Fire brigade star dragon.., p.4
Fire Brigade (Star Dragon Book 2), page 4
Keel and the others stood on a raised gallery level, which circled around this entire third of their habitat dome. Below them, there appeared to be a teeming marketplace. Odd, curving avenues cut between lines of stalls as well as metal buildings, all of them bustling with people, goods, and trade. Toward the edges of this dome, the buildings grew higher, with balconies and bridges that joined to the crystal-glass plates of the sky dome itself.
Keel had seen pictures of the bustling sky habitats of the merchant princes, but somehow, he had never expected it to be so…full.
It was like the ten-day markets back home on Dracis, he thought, but so much more.
“Ten shrivers for a hundred imperials!”
“Lassi Vaal, fresh made!”
“Cetan photo-silks! React with light! Latest craze, buy now and don’t regret it!”
The voices of the hawkers and peddlers, merchants and salespeople filled the air. Where the buildings started, there were quieter, more sober merchants in restrained colors, making the more serious and probably far wealthier deals of food, minerals, ores, fuels, and plasma. Keel bet that it was there that they would find any pirates, too.
“This way,” the lead guard said as another door hissed not far from them, releasing a small school of people from across the Outer Systems. Keel saw several of them stiffen when they set eyes on the Imperial Marines in their midst. From their rough encounter suits, partly armored, with small blasters at their hips, Keel reckoned they would probably have good reason to fear the long arm of the emperor.
“Pirates. Pirates everywhere,” Jamieson muttered darkly as they were led down a set of stairs to the market floor.
Everywhere they went, there were small intakes of breath as the merchants and their customers saw them, paled, and clutched their wares a little closer. Keel wondered how many of these goods had fallen off the back of a Cetan trawler, or if any had ever been properly taxed and inspected.
The fear of the emperor spread far, it seemed, as well as the anger. Keel saw eyes harden and hands move to the cloaks and jackets, where weapons must be stored.
“Stars! Don’t roll out the red carpet, everyone,” Sabo said, laughing in his usual singsong way, before Venez fiercely told him to shut it.
They walked through the main market, past stalls that sold food, next to stalls selling equipment, holo-generators, clothes.
“Real baby oloks! They make great pets, I promise you!”
“Latest mining contracts. Up for auction and on pre-sale now!”
Even with their arrival, the ceaseless work of the merchant princes carried on around them. The merchant guards cleared a path for the Marines to travel, forcing back any onlooker who didn’t get out of the way as Keel saw that there were representatives here from every system he had ever heard of. There were even some from the Inner Systems, like the wealthy Cetans with their lurid, stiffened clothing and exotic hairstyles.
But there were far more pirates, or mercenaries, Keel thought. His strategy program kept on updating, until his vision became littered with sudden targeting alerts from picking up on the openly displayed firearms and blades.
It was then that Keel thought that this, perhaps, was a little odd. The merchant guards had taken them off the main drag and down a side street lined with metal buildings covered with advertising posters for some eatery or merchant’s bazaar.
“Tobin? Does this look like the main entrance to a prince’s palace to you?” he asked over the private channel as he turned to see that they had left much of the bustle behind them. The guards had now formed into two groups, one ahead and one behind.
“Hennity? What are you saying?” Tobin turned to look around as Keel surveyed the narrow street they were on before looking up at the crystal dome above them.
A quick, darting shape moved across the roof.
“People!?” Keel said at once, lifting his blaster as he turned. He saw another shape on the other side of the avenue, also quickly moving across the tops of the buildings.
“He wouldn’t. That would be insane!” Lafferty gasped.
“Vandale!? Hennity? What is it?” Venez said as the rest of the squad halted.
The guards turned, and the captain gestured at them like they were idiots. “What are you waiting there for? It’s this way—” he began, but something exploded at his feet before he could finish the sentence.
Keel’s suit flashed with an alert, but he was already well aware of what was happening. A large explosion engulfed the group of guards in front of them, filling the area with dense smoke. Sabo grunted as he was thrown against the metal wall.
“Sabo! Report!” Tobin shouted.
“Weapons! We’re under attack!” Venez roared, spinning with his gun up toward the roof.
It’s a trap. They want to block us off.
Keel’s thoughts raced as he turned toward the back of their group to see who was coming up behind them. He got his blaster up just in time as figures of people with guns ran at them down the small avenue. He saw mismatched suits, armor, and weaponry, but the angry, scowling faces were consistent.
“Pirates!” he shouted, firing into the oncoming attackers.
Multiple targets detected. Calibrating…
His vision lit up with flashing red targets as his first shot took the nearest pirate off the ground. He was turning to fire at the second when the man he’d hit leaped away. Keel followed him, a mere twist of the hip, but he hadn’t seen the pirate above him. Something struck his suit, and there was an explosion of white flames and sparks.
ALERT!
/Suit Damage: Breastplate 60%
Keel was flung to one side by the blast, which had to be far stronger than any mere plasma blaster. He smashed through the thin, corrugated metal wall beside him and into the darkness beyond.
“Huh!?” Keel felt a shiver of electricity run across his mind like a brain zap, but he felt no pain, no fatigue. His disorientation was a habit, and it was one he was determined to break. He pushed himself up from the wreckage of what looked to be a table and saw long conveyor tracks and tables around him, stacked full of crates of bright orange and purple fruits.
“Three-Three! Defensive circle! Take out the enemy!” Tobin was shouting. Keel saw the hole he’d created and made for it, just as there was a flicker of movement to his side.
Target acquired. Plasma weapon.
Keel spun as a gleaming plasma shot blazed across his shoulder, slamming into the warehouse wall and burning a hole through the door. He saw two figures running through the warehouse with their weapons raised for another shot.
“Kill it! Kill the bot!” one of them shouted.
Keel fired his weapon, taking out one and sending the other diving for the side of the belt.
Bot? I’m not a bot! Keel thought rather indignantly.
There was another thud on the wall from automatic plasma fire, but he had no idea which side.
The pirate who’d attacked him popped up from the other side of the conveyor, shouting. He was much closer now, swinging a heavy metal wrench into Keel’s back. Sensors revealed there was barely a scratch, and Keel turned to see the horrified expression on the man’s face.
Maybe there is some advantage to being a bot sometimes. He unfolded his arm faster than was humanly possible and slammed the butt of his blaster against the pirate’s head, sending him flying back through the crates of fruit.
How did they think they could win against Imperial Marines!? Keel turned and threw himself back through the hole in the wall, straight into the path of another attacker. This one wore part power armor and was fighting with massive, mechanized gauntlets against Venez.
Keel saw Venez catch a blow, stagger back, and then sweep his blaster around to smash the man’s visor almost in half before leveling his gun at his attacker.
“Wait!” Keel yelled, but it was already too late. Venez pulled the trigger, and the pirate was blown back, dead before he even hit the ground.
“You what, Dracis!? You getting cold diodes or something?” Venez snarled as both Marines looked for the others.
“No. We need to know who they were. Why they attacked us!” Keel said. It seemed obvious to him. There was no way that a biological could face an Imperial Marine and hope to win. So, either they were insanely brave, delusional, or…
“This is a diversion,” Keel said.
The sounds of fighting had stopped. The smoke was beginning to clear, revealing an avenue of torn metal, burnt buildings, and heavy metal bodies.
“Sabo? Tobin?” he called.
Lafferty and Jamieson stood. Their power armor had a few new scorch marks but little other damage. Tobin was with Sabo, helping him back to his feet where he had a particularly nasty rent across his leg.
“Sabo, you good to fight?” Keel asked.
Sabo shook the leg a little, spilling machine oil, and almost laughed. “The weirdest thing, this not suffering pain.” He took an awkward step as gears ground and squealed. He wasn’t going to be able to run and jump, but he could fight.
“The merchant guards are gone,” Tobin said.
Keel looked around and saw that he was right. There weren’t even any bodies anywhere, so Keel had no problem suspecting that the guards were in on the ambush.
“A diversion,” he repeated. Tobin looked at him questioningly. “That’s what this was—a diversion. Yuri is allowing his friends to try us. Probably so he could destroy evidence.”
“Or get away,” Venez growled.
7
PRINCE YURI
“Stars!” Keel knew at once that was probably it. Prince Yuri knew there was no hiding from imperial wrath. He was in bed with the pirates, and now the Imperial Marines were coming for him.
“Please, someone tell me we have a schematic map of the Yuri demesne somewhere,” he said, pulling up an information screen on his display and racing through the listings.
“Wait up. A message from the Bulldog,” Tobin said, making a gesture as if throwing something. A rough diagram popped up on all their displays. “The Bulldog just updated me. Looks like we were heading in the wrong direction,” Tobin said.
Keel saw the three interconnected domes, with large areas without detail but colored and marked as ‘retail’ or ‘housing.’ There was a flashing small red section in the dome next to theirs, marked ‘administrative and governance.’
“It’s the best we got,” Keel said, turning that way as Tobin called for them to fall out.
The Marines ran back down the avenue, turning down smaller and wider avenues, past warehouses and stalls, moving as best they could toward the palatial buildings.
Keel heard screams and shouts from either side of them as the rest of the habitat’s population started to realize that there had been a live gunfight right in the heart of their home.
“Up there! Straight ahead!” Keel saw a marble arch built into the side of the crystal dome, and there was a holo-sign flashing above it that said, ‘Palace of Prince Yuri.’ The arch had a wide square in front, where three different avenues appeared to join together. There was some sort of guard building, but it looked empty.
“They must have fled. Maybe they were forewarned,” Tobin said as they ran forward.
The metal doors inside the arch were sealed and locked, but locks were no match for a metal body. Keel took a lunging step, then another, and another as he launched himself at the gate, turning his shoulder just in time to slam into the steel doors.
With a crack, they shuddered open slightly. Keel slid to a crouch, seeing a corridor on the far side. He heard running feet.
“Come on! There are people there!” he said.
Jamieson and Venez each grabbed one of the doors, forcing their robot fingers through the wedge that Keel had forced open. Keel saw their back plates adjust as they pulled and knew the servos and micro winches up and down their spines were maximizing their power until the door squealed and both panels crumpled, clattering to the floor beyond.
“We’re in! Halt in the name of the emperor!” Venez bellowed as the squad ran in.
Keel saw a checkered marble floor and a room with a vaulted ceiling held up by white marble pillars. There were people dressed in white robes running for the three archways, and Venez raised his rifle at them.
It took just a moment for Keel’s sensors to update him. “They’re civilians! They’re unarmed!” he shouted.
Tobin ran forward and called, “Halt where you are! In the name of the emperor!”
One civilian did stop. The others—staffers of the prince, Keel guessed—disappeared into the halls.
“You’re all under arrest!” Jamieson said, moving forward with his blaster up.
No, I’m not having this. Keel ran ahead to overtake Jamieson and get to the staffers first.
“No, they’re not, stars damn it, Jamieson!” he growled, turning to the terrified civilian—a middle-aged man in white robes who already had his hands in the air. “The prince. Where is he? Now,” Keel demanded.
The man’s eyes flickered to the third archway. “He should be in his apartments. We were told he was going to be there,” he stammered, one hand gesturing to the first archway.
“Think carefully, or else you will be under arrest. Where is Prince Yuri!” Keel demanded again.
The man quivered. The Imperial Marines stood a good six inches taller than the human and were a good deal wider with their bulky power armor.
The man stammered and gestured to the third archway. “He’s heading for his private dock. It’s that way.”
Keel nodded to Tobin. “Tell the Bulldog to intercept. Come on, we can still make it!” He turned on his heel, and the Marines ran for the archway.
They were in a wide corridor with the same marble floor and open doorways that seemed to lead to luxuriant lounge areas. Keel saw snatches of divans, giant palm plants in ports, and caught the smell of sweet fragrances. A trio of younger staffers emerged from one of the open doors at the end of the hall and screamed at the sight of six heavily armed and armored Imperial Marines running straight for them.
“The prince’s private dock. Where!?” Keel shouted.
One of the biologicals fainted, and another pointed down the corridor. “The stairs! The stairs!” he said, shielding the others as the Marines ran past.
The corridor ended in a T-junction, but there was a metal door to one side that Keel guessed had to be to the stairs. He lowered his rifle and shot at the electronic holo-pad, which exploded with sparks. The door jerkily slid open, revealing a darkened stairwell.
Directly below them in the habitat, Prince Yuri was hastily rushing to the small skiff he had permanently docked at his private launch.
The prince was a young man who was used to wealth and riches. He was also used to dealing with dangerous people, although not in such a visceral, up-close way as he was about to face now. His body was thin and under-exercised, and he was swathed in impractical white, purple, and gold robes that tangled his hurried strides.
“Night take it!” he snarled as he stumbled for the second time. He reached down to gather up his robes, hiking them to his thighs as he looked at the launch operators in their tiny booth above him. The private hangar was bedecked with bronze bulkhead frames, each one shaped into fantastic beasts and entirely decorative. Even the skiff itself was a declaration of his position, made with bronze and purple plating over a backward half-moon design.
It wasn’t exactly subtle.
“Get a move on! Get the engine’s started, for stars’ sake!” he shouted at the control booth, where he could see the harried launch operator moving between holo-controls and levers. In response, the skiff trembled as electric life ran through its poly-steel skins.
Prince Yuri got to the landing legs and raised his hand.
“Activate personal identification. Prince Yuri!” he shouted. Circles of blue lines radiated around his hand as the security holos activated and flashed green. A door hissed open on the side of the skiff, and a set of metal stairs unfolded to the floor.
“Open the hangar doors, you idiot!” he yelled, and there was a muffled response over the speaker system as the large metal doors opposite the skiff started to peel open, a blue field flickering between them to secure the precious internal atmospheres.
Prince Yuri only had to make it as far as Zunip 3. There, he knew the Council of Merchant Princes would take him in. For all of their trade squabbling, they would always protect their own against imperial interests.
Just a little way to go, and his skiff was fast. Every merchant knew the perils of their trade, and every prince especially so. The Inner Systems were always a threat, and the grace of the emperor was always capricious.
He could make it. He knew he could make it.
The stairs folded shut behind him as he found himself in the cockpit of the single occupant skiff. Its holo-deck was already lighting up with controls as the thrusters started to warm, firing jets of gases ready for plasma ignition.
Prince Yuri felt the power of his ship thrumming around him. He could feel it through the pilot’s seat as he clipped the safety harness and grabbed the flight wheel. The doors finally hissed open.
ATTENTION! Intruders on the launch bay floor!
The warning flashed across his screen as he looked toward the open hangar door. There were blips of figures racing down the steps into the bay—six of them. A tide of quick, murderous Imperial Marines. Even on his sensor display, they looked powerful. Their moves were efficient and calculated with machine intelligence. They had their plasma blasters up and were shouting, but of course the prince couldn’t hear them.
“Frack you.” Yuri smiled, reaching for the thruster control as he eased the flight handle forward. “A good bit of thruster fire should melt even the mighty Imperial Marines into slag, shouldn’t it?”
A dark shadow suddenly eclipsed the stars beyond the blue forcefield. A third of the stars were blacked out, then a half, then two-thirds, and then only a sliver remained as the menacing bulk of an imperial transporter blocked his escape.
