"Since you have Truper's truck, you can keep his sector for searches. Good luck on these two." The clerk refrained from offering Kai his hand. "Two of my people have already removed the bodies from your truck, so you are free to go."
"Astral! I'll get these two wankers and we'll be back." Kai smiled and patted the man on his shoulder. "You'll be seeing lots of us in the future."
* * *
Back in the hovertruck, Kai started it up and headed out toward the gate. He drove slowly enough to scan the faces of prisoners working within the camp and outside on the road. Once through the twin gates and beyond where chain gangs were working, he increased his speed.
"How did they look to you, Doctor?"
She pulled the gauze from her head. "Malnourished. Some are obviously sick. I didn't see many with bandages, so either they sent the battle-wounded to a hospital ..."
"Or they've buried them somewhere." Kai frowned. "That's what I was thinking anyway." His gaze flicked to the rear-view mirrors, but the dust curtain let him see nothing of the camp. "I'm happy we've not been captured." .
"I second that." She shivered within Truper's outsized clothes. "What do we do next?"
Kai shrugged. "The way I see it, we, have two choices. The first is to run as far and as fast as we can."
"That has merit. What is the second?"
"They assigned Truper's old territory to us. Therefore we know of at least one place on this planet where the hunters won't find us."
She nodded, then looked at him sidelong. "Tough choice. I'll have to think on it. By the way, did you mean what you said back in the camp?"
Kai frowned, trying to remember exactly what he'd said. "You mean the part about you being cute?"
Deirdre shook her head. "No, the part about twenty-five of those C-bills being mine."
Kai smiled. "Go you one better, Doc. Nothing but a fifty-fifty split for the two of us. Let's see, I got seventy C-bills ..."
"Kai ..."
* * *
It amazed the ComStar clerk that Taman Malthus could study the stinking corpse of Dave Jewell without gagging. "That's him, Star Captain. There's your Dave Jewell."
The Elemental's head came up and the clerk regretted having drawn attention to himself. "You are in error, Acolyte." Malthus reached down and brought the body's right hand up into view. "This man has calluses on his right hand, suggesting it is the hand he used most. He was right-handed. Jewell was not."
The clerk swallowed hard. "That is not possible."
Malthus smiled easily and let the hand thump back onto the examining table. "It is. You yourself paid Dave Jewell money for bringing in his own corpse." The Elemental snorted, then shook his head. "This Jewell makes for most interesting prey, quiaff?"
The clerk nodded mutely.
Malthus closed the bag and wiped his hands on the clerk's shirt. "I will ignore the fact that you let your own greed blind you to what was going on here. Thatis ComStar business. I see no need to complicate things by notifying Demi-Precentor Khalsa."
"No, sir."
"Good. You said you gave the bounty hunter and his woman more targets?"
"Yes, Star Captain. They are working Truper's old territory."
"Excellent." Malthus steered,the clerk toward the door with a heavy hand on the back of the man's neck. "You will provide me with a map of your search sectors."
The Elemental glanced back at the two bodies stretched out on tables in the morgue. "That is what happens when you pit members of the criminal class against a warrior. Now we will show you freebirths how real Warriors deal with another Warrior. The bidding for this assignment will be fierce, but the hunt will be worth it."
19
Bethel
Capellan March, Federated Commonwealth
20 March 3052
Nicholas Chung fastened the straps of his safety harness across his chest. "I'll be decelerating to only a decimeter per second for docking. Please fasten yourself into the jump seat."
His passenger laughed lightly. "Come now, Chung, you need not sound like such an old woman. I've not lived this long to die from a bump when your DropShip docks with the JumpShip."
Chung hit a warning button on his command console's left side. It caused a series of five tones to sound throughout the ship, warning of an impending jump. "You may have been my commander on Spica, lo, those many eons ago, but I am in command of the Te Kuaiche."
"But I am the one who has hired your DropShip to carry me home."
Chung let a smile wash away his nervousness. "True enough, but then is it not my duty to ensure the safety of my patron?"
"You are quite correct in pointing this out."
Chung's smile remained in place as he heard the jump seat snap down into place and the metallic click of the safety straps being fastened together. His hands slid down to the joysticks on the ends of his command couch. On the primary screen in front of him, he had the docking link for the JumpShip Kensing Bay.As he moved the left joystick up a bit, the computer-projected crosshairs centered themselves on the dock link. The crosshairs pulsed and Chung hit the button on top of the joystick to lock the DropShip on course.
"Not unlike lining up a target for a 'Mech's weapons, eh, Chung?"
"True." With the right joystick, he cut his velocity so the DropShip drifted very slowly to the appointed link-up. "Fortunately, JumpShips do not shoot back."
His passenger did not answer immediately and Chung sensed deep and dark thought emanating from that corner of the pilot's station. He knew that when his ship hooked up with the JumpShip Kensing Bay ,the JumpShip's Captain would trigger the jump to Daniels. In the blink of an eye, the very fabric of space would warp around both ships and they would reappear in another star system over thirty light years distant.
And thirty light-years closer to Sian. Thirty light-years closer to Romano Liao.
Chung turned in his chair but could barely make out his passenger in the shadows. "Are you certain you want to continue this journey? You need not go, you know."
"I have no choice, Chung." A fist sheathed with a black glove emerged from the shadows. "Romano Liao killed my beloved. She all but orphaned my children. Her predations have slaughtered hundreds of millions within the Capellan Confederation." The fist vanished, to be replaced by a heavy thump of something hitting the bulkhead. "This is a journey I should have made years ago. I waited too long and it has cost me dearly. No more."
A metallic thunk echoed through the ship. "We're linked. Brace for jump."
Though he made his living piloting DropShips between JumpShips and planets, Nicholas Chung never got used to the sensation of jumping between worlds. Everything he saw blurred, then each star expanded until the brilliant rainbow of lights swirled around in a crazy mosaic of colors. He felt himself being smashed flat down into one dimension, then cycling around through a dozen other dimensions until suddenly he was back in the solid reality of the three dimensions where he spent most of his time.
He shook himself, then grabbed the command couch arms as a wave of nausea passed through him. He swallowed against the bile, then hit a switch on the panel at his right. "DropShip Te Kuaicheis away. Thanks for the lift, Kensing Bay ."