The handlers gambit, p.10
The Handler's Gambit, page 10
“You know this guy?” Elyon asked.
“I’ve dealt with him before. He’s useful, but I don’t trust him as far as I can spit. He can usually get cargo or merchandise Vindik wants, like weapons or gurelium, or in this case, prisoners.”
The double doors opened, and they were greeted by a blast of music, a waft of fragrant smoke, and a lavishly dressed man with a drink in hand. “Turner Boone! I had no idea you’d gotten yourself in to slave trading. What a pleasant surprise.”
The insincerity dripped off Jaro Maut like sweat. Boone said, “Jaro.”
Jaro looked around, past the troopers, into the hallway. “You’re on your own today,” he said. His predacious eyes landed on Elyon. “I must know, Turner—who, or what, is this gorgeous young lady? Is she for sale?” He lifted Elyon’s hand gently, but she yanked it back.
“Not to you,” said Boone. Elyon’s glare bounced between the two men.
Jaro stepped back and beckoned them into the room, where a score or more of men lounged around gambling tables and on sofas. Two women wearing revealing attire danced in the cages at the two far corners, and each had two or three men nearby, stoned or groping her from outside the cage. The room was thick and intoxicating with pulsing music and sweet herbal smoke. Boone tried not to show his disgust.
Two troopers stood solid on either side of the doorway so that its doors did not close. The others brought the prisoners in. Jaro moved to the far side of a long, round table and indicated that Boone should sit. The table was occupied by many other men. One of them stood, emptying a chair, although it was clear he was not happy about it. “Stay a while,” Jaro said. “Give your troops some down-time.”
Boone remained standing, a bead of sweat dripping down the back of his neck. “I just want the prisoners.”
Jaro’s feigned hospitality faded into a scowl. He waved a hand over his head. “Commander, commander. Some things never change.” A moment later, four men came in from a side door. They prodded four people, their heads covered, all bound closely together in linked harnesses. “Saxen filth,” said Jaro. “Caught them sneaking around selling arms to the locals.” Boone glanced at Elyon to see her reaction. She seemed not to notice. Her eyes flicked around the room as she took everything in. Jaro continued, “This trash is nasty to contain. Suppression binds are hard to come by out here.”
As the prisoners were brought toward the troopers, Boone saw Elyon shudder. He motioned for his prisoners to be brought forward. “The four you requested. One tried to escape, but he’ll live.”
“He’s damaged?” Jaro considered something. “That, and the effort involved in keeping Saxen contained in a powerless state, is going to cost you extra.”
Boone grit his teeth. “Are you changing the terms of the deal?” Negotiations were not Boone’s strength, and this mission was already a disaster.
Jaro pulled a heavy pistol form under the table and shot the injured prisoner in the head. The Saxen prisoners jumped, and Boone’s prisoners dropped the man and pulled away until the troopers pushed them back together. “Of course not,” said Jaro. “It’s to be four for four. That’s the deal we arranged, and I’m always true to a deal. You owe me one more.” He turned the pistol on Boone. “And I think I’ll take… her. Now get your Saxen refuse out of there before I take our deal to a new level.”
Boone hadn’t planned for this, but the scenario might be better than expected. A tense moment passed while Boone considered his options. “All right,” he said, and Elyon rounded on him. “Put the gun away and we’ll go.”
16 Rebellion
Boone realized this was his chance to let Elyon fly. She was angry, but that would pass shortly.
Elyon shouted, “What?”
Jaro yanked Elyon down while her back was to him—a move that should have set her off. She fell backward onto Jaro’s lap.
Boone backed up a few steps and left Elyon struggling there. “The girl is yours, but you’re going to regret it.”
“I doubt it,” Jaro countered.
Boone ushered the troops and their new prisoners out the door. Struggling to stand, Elyon called his name. Boone stopped to look back at her from the doorway. “Elyon. They’re all yours.”
The two troopers let the doors close. They hustled the bound prisoners to the foyer.
“Are you going to leave her back there?” asked the unit leader. He sounded more worried than Boone felt. This unit leader hadn’t been with them on Thornor, so it was unlikely he was aware of Elyon’s skills.
“She’ll catch up,” he said. He hoped.
They heard gunfire through the great doors at the entrance to the vestibule. The troopers armed themselves and looked to Boone for instructions. He signaled that the prisoners should be packed behind a pillar. Something exploded, and the doors burst partially outward from the uptake. Bodies fell into the gap, preventing them from closing. One body was the tattooed man, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, his chest soaked with blood.
“Hold fire,” said Boone. He remembered the woman hiding the rifle, and he didn’t want to shoot anyone without cause. Slugs flew in through the doorway and the troopers took cover. People on the other side of the doors were firing at them in small bursts.
Boone realized these people had no idea who they were. It was no secret as his troops marched through town that they had prisoners with them, and they were now inside Jaro’s residence. As far as the townsfolk were concerned, business with Jaro might mean they were also enemies.
He and his men were trapped, and they were going to have to shoot their way out. People were going to die. For a simple mission, he had squarely failed it.
With a series of hand signals, Boone turned the troopers loose to defend themselves.
* * *
“What?” Elyon blurted as Boone stared Jaro down. Boone did not look at her, which made her angry. But with the suppression harnesses so close, she was unable to flare up.
Jaro considered, then put the gun on the table. He grabbed Elyon from behind and pulled her onto his lap, a shield against any attack Boone might dare throw at him on his way out.
Boone backed toward the doorway. “The girl is yours, but you’re going to regret it.”
“I doubt it,” said Jaro.
She struggled against him, but he held her firmly. A defensive Con Long move, and it wouldn’t take much to take him down, but this situation was itself a distraction from her instincts. She wasn’t sure whom to be angrier at—this idiot, Jaro, or her handler. “Boone!”
As soon as the troopers were out the door, Elyon’s Saxen senses returned in full. She was already heating up. Boone paused in the doorway and looked back. “Elyon,” he called. “They’re all yours.”
Elyon realized that this was all a ruse—and the opportunity she had been waiting for to put her firen and chargen stones to the test[SL1] . And that meant she had free rein to kill. Anger turned to excitement as she changed her focus from those around her to her own inner talents. Time slowed to a crawl. She erupted with a wild gravity wave in all directions.
Jaro and his chair flew backward, knocking down a man standing behind him. Several others near him flew away from her, and by the time they regained their feet, Elyon was a black-eyed whirlwind of blue and red energy. She dashed and dodged from man to man, thrusting a ball of lightning into their chests with one fist or engulfing them instantly in flame with the other. The world around her slowed as if she moved at the speed of light. She did not keep track of every man in the room—and indeed some were likely to flee—but any who tried to oppose her were struck dead by the blue hand or set alight by the red hand.
Somewhere an energy weapon fired, and in her enhanced state of mind, absorbing the energy in her own electrical shield was merely a defensive maneuver that rolled into an offensive one. A whip of electrical energy surged toward the shooter. She felt an exhilaration that she had never achieved in practice, and when it was over—too quickly—she craved more.
Now the room was still, and the stench of burning flesh overpowered the opiate smoke. Breathing heavily, she examined the carnage. Somewhere a heart was still beating. She honed her senses on its rapid rhythm and turned to see one of the dancers huddled in the corner of her cage, quivering, trying not to breathe or move.
Elyon approached the cage, and the woman whimpered. The sound disrupted Elyon’s trance. Her normal perception returned. She stood before a petrified woman cowering from the whirlwind that had destroyed a dozen armed men only moments before. Elyon took a step back. The room around her was still but for the music that carried on. Someone might come soon, and she had better not be trapped in here. She trotted to the door where she and Boone had come in.
Boone. He had set her up—was he planning to leave without her, too? Picking up her pace, she ran through the corridor to the vestibule. She found Boone and his men in a shootout with the gunmen on the entry platform outside. The troopers had taken up defensive positions behind columns and furnishings, and the gunmen were pushing the doors open a little at a time, reaching through to fire random shots into the foyer. Elyon darted between columns until she came to stand beside Boone.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said.
“Did you clean up back there?” he answered.
“I have half a mind to kill you.”
“You said you could take care of yourself.” Outside, another volley of shots rang out, and he reflexively tugged her closer. “Now I know.”
The firing paused again, and Elyon glanced at a trooper who had a better view. He showed Boone a hand signal that indicated the enemy was doing something on the other side of the doors. That meant some kind of surprise awaited them, and she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Summoning her will once more, she bolted from behind the column and launched herself through the gap between the doors.
Through a haze of burning flesh and crackling screams, she created a barricade of bodies in the doorway.
* * *
Boone watched her from behind the column as she leapt back into the foyer, tucked, rolled, and sprung to her feet facing the door. Although she was a stunning and fit young woman, she had an aura of darkness not unlike Vindik’s. Her wild red hair spread like flames, her bluish skin seemed to absorb the light, and her eyes were like black holes. She was savage and confident and mesmerizing. For a moment, he forgot what he was doing.
He was relieved to see that she was unhurt but irritated that she had taken such a risk. Still, it had been a crafty and probably advantageous maneuver. Using a gravity wave, she pushed the doors open farther, revealing a pile of bodies high and deep enough for his men to use as cover. One of his troopers muttered, “Unbelievable.”
Boone waved his troopers forward. Several jumped straight onto the barrier on their stomachs, while a few others took positions behind the door frame. Elyon moved out of their way. The savage creature in her was retreating. Boone moved with his men to duck behind the barricade. He looked around in the darkness and glimpsed the outlines of men on the rooftops against the darkened evening sky.
“Looks like we both got more than we bargained for, Turner,” came a familiar voice from somewhere directly ahead. Jaro was out there. Boone wasn’t certain where his voice was coming from. He was glad Elyon hadn’t killed Jaro, as that would be another mark against him from the commanders.
“You’re gambling big, Jaro,” he called back.
“How’s that? Now I kill all of you—no Saxen prisoners for your master, no special commander…”
Boone didn’t have time to think about Jaro’s strange words. He keyed in on the voice. Jaro was to his left, somewhere above them on the roof of the vestibule. On other rooftops, shadowy figures moved against the night sky. The gunfire sounded like it had moved to another block.
Needing to hear Jaro’s voice again, he shouted, “You know Vindik will wipe this colony off the face of the planet if I don’t complete my mission.”
“Quite possibly, and it might do the galaxy some good. But that girl… she is something else. Not just a Saxen lord’s minion.”
Boone searched where the voice came from. There he was, Jaro’s silhouette on the roof to his left. “She’s nothing to you,” he said. To the trooper next to him, he pointed and said, “Can you stun him from here?”
Jaro retorted, “Oh, but she is. She’s one hell of a bargaining chip, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
“You said it yourself. I’m gambling big.”
The trooper fired, and their conversation ended abruptly.
* * *
More figures moved into view in the street from all directions, shouting as they swarmed the plaza.
There was no blood yet, only a hole in her suit below the free-floating ribs on the left. It stung like a stitch in her side. Defending against energy weapons was natural, but she had no way to deflect the slugs.
Boone was busy, and so he should be. If he left her behind, she might not make it at all, but if he stopped to help her, they might all be doomed. She would have to take care of herself—again.
Although she was exhausted, she slipped into the darkness like a shadow, slinking through and between the scrambling bodies, along the wall, and then dashing into the open street that led to the star port. Leaving the chaos behind her, she picked up her pace, but soon every step wrenched her wound and slowed her down.
A hover cycle bolted out of the shadows on a course to run Elyon down. Reacting entirely on instinct, she blasted a gravity wave that knocked the hover cycle from its path, flipping it over and sending it and its rider crashing into a wall. With the resurgence of the fight instinct, she fried both with an electrostatic charge.
Then, clutching her abdomen, she collapsed to her knees. The port was not far now. One step at a time…
The familiar voices of Boone’s troopers caught her attention. Their arms lifted her, and she half ran, half hung between two of them as they dragged her into the star port.
* * *
Boone called for the troops to hold fire. The skirmish had divided to the far left and right sides of the plaza. Only a handful of people remained on the rooftops, and their numbers were decreasing steadily. It was a break Boone’s team needed to dash to the star port.
He called to the unit leader. “We’re going to use this opening. Carve a path through the fighting and head straight down that road toward the star port. Keep the prisoners flanked in a diamond formation.” The troopers nodded and began to form up, bringing the prisoners from behind the pillar. Boone realized that their tight bindings and hoods would slow them all down. “Take off their hoods, and loosen them up. We’ll need to run.”
Boone moved to where Elyon had been standing moments before, but she was not in sight. He called out to her, but she did not answer. His victory was slipping away. If he returned without her, he would likely not live to apologize. The unit was ready, so he joined in the formation and called for them to move out. She would have to fend for herself until they secured the prisoners and a ship.
As they descended the stairs to street-level, the battle closed in around them. People were fighting Jaro’s men hand-to-hand, using whatever they could find as weapons. The troopers at the front tip forced a rift between the packed, brawling bodies around them. The gradual widening of the front delta pushed them back further, creating space for the remaining troopers to wedge through. There were still shots firing down from above, but they were now scarce and more likely directed elsewhere as Jaro’s henchmen fought for their lives.
They pushed through until the crowd thinned and the danger retreated. Continuing to run in their formation, they pressed the prisoners forward. Boone noticed a wrecked hovercycle crackling with residual static, its rider crushed beneath it. Relieved, he knew at once that Elyon had been through here. She was cunning, yet taking another huge, unnecessary risk. Moments later they were met by the two troopers sent earlier to the star port.
“The lady said you might need some assistance,” said Yurnson.
“Did you procure a ship?” Boone asked.
“Aye, sir. It’s small but it’s fired up and ready to go.”
“Good work.” Now he had to worry about escaping the atmospheric turbulence that brought down their shuttle and killed his two seasoned pilots.
They continued their hard pace into the star port’s deserted terminal. The unit leader led the others to their replacement ship, but Elyon lay on a crusty, cushioned bench. Some of his tension released when he saw that she was already here.
As he neared, he saw the strain in her eyes and a sheen on her face. Her color was so ashen that it had nearly lost its blue hue. She clutched the left side of her abdomen where there was considerable blood collecting inside her suit. Droplets trickled slowly down her side and pooled on the cushion. Yurnson appeared and injected nano-aerate into the wound; she arched her back and growled.
Hoping to bring some levity to this dire situation, Boone leaned close to her ear and said, “You just can’t stay with me, can you?”
“Didn’t want to clean up your mess again,” she said through gritted teeth.
Through all the adrenaline and disappointment of this battle, his heart swelled with pity and concern. She was a girl, not a soldier. “Are you all right?” A stupid question—she was not all right. He lifted her hands, and blood gushed out along with a pink foam. He pressed them back onto the wound, adding his own weight to compress further. The nano-aerate should have stopped the blood by now.
“I guess I can’t dodge that many slugs yet,” she whispered. Yet. As if anyone should be able to do what she had done in that open doorway. He had never seen Vindik—or Baisen for that matter—move the way she had. But then, she had been trained for this. She had killed several dozen armed men with her hands and taken only one slug.
