Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (53 page)

Doberman analyzed Anna’s face. 
“I can understand why you would do that, Anna,” he said. 

“You see, Dobie,” Anna said,
yawning and opening another stolen bag of potato chips, “if one is to lead, one
must know how to make full use of one’s resources.”

“It seems to me,” Dobie said,
“that killing the only operator the Rebellion had in its ranks was not best use
of our resources.”

Anna scoffed.  “Yeah, well, I
didn’t like her.”  She crunched a handful of potato chips.  “You ever figure
out what happened to my sister?”

“The registry says she died in
Yolk Factory 14, Anna.”

Anna’s face darkened.  “Good. 
Nobody needs her, anyway.”

Chapter
47

Dance
Lessons

“You know, this isn’t exactly
what I had in mind,” Joel muttered.  He hadn’t eaten much of his filet
mignon.   Back at the reception area, the maître d' kept glancing over at them
nervously.  Probably had something to do with the gigantic gun that Jeanne had
slung over her exquisite shoulder, then shoved in the man’s face when he tried
to tell her she couldn’t carry it into the restaurant.

“Really?” Jeanne said, chewing on
a forkful of sautéed shrimp.  Her green eyes were twinkling with delight. 
“Why, I’m pretty sure you got everything you asked for, Joel.”  Indeed, the
cherry-red dress showed off her ample cleavage with breathtaking results.

Joel cleared his throat and
tilted his head at the egger.

Jeanne glanced down at the tiny
man spreading out his lasagna on the tablecloth.  “Oh, him?”  She grinned at
him and ate more two-hundred-credit shrimp.  “
Somebody
has to babysit
the little cretin, and Pat had a headache.”

Joel narrowed his eyes.  In one
corner, a trio of musicians played the harp, accompanied by the piano and
violin beside the open dance floor.  At her smug look, her luscious lips poised
around another crustacean as she bit it off her fork, Joel wadded up his napkin
and stood.

“What, going so soon?” she
laughed.  “Be sure you pay the waiter on the way out.”

“Get up,” Joel said.

Immediately, Jeanne’s eyes
darkened dangerously.  “You got everything you asked for.  No complaining.”

“I’m not complaining, and no I
didn’t.  You still haven’t danced with me.”  Joel gestured at the dance floor.

Jeanne glanced over at the dance
floor and paled with satisfying quickness.  “Um.”

“I said ‘dancing,’ Jeanne,” Joel
said, grinning at her.  “And, as evidenced, we saved your crazy little egger.” 
He gestured at the mussy-haired little man who was now poking toothpicks into
his large lasagna smear.

She coughed uncomfortably, her
face going purple.  “I don’t…”  She swallowed.  “…know how,” she muttered.

Joel felt his grin widen.  “So
I’ll teach you.  All those years in Officer’s Corps, heh, I’ve had enough
practice.”

“In front of
them
?” Jeanne
demanded, gesturing at their audience.

“Who, them?”  Joel turned and
looked at the other wide-eyed patrons, who were watching the two of them over
their tuxedos and expensive wines.  “Why not?  They’re
already
staring. 
I think the assault rifle and those massive combat boots had something to do
with it.”

Jeanne put down her fork, looking
sick all over again.  “I don’t know…”  Beside her, Wideman was now pouring warm
cream onto the toothpicky mess.

“Deal’s a deal,” Joel said.  “Besides,
you’re gorgeous.  Nobody’s gonna be watching your feet, believe me.”

Immediately, the confident,
badass pirate was stripped away, leaving a blushing, lip-biting beauty in her
place.

“Come on,” Joel urged gently,
holding his hand out.

She stared at the empty dance
floor for several minutes.  “What about Joe?” she finally asked.

Joel glanced at the tiny egger
who was now smooshing his upturned plate into his toothpick-creamer-lasagna
mixture, trying to hold it up via toothpicks.  “He looks rather occupied,
wouldn’t you say?”  He wiggled his fingers.  “Come on.”

With a pained grimace, Jeanne
reluctantly took his hand.  Joel kissed it.  “Milady?”

She rolled her eyes, but got to
her feet.  To the egger, she said, “Stay here, Joe.  The smuggler and I are going
to go ‘dance’.”  The way she said the word, complete with a disgusted twist to
her crimson lips, one might have thought she were about to muck a pigsty.

The greasy little egger nodded
vigorously, spinning the plate through his lasagna.  Jeanne watched him a
moment, then sighed.  They walked to the dance floor together, and Joel knew
from experience that the stares they were getting were not all due to Jeanne’s
assault rifle or massive combat boots.  The lady, almost on an eye with him
with her four-inch soles, was magnificent.  He brought them to a halt at the
dance floor. 

“Boots off,” he ordered. 

Jeanne, already moving toward the
open hardwood floor with obvious nerves, immediately froze and gave him a look
of suspicion.  “Joel, if this is an attempt to catch me off-guard while you
make off with my ship—”

“—you’ll kill me, I know.”  Joel
bent and tugged his own shoes off, still keeping a grip on the pirate’s hand,
lest she decide to bolt like the frightened rabbit she appeared.  “I’d rather
you not crush my feet while we do this,” Joel said.  “I think I’ve broken
enough bones for a lifetime, wouldn’t you agree?” 

Her eyes fell to his hand, still
twisted and bent from the Nephyr’s attentions.  Muttering, she wrenched her
hand out of his grip and, almost timidly, crouched to start unlacing her footwear. 
When extracted, her stockinged feet looked surprisingly delicate.  She shoved
the boots—still dirt-covered from slogging through the mud on some pirating
adventure, no doubt—against the wall, smearing brown across the cream-colored
paint.  Then she stood, licking her lips. 

“Gun, too,” Joel said.

“Why?” she growled, instantly
clutching the rifle like a lifeline.

“Because assault rifles get in
the way of a good tango,” Joel said.

She gave him a long, hard look,
then glanced at the other patrons, all of whom quickly looked away. 

“You’ll have to get used to it
sometime,” Joel said.  “I have the feeling we’ll be coming here a lot.”

She turned back to scowl at him. 
“Nobody said anything about doing this again.”

“You
do
want me to fly for
you again, don’t you?” he asked, quirking a brow.

She gave him a long, flat look.

“I mean,” Joel continued
rationally, “I think this is a fair trade.  You get a few hours in the sky, I
get a few hours on the dance floor.  And to top things off, I’ll even pay.”

“You bastard,” she muttered.  But
she lowered the rifle against her boots.

Seeing that, Joel smiled from his
heart.  “My dear?” he offered, once more giving her his hand.  “Care to dance?”

“You’re
never
getting me
in a dress again,” Jeanne growled.  “I don’t care what you do.”

“Why not?” Joel asked.  “You look
stunning.”

Jeanne narrowed her vibrant green
eyes at him, but took his hand.  Joel led her across the floor to a central
area, then stopped and showed her proper hand placement.  Folding her fingers
to his was like bending the fingers of a steel statue.  She kept glancing over
her shoulder at the rest of the dining area.

“Now,” Joel said easily.  “The
thing about dancing is you need to trust your partner implicitly, and follow
his lead.”

“
His
lead.”

“Yes,
his
lead.”

“What if
I
want to lead?”

“You don’t get to lead,” Joel
said.  “Now there are only a few basic steps.  Once you learn them, you can do
anything you see those guys on the waves doing, in all their fancy jumpsuits.”

She was glaring at him, but she
rigidly let him move her feet into place with his toes.

“Now,” Joel said.  “I’m going to
take a few steps to the right.  Move with me on three, okay?”

“This is ridiculous.”  But she
did it.

He showed her the most basic
ballroom dance he could think of, leading her patiently through the steps,
keeping time to the music, and eventually, she started to relax into the
rhythm.  The feel of the woman’s slender hand easing into his, the warmth of
her waist against his fingers, was intoxicating.  When she looked up at him,
her beautiful green eyes laced with timid uncertainty, Joel felt himself
melting, felt his heart pounding beyond anything he’d felt in the rush of the
dogfight. 

“Am I doing okay?” she whispered,
nibbling a luscious lip.

“Like a pro,” he managed, trying
to hide the way he’d been staring.

At her beaming smile and girly
giggle of relief, followed by a deep blush and quick, anxious look at the
restaurant-goers, however, Joel could no longer help himself.  He bent to meet
her, intending to remind her of that one fantastic night in the desert, years
ago.

The barrel of a revolver found
its way into his left nostril.  “Joel?” Jeanne said carefully.

“Yes, Jeanne?” he said,
swallowing.

“I think that’s enough dance lessons
for the day, don’t you?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Joel said.

“Go check on the egger, Joel.”

“Good idea,” he said quickly. 
Then, backing away, he looked down at her skin-tight dress and blurted, “Where
the hell did you get a revolver?”

“It’s called a leg-holster,
Joel,” she said, still aiming the gun at his nose.  “Go.  Now.”

He did.  And, walking back to the
egger’s ever-increasing mess, Joel had to smile.  Now
that
was a woman
who knew how to give a guy incentive…

Chapter
48

Fortune’s
Rising

Magali jumped as the door to the
bar slammed open with enough force to embed the latch into the opposite wall. 
She froze, her heart falling into a shuddering march of terror when four
Nephyrs stepped into the room from the brightness of the outdoors. 

“Was passing through on a Draft
and heard there was a pussy in here bawling his eyes out to a colonist,” the
lead Nephyr said, his dark eyes coming to rest on Jersey.  “I’ll be goddamned,
looks like they were right.”  The cruel sneer of the man’s filigreed face was
unmistakable.

In an instant, Jersey had
launched the table off to the side, leaving his path clear to stand and put his
body between Magali and the four Nephyrs.

The lead Nephyr whistled.  “Girls,
I do believe he wants to tango.”  Beside him, the three women grinned.

“Let’s do it,” Jersey growled,
cracking his knuckles as he made fists.  “I was getting bored sweet-talking the
whore, anyway.”

Magali flinched, her breath
catching in her lungs.  Facing off the four Nephyrs, Jersey didn’t even look at
her.

The lead Nephyr’s cold blue eyes
flickered to Magali and he chuckled.  “That ain’t the way I heard things,
pretty-boy.”  He looked Jersey up and down, stopping on Jersey’s face.  “You
need to go back to finishin’ school or somethin’?  Havin’ a little breakdown
somebody needs to know about?”

Jersey snorted.  “Get the hell
outta my way.”  He started towards the Nephyr, aiming to move past him, when
the man stepped in front of him, meeting his eyes.

“Oh my,” he said, his sneer
spreading.  “He’s been blubbering like a baby.”  The Nephyr motioned, and two
of his companions slipped around Jersey, one on either side.  A third worked her
way through the billiards tables to get behind him.  Jersey watched them
surround him with an icy-steel complexion, then turned back to the leader, his
face a mirror.  He stepped up, then, into the man’s face, gritted, “Get out of
my way.”

“Hmm,” the lead Nephyr said. 
“No.”  He gestured again, and the two women on either side of Jersey lunged
inward, grabbing him by the arms, holding him in place.  “Get that ridiculous
shirt off of him and hold up his arm.” 

“No!” Jersey shouted, kicking
out, trying to launch the three of them backwards.  The fourth Nephyr ducked in
from behind and threw him in a headlock, then held him still as the other two
ripped the shirt off of him.  Jersey screamed in fury, kicking a table in half.

“Such rage,” the lead Nephyr
chuckled.  “It’s not
winter
out there, buddy-boy, so why the long
sleeves?  Almost as if you’re trying to hide—”  The man’s glittering face froze
as he got a good look at Jersey’s arm.  Then his eyes slid back to Jersey’s
face and stayed there.  “The Forty-Third is guarding the Yolk harvest in
Factory 14.”  His voice was low and deadly.

“I got some time off,” Jersey
snarled.  “Let go of me.”

But the man didn’t budge. 
“Girls,” he said, “remind me again of that last APB that hit the waves?”

“Rogue Nephyr from the
Forty-Third stole a ship, went AWOL,” one of the women said, grinning into
Jersey’s ear.  She licked the side of his face and giggled.  “Can we have some
fun with him, Captain?”

Magali watched Jersey go stiff,
watched him reach that little tipping point, recognizing it, because she, too,
had been there, only days before.  She raised her gun and put a bullet through
the lead Nephyr’s left eye.

Killer
, Wideman giggled at
her.

One, two, three,
she
automatically began to count, as her pistol recharged.

As the Nephyr was falling and the
other three were turning in confusion, Magali took three steps forward,
swiveled, and kicked the Nephyr holding Jersey in a strangle-hold, right in her
startled face.  At the same time, she put the gun to her comrade’s face and
pulled the trigger.

“The fuck?!” one of the women
cried, dropping Jersey and backing away, staring at her two convulsing
comrades. 

One, two, three.

Magali shot her, too.  Then, as
the last Nephyr turned on her, confusion turning into cold, deadly promise,
Magali kicked Jersey away from her and slammed the EMP wand into the woman’s
shoulder.  Her eyes went wide and she slumped to the ground in a tremor of
shakes.

There will be more outside.
 
Magali tucked the EMP wand into her waistband, bent, took a gun from the
closest woman’s belt, and stepped past Jersey, who stood in place, staring at
the four dead Nephyrs at his feet.  She opened the door and stepped into the
sunlight.

A group of several hundred Yolk
draftees were chained together in lines in the road outside.  Six Nephyrs were
laughing and surrounding a voluptuous, mousy-looking woman who was keeping her
eyes carefully downcast.  She had a shackle around her throat, chained to the
next draftee ahead of her.  She was shaking as they played with her hair and
bent to whisper things into her ear.

Three more Nephyrs—all female—were
leaning against the wall of the hotel, yawning, watching the action around the
mousy woman with disinterest.  Two other males were walking up and down the
three prisoner lines with riding crops, reciting the Draftee Act.  Another one
was seated on an upturned flower-pot—the pot’s occupants upended into the road
a few feet away—and holding an r-player, a set of headphones over his ears,
bobbing his head to music.

Magali didn’t stop to think.  She
raised her gun and fired at the Nephyr that was holding a lock of the girl’s
wavy brown hair.  The man’s head snapped back, pushed that way by the
explosive, armor-piercing bullet of the Nephyr’s gun.  With her other hand, she
swung around and shot the closest crop-bearer.

One, two, three
, she
thought, automatically, as she started walking towards the line of prisoners and
fired the Nephyr’s pistol at another of the six surrounding the girl.  He
jerked and slid to the ground, shuddering.  With her other hand, she shot the
second startled crop-bearer, who had spun around to stare.

That’s right,
Magali
thought. 
Look at me, you assholes.
  She shot two more of the ones
around the girl before they snarled an alarm and started to charge her.  She
dropped the recharging pistol and yanked the EMP wand from her belt.  The
Nephyrs were inhumanly fast, but when Magali dropped into her trance, it felt
like her hand was guided by Time itself.  She pulled the trigger once, then
spun and stepped to the side and hit the second with the EMP as they both came
crashing towards her.  They hurtled past her, burying themselves in the wall of
the pub.

The three Nephyrs leaning against
the wall were straightening, now, frowns on their faces.  Two of them started
jogging across the road.  One of them pulled her gun.

In smooth, rapid precision,
Magali killed the woman with the gun, then the furthest of the two
approaching.  The third she hit with the EMP.  Then she was walking, striding
up to the last remaining Nephyr, who had his back to her.  He was still moving
to the music, watching something on his r-player.

Killer
, Wideman giggled.

Magali lowered the activated EMP rod
into the Nephyr’s field of vision, aiming at his face with the gun.  He froze. 
Very slowly, he looked up.

“How many of you were there?” she
asked.

The Nephyr swallowed and his eyes
flickered to the glittering corpses littering the road.  “Uh.  Twenty, counting
me.”

“Where are the other four?” she
asked.

“Checking in to the hotel,” the
Nephyr said.

Magali hit him with the wand.  He
slid off of the pot, convulsing into the sidewalk.  She picked up his gun and
crossed the road, ignoring the way the colonists were whispering amongst
themselves, and kicked open the door to the hotel.  Inside, two Nephyrs were
reading magazines in sofas.  They looked up, confused.  She shot them with each
of her pistols, then dropped the right pistol and, snagging her EMP wand, swung
to find a fourth Nephyr charging her from the desk.  She hit her with the wand
and let her crash through the front door of the establishment, into the dust
outside.

The last Nephyr came out of the
bathroom buckling his pants, chewing on a candy-bar.  He froze, eyes wide,
staring at his dead comrades.  The candy-bar fell from his mouth.

“Get out here,” Magali said,
backing through the front door of the hotel and gesturing with the gun. 
“Outside.”

Licking his lips, the Nephyr’s
hand started sliding towards his gun. 

“Don’t,” Magali said.  “I won’t
miss.”

His face contorted in a sneer. 
“We’ll see about—”

She shot him.  Then she backed
through the door and glanced behind her at the Yolk draftees.  “That all of
them?” she demanded.  “Twenty?”

Several hundred startled faces
just stared at her from the dusty road, the only sounds that of the tinkling
chain linking them together.  Further down the streets, a few hundred more city-goers
had gathered to stare.  Frustrated, Magali turned to the hotel supervisor. 
“How many Nephyrs registered to spend the night?” she demanded.

It took the manager a long,
startled minute to answer.  “Aside from yours?”  His voice sounded like a rough
whisper.  “Twenty.”

“Okay,” Magali said, lowering her
gun for the first time since she’d started shooting.  “Which one was the
leader?”

“He went in the bar,” one of the closer
colonists offered, after a moment.

Stuffing the guns into her belt,
Magali crossed the road again and re-entered the bar.  Jersey was still
standing inside the door, looking at the four dead Nephyrs.  Magali knelt
beside the leader and began searching his pockets.  Finding the keys she was
looking for, she got back to her feet.

A warm, glass-hard hand caught
her wrist and held it.

Magali froze, reality suddenly
slamming back into place.  She knew, without even trying, Jersey could rip the
limb from her body if he so desired.  Slowly, she looked up into Jersey’s face. 
He was still staring down at the four dead Nephyrs.

“Was that all of them?” he asked
softly.  “Should be twenty.”

Her body trembling with the
sudden, cold terror of being gripped by those stony hands, Magali nodded.

He continued to hold her by the
wrist, anchoring her in place with all the authority of a five-hundred-pound
statue.  “What you just did,” he whispered, “is impossible.”

She swallowed uncomfortably, but
didn’t try to struggle against his grip.  She knew better than that.

Very slowly, Jersey lifted his
head to look into her eyes.  “You’re the one they call Killer, aren’t you?”

Magali grimaced and looked away.

He lifted a warm, stone-hard finger
to her chin and forced it inexorably back to face him.  “Aren’t you?”

Magali felt tears stinging her
eyes.  “I have to go free those people.”

“Not even a robot could’ve made
those shots,” he whispered.  “Nobody could have.”

“I know,” Magali whispered. 
“Anna told me enough times.  Made fun of me.  Teased me that I really was a
robot that they’d dressed up and made to think it was human.  Please let go of
my arm.”

“You shouldn’t have enough
strength in your whole body to kick a Nephyr like that,” he said softly.  He was
looking down at her in awe.

“Please let go of me,” Magali
whimpered.  Being this close to a Nephyr, her wrist locked in his vicelike grip,
it was all she could do not to raise the gun again and pull the trigger until
the gun overheated.

Jersey seemed to blink and catch
himself, and dropped her hand with a suddenness of someone who had touched a
burning stove.  “Sorry,” he muttered.  “God…sorry.”  He held up his hands in
peace.

Magali took a quick step back,
then, when it was obvious he wasn’t going to reach for her again, she turned to
go.  She was most of the way outside when she paused at the door, feeling his
eyes burning into her back.  “I’m not a robot,” she said, giving him an unhappy
smile over her shoulder.  “Believe me.  I already checked.”  Then she turned
and went outside to free the eggers from their shackles.

Absolute silence reigned as she
stepped back outside into the dusty sunlight.  The road outside glittered with
the bodies of Nephyrs, their corpses already buzzing with the fat black bodies
of tadflies.  People were staring at her as she stepped over the black-clad
bodies, the keys in her hands. 

They’re staring at me,
Magali thought, utterly uncomfortable as she started working her way down the
ranks, unlocking the shackles with the key from the dead Nephyr.  No one moved
or said a word.  They just
stared
.

When she was three-quarters of
the way through the prisoner lines, a gray-haired woman peered back at her as
she worked the key in the shackle, her weather-lined face holding that same
wide-eyed awe she’d seen in Jersey’s face.  “You’re Magali Landborn, aren’t
you?” the woman said, much too loudly.  “The one they call ‘Killer.’”

Magali hesitated, flinching in on
herself.  Her voice wavering, she said, “You must have me confused with someone
else.”

“The one who could shoot a
bulls-eye at a mile, with iron sights.”

Very slowly, Magali released the
woman’s shackles and handed her the keys.  “I’ve gotta get going.  You can
release the rest of them.”  She turned to leave, suddenly needing to get away
from the silence, the
stares
…  She crossed the road, feeling every eye
following her every movement, and pulled open the door of the bar, glancing
into the darkness inside.

“Jersey!” she called into the interior,
hating the way her voice cracked.  “Let’s go.”

A moment later—much too long for
Magali—the Nephyr stepped out into the sun beside her and shut the door gently
behind him, his body covered with weapons from those she had slain.  She felt
the tension in the air stiffen, felt the colonists flinch away from him.