TWENTY
Surprisingly, it was Goodnight who first started to bring some sort of order to a very joyous, if a little paranoiac, reunion.
The five had filtered back onto Trimalchio IV, and been shuttled by one of M'chel's friends to an out-of-the-way conference center on one of its moons.
"Awright, awright, settle down," he growled. "We're all glad to see each other and all of that. Pour drinks, siddown, and let's figure out what we're going to do next."
"If anything," Riss added.
The other four obeyed.
Grok presented the situation on Alsaoud, and his and King's belief that there had to be a profit hiding in the confused system for the giant security company to get involved.
When he finished, he looked at Riss.
"It is for you, M'chel, to take us the next step.
"I think."
Riss half smiled.
"First," she said, "it's agreed that all of us would like to break it off in Cerberus, right?"
"That's maybe not the way to put it," Goodnight said. "The question seems to have become do any of us have any sort of choice against taking on Cerberus?"
"Sorry, Chas," M'chel said. "I was starting too deep into things. Let's take up Goodnight's question.
"Do any of us have any sort of choice?
" I don't," she went on. "I'd taken my lumps and was quietly going about my living and the bastards shot up my home.
"I got the idea they aren't gonna let me alone. Not unless I go dirt farming and marry some clodheel or something. But for sure get out of any kind of adventuring."
"That's one," Jasmine tabulated. "If I may speak for us, Grok?"
"You may."
"I could say that we could continue on our merry way, but we haven't come up against Cerberus, one way or another, and don't know if they've got us on their, uh—"
"—shit list," Goodnight said.
"Yes," King agreed.
"Perhaps we aren't," Grok said. "But given these two, maybe three, outstanding examples, who can take the chance of skulking around looking over your shoulder?
"Assuming you have that capability, which my race does not."
"Hold your vote," von Baldur requested. "I can cast a very certain ballot, so it is two yesses.
"Cerberus came after me quite directly."
"You're sure that team was from Cerberus?" King asked.
"I backtrailed them a little," Friedrich said. "And until I ran out of money, I found they'd been around the fringes of several Cerberus operations. Close enough for my decision, at any rate. So it remains, from my perspective, a definite yes."
"As for me," Goodnight said, "the best I can provide is a definite maybe. I can't tell if they tried to trap me just because they were providing general security for Zion's diamond merchants, or if I'd specifically set off some alarms."
"We have two definite yesses, one maybe," Grok said. "Jasmine?"
"I'll vote us for a probable yes, but I'm voting my emotions. I want those bastards on toast," she said fiercely.
"That kind of loads it on the probable side," Goodnight said. "So, I guess we should—"
"—I don't think we can make a decision yet," Riss said. "There's another question.
"None of us are rolling in green. We've got some capital, but not enough for a full-scale war.
"And bashing Cerberus won't be cheap.
"If we go against Cerberus, we'll have to figure a way to make a credit out of it. Or through it."
There was silence, then grunts and nods.
"Any ideas how?"
Again, silence.
"There's got to be money in Alsaoud," Goodnight said. "Cerberus wouldn't be there if there weren't. All we have to do is figure out what and where it is, and snatch it out of their greedy little fingers."
"And perhaps leave them with at least a few of said fingers badly bloodied, or, ideally, missing," von Baldur said.
"Well, this operation, if we mount it, is one we'll have to be pretty sneaky about," Riss said. "At least the moving-in part. So I don't think it'd be wise to put the word out that Star Risk is back in business and looking for trouble."
"No," Goodnight agreed. "That'd be sure to get a bomb in our shorts."
"But there is nothing that says four friends and one alien—who, perhaps, must remain out of sight—could not visit the Alsaoud System, is there?"
Grok asked.
"The holos suggest it is very beautiful this time of year."
"When the credit trees are in blossom," King said. "Yes. Most romantic.
Let us go a-touristing."
TWENTY-ONE
They decided to visit the Alsaoud System in two groups. Friedrich, M'chel, and Goodnight went via one of the few scheduled liners into the system—and even then, it was a way-stop, even though Alsaoud was one of the standard nav posts for travel in that sector of the galaxy.
This they found interesting.
It looked as if not many wanted to go to Alsaoud, and even fewer wanted to take them.
The other contingent was Grok and Jasmine, who slipped into the system via a chartered "space yacht," acquired and piloted by Redon Spada. It was actually an armed fast scout that someone had done a fast shuffle on when registering.
This was done not only to keep all of Star Risk's hatchlings out of one basket, but to keep the somewhat noticeable Grok from being noticed. It also gave them a possible back door, if Bad Things started happening.
M'chel found it interesting that Jasmine insisted on traveling with Grok, even though the Alliance liner Normandie was far more luxurious.
Interesting indeed, although she didn't make any comment.
The approach to Alsaoud was also interesting. The ship had only about half a full manifest of passengers, and so they were cosseted. Especially those in first class. Friedrich had insisted, even though they were supposedly conserving credits, that this remained the only way to travel.
M'chel tried chatting with crew members about fascinating topics such as why no one seemed to particularly want to go to Alsaoud, even though the guide fiches made it sound "fascinating."
No one talked, not even by indirection.
As the ship blinked out of hyperspace, the passengers were encouraged either to go to one of the lounges to use the huge screens or remain in their cabins and use those sets, so they could, to quote the intercom's commentary, "admire the spectacular Maron Region."
Riss was more interested to note that the Normandie's two missile stations were manned as the ship hung beyond the Maron Region as the crew set up for the jump deeper into the Alsaoud system. There was also an escort ship that waited on them.
M'chel remembered what Grok had told her about piracy in the system.
But then she concentrated on spectating.
The Maron Region, consisting of the asteroids outside the system and possibly formed by a planetary collision eons earlier, was spectacular. The tumbling rocks, anywhere from decent planetoids to fist-sized boulders, looked—especially from a distance—like rows of loose planetary rings, minus a planet, held in their loose orbits by the system's own light gravity.
Riss guessed if the rings came from a collision, there must have been seriously huge planets involved.
The intercom guidebook-type chatter told her that the interesting thing about the Marons was they were inhabited, by a hardy race that called themselves the People. "Hardy race" sounded like it'd been read in quotes.
Again, there was no mention of piracy or anything else that might upset the eager traveler.
The second world was Khazia, close to E-standard, the capital of the system. Its capital city was Helleu.
Its medium-sized continents were primarily in the temperate zones, studded with small lakes and seas.
Riss had read that it was primarily agricultural, with some light manufacturing.
It was interesting that the Normandie didn't port in Helleu, but sent the handful of passengers down via lighter.
The port appeared easily approachable.
Riss also wondered why the crew of the lighter was not only armed with Alliance heavy blasters, but kept giving their passengers odd looks, as if they thought them demented for wanting to go near Alsaoud.
Riss admitted to herself that most of them didn't appear to be just gawkers, but the sort of people who get very interested in other people's problems and in finding a way to exploit them.
On the approach, Helleu appeared a most welcoming city. It nestled in the crook of a large bay, against a range of spectacular mountains. The respectable-sized city, if not a metropolis, looked well laid out, and included several of the offshore islands.
The buildings gleamed white and lovely under the sun.
But the closer the former Star Risk team came to the landing field, the more they saw things that were missing.
Such as the upper half of a skyscraper, jaggedly smashed off by a heavy missile impact;
Such as unscarred lifters—most of the ones they saw darting above roads were heavily armed and armored;
Such as any sign of traffic direction;
Such as shopping districts that didn't have sandbagged bunkers, here and there, and whose shop fronts weren't heavily reinforced; Such as strolling pedestrians—those they saw scurried about quickly, and M'chel thought most of them were armed;
Such as a normal-looking landing field. Half of the ships had been badly shot up, and others were warships, either by design or modification.
"Wonderful," Riss said.
"Be it ever so humble," Goodnight added, "there's no place like this."
They landed, and were hurried with their baggage into a customs shed.
The lighter didn't wait for more than a few moments before taking off again.
The customs shed was sandbagged, with the sandbags holed by small arms fire, and the customs officers all wore body armor.
"It would appear," Friedrich murmured, "as if the political situation might have worsened since anyone last surveyed the situation."
The customs official didn't give their passports more than a perfunctory check, and ignored their baggage.
Riss thought she could have had a small howitzer in her suitcase for all the officials cared.
Looking at the holed buildings beyond the terminal, she thought more than a few passengers might've had just that sort of weapon stashed away—or higher calibers.
"I can barely wait to see what our hotel looks like," Goodnight said.
Their cab had steel plates welded around the passenger compartment, and the driver's cockpit was also armored.
The cabby, a slender, wiry-haired man, was quite friendly, and helped them load their gear.
The last bag was in the trunk when an unholy screeching tore the air.
Riss involuntarily shouted "incoming," and the three Star Risk operatives flattened, beaten to the ground by the cabby.
A few hundred meters away, a small building lifted off the ground and disassembled itself into dust as the rocket barrage exploded.
The cabby picked himself up, checked a watch finger.
"A little early today," was his comment.
"Does this go on all the time?" was Goodnight's rather incredulous question.
"Oh, no," the cabby said. "It's a good deal more exciting these days.
Elections were two weeks ago, and they're still deciding who really won."
"Interesting." von Baldur said. "The Excelsior Hotel, please."
"Ah," the cabby said. "You are going to be some of our movers and shakers."
"What makes you say that?" Friedrich said. "We picked the Excelsior from a guide fiche."
"Of course, of course," the cabby said, clearly not believing a word. "For your information, sir, the Excelsior is where those who, shall we say, wish to have a voice in the future of our system stay."
Riss made a face, leaned over to Goodnight.
"Maybe it's not a good idea to hang our hats there."
"Or maybe it is," Chas said. "We can't expect to do business without meeting businessmen."
Riss grinned.
They reached a checkpoint, set up in the middle of an otherwise ordinary street. It was a sandbagged position in the center of the street, with a crew-served autocannon, an alert gunner, and two sentries outside. M'chel also saw a recoilless rifle hidden in a storefront. Half were men, half women.
All were in clean, tailored, dark green uniforms, without rank or unit badges.
One sentry checked a metal plate the cabby held out with a small bill wrapped around it. The other squinted at the passengers suspiciously, a blaster in his hand, then waved them on.
"Our new president's men," the cabby said. "Sharp-looking, aren't they?"
Friedrich grunted noncommittally.
There was another checkpoint a few blocks on. These guards weren't as flashily dressed, their uniform was a little shabbier, and their weaponry wasn't as new.
But they were just as alert.
"And who do they belong to?" M'chel asked.
"Our prime minister," the cabby said carelessly. "He's on the outs. This week."
He pointed down a road. "Now, there's an avenue you want to stay off of. There's a new post about half a klick down there, set up by the People, and they don't like anybody.
"Bastards. Not only are they swarming the Marons, but they breed like rats, and are gonna crowd us off our own worlds if we—or somebody—doesn't stop them."
He turned into a lane that led to a high-rise just off the beach.
Another set of security guards checked the cab, waved to the door.
Obsequious men wearing the same uniform as the security team unloaded them, and took their baggage inside.
Friedrich took out a decent-sized bill, rolled it, and handed it to the cabby.
"Oh, thank you, sir! Will there be anything else? I hope."
"We might need a driver on an irregular basis," Friedrich said.
"Always available, sir. Safest, fastest transport in Helleu. I know everybody, everybody knows me, and I know who not to know. My name's Jorkens, sir. Tell the concierge to call Breakside 438 for me. Anytime, anywhere."
They checked in to the hotel.
"You'll be on the tenth floor," the congenial clerk said. "High enough so any, umm, loud noises, explosions, like that, will be softened, but not high enough to be a target for the crazies to aim at."
They were escorted to their, as always, suite, then standard procedure cut in:
Goodnight used a couple of innocuous-looking devices in their luggage to check for bugs, found three. Two were audio, one was visual. He carefully starred the lens of the visual pickup as if something accidental had happened to crack it, so it would show nothing important.
Of the two bugs, one he judged ancient, and not worth worrying about.
On the other he put a small distorter that would mar whatever was transmitted enough to be indecipherable, but still kept 'casting.
Friedrich checked the suite's alternate exits, where they would lead, and the location of fire exits and other emergency back doors.
Riss, with a collection of smallish bills, hunted down the floor's maids, and made very good friends with them, with the promise of more, larger payments if they told her anything interesting or if anyone became curious about them.
It wasn't that they were expecting any trouble.
But it wasn't that they weren't expecting any trouble, either.
There'd been no message from Spada, so he evidently hadn't arrived yet.
Riss dug another innocent-looking little box out that supposedly played background music, keyed a code message into it on the frequency Spada's ship would be monitoring when it arrived.
There being nothing else to do before dinner, M'chel went wandering along a nearby arcade.
Being near the Excelsior, it was, naturally, a collection of expensive shops, with everything up to and including Earth imports.
Life, Riss decided, went on. Even in a war zone, rich bitches and bastards still had to flaunt it.
After a fashion.
A couple of the shops had been rocketed out of business, and were boarded up. But the others kept on with business as usual.
Riss admired a store selling designer holsters, plus grenade and ammo cases to fit most of the currently popular smaller blasters, in an interesting assortment of colors.
She weakened and bought a small thigh holster with what looked like black lace that wouldn't get in the way of a rapid draw.
After a quiet consultation with the sales clerk, she paid an only slightly out of line amount for a matching, quite lethal, hideout gun to go with it.
She went on along the promenade. She saw several obvious mercenaries—a little too loud, a little too swaggering, their eyes a little too hungry—and their chosen partners, clearly looking for work.
She spotted one that she'd hired a couple or three assignments ago. She didn't think the woman would recognize her, but she ducked into a store specializing in seductive undergarments and body armor that was promised to be "comfortable for any occasion," until the mercenary passed.
As she came out, she heard the howl of a lifter under power and backed into the storefront as the lifter with men hanging out shooting back at a second lifter, also with gunnies at full tilt, roared past.
It turned out this was the payoff-in-progress of that month's particular pastime: kidnapping—for either immediate profit or for political advancement. Generally, no one got hurt, and there was an amicable exchange. Frequently this week's kidnapper became next week's kidnappee.
Only when things went distinctly sour did the guns come out.
After a fashion…
Another evening, Goodnight—feeling either bulletproof, cat-dead curious, or inordinately full of bravado—paid a very reluctant Jorkens to take the crew down "that street" to see what the People were made of.
"If we go and get grabbed, sir," he said, "I'm depending on you to ransom me out. M' old woman surely won't pay a damned disme."
Goodnight agreed.
The People's quarter was a blaze of color and noise. The stores were mostly open-air bazaars packed with tiny booths.
No one seemed to discuss anything below a shout or a shrill. But the food was good, if spiced into the pain level, the costumery was equally breathtaking, the people were striking, and the artistry singular.
The People seemed to laugh a lot, but Riss noted that most of the men, and a near majority of the women, carried knives. Some of them were quite elaborately worked, but all were worn in very functional sheathes. M'chel inquired about the custom, and was told that a woman or man was given a knife when she or he was considered a full citizen, and they only gave them up when they decided to bear children or to otherwise practice nonviolence.
Duels, either "to the blood" or "to the death," were fairly common.
Children swarmed everywhere.
M'chel and Chas ended up in a small amphitheater, with a band that seemed made up of "run what you brung" musicians.
"It looks almost civilized here," Chas told M'chel, his impression confirmed by his first taste of what the hostile, but terribly efficient, waiter called a Slammer.
He offered a taste to Riss, who had barely that, and had trouble speaking for the next few minutes.
Chas didn't notice—he was watching a dance that had begun on the floor that seemed to be little more than people coming onto the floor, spinning around from person to person, then ricocheting back into the audience.
The waiter, somewhat superciliously, explained that this was one of the People's Great Dances, symbolizing how they had been ejected by invaders in their own homes, which were beautiful beyond words or even music.
They were driven out, but sooner or later—and this was signified by all of the dancers suddenly rushing back onto the floor—they would return and claim their heritage.
"A sad story," he told Riss.
"If it's true," she said cynically.
"Why should it not be?"
"I've never heard of any refugee, anywhere, who didn't claim he was unjustly driven from his wonderful home… or else he fled a tyranny."
"You should have more faith and trust in people," Chas said, trying to sound pacifistic as he signaled for another Slammer.
"Why?"
Chas had no answer to that.
One night they went down to dinner, stopping at one of the hotel bars for a cocktail. It was appropriately dark, with nooks and crannies and snugs galore.
Two rather goonish sorts who had obviously been drinking for a while got into an argument about who was going to pay, each insisting it was his turn.
Knives came out, and flashed silver for an instant in the light from the light-bowls on the tables.
The bar's conversation slackened and mild curiosity turned to the floor show.
Both the mercenaries went down, clutching themselves, and writhed about.
Waiters dragged the casualties out, and the murmur of conversation picked up again.
The three of them went in to dinner, and when they got back to their suite, a message waited.
Redon Spada, Grok, and Jasmine were on the ground.
They could start looking for trouble.
And work.
TWENTY-TWO
The coordination with Redon Spada, Grok, and Jasmine took only a little while. Grok was pretty well trapped in Spada's ship, at least until Star Risk was able to come into the open. Jasmine slept in the ship one night and in the hotel the next, and again Riss wondered about her arrangement with Grok, but said nothing.
Spada was a little more complicated for M'chel. He made calves' eyes at Riss, clearly wanting to resume their former romantic relationship, but M'chel held back, at least for the moment. She wasn't, she told herself, in this for romance.
First was to find out who Cerberus's client was, and, hopefully, what they were hoping to gain from this backing.
That was a bit easier than they'd figured it would be in the beginning, even though things got a little complicated thereafter.
A beginning assumption was made that Cerberus was backing the new president, considering his militia's flashy new gear and all, not to mention the Dog from Hell's love of always backing someone on top.
So, an unobtrusive electronic net was put around the presidential palace and set to transmit on a frequency Grok decided no one else on the planet was using.
Star Risk had rapidly expanded beyond one suite at the Excelsior. One room of one suite was set up as a purported laboratory, and the maids had been banned from it. In the room were all of Star Risk's necessary electronics. In another larger and equally well-sealed room, was stored the part of their weaponry not aboard the yacht.
"All that we have to do now," Goodnight told Riss, "is watch the monitors and see who crops up that looks Cerberus-y."
"Which means?" M'chel asked.
"A certain air of complacency, crookedness, amorality, and such."
"Be careful," Riss warned, "you're not looking in a mirror, Chas."
But it was actually quite simple.
Jasmine was skimming fiches of the bug planted on the main entrance, and suddenly she started gurgling.
At first, Grok thought she was choking, and was trying to remember the first aid techniques he'd been taught for use on humans, then realized King was combining growls of rage and spatters of obscenity.
She finally pointed to the monitor.
"That is he," Jasmine said quite calmly.
"Not quite, at least as I understand the language, my dear," Grok corrected. "That is—holy shit! as you beings say, it is him!"
M'chel, who'd been at another console, looked utterly perplexed.
"That," Grok managed, "and please forgive my overly human excitement, is one Frabord Held, of Cerberus Systems."
"Ah-hah," Riss gloated. "The liaison!"
"Probably a great deal more than that," Grok said. "He is a very high level operative."
Jasmine recovered. "He is also the person who decided it would be a feather in his cap if I were declared a robot, not human, and one of Cerberus's possessions."
"Oh, dear," Riss said.
"Oh, no," Jasmine said. "Not oh, dear. Maybe oh, pity the fool. He is now in my—sorry, our—frigging web."
"Your language," Riss said. "You're talking like Goodnight, now."
King caught herself.
"I am, aren't I? But Held's the one who… who ruined me!"
"No," Grok corrected. "Having read some rather amusing early Earth Vickytorian works of the imagination, as I believe the period was called, being ruined is what would have happened, as I understand it, if he had plans to cozen or bludgeon you into his bedchamber, and work his lack of will on you.
"As for any other sense of the word, the best thing that ever happened to you was being cast out of Cerberus."
Jasmine caught herself, grinned a bit sheepishly.
"I'm sorry. I was making a production out of it, wasn't I?"
"A production out of what?" Friedrich said, wandering into the room.
"Jasmine's found our scumbucket," M'chel said.
Grok explained further, and ran the playback. Von Baldur studied the image carefully.
"He looks somewhat self-satisfied as well as self-assured, does he not?"
"He's that," King said fiercely. "The bastard is all of that."
Riss shook her head.
"You're still taking this too seriously, kid. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. I found a new bar that nobody but artists drink in. Guaranteed nothing but trouble, but not the kind we give much of a damn about.
"And we can plot the demise of Mister Held and the ruination of Cerberus."
The bar, Minnie's Home, was a prize—if you liked things a little on the rowdy side.
M'chel figured that Minnie must have been raised in either a carnival or a gladiatorial arena.
Minnie might have been the rather modish, very soft-spoken woman whom Riss had seen walk up to a trio of obnoxious drunks, sucker punch one, offer the second a drink, kick him well below the belt when he smiled acceptance, and then club the third with a candelabra, but M'chel would never be able to ask, since she was instinctively terrified of her.
Minnie's was in a bad part of town, between two warring militia check points, with wandering bands of thugs practicing nefariousnesses between them.
The bar was signposted, if that was the right word, by a quadrant of lasers positioned around the closest crossroads, all of whose beams centered on a mirror outside the bar that, in turn, directed the beams in through a transom window.
If Minnie's ever closed, no one seemed to know about it.
There were bands playing incessantly and loudly, but no one listened.
In the front room were the heavy drinkers.
In the back room were the heavy drug users.
No one bothered anyone.
Or so the sign promised.
Everyone bothered everyone.
That was the reality.
But it didn't get physical. At least, not more than once an hour.
Riss had fallen in love with the joint because all of the incessant arguments were heated, and none of them were about anything important, at least as far as she was concerned.
Riss had seen, in her short time at Minnie's, lifelong enmities and some interesting brawls happen over such vital points as whether Mars was settled before Earth; whether Michelangelo learned what little he knew about sculpture from the Vegans; whether war is the only thing that keeps humanity evolving; and other important matters.
No one seemed to give a damn about Alsaoud's politics or personalities, which, after a hard day of scheming on how to make money and eternal damnation to Cerberus out of the system, was just what Riss needed.
When Jasmine and M'chel walked in, a rather large sort was wrapping his nostrils around an inhaler. He saw King, his eyes bugged out even more than the drug was already making them, and he stepped in front of her.
"Hody, sister, awrap for some cuddlin'?"
Minnie, if it was Minnie, was suddenly between them.
"First, 'hody' is no way to greet someone, second, this woman isn't your sister, third she would rather cuddle a slug than someone with your breath, and fourth you're out of here."
The hulk looked at Minnie, and his lower lip pouted out.
"Awww…"
"Barred, barred, barred," Minnie snarled. "For at least three days."
Obediently, he lurched toward the exit.
"See?" Riss said, and led Jasmine to a tiny bare table somewhat drenched in beer.
A few hours later, a bit awash in beer and the brandies of Alsaoud they'd sampled as chasers, plus Jasmine's occasional Veronica's Revenge, they started back for the hotel.
"I think we should call Jorkens and ride back," King said.
"It's a wonderful night for a walk," Riss insisted.
King shrugged and followed her out.
They'd not even gotten to the first laser when two lifters rode over the sidewalk before and after them and skidded to halts.
M'chel didn't even have a moment to reach for one of her two hideout guns.
They were covered, front and rear, by two crew-served blasters, whose gunners kept them covered while two other types shook them efficiently down.
"Now," one of the men said, "if you two ladies wouldn't mind getting into the first vehicle, you may consider yourselves kidnapped."
At least, M'chel thought a bit forlornly, feeling like an idiot for not taking Jasmine up on her suggestion of calling Jorkens, the thugs were courteous.
TWENTY-THREE
The kidnappers were not only polite, but efficient, as well.
Neither Jasmine nor M'chel was blindfolded. It wasn't necessary.
The windows of the lifter were opaqued.
The two lifters sped along, taking several turns that M'chel was pretty sure were intended to keep them from being able to ID their destination.
Then the lifter canted down, and, from that and the echoing sound of the drive mechanism, she figured they were going underground.
The lifter braked to a stop, and the doors came open. They were in an underground garage.
Again, two men stood ready with blasters, and the pair was hustled to an elevator. Two gunnies went in first, two after the women.
Jasmine couldn't see what floor sensor was touched.
The old-fashioned elevator lurched upward, King thought, through many floors.
She glanced at Riss to get a lead on how to play things, and was shocked and worried to see her face twisting as if fighting back tears.
The elevator stopped, and their captors pushed them out, down an expensively carpeted hall.
They stopped at a door, the entrance to an apartment that the number had been removed from, and hurried inside.
All of the windows except one had drawn blinds. That one looked out on a balcony and the city of Helleu.
Sitting at ease on a sofa were two men.
There was an upholstered bench across from them, with a table between.
One was amazingly ugly, but very expensively dressed.
The other could have been considered good-looking, if no one noticed his dead eyes. He wore what might have been a uniform, with all patches and rank badges removed.
The ugly man stood up.
"Welcome," he said, in an educated, calm voice. "You may call me…
Rabert is good enough. My colleague here can be called Aren."
"Please sit down," Rabert said. "Could I get you some water? Or we have tea."
The two women obeyed.
"Tea, if you could," Jasmine managed.
M'chel let out a wail.
"Please," Rabert said. "Try to keep yourself under control. We're not murderers."
"Not unless we have to be," Aren said softly.
"I… I can't," Riss said plaintively. "I'm afraid of what… what you're going to do to us."
One of the gunmen brought a cup of tea and set it down on the low table.
Jasmine didn't know what had suddenly happened to Riss to make her lose control, and she offered M'chel some of her tea.
That evidently made matters worse, for M'chel grabbed Jasmine's wrist, and let out another cry of heartbreak.
"Can't you make her stop that?" Rabert demanded.
Jasmine, intent on something else, shook her head.
"You, woman, listen to me," Rabert went on. "You appear to be the less out of control of the two."
Jasmine almost giggled at that misperception, but managed to nod solemnly.
"My group grabbed the two of you because we thought you looked prosperous, and most likely have family or husbands who would pay well to have you returned.
"Undamaged, shall we say."
A rather ghoulish smile touched Aren's lips. Rabert went on.
"Am I correct?"
To his surprise, Jasmine now started crying, with an occasional moan.
"Goddamned weak reeds," Rabert swore. "Would one of you answer my question—we assume you have relatives or such capable of raising a ransom, correct?"
M'chel managed a nod.
"Maybe… maybe Uncle… Uncle Baldur can raise a little money," she faltered.
"It had better be more than a little considering how you two are dressed,"
Rabert said. "We are businessmen, you know, and have a fairly high overhead.
"Both of you will appear on a fiche, which we'll send to your uncle.
Asking for, uh… a million—"
M'chel let out an agonized wail, and Jasmine joined her.
"Very well," Rabert said. "We're not unreasonable. Half a million. In Alliance credits. Or a full million in Alsaoud gelders.
"No one is to go to the police or any other armed force, or else the worst can be expected to happen to both of you.
"Your uncle will have… four days… from when we deliver the fiche to…?"
"The Excelsior Hotel," Jasmine managed. "He's M'chel's uncle, not mine, but he can get in touch with my family and ask them to contribute."
"Good," Rabert approved.
"Let me make you aware of the options, if there are any problems. We can arrange to have your uncle receive certain bodily parts—a finger, an ear—"
"A nipple," Aren put in with his horrible smile.
"Yes," Rabert said. "A nipple, if need be. My colleague has more violent tastes. If there are any serious problems after that, I shall turn one of you over to him—and to a couple of his assistants, and, with a recorder running, most unpleasant things can happen—and possibly there might be only one of you to ransom, or perhaps Aren would show a bit of mercy and allow the other to live, even if she would be damaged and unlikely to recover her full wits.
" Most unpleasant." he repeated.
Aren licked his lips.
Both women started sobbing uncontrollably.
Rabert grimaced, got up, looked at Jasmine and M'chel disgustedly.
"Get yourselves under control," he ordered. "I'll have a man with the recorder come in now, and let you find your own words to ask for help. I would recommend you sound convincing. Most convincing, since your future, if any, depends on it."
Jasmine bobbed her head, clearly terror-stricken and willing to do anything.
When M'chel had taken her hand, Riss's fingers had pressed out—twice, until King had suddenly gotten it—in Standard Code, the letters B-E H-Y-S-T-E-R-I-C-A-L.
TWENTY-FOUR
Son of a bitch," Chas Goodnight said gently as he eyed the screen. "Come to think, sons of sixteen bitches. How did those two manage to go and get themselves kidnapped?"
"I doubt," von Baldur said, "if they planned their evening around the event."
Grok growled incoherently. "Of course we shan't consider going to the police."
"Not in this ballsed-up society, we won't," Goodnight said. "Too much chance of a leak—or that the cops are in the baddies' hip pocket. And we'll ignore the chance of a plain ol' ordinary screwup. Do we have the money to bail 'em out?"
"We do," Grok said. "I can renew my loan to Star Risk that you repaid recently."
"But that is not the most important question," von Baldur said. "Is this ransom note to good old Uncle Baldur a setup?"
Goodnight puzzled for a moment, then got it.
"Oh. You mean, is Cerberus on to us and trying to suck us into a trap?"
"Exactly."
"Good question," Goodnight said. "I don't have an answer. Not even in battle analysis mode. Grok?"
"A ploy such as this," the giant alien said, "is certainly within their moral parameters. But I question whether they have the plain ordinary subtlety to come up with it."
"Questions, questions," Goodnight said irritably. "We could seriously handle some answers."
He got up, eyed the ransom note on the screen for an instant.
"Naturally, if we tried to trace the note back, it'll have been routed through so many servers to be totally clean.
"Do we know where the women went?"
"They signed out for a place called Minnie's Home. From there, who knows where they might have gone," Baldur said.
"You two hold down the fort here," Goodnight said. "I'm going to go out and ask a few questions."
"I suppose," Grok said a trifle wistfully, "there is no way that I could accompany you. I have a concern for Jasmine… and M'chel as well."
Goodnight clapped Grok on the back.
"Nope. You're still too visible. But I'll try to hold your end up. I don't particularly love snatch artists."
His grin was distinctly unpleasant.
The two women were remembered at Minnie's Home, but no one knew where they'd gone. Goodnight did find, though, that the district was a known swarming place for Khazia's burgeoning kidnap trade.
He went into a corner with one woman who seemed a bit knowledgeable, and credits changed hands.
Goodnight bade her good evening, and went out onto the street.
It took an hour's strolling before he was targeted.
A single large lifter slammed to a landing beside him, and three gunmen leaped out. There was a fourth, a driver, behind the lifter's controls.
"You're ours," one of them shouted, waving his gun.
"You mean, you're mine," Goodnight corrected, touched his cheek, and went bester.
A knuckle strike caved in the first man's windpipe, and he gurgled down as Goodnight spun, pulled a pistol from his belt, and blew the second man's forehead away. Another round went into the third man's chest, and Goodnight was in the lifter's cab and out of bester, as the mewling driver was trying to lift away.
"Yes," Chas said. "Let's take a nice ride. I'd like to find a nice quiet alley and ask you some questions about your trade and your associates, and whether you might have heard any interesting stories about people and their latest acquisitions."
There was no sign on the café.
Not that there was anything that would attract customers to it anyway—at least, other than those of a certain type.
The building sat by itself in a grimy industrial section, with a large, open parking area.
The district was one where police had no reason to patrol after dark, even in teams, and many good reasons not to patrol.
It had no windows, and the interior was divided into a bar, an open central dining area, and booths where private deals could be arranged.
It was late, after midnight, but the café was crowded.
The patrons would also have discouraged trade.
Their appearance did not suggest they were the sort who traveled in honest paths, nor harbored righteous thoughts.
Goodnight slid through the door, carrying a small pack.
A burly doorman, flanked by a gunnie, stopped him.
It was that sort of joint.
"You want?"
"Nothing you have," Goodnight assured him cheerfully. "Looking for a pair of jokers who don't always go under the same name. One's ugly as your mother, the other's good-looking, in a dead-fish sort of way. Likes to pretend he's with some sort of uniformed mob."
"Wouldn't tell you if they was here," the man growled. "Don't talk to nobody what sounds like a copper. Now, get your ass back to your precinct and tell 'em you're only alive 'cause I feel generous."
"Tsk," Goodnight said, and kicked him in the groin.
The man yelped, bent over, and Goodnight hammer-smashed him on the back of the neck.
As the doorman collapsed, Goodnight shot his backup between the eyes with a small pistol he didn't bother taking out of his sleeve.
The shot stilled the buzz.
"Awright," Goodnight said, very loudly. "Party's over."
He scanned the room, didn't see anyone who resembled the pair he was looking for.
Guns were coming out.
Goodnight unhurriedly reached in the pack, took out a grenade, thumbed the release and pitched it into one corner of the room, then came out with a second, threw that into the other corner, and went flat as the two grenades exploded with dull thuds.
Gas billowed through the room.
There were shouts, screams.
Goodnight stayed down until the noise stopped, then picked himself up.
He'd already inserted filter plugs in his nostrils.
The room was strewn with bodies, a few moving feebly.
Goodnight went to his first target, the bartender, rolled him on his back, knelt, and touched a syrette to his arm.
The second man was a prosperous-looking sort who'd had half a dozen underlings sitting around him.
He, too, got the antidote to the gas.
The others in the room would die, without recovering consciousness, within fifteen minutes.
Goodnight lifted the man he thought to be a boss sort into a sturdy chair, and secured him at wrists and ankles with plastic restraints.
"You'll hold," he said, as the man's eyes flickered open.
Goodnight went back to the bartender and put him in a second chair, tied him as well.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said, when the barkeep showed signs of alertness.
"Now, pay close attention, because I don't repeat myself.
"I'm looking for information on where a couple of your fellow kidnappers—don't bother arguing with me about what you're not—hang their hats.
"They lurk around this dive, so don't bother lying to me that you've never heard of them.
"I don't like liars."
He noted the first man's sneer.
"Oh, you'll tell me," he said, even though the man hadn't spoken, and set his pack on a table.
"You'll go second," he said. "I'll use your compatriot here as an example of my methods, not to mention listening to any skinny he might provide.
"Interesting thing," he went on, taking some items from the pack. "No matter how much someone doesn't want to talk, if you apply certain things to certain places—I'm talking simple things here, not drugs, which can get complicated—people become very eager to tell you what you want to know.
"Simple things," he said. "Such as splinters under the fingernails. Or razor blades. Or an electric generator. And I could write volumes about what can be done with two or three common needles.
"It's an interesting art, and you will find yourself cooperating with me.
"I say again my last, over.
"I really don't like snatch artists."
TWENTY-FIVE
It has been four days since we sent that ransom note," Aren said. There was a slight note of pleasure in his voice. "I'm afraid we're going to have to offer evidence of our seriousness."
M'chel considered the situation.
There were Aren and two guards—one with a dangling pistol, the second with a blast rifle at port arms in the room she and Jasmine had been held in.
Good enough.
Aren reached in his pocket, took out an old-fashioned spring knife, snapped it open.
"I'm sorry about this," he said, sounding very not sorry.
M'chel let out a sob, held her hands close to her face.
Aren stepped closer.
"Now," Riss said to King in a very calm voice.
As she spoke, one hand came off her face in guard position, the other snapped forward in a palm smash against Aren's nose.
It squashed, messily.
He yelped, more in surprise than in pain.
Jasmine snap-kicked the first gunnie in the upper thigh. He grunted, spun.
Jasmine had the gun out of his hands, reversed it, shot the other gunman in the forehead, then blew the top off the first man's head.
Riss grabbed Aren by the hair, jerked his head down as her knee jerked up, ruining the rest of his face. M'chel ran him forward, slamming his head into the very solid chest of drawers against one wall.
He collapsed, soggily.
To make sure, Riss snapped the side of her foot down against Aren's neck, and the dullish snap settled any doubts she might have had.
Riss went across the room in a rush, snagged the blast rifle from the second gunman's dead grasp, and went through the door into the apartment's main room.
The man who called himself Rabert and one other gunman were just coming to their feet, alerted by the shots.
M'chel shot the gunman in the chest, swung the rifle to Rabert.
He was lifting his hands, possibly to protest, possibly to beg for mercy.
Two guns went off almost simultaneously, almost blowing Rabert in half.
M'chel had a tight grin on her face. She was about to say something to Jasmine when they heard the roar of an engine, and a lifter floated around the corner of the building outside.
It nuzzled against the balcony, and Chas Goodnight, wearing coveralls and a combat harness, rifle in hand, leapt from its open door onto the balcony, shot the window out, and crashed through. He had a com bud in one ear, and a throat mike on.
At the controls of the lifter was Redon Spada.
In almost the same instant, the door to the apartment crashed down, taking the frame with it, and Grok rolled through, his paw dwarfing the blaster in his hand. He also wore a com.
Behind him, also gun-ready, was Friedrich von Baldur.
M'chel eyed them.
"A little late, boys."
Von Baldur looked around at the carnage.
"So I see."
"Come on," Goodnight prompted. "Less chit-chat. Let's blow this joint."
The two women hurried across to the balcony and were almost bodily pitched into the lifter's cargo area by Goodnight. Behind them came von Baldur.
"I am getting too old for this," he protested as he clambered aboard, carefully not looking down at the many stories of emptiness below him.
Grok took a bundle the size of his head from a small waist pack, thumbed a control, tossed it on the body of the late Rabert.
"Let us go then, you and I," he quoted. "Before this dive is spread out against the sky. We have thirty seconds."
They boarded, and the lifter banked and slid away at full drive.
The side of the skyscraper blew apart, taking three stories with it.
"And so the innocent suffer with the guilty, tough titty, tough titty,"
Goodnight said. "Assuming there's any such in these parts."
He turned to Riss.
"Now, if you two are through playing around, I think it's time to start straightening out the situation."
TWENTY-SIX
Premier Toorman will see you now." the receptionist said.
Friedrich von Baldur tucked his viewer under his arm. It had a screaming banner reading pirate outrages increase. He smiled graciously, made sure that his old-fashioned cravat was straight, and went toward the indicated door.
The receptionist wasn't an attractive female, but a man who looked as if he'd be happier as a bar bouncer and two equally obvious goons waited at the door.
Uneasy lies the head wearing the crown, von Baldur thought, and went into the premier's office, which was only slightly larger than the average starship landing field.
The premier was a small man with a twitch. He reminded Friedrich of someone—no, something. Something he'd seen in a holo. It was an earth animal called a… he grasped for the word… a wabbit.
He put such frivolity out of his mind and began his sales pitch.
Von Baldur represented a firm called Research Associates, which had already done business with Alsaoud, selling them a consignment of deep-space mines, which they'd said they were quite pleased with.
Von Baldur had heard, from "various sources," that the system might benefit from "more hands-on service"—specifically the direct services of Research Associates—in every area from planetary defense to high-level security.
"Particularly with the problem you seem to be having with piracy," he added, smiling like the ever-benevolent, ever-helpful, ever-protective uncle.
Toorman managed a smile, and Freddie noted that the smile, too, was twitchy.
It should have been.
Toorman, prime minister for five years, had stood for president in the recent elections, and been resoundingly defeated by a man named Flyver, who'd spent millions ensuring his victory.
The word was that it was only a matter of time before Flyver found an excuse to impeach or otherwise remove Toorman, even to the point of using violence, and bring in a replacement who would be more than willing to jig to Flyver's hornpipe.
Von Baldur added what he thought should be the capper to his pitch: that he understood certain parties within the system—who need not be named—had dared to bring in outside agitators and organizers, which would further discombobulate Alsaoud's happy worlds.
He did not use the word discombobulate, although he wanted to.
Even as he spoke, he realized the mention of Cerberus constituted overkill.
Toorman's twitching grew more obvious, and now could be seen as something approaching terror.
"I find… what you've been telling me more than interesting… certainly worthy of my discussing the possibility of your joining us with my private advisors," he managed. "And you may rest assured that I will take the matter under immediate advisement, and will be responding to you within… well, perhaps not hours, but a few days at the outside.
"If you'll leave your card with my assistants outside, I assure you that you have my complete backing."
Von Baldur knew that he'd just been turned down.
"Why, that chicken-hearted, yellow bastard," Goodnight snarled. "Doesn't he know that his ass is already in the whatchamacallit?"
"Tumbrel," King said.
"He'd goddamned better tumble damned fast out of the line of fire,"
Goodnight agreed. "His ass is buttermilk if he keeps on keeping on!"
"Regardless, Chas," von Baldur said mildly. "We have just been rejected from what appeared to be the easiest, most convenient way to edge our way toward the seat of power. Does anyone have any ideas on what we should do next?"
"We must do something," Grok said. "We cannot just stay freelance. That would only arouse Cerberus's suspicions—not to mention that we can't afford to do much of anything for very much longer, since we're woefully underfunded. I'd really rather not renew my loan to us, if there's another option.
"We need a sponsor—and I, for one, don't see one looming on the horizon."
Riss, who'd been fiddling with Freddie's viewer, looked up.
"I have, I think," she announced brightly, "a rather excellent idea."
TWENTY-SEVEN
Riss and Goodnight, bulky in space suits, hung behind the bulk of a semidisassembled light cruiser, the guts of its drive controls dangling out stern ports.
Behind them a few meters floated Redon Spada.
Around them were a dozen other ships, in various stages of combat readiness. Some sort of economy measure had driven Alsaoud to putting the harbor of what passed for its naval fleet in deep space, rather than on some nice, sensible desert somewhere.
In theory, to the ground-hugger or bureaucrat, that increased security.
In fact, all it did was create thousands and thousands of vulnerable points, in every possible direction.
And the fleet itself that Alsaoud was so proud of would have passed—to a properly martial world, system or cluster—as no more than a light patrol squadron.
The three were eyeing, with greed in their souls, a small Sung-class destroyer, whose sleekness belied its twenty-year-old obsolescence.
But Spada knew a secret about the class that made it most interesting to him and to Star Risk.
M'chel was considering the single survival capsule linked to the destroyer that served as a watchman's shack. Inside, out of the "weather," were the three sentries assigned to this half of the unmanned fleet.
Too goddamned easy, she thought. But that was the way it was here in the outback—sloppy and casual until you started taking things for granted and got killed.
Goodnight flashed a signaling blip from his suit light, and the three went across the open space on low-power suit jets and closed on the destroyer.
M'chel wondered why, after all these years, she still couldn't be in open space without a momentary, illogical, purely mental fear of falling.
Riss took position on the capsule, and Goodnight went to the destroyer's airlock.
It had no more than a standard magnetic lock, and Chas touched a pick to the airlock's security system and turned the pick on.
He felt vibration as the pick cycled silently for a moment, then the lock clicked, and the airlock slid open.
Spada and Goodnight went inside and closed the lock behind them.
There was air in the ship, and the two flipped their faceplates open and checked the ship for occupancy.
It was empty but fully fueled, and all vital signs—air, water, etc.—were positive.
Goodnight grinned happily, and Spada slid into a control couch.
Spada had never piloted a Sung, but it took him only a few moments to figure out the operating system and activate the drive.
Goodnight went back to the lock, cycled it, and stuck his head out.
Riss floated nearby above the "shack." Chas flashed a signal light, and Riss replied with a double flash.
If Goodnight had been given Riss's job, he would have undoubtedly killed the three men in the capsule.
But M'chel was softer-hearted, a trait that would no doubt lead to her unwanted demise one of these years.
Instead of blasting the capsule open and letting the occupants breathe vacuum, she maneuvered to the capsule's tiny lock, unslung an emergency arc-welding kit, and, being very careful to not give any signs away, welded it shut.
Avoiding both the capsule's ports, and staying away from the flat pickup for the capsule's tiny radar, she went "below" the capsule, found its emergency exit, and sealed that as well.
Then she used the welder as a cutting tool, and severed the two cables linking the capsule to the Sung.
The capsule should have had a com of sorts, but Riss, feeling very sentimental, attached a small suit emergency beacon to the capsule, with a timer to set it screaming into life in six hours.
Rejoicing at a job well—and sneakily—done, she entered the ship.
"Let 'er rip," she told Spada.
Spada fired up the drive.
He punched in a course that would take the ship, on secondary drive, behind Alsaoud's nearest moon, where the Star Risk yacht waited.
"Now we've got the tools," Goodnight said, "we can begin our new career."
"Aaaar," M'chel agreed happily. "Just call me Captain Kiddo."
TWENTY-EIGHT
While the children are out getting new toys." Jasmine King told Grok, "I think we could well be pursuing other pastimes."
"Such as?"
"Such as the persecution and assassination of one Frabord Held, since we still don't have a clue as to why Cerberus is scheming in the Alsaoud System."
"Umm," Grok said thoughtfully. "If we kill him, which sounds like an interesting pastime, will it (A) tip Cerberus that we are back in the game, and (B) worsen our situation?"
"It will certainly (C) make me feel better, at the very least," Jasmine said, but looked at von Baldur for an opinion.
Friedrich considered, also examining his reflection in one of the Excelsior suite's mirrors and deciding he looked appropriately dignified and warlordlike.
"Killing—or, more linguistically soothing, perhaps—readjusting Mr. Held's biomass, is an interesting thought," he mused.
Jasmine decided Freddie was feeling particularly pompous that day.
"The major drawback is that it could bring on a worse, that is, more skilled, antagonist," von Baldur continued. "From what you two have told me, Held is a worthy opponent, and not to be taken lightly. I am not assuming, though, that he is the ultimate Cerberus operator. There are, no doubt, Cerberus executives available who are more canny than he is. Our more than occasional opponent, Walter Nowotny, comes to mind.
"However, consider that any organization will develop a bit of a twitch if one of its managers is removed from the field in a sufficiently spectacular manner, which is a positive accomplishment. It might also make them, or rather their personnel, angry.
"Rage does not improve reasoning.
"So why not? Go ahead and conspire on Mr. Held, rather than just sitting here waiting for our friends to return.
"Besides, Jasmine, your mention of (C) is always important.
"Finally, idle hands can make for a devil's playground."
He looked about, got the scorn he deserved, and shrugged.
"All right then," von Baldur said, "let us begin to scheme. First, I suppose, is figuring out what means we will use to discarnate this gentleman."
"No," Jasmine said. "Both you and Grok mentioned a concern about who might be Held's successor.
"So let us start by preparing our skein. I would assume that we have some time before Riss and Company find a starship that meets their requirements.
"After Held is removed, I'd assume security around President Flyver's palace will be even more stringent, since if we lay our plot right, everyone will think he was the real target.
"We should now make our surveillance of the palace especially—pardon the pun—bulletproof, since we will need to be on the alert for Held's replacement.
"Then we may consider the next stage."
For the next couple of days, various elderly men in every stage of repair from impeccable to wino, and young women ranging from lovely to shuddersome lurked around the palace, unobtrusively leaving more bugs in their wakes.
Star Risk reaped an unexpected side benefit, since as King was planting one of the last of the devices, a particularly clever holo pickup that masqueraded as a statue of some sort of friendly small Alsaoudian creature, across from the main gate, she spotted Held coming out. Jasmine went to duck-and-cover mode, since she was hardly an anonymous Figure, and Held knew very well what she looked like.
By great good fortune, von Baldur was providing her with a mask at the time, since the statuette was rather bulky.
He saw her slide for shelter, and, a second later, saw and recognized Held and began trailing him.
The Cerberus executive, having no particular reason to feel paranoid, was no more than reflexively careful about checking his tail.
Von Baldur followed him to what was evidently one of Cerberus's safe houses.
A stakeout of the house, a secluded villa in a wealthy residential area, over the next two days, suggested this was Cerberus's main safe house, and probably Held's own residence.
Back at the Excelsior a message from M'chel, Goodnight, and Spada waited, reporting they'd successfully acquired their ship and were proceeding to jump it out of system to have it modified—or rather, retrofitted—to Star Risk's requirements.
"Now we can proceed to debate the methods of murder," Grok said.
"A bomb is generally the easiest," von Baldur suggested. "That is, assuming a certain level of expertise in its construction, which we have; a certain level of, shall we say, subterfuge in its planting; and, finally, a certain level of luck in its detonation, which we are more than due for."
"Yes," Jasmine said. "A bomb. Or a long arm. With a flat-trajectoried solid slug. Or an explosive bullet. A nice quiet place for the gunner with a line of sight on the killing floor, timing, and…" she grinned nastily.
"There must be," Grok said meditatively, "fifty ways to tag your target.
That might be worth a song."
Von Baldur looked at him, and at King, and swore they were both licking their lips, although what surrounded the alien's mouth barely qualified as such.
TWENTY-NINE
The secret of the Sung-class destroyer about which Redon Spada had happened to learn in his travels was quite simple: The ships had been cleverly designed for a culture that was short on manpower, but long on imperial ambitions.
So the Sungs had been designed and built to be operated by a minimal crew—less than four, in an emergency—and was almost completely automated.
Why the designers hadn't gone ahead and merely built them as remote-piloted ships was a mystery to everyone but Spada, who explained,
"They'll never build unmanned spacecraft for war. Young pilots don't get to parade around wearing white scarves and waving their hands around in bars telling war stories, and generals and admirals don't get medals up the ka-giggy for flying a control panel through shot and shell half a light-year away."
So the Sungs had gone into service—and then a wee mistake had been discovered. The ships' automation had a regrettable tendency to disregard the tiny crew's welfare, up to and including loading an unwary crewman into a missile launch tube on occasion.
Other than that, they were wonderfully lethal warcraft.
Naturally, a war had been in full swing when this was discovered by the contracting navy, and so the Sungs weren't just scrapped out, but little by little deautomated and loaded with additional crewmen.
But as every robotic assassin was discovered and rendered harmless, another appeared, so the Sungs, now no more than a particularly inefficient, if easy on the eyes, warship, were sold off to "lesser" markets.
Which meant systems like Alsaoud.
Neither Redon Spada nor Star Risk gave much of a damn about the ships being a bit on the dodgy side—mercenaries learn, early on, they're unlikely to be given the best and the most modern in the way of tools, just as the wars they fight are seldom glamorous or "civilized."
Assuming there's such a thing as a civilized murder campaign…
Since part of the mercenary condition is fighting in a perpetually undermanned state, the Sung was perfect for Star Risk's nefarious designs.
And so, half a dozen systems from Alsaoud, in an unobtrusive shipyard, Riss, Goodnight, and Spada went to work reautomating the Sung, which they named the McMahon.
Spada had, to Goodnight's vast surprise, refrained from naming his wages when he'd been brought back aboard, saying only that "When you folks are back on top, I'll rape, maim, and loot."
"I wouldn't have been that gentlemanly," Chas said.
"Which is why you're a sordid thug, and I'm up above the clouds," Spada said smugly.
He called in favors and friendships from half a galaxy, and an interesting assortment of weaponry began arriving at the shipyard, all shipped urgent and either fitted to the McMahon or shoved into one of its holds because
"it'll probably be of some use sooner or later."
When the McMahon was air- and space-worthy again, Spada took it into space, and ran it through its paces. It performed admirably.
Riss and Goodnight went along, being most careful to stay clear of any machinery that started making Threatening Operating Noises, or just showing signs of being turned on.
The McMahon, other than a slight tendency to hiccup convulsively when fed navigational problems at all abstruse, worked fine.
Just what Star Risk needed to go a-pirating.