switched the gun to his left hand, and belted the leader on the mouth with his right fist. The youth's feet lifted off the pavement as he sailed backwards and landed on his butt, blood spurting out of his smashed mouth. He screamed in pain at his broken jaw, shattered teeth, and ruined pride. The others, in fear of the big, black-clad maniac with the gun, ran away into the night, abandoning their leader.
Zack holstered his gun and grinned at the gang banger.
“Next time, pick on someone your own size, kid. You're damn lucky to be alive. Usually, I kill shitheads like you. Ask the two I killed less than an hour ago.”
Without a backwards glance, Decker continued on his way, wiping the incident from his mind. They'd had youth gangs on his native planet. But those didn't go around offering to kill strangers for a leather jacket. At worst, they'd help an old lady across the street.
Fucking Pacifica shit!
*
The main thoroughfares near the spaceport were just as empty and abandoned at two o'clock in the morning as the slum streets. A few hovercars sped by, late night revelers returning home, cops on the prowl or high-class escorts heading off to work. The sky had vanished behind a thick layer of clouds, and a suffocating blanket of humidity weighed down on the city, making Zack sweat.
The horizon lit up as an electric storm rippled through the night south of Hadley. Then, as he turned a corner, rain pelted down, soaking his hair, streaming off his jacket, and washing off the grime of the city. But Hadley would never be clean, no matter how many rainstorms poured down. Not while Walker Amali and his like controlled Pacifica.
He was dripping with water by the time he reached the deserted freight terminal, slick and shiny under the rain and the intense arc lights. The dusty lobby was deserted. An arrivals and departures screen flickered forlornly in one corner, ignored by the dying rubber plant whose roots poked out of the parched earth of its pot. Food wrappers littered the floor, as did discarded, onetime porno vid chips. The blue screen gave Zack an idea, and he went over to read the words scrolling by.
He disregarded the scheduled passenger flights. Emigration controls were too tight on those to slip through. Pacifica's government had a nearly paranoid aversion to letting any of its less fortunate citizens off the planet. They preferred deporting their undesirables to one of their less healthy colonies. Those who could work but couldn’t afford the bribes for an exit visa had to stay.
As the list of freighters scrolled by, one name caught Zack's attention: Demetria, a free trader with a one-woman crew. He remembered the sleek ship from a dozen spaceports along the distant border, even though he had never spoken to her dour captain.
She was due to leave at daybreak for Santa Theresa, a Pacifica colony on the outer rim of the Commonwealth. It wasn't great, but it would get him off the planet.
All that remained was to convince her skipper, Captain Avril Ducote, to let him board. The beauty of Demetria was that with only her as crew, he could easily hijack the ship, should she prove less than cooperative. The screen listed her berth as only two down from Shokoten.
He crossed the rain-swept tarmac and strode up Shokoten's gangway, the metal ramp vibrating beneath his feet. When he reached the top, he touched the controls, and the outer airlock door hissed open. Stepping in, Decker shook the water off his head and clothes.
“Evening Gunner,” a cheerful voice greeted him with affectionate respect. “Wet night for it, eh?”
“Oh, hello Veelan,” Zack forced a smile. “On duty again?”
“Drew the short straw.” He shrugged. “Is the first officer also on her way?”
Decker shook his head. “No. She remained in town. I've come to pick up a few things before going back.”
If Veelan noticed the gunner's change of mood or unusual explanation, he gave no sign. Zack patted him on the shoulder before stepping through the inner airlock. The bare passageways were empty and cold at this time of night, matching Zack's mood. He met no one on his way to his cabin.
Once there, he ripped open his locker, pulled out his duffel bag and stuffed his belongings into it. He exchanged Nihao's blaster for his own and dropped the newly acquired weapons in with his clothes. Then, he opened his toolbox and recovered his souped-up sensor. No use leaving it to a bunch of crooks.
He dug inside the parts bin, looking for the data chip and felt a tendril of panic grown in his gut. It wasn't there. Impatient, he pulled the tray out of its housing and spilled in out on his desk. Nothing. He repeated the same procedure with the rest of the toolbox. Still nothing. An ugly thought wormed its way through his mind. Had Kiani searched the toolbox and found the chip? Was that why she came after Raisa and him? There seemed to be no other reasonable explanation.
Swearing, he searched the late purser's desk, locker, and bed, ripping everything open and tossing her belongings on the deck without care. He found money, which he kept, and some specialized miniature tools, which he also kept. But no data chip. It was gone.
Zack looked at his timepiece. Demetria lifted in two hours that meant her captain would be coming back from her obligatory face-to-face with the port duty officer soon. A final check of both cabin and bathroom proved he had all his stuff. He left what had been his home and locked the door behind him. It would be at least twelve hours before someone missed him, enough time for Demetria to take him to the nearest jump point and into hyperspace.
As he passed the main corridor junction on his way to the airlock, a door opened on his right, and a tousle-haired head poked out of the opening. If Zack's memory served, that was bosun Kader's cabin. Then why was he looking straight into the face of Third Officer Sonoda?
The woman smiled maliciously as she took in Decker's waterlogged appearance, his duffel bag, and his quick pace.
“Jumping ship, Gunner? I thought you enjoyed life here, what with being the captain's pet and the first officer's toy boy.”
Zack shrugged, feeling no anger at the cruel jibe.
“And what if I am? It's no skin off your butt, which,” he stopped and poked his head inside the cabin, chuckling, before she could react, “is flabbier than I thought. A bit more exercise would do you good. Bye, bos'n Kader. Was nice serving with you. But I deplore your choice of lovers.”
The woman shrugged.
“You take what you can. Have a good one, gunner.” She stood up still sweaty from their lovemaking and wrapped her arms around the robed third officer's waist. It was more to make sure the infuriated engineer didn't go after Zack than a gesture of affection.
She pulled a protesting Sonoda back into her cabin and closed the door. Zack knew he could count on a good hour before Kader let her warn anyone, which was more than enough. If that is, the third officer even bothered to tell anybody Decker had deserted. She'd be only too glad to see him go.
Veelan gave him a cheery 'see you tomorrow,' as he signed Decker out again. Standing in the rain, the gunner had a last stab of regret at leaving the ship. He'd been at home in Shokoten, had respect and a purpose in life, even if he was involved in smuggling. If truth be told, he had been involved in smuggling in one way or another ever since he discovered Shrehari ale long ago.
Dismissing nostalgia and regret as senseless, Zack headed for the service bays, where a covered walkway would lead him to Demetria's berth. Within minutes, he reached the security gate protecting the free trader and rang the ship. When he received no answer, he nodded with satisfaction. The captain wasn't aboard yet. That meant he had a better chance of convincing her. It was always harder to turn someone down face-to-face than over a vidscreen, especially if the convincing required a gun. He hid in the shadows near the gate and waited, ears alert to the sound of footsteps.
The wait was short. A few moments after his arrival, a cloaked female shape came down the walkway and stopped in front of the gate, unlocking it. The moment it opened, Zack sprang out and gave the woman a slight shove, pushing her into the secure area. The gate snapped shut behind them.
Captain Ducote's reflexes were good. She whirled around, cloak flying about her shoulders, arm outstretched and fist clenched to strike her attacker. Zack blocked the blow by grabbing her right forearm and twisting it down. She was a strong woman, stronger than the gunner expected, and tried to dance out of his grasp. It took all of Zack's might to hold on as she slammed him into the security gate, using the gunner's own weight to unbalance him. Zack's head rang as it connected with the cold steel tubing.
She raised her left fist and drove it towards Decker's face. Without letting her go, he shifted to one side, and she struck his shoulder instead. He grunted at the force of the blow. Had Ducote landed it on his jaw, Zack would have enjoyed a taste of the pain he'd given the youth a few hours earlier. While the captain gathered herself for another strike, breathing heavily, Zack stuck his blaster in her face. She stopped struggling at once.
“Please, Captain Ducote. I mean you no harm. Let's stop this and talk.”
“At gunpoint?” She snarled. “Fuck you.” But her body relaxed and Zack let her go.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Okay. You have the gun. So tell me, what the hell do you want?” She asked, pale cheeks flushed, eyes blazing. Her left hand rubbed her right wrist where Zack had held her in his steel grip
“A berth off Pacifica, Captain Ducote.”
She laughed without humor. “You have a funny way of asking, mister...”
“Decker, Zachary T. Decker. Formerly gunner on the freighter Shokoten, before that, command sergeant in the 902nd Pathfinder Squadron.” He sketched a little bow, but his gun never wavered.
“And why, pray tell, would I accept? You obviously are on the run from something. The law perhaps?” Her voice dripped with contempt. She was a proud woman, unused to this sort of treatment and robust enough to take care of herself. Zack wondered whether he'd made a mistake.
“I could say,” he replied, “that my gun is reason enough, but I have it out only to make sure you listen.” She snorted in disbelief. “If I don't leave Pacifica, I will die. I have very dangerous people on my tail. I shook 'em off for now, but they'll find me if I stay here. And then, it's goodnight Zack.”
“Assuming I even believe you, who are these people, and why do they want to kill you?” Her expression made it clear she wasn't prepared to take his word.
“Ever heard of the Amali family?” She nodded. “They own my last ship, and they're up to something evil, something I found out on the last trip. I must get somewhere away from here and contact Fleet Intelligence. The bad guys know it’s what I intend, and they don't want me to talk. They've already tried to kill me once tonight. But my mate stopped the killer.”
Something in his tone and face gave her pause, and she looked at him with a curious expression, her smooth forehead crinkled into a frown.
“Your mate?”
“Yeah. Her name was Raisa. She jumped the bitch who wanted to kill us before she could shoot me and took one in the belly. Died in my arms.”
Zack's voice wavered just for a fraction of a second as his guard slipped, but it was enough for Avril Ducote to take a fresh look at her assailant. Something about him rang true.
“She must have been quite a woman.”
“Yeah. That she was.” Again, a glimpse of pain that vanished almost before it appeared. No one could fake that.
“What is this thing you have discovered?”
“You probably won't believe me, Captain. I'm still not sure I believe myself and they even took the only concrete proof I had, but someone's willing to kill to keep the information secret.” He held her eyes, willing her to believe him. “It's not like I want a free ride. I'll pay you what you ask and do whatever work you want. I’m pretty good with weapons, shields and can turn my hand to most engineering jobs.”
Her face hardened again. “What proves you’ll not rape me in my sleep, or hijack my ship?”
Decker shrugged and flipped the blaster in his hands so that he held it by the barrel. He offered the gun to Ducote.
“You can do what you want with me, Captain.” He had no more arguments to offer, and this was his last gamble. “If you want to turn a Mykonos Colony boy over to Pacifica scum, go ahead. There are two more guns in my bag and two knives in my pockets.”
“A real walking arsenal, aren’t you?”
“Let's just say I collected them along the way. Only this gun and one of the knives is mine.”
Ducote took the blaster and pointed it at him as if she knew how to use it. Zack raised his hands, palms outward.
“I’m still not sure whether the smart move would not be to hand you over to the local police, Mister Decker.”
“It is, Captain Ducote,” an arrogant voice replied behind Zack, on the other side of the security gate. “He’s a very dangerous man, a killer wanted by the government. He killed an agent of the Commonwealth and two innocent citizens tonight, and has committed serious assault on another, a mere child. I would appreciate your handing him over so I can make sure he faces the law.”
Without turning around, Zack said, “Funny guy, aren't you. My tally isn't nearly as impressive as you make it out to be. I don't know if the Sécurité Spéciale is a government agency, but if it is, it has strange loyalties and even more bizarre ideas about what's good for the Commonwealth. From where I stand, your agent was a murderess herself. She shot an innocent computer freak right in front of my eyes. She probably also killed my predecessor aboard Shokoten, Harwan Lokis, and she killed my mate, Raisa Darhad. In my book that makes her a ripe target for retaliation. So I gave Nihao Kiani the deathblow. She was going to die anyway after Raisa sank her claws into the bitch. The only guy I shot down was a mob enforcer who was about to do me in from behind. As for the child,” he laughed humorlessly, “he direly needed disciplining.”
Decker’s eyes bored into Ducote’s as he said, “You have the choice, Captain. Believe this creep and you condemn me to death.”
As he spoke, Zack had loosened his knife in its forearm sheath and tried to pinpoint the voice's position behind him. If Ducote saw his movements and the knife, she ignored him.
“My, my,” she commented caustically, “two different stories. Which one will I believe? Why not join us, Mister? If you work for the government and have official identification, I think we can come to an agreement.”
Her right hand kept the gun pointed steadily at Zack's midriff while she moved sideways to the security gate. Before she could reach it, the other man did something to the gate's keypad and unlocked it, easy as you please. He swung the metal barrier aside and took one step forwards, pointing an ugly plasma pistol at Zack's back, while an unpleasant smile distorted his otherwise bland features.
“This is the end of the line, Decker. You'll pay for Kiani's death and your meddling. Just keep your paws up. I know your tricks. Captain Ducote,” he glanced sideways at the frowning woman, “I believe you have Mister Decker's gun in your hand. I need it as evidence. Please give it to me.”
“What? So you can kill her too,” Zack interjected, “just in case I told her too much.”
“Silence,” the agent snarled. “The gun, please, Captain Ducote.” He glanced over at her.
“Don't do it Captain!” As he yelled out his warning, Zack whirled around and threw his dagger at the agent. The blade had barely left his hand when he dove to the side, narrowly avoiding death. As Zack had expected, the agent pulled the trigger a fraction of a second after he moved, but the plasma only grazed his left thigh.
The dagger, however, found its target and the force of the throw buried the slim blade into the killer's neck, severing his carotid artery. The agent collapsed, bleeding to death. It was as clean a kill as Zack had ever made with the knife.
Ducote, startled, cursed as she stepped backwards, the gun no longer pointing at Decker. The security gate slammed shut with a clang as the man, still pumping blood, slumped to the ground.
“I guess that makes two deaths this evening if I believe your story, Mister Decker.”
Zack picked himself up, grimacing at the burn mark on his leg. It hurt like the devil but was nothing more than a flesh wound. He glanced at Ducote and grinned when he saw her aim the blaster at him again.
“You realize you'll have serious questions to answer when they find the body here.”
“I do, Mister Decker, and I don't think I’ll thank you for them. Right now, I wish only to rid myself of your troubling presence and leave.”
She frowned and stared at the agent's lifeless body.
“Would he have killed me?” Ducote sounded dubious.
“Better believe it, lady. These people have one hell of a thing going and can't afford a single peep out of anybody. That little cocksucker didn't know whether I had told you anything or not, but he couldn't take that chance. You'd have died moments after me. You either take me in your ship or shoot me right here and now because my life isn't worth a rat’s ass on Pacifica. They'll catch me in a matter of hours, and I'll probably end as human game for a pervert's hunting party after they squeeze me dry of everything I know. That or I'll become a living organ bank.”
Zack's voice had taken on an edge of harshness that made her look at him again. She made a snap decision, based on what her confused instincts were telling her.
“Very well, Mister Decker. I shall take you, but on my terms. And if you give me any trouble, I shall not hesitate to space you. I'm not a killer as you are, but I’ve had my share of troubles and know how to handle them.” Her eyes strayed to the agent’s corpse. “Have you any idea how to dispose of this body?”
“Sure,” Decker replied. “The solution's right in my bag. A Shrehari disruptor.”
“But that's illegal!” Ducote sounded shocked.
“Yup,” Zack grinned, clearly unashamed and relieved now that he had a way out of this mess. “But there's no better way to remove damning evidence. If it makes you feel any better, I bought it only a few hours ago, to make sure my mate's body didn't fall into the hands of people who'd show it less than proper respect. I wouldn't dream of using it on a living person.”
“Once again, Mister Decker, I wonder whether I believe you.” She kneeled down and rummaged in Zack's duffel bag, always keeping the blaster aimed at him.
“It this it?” She held up the battered weapon.
“Yeah. Just aim it at the scumbag's body and pull the trigger.”
She looked at him with suspicion.
“Perhaps I will use it on you afterwards. That way I have no problems at all.”
Zack shrugged.
“Suit yourself, lady. With Raisa gone, I have little to live for, except getting my information out to the Fleet. But if you're going to spare me, can you retrieve my dagger before you zap the bastard, please? It's a souvenir from my time in the Corps.”
She looked at him for a few heartbeats, as if debating whether to tell him to sod off or not, then squatting by the body she yanked the knife out of his throat, wincing at the wet noise it made as it broke free. She wiped the blade clean on the agent’s clothes and dropped it in the duffel bag.
“Thank you, Captain.”
Without replying, Ducote disintegrated the corpse, and then dropped the disruptor back into the bag with a grimace of distaste.
“An efficient machine, Mister Decker. Now listen carefully because I won’t give you a chance to correct mistakes. You will walk on board the ship ahead of me and do everything I tell you. I will lock you in a cabin where you will stay until I decide to let you out. If you try anything funny, and I mean anything at all, I will space the cabin, and you will die. Understood?”
“Sure, Captain. Though spacing the cabin won't do much for the interior decorating.”
“No attempts at humor, please. I'm in no mood for forced levity. Keep your hands in sight at all times. Turn around and walk towards gangway.”
“Thanks, Captain. You've saved my life.”
“Just do as I tell you. I would rather not regret my momentary folly,” she snapped back, unhappy with her choice and wishing Decker would vanish into thin air.
