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for back-up from Security Ops. A green guard screamed as Taura yanked his arm
out of its shoulder socket and swung him into the air by the dislocated joint
at another one aiming his stunner at her.
Colored lights danced before Miles's eyes. Fell's captain, focusing on Taura
as the biggest threat, dropped to stunner fire from Bel Thorne as Nicol
whammed her float chair into the back of the last green guard left standing.
"The float truck!" Miles croaked. "Go for the float truck!" Bel cast him a
desperate look and sprinted toward it. Miles fought like an eel until Moglia
got a hand down to his boot, drew a sharp, thin knife, and pressed it to
Miles's neck.
"Hold still!" snarled Moglia. "That's better . . ." He straightened in the
sudden silence, realizing he'd just pulled domination from disaster.
"Everybody hold still." Bel froze with its hand on the float-truck's door pad.
A couple of the men splayed on the tarmac twitched and moaned. "Now stand away
from?
glk," said Moglia.
Taura's voice whispered past Moglia's ear, a soft, soft growl. "Drop the
knife. Or I'll rip your throat out with my bare hands."
Miles's eyes wrenched sideways, trying to see around his own clamped head, as
the sharp edge sang against his skin.
"I can kill him, before you do," croaked Moglia.
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"The little man is mine," Taura crooned. "You gave him to me yourself. He came
back for me. Hurt him one little bit, and I'll tear your head off and then
I'll drink your blood."
Miles felt Moglia being lifted off his feet. The knife clattered to the
pavement. Miles sprang away, staggering. Taura held Moglia by his neck, her
claws biting deep. "I still want to rip his head off," she growled petulantly,
remembrance of abuse sparking in her eyes.
"Leave him," gasped Miles. "Believe me, in a few hours he's going to be
suffering a more artistic vengeance than anything we can dream up."
Bel galloped back to stun the security chief at can't miss range while Taura
held him out like a wet cat. Miles had Taura throw the unconscious Dendarii
over her shoulder while he ran around to the back of the float truck and
released the doors for Nicol, who zipped her chair inside. They tumbled
within, dropped the doors, and Bel at the controls shot them into the air. A
siren was going off somewhere in
Ryoval's.
"Wrist comm, wrist comm," Miles babbled, stripping his unconscious trooper of
the device. "Bel, where is our drop shuttle parked?"
"We came in at a little commercial shuttleport just outside Ryoval's town,
about forty kilometers from here."
"Anybody left manning it?"
"Anderson and Nout."
"What's their scrambled comm channel?"
"Twenty-three."
Miles slid into the seat beside Bel and opened the channel. It took a small
eternity for Sergeant
Anderson to answer, fully thirty or forty seconds, while the float truck
streaked above the treetops and over the nearest ridge.
"Laureen, I want you to get your shuttle into the air. We need an emergency
pick-up, soonest. We're in a House Fell float truck, heading?" Miles thrust
his wrist under Bel's nose.
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"North from Ryoval Biologicals," Bel recited. "At about two hundred sixty
kilometers per hour, which is all the faster this crate will go-"
"Home in on our screamer," Miles set the wrist comm emergency signal. "Don't
wait for clearance from Ryoval's shuttleport traffic control, 'cause you won't
get it. Have Nout patch my comm through to the Ariel."
"You got it, sir," Anderson's thin voice came cheerily back over his comm.
Static, and another few seconds excruciating delay. Then an excited voice,
"Murka here. I thought you were coming out right behind us last night! You all
right, sir?"
"Temporarily. Is 'Medtech Vaughn' aboard?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right. Don't let him off. Assure him I have his tissue sample with me."
"Really! How'd you?"
"Never mind how. Get all the troops back aboard and break from the station
into free orbit. Plan to make a flying pick-up of the drop shuttle, and tell
the pilot-officer to plot a course for the Escobar wormhole jump at max
acceleration as soon as we're clamped on. Don't wait for clearance."
"We're still loading cargo. . . ."
"Abandon any that's still unloaded."
"Are we in serious shit, sir?"
"Mortal, Murka."
"Right, sir. Murka out."
"I thought we were all supposed to be as quiet as mice here on Jackson's
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Whole," Bel complained.
"Isn't this all a bit splashy?"
"The situation's changed. There'd be no negotiating with Ryoval for Nicol, or
for Taura either, after what we did last night. I struck a blow for truth and
justice back there that I may live to regret, briefly.
Tell you about it later. Anyway, do you really want to stick around while I
explain to Baron Fell the real truth about the Betan rejuvenation treatment?"
"Oh," Thorne's eyes were alight, as it concentrated on its flying, "I'd pay
money to watch that, sir."
"Ha. No. For one last moment back there, all the pieces were in our hands.
Potentially, anyway."
Miles began exploring the readouts on the float-truck's simple control panel.
"We'd never get everybody together again, never. One maneuvers to the limit,
but the golden moment demands action. If you miss it, the gods damn you
forever. And vice versa. . . . Speaking of action, did you see Taura take out
seven of those guys?" Miles chortled in memory. "What's she going to be like
after basic training?"
Bel glanced uneasily over its shoulder, to where Nicol had her float chair
lodged and Taura hunkered in the back along with the body of the unconscious
trooper. "I was too busy to keep count."
Miles swung out of his seat, and made his way into the back to check on their
precious live cargo.
"Nicol, you were great," he told her. "You fought like a falcon. I may have to
give you a discount on that dollar."
Nicol was still breathless, ivory cheeks flushed. An upper hand shoved a
strand of black hair out of her sparkling eyes. "I was afraid they'd break my
dulcimer." A lower hand stroked a big box-shaped case jammed into the
float-chair's cup beside her. "Then I was afraid they'd break Bel. . . ."
Taura sat leaning against the truck wall, a bit green.
Miles knelt beside her. "Taura dear, are you all right?" He gently lifted one
clawed hand to check her pulse, which was bounding. Nicol gave him a rather
strange look at his tender gesture, her float chair
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"Hungry," Taura gasped.
"Again? But of course, all that energy expenditure. Anybody got a ration bar?"
A quick check found an only-slightly-nibbled rat bar in the stunned trooper's
thigh pocket, which Miles immediately liberated.
Miles smiled benignly at Taura as she wolfed it down; she smiled back as best
she could with her mouth full. No more rats for you after this, Miles promised
silently. Three steak dinners when we get back to the Ariel, and a couple of
chocolate cakes for dessert. . . .
The float-truck jinked. Taura, reviving somewhat, extended her feet to hold [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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