Mainline (48 page)

"He's not a Captain," she hissed to her companion excitedly.

"That's a good sign," Vask said, the same effervescent joy starting to bubble up in his own chest. "We need to see who else is the way we left them."

The pair exchanged a meaningful look, and without further conference turned towards Lish's office.

Timing in the stalk is everything. Move too soon, and you spook your prey. Move too late, and it has slipped beyond your grasp.

With unerring instincts, Yavobo let his actions be directed by the pulse of the hunt. His fingers held a release lanyard, and he grasped it gently, caressingly, until the skiff began to ease up the loading ramp, gliding on low-power repulsor skids. The back of the craft was still afloat, and her spare fuel pods, affixed port and starboard of the pulse engine, were out of sight beneath the murky waters of the docking bay.

Ahead was the smuggler's office. Behind were Skiffjammers underwater, and two in plain sight by the bay door. Yavobo pulled the lanyard. With a pop muffled by waves and the thrum of the engine, the fuel pods detached from the sides of the skiff and tumbled through the water, sliding and rolling to the bottom of the loading ramp in nearly ten meters of water. A time-delay trigger ticked away in each, waiting for the swift-approaching moment when the valves would blow and the contents of the pods be spewed forcefully into the water.

Yavobo moved to the rear hatch. "Steady on," he spoke a low caution to the fisherman at the helm. "Just as we have discussed it. You are almost done."

These were the critical moments, the final test of his planning and his skills. Yavobo settled the speargun slung across his back for later use, and checked the breather at his neck. Then he readied the long-barreled sniper's pistol in his hand. It gave accuracy greater than he would need at this short range, and a powerful coherent beam that could hole a light armored vehicle. It would suffice to kill a Holdout, as well.

He readied himself as the rear skids engaged. The skiff pulled clear of the water, and Yavobo set his hand to the hatch.

The warehouse was the same, as were the security bots in strategic corners of the bay. The 'Jammers on dock duty seemed familiar enough. Then the real proof of their success walked out of her office, and Reva felt a smile tug at her lips.

This Holdout was dressed in a plain work overall, not the fashionable red bodysuit favored by that
other
woman. Reva refused to apply her friend's name to the Sa'adani bitch, even in her thoughts, but this person, she knew in an instant, was the friend she had left and thought lost forever. "Lish!" Reva called out.

The Holdout was heading toward the new-arrived skiff, but looked back over her shoulder at the hail and smiled. With a wave to the boat pilot, she detoured and walked toward her companions.

"Scripman all happy?" Lish asked as they came closer. Reva kept puzzlement from her face. In this Line, had she and Vask already made their promised delivery of payment to the loan shark? If so, was this Mainline, or only somewhen close to it?

Reva couldn't help herself. "Look at me," she said, crooking a finger. "Turn your head this way."

Lish smiled in friendly confusion. "Why?" she asked, but complied with the request.

Reva stretched her hand out, touched the other's jaw. Her left jaw, where the skin was smooth, devoid of caste mark except for the faint blemish only an expectant eye could see.

The assassin felt her voice hoarsen with emotion. "It's you," she said softly, blinking against sudden tears.

"Of course," Lish said, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. She lifted her hand to Reva's, pulled the woman's fingers gently away from her face. "And now that the Scripman is paid, we can wrap up here and get offworld. Like I promised."

Reva barely heard her words. This was too much. Vask's plan had worked. She looked to the Fixer. "You did it," she breathed. 

"Alright," Lish said good-naturedly, releasing Reva's hand.

"Be cryptic if you want. Let me take care of Callis first, will you? Then we can talk."

She headed for the vessel at the lip of the ramp, water dripping from its hull as engines ticked into silence.

Reva watched her go. Beyond the skiff, the two 'Jammers at the bay door dropped to the ground like puppets with cut strings. The flash of beam energy that felled them was nearly lost against the daylight outside.

Her body registered the danger before her thoughts embraced the concept. She darted in Lish's direction, pulling the Sundragon from her sleeve. "Get down!" she shouted.

The Holdout paused, turned in confusion back toward Reva. A security bot swiveled its torso, aiming at something behind the hydroskiff. Others scuttled into spider-legged motion, attempting to lock on the intruder.

Reva glimpsed a familiar red and black form. Yavobo's head and arm popped into view just long enough to fire, and to flash a feral grin her way. Then the alien leapt from sight, splashing into the water behind the skiff.

Her mind screamed at the impossibility of it, even as Lish stumbled toward her. The smuggler's chest was charred, her clothing blackened around the fist-sized hole where beam had cauterized lungs and heart. There was no trace of blood, only the stench of burned meat as token of death.

There was no friend left in the damaged shell that toppled into her arms. Reva caught at the falling corpse, was brought to her knees by the sudden weight. Lish's face was frozen in shocked surprise, eyes unseeing, mouth open. Not a sound, not a cry had she uttered. Reva stared at her burden in horror. She had come all this way, an impossible journey across countless Nows, for this.

For it all to come to this.

She heard the wail, a tortured cry from what must be a human throat. It was not until she struggled for a lungful of air that she realized that awful, gut-wrenching sound came from her. The tears came then, and she curled over the body in her arms, blind to her surroundings, mad with grief and rage. She pulled away from Vask's touch, until he managed to pry her gently from the body of her friend.

Then Reva cried like she had never cried before, huddled into arms that could only hold her as she keened her loss.

* * *

The rigged pods filled the water with marker fluid, a liquid smoke screen of inky black holding billions of particulates in suspense. Each minute flake echoed and distorted sensor pulses until no readings in this water were valid.

It was a short-lived sensor-proof veil, until dispersion should render it harmless. It would last long enough for Yavobo's purpose.

The bounty hunter tugged his breather on underwater, purging dark liquid from the face mask, and forged ahead through night-black ocean. Skiffjammers could not see him or anything else in the occluded waters. One blundered into him by chance; Yavobo had his speargun at the ready, and the bolt, fired point-blank, transfixed the 'Jammer and left him doubled over in mortal agony. The alien swam on.

Soon a manhunt would be under way around the warehouse docks, but by then, he would be long gone. His sea-sled wajted submerged near the marina fence, his escape route out the harbor locks was clear, and MazeRats waited beyond to pick him up in the waters of the open bay.

He swam through the edge, of the artificial gloom and into deeper waters, heading for where his sled was secured, savoring the image of his enemy, the look on her face as he dispatched the Holdout. It had been enough to smile defiance at the assassin, to let her know she was no threat to a desert-born warrior.

Enough of Skiffjammers, he thought, and of foolish smugglers. Now it is time to hunt the worthy prey, the Oath-sworn enemy.

The soul-stealer called Reva.

A bloodied grieko tumbled from a sunset-reddened sky. The colors matched the angry hue of Adahn Harric's virtual eyes.

"What do you mean, you can't reach anyone?" His voice grated as he spoke the unbelievable. Janus' simself retreated a half-step on the veranda of the crime boss' cyberretreat.

"Simply that," Harric's lieutenant said. "We can't raise Gerick, or any MazeRat on Selmun III."

"You've tried our shippers?"

"They're unavailable."

The Emperor's pleasure gardens shimmered, then dissolved. The men faced each other in a cold and formless void, the wind of cyberspace whistling unheeded about them. Janus cringed; it was a place he associated with Harric's killing rages. A place he did not want to visit, even in sim-form.

"Fuck that," Adahn growled. "Make someone available, any way you must. But find out what's going on. Now."

Janus bowed himself out of cyberspace and into his office chair, where a sheen of nervous sweat had broken out on his physical body. He had seen the Tribune of the Red Hand in a stormy mood before. It was risky to be too near, or too unhelpful.

He closed his eyes to collect himself before doing his master's bidding.

Kastlin imagined he knew what it was like to be a wanted criminal—to know the authorities were closing in, readying themselves to pounce, and himself helpless before their grasp. For now he sat square in the sights of an imminent Security raid, anxious to leave the area, unable to do so, and painfully aware of each passing minute.

Minutes spent ordering Skiffjammers. Moving Lish's body to a private room. Getting Reva out of the warehouse bay, away from staring eyes.

Long minutes waiting for Devin to arrive. Longer yet turning a polite eye aside from the spacer's grief, and now, fending off his need for action.

The big man sat behind the desk so lately Lish's. "Who did this?" he asked emptily. His voice was hollow, as soulless as his eyes.

Vask repeated the name Devin had not yet registered. "Yavobo."

The spacer studied his hands, resting atop the desk. His mouth pursed and the silence grew deeper.

Kastlin fought the urge to order his companions out of here. They wouldn't leave on his say-so alone. Reva kept her own council, stone-still on the float-couch beside him.

Devin pulled himself up decisively. "I'm calling the Grinds," he declared.

"They won't do anything," Vask told him flatly. "You know Lish must be wanted after Rinoco. It's only a matter of time 'til Security sweeps this place clean."

A matter of two hours, he thought fretfully, if this Obray has the same plans as his counterpart....

Devin was oblivious to his concern. "We were partners of a sort, Lish and I," he said softly. "More closely bonded than you know."

"Then IntSec will rake you over, too, when they take this business apart."

A muscle clenched in the big man's jaw. His fingers began to key controls on the desk console. "Then let's start by doing what has to be done."

"What's that?"

"Securing assets," he answered tersely. "I was the closest thing she had to a partner, and her only kin in this place. I'm not letting them take everything she worked for."

Vask glanced toward Reva for her reaction. She sat, eyes reddened, staring through the wall, seemingly oblivious to their byplay.

The com unit disgorged a plastic chit, then many more: markers for cash withdrawn from the Holdout's online accounts. Apparently she had shared more with the spacer than her friends had realized.

Devin swept the markers up and pocketed them. He looked to Reva, blind to his gaze, and then to Vask. "We Shirani take care of our own," he said grimly. "I want who's responsible for this."

" 'Jammers are searching the area."

"That's not what I mean. I want Yavobo."

This was no time to plan a vengeance hunt. Vask frowned, prepared to dissuade the spacer, when a familiar voice preempted him.

"You don't want Yavobo," said Reva. "He's not responsible."

The men stared at her. It was the first she had spoken since Lish had died. Her words were measured and bare of emotion. Devin took them at face value.

"That bastard killed my—" He stumbled to a halt, realizing the Shirani term for a partner in
merios
would have no meaning for his listeners. "She was like family," he began again. "The Aztrakhani killed her. He'll pay."

Reva turned her eyes from their distant focus, and leveled
her
searing gaze on the spacer. "Adahn Harric killed Lish. He put the contract out on her. He wanted her dead. That's your enemy.

not the bounty hunter." Her lips thinned. "He was just the muscle. It could have been me."

Devin's eyes flicked over the assassin's body, a quick head to toe. "I know."

Vask looked from one to the other in stark surprise. The weight of the confession and acknowledgment hung between them, a shared secret that excluded the Fixer. "When did this happen?" he wanted to demand. They spoke on, ignorant of his restraint.

"Lish held
roi'tas
and
senje'tas
with you. She told me after Rinoco. Honor-debt, and life-debt."

Reva raised and dropped one shoulder, uncaring, and Devin's face grew hard. "I forgive your ignorance," he said harshly. "Those are great obligations, not taken on lightly by any Sa'adani. Lish's kin owe you duty and honor." He spoke curtly. "I stand good for my kinswoman's debt to you."

Reva frowned, the first ripple of emotion Vask had seen on her face since she had retreated into stony composure. "You don't owe me a thing." Her tone was bitter. "I didn't succeed in protecting her life when it counted, did I."