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  Vaughn waved to the med crawler. “Let her keep it in case she needs to shoot someone else. Go secure that illegal weapon before it disappears.”

  Noojin hadn’t even considered the whereabouts of the burster. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the weapon still lay only centimeters from Oeldo’s hand. She winced at the arrow sticking up from the old man’s chest.

  Oeldo had always been around the sprawl, always looking for a handout. Noojin had given him coins when she could spare them even though she’d known he was only going to spend them on wine and waste the day in a drunken stupor. He’d been drunk the day of Luek’s funeral too, but everyone had forgiven him then.

  Now Oeldo was gone. And she had killed him.

  With effort, Noojin blew out her breath and put that thought away. She watched over the soldiers as medical personnel got out of the crawler with bot-driven gurneys. The gurneys lowered themselves to the ground, then used mechanical arms to assist the soldiers in getting Jahup and Tanest on board.

  Vaughn strode over to where Throzath sat on the sidewalk in front of an electronics shop. Not as many of his friends were around him now and a few left as the soldier approached.

  “If you want, we can take you to the fort and have a doc look at you,” Vaughn said.

  Throzath glared up at Vaughn. “I’m fine.”

  “Sure.”

  Shifting his glare to Noojin, Throzath said, “This isn’t over.”

  Vaughn took a step and put himself between Throzath and Noojin. “For your sake,” the soldier said to Throzath, “it had better be. The next time she shoots you, I don’t think she’ll be as generous.”

  Unwilling to let someone else do her fighting for her, especially after the way Velesko Kos had manhandled her not so long ago, Noojin stepped to the side so she had a clear field of fire again. She pointed the rifle at Throzath. “I’m a hunter. You should remember that. In the jungle, we don’t let even a wounded cebsay live to attack again another day.”

  A cebsay was a small, vicious lizard capable of running on its back legs. It was also known for its cowardice because the creature only attacked when it was in a swarm.

  “This isn’t over for me either, Throzath.” Noojin’s voice was cold and full of promise. “If I see you even look at me like you’re going to hurt me, I’ll gut you where you stand. Do you understand?”

  Dropping his gaze, Throzath looked away but didn’t say anything.

  “If you ask me,” Vaughn said, “I think he understands just fine.” He looked at Noojin. “They’ve got room for one more on the crawler, Noojin.”

  She nodded and went to the vehicle, still holding on to the rifle.

  NINE

  Styx Spaceport

  South of Makaum Sprawl

  1115 Hours Zulu Time

  Tangler wires leaped from the sphere and wrapped Kiwanuka’s legs, pulling them close together. Others lashed Veug to her and they went down in a heap.

  Darting from the reach of the tangler wires, Darrantia sprinted to her crawler, reached in the back, and took out a package wrapped in protective film. It was no bigger than both the alien’s fists pressed together. She turned and tossed the package to the Cheelchans.

  “My treat,” she said as she slid behind the crawler’s controls.

  One of the Cheelchans caught the package and looked at the others in confusion. He said something, probably a curse from the tone, but the translator didn’t decipher what it was.

  Kiwanuka knew the tone because she was unleashing curses of her own, imagining what Sage was going to think when their suspected assassin got away.

  “Kill them,” the Cheelchan leader said, “and let’s get off this planet. Let the Phrenorians have it.” He drew a Gatner semiautomatic fléchette pistol from his coveralls and aimed at Kiwanuka.

  At Kiwanuka’s side, the Roley had gotten caught in the tangler and maybe even damaged because the wires were cutting into the armor.

  Before the Cheelchan could fire his weapon, a small hole opened in his forehead and the back of his head evacuated its contents over his three companions. Spattered in blood, all of them staggered back as their companion’s body hit the rough tarmac.

  Kiwanuka yanked a Hokusai-made fighting knife from its sheath along her left forearm and slashed the wires around her legs. The twenty-centimeter-long carbon and molybdenum blade parted the strands with high-pitched tings. The other three Cheelchan were in motion now, grabbing weapons and firing.

  Two of them went down under sniper fire, both hit in the head, and the third dropped with a chest wound that left him dazed and unmoving on the tarmac.

  “Do not shoot Darrantia,” Kiwanuka directed. “We want her alive.” She cursed when she looked at the Roley lying there almost in pieces, and cursed again when she saw the four bodies.

  Halladay was not going to be happy. She just hoped he had time to make his case to Whitcomb before the general heard the news.

  Inside the ship’s cargo area, at least two figures were in motion. Evidently other ships’ crew inside were investigating the disturbance. With a metallic hiss and whine, the cargo hatch started to seal.

  Drawing her Birkeland coilgun and aiming on the fly, Kiwanuka put bolts into the hatch’s safety sensor, disabling the electronic assembly. If the hatch was going to shut now, it was going to have to close manually.

  “Secure the Cheelchan ship,” she ordered. “Don’t let any of the crew get away.” It was possible, maybe only remotely, that the Cheelchans were involved in Wosesa Staumar’s assassination. Kiwanuka intended to cover every base. Especially since things weren’t going so well.

  She rolled to her feet and swung around to face the direction Darrantia had gone. The cargo crawler roared across the tarmac, slewing wildly as the fleeing alien dodged other vehicles and pallets of cargo. The Voreuskan leaned on the horn and cargo handlers scattered.

  “I’m in pursuit, Echo Leader,” Echo Two called out.

  Kiwanuka tracked the soldier’s direction on her faceshield. “I want her alive.”

  She accelerated from a standing start, redlining the suit’s quickness, almost losing her stride because she hadn’t quite recovered her balance from the tangler grenade and the armor pushed the wearer to the limit.

  You’re unstable. Do you wish to slow down?

  Kiwanuka breathed out, focusing as she let her body sink into the movement, no longer fighting to control it. She smoothed out, the rhythm coming naturally. Her boots thudded against the tarmac, digging in and pushing off. “No. I’ve got this.”

  “Roger that.” Echo Two and Echo Three had joined up in their pursuit. They ran like a pair of bloodhounds, dodging crawlers and leaping them when they could, flying like arrows.

  Kiwanuka holstered her pistol to leave her hands free and keep her balance better. She overtook the other two soldiers, and all of them were cutting the lead Darrantia had gotten from her early jump. Despite the combat armor’s micro-musculature amplifying the wearer’s speed and strength, there were differences based on the individual. The other two soldiers were probably stronger than Kiwanuka, but she was faster, more coordinated.

  Unable to dodge a cargo crawler that darted in front of him from behind a suborbital ship, Echo Two went sprawling and skidded along the tarmac like a flat stone on a smooth pond surface. Ten meters on as he fought for control, he smashed up against another crawler like a cannonball.

  Echo Two cursed and struggled to get to his feet. He swayed unsteadily and put a hand to his head as if checking that it was still there. Unfortunately, he also stood in Kiwanuka’s path.

  Timing her stride and her speed, Kiwanuka leaped, sailing over the other soldier’s head by a meter. She hit the ground, threw her arms out to her sides to regain her balance, and tilted forward to accelerate more.

  Hunched down over the crawler’s controls, Darrantia wove between the various vehicles dotting the tarmac. Three times she had the vehicle up on one set of wheels, leaning precariously close to tipping over, and
recovered one of those times only because the crawler kissed another vehicle in passing that thumped it back down on the oversized tires. Rubber growled as the wheels grabbed full traction again.

  Closing in, Echo Three shouted over his PA, “Pull over!”

  In response, Darrantia turned around with a massive pistol clenched in her fist. Echo Three tried to dodge, but that only left him easy prey for the net that flared from the gun. The tool had been designed to wrap cargo quickly. The ten-meter-wide square of sticky strands popped open wide and enveloped Echo Three. When he crashed into the tarmac, he struggled to get free but didn’t look like he was going to be able to accomplish that on his own.

  Kiwanuka raced past him and closed the distance separating her from Darrantia to ten meters. Two hundred meters ahead, a suborbital ship vented gas from the engines as it prepared for liftoff. Two men with rifles stood outside the cargo bay, fired at Kiwanuka, and missed her by centimeters.

  Twisting on her seat again, Darrantia raised the net tool again, took aim, and fired.

  Instead of trying to dodge to the side or leap over, which would have slowed her if not caused her to lose control completely, Kiwanuka threw herself into a headfirst dive. Hands before her, palms down, she slid across the tarmac like a hockey puck on ice. Her palms dug scars into the plascrete that ran for meters. Her armor’s surface took the grinding abuse, but the friction generated a lot of heat.

  Warning. Armor is under constant stress from abrasive erosion.

  “Suck it up and earn your resurfacing,” Kiwanuka said as the flared net passed overhead, sticking only a moment to her back and sliding away because the resistance was at an oblique angle.

  I’m sorry, I do not understand suck it up. Clarification, please?

  “Disregard. Contact HQ. Emergency connect.”

  Connecting HQ, Fort York. Parameter: Kiwanuka, Kjersti, Staff Sergeant Charlie Company. Emergency connect.

  Kiwanuka shifted her hands, tucked her right arm under her, and came over in a bouncing roll that brought her to her feet. She found her stride immediately and added speed. She was seven meters from her quarry and closing rapidly.

  A look of disbelief and fear showed in the alien’s eyes and small mouth.

  Kiwanuka smiled. Got you!

  At the last minute, Darrantia locked up the crawler’s brakes and pulled hard on the vehicle’s controls, trying to cut to the left. Kiwanuka had expected the alien to try one direction or the other, and once she shot past out of control, the Voreuskan would plaster her with the net gun. It was what she would have done if the situation was reversed.

  Instead, Kiwanuka ducked and altered her course. She ran inside Darrantia’s turn and planted a shoulder into the side of the crawler. The reinforced polyplas body crumpled immediately and littered jagged shards behind it. The vehicle massed ten times as much as Kiwanuka did even with her armor on. Her velocity, though, was an undeniable factor in the collision, allowing her to drive the crawler up and over.

  Rocked onto its side, the crawler balanced for just a moment, then gravity and centrifugal force caught up with it. Rolling slowly, the vehicle toppled over and landed upside down with a harsh bounce.

  Lying there stunned, the breath knocked out of her, Kiwanuka worried that Darrantia had been caught under the crawler and badly injured. That would be her luck this morning, handed this mission behind Sage’s back, then killing the only lead they had on the assassination.

  Then the alien’s hand shoved out of the debris and pressed against the tarmac. Her head and shoulders followed in a quick series of jerks as she pulled herself out. Wasting no time, Darrantia scampered out from under the overturned vehicle.

  Kiwanuka pushed herself up and fired the grappling hook housed in her armor sleeve. The projectile flew true and smashed through the crawler’s side with a thwock!

  Yanking on the line, Kiwanuka pulled it taut in front of Darrantia, catching the alien just above her knees. At speed, unable to stop herself, the Voreuskan hit the line hard and toppled into a face-plant that elicited a screamed curse that ended on impact.

  Before her quarry could recover, Kiwanuka was on her, gripping her by that fluffy feathery topknot and wrapping a hand around one of the alien’s wrists. Mercilessly, irritated as much with her prisoner as she was with herself, Kiwanuka hooked the captured wrist up behind the Voreuskan’s back just short of breaking the limb.

  Darrantia shrieked in pain, a full-throated cry for relief. Maybe it was an act, but the arm was really up there and Voreuskans weren’t noted for being double-jointed.

  “You’re breaking my arm!” she screeched.

  Bullets struck the crawler with basso thuds and pieces of polyplas tore away. Evidently Darrantia’s playmates hadn’t given up on getting her back.

  Manhandling the alien, Kiwanuka yanked them both up to cover behind the overturned crawler. Rifle rounds thudded into the vehicle but didn’t penetrate. Plus, they weren’t shooting at Kiwanuka now that she was covering the Voreuskan. They didn’t want to accidentally hit the alien, so she wasn’t someone they wanted to lose. It was something to know.

  Kiwanuka swept the area with her 360-degree view, looking for other gunmen and seeing only the two at the suborbital who were slowly advancing while continuously firing. Her team had closed on the Cheelchan ship, but Echo Two was cutting Echo Three free. They would join her in another moment.

  Whoever was piloting the suborbital must have realized that too, because one of the men grabbed the other by the arm and hauled him back. In the next moment, they turned and ran for the suborbital.

  Her comm buzzed, letting her know that the connection linked her to the fort.

  “Echo Leader, this is Charlie Company Zero Niner.” The male voice at the other end sounded competent and unhurried.

  Kiwanuka shoved her head above the side of the crawler and watched the cargo hatch smoothly close. The men had definitely given up on freeing their comrade. Using the helmet’s vid suite, she captured an image of the ship and sent it to the fort. “Roger that, Niner. Stand by for details.”

  “Standing by.”

  The ship’s name and number were clearly visible. She hoped it was registered—legally—and wasn’t flying false identification. The Makaum spaceport authority had been lax in their attentiveness during their stewardship. Their records hadn’t been complete and ship identification hadn’t always been verified because the security officers had been thrown into their jobs with little training. The positions had been offered as a token of goodwill to allow the local populace to earn a wage and receive skills that “would be valuable if they chose to visit other planets.”

  Kiwanuka had read the ebrochure and recognized it as the pabulum it was. The corps had eagerly ceded the spaceport concession to the Makaum people, allowing them to make a profit on the job, while all the time taking advantage themselves of the lax security. When things went wrong, the corps made sure the Makaum understood they had no one but themselves to blame.

  “I’m sending you images of a suborbital craft named Oswald,” Kiwanuka said. “I want it identified and verified, and I want to know what ship it’s registered to.”

  “Roger that, Echo Leader. Checking manifest of Oswald. Gimme a minute.”

  Warning Klaxons blared as the suborbital lifted without clearance. Massive gouts of smoke and fire blazed from under the spacecraft as it slowly lifted into the sky. Other ships, suborbitals and dropships, ascended and descended in an orchestrated maze.

  Frustrated, Kiwanuka tugged Darrantia into motion at her side.

  “Why am I being arrested?” the Voreuskan demanded.

  “Stolen goods, like I said. Now you can add avoiding arrest.” Kiwanuka holstered her pistol and waved to Echo Two and Echo Three. “Take that cargo into custody.”

  Darrantia only provided token resistance to being pulled along. “There’s nothing in that cargo that’s illegal.”

  “Sure. And I bet there’s nothing illegal in that package you threw the Cheelchans.
”

  “That wasn’t mine. I was just delivering a package. A favor for a friend.”

  Kiwanuka’s comm chirped to let her know she had an incoming call from Veug. “Tell me something good, Echo Four.”

  “The package the target tossed to the Cheelchans was full of Snakedream and vesgar plants, so our op is totally legitimate.”

  Some of the tension in Kiwanuka’s shoulders eased at that. One of the primary missions Charlie Company had been tasked with was eliminating the drug trade and biopiracy. Snakedream was a local commodity made from vesgar spores. The fact that there were actual plants involved made the arrest a double-offense.

  She looked at Darrantia. “We found the Snakedream and the vesgar plants.”

  Darrantia shrugged her narrow shoulders.

  “Records indicate this is the third felony offense in a developing planet under Terran Alliance sponsorship. You’re going to get locked down for a long time.”

  Darrantia didn’t say anything, but the seriousness of her situation bowed her head.

  Kiwanuka wondered if her prisoner used drugs as well. If she did, cracking her was going to be easier as she went into withdrawal. That would be good. After last night and this morning, Kiwanuka was ready for something easier.

  A shadow fell over her and she looked up, tracking the Phrenorian aircar that shot by. Even though the angle was oblique, she could still make out the armed warriors and the heavy weapons firmpoints on the vehicle.

  Her shoulders tightened back up. No matter what else happened, the Phrenorians still lay in wait.

  TEN

  The Carmine Belelt-Cha

  North Makaum Sprawl

  1208 Hours Zulu Time

  “What do you do when you’re not buying pretty femmes drinks and listening to them talk about themselves?”

  Across the table, the Ishona woman bared her teeth—fangs, really, and a lot of them—in what Sytver Morlortai guessed she believed was a friendly smile. All the expression really did was remind Morlortai that the Ishono people were committed to their carnivorous lifestyle.