Текст книги "Declassified "

Автор книги: David Mack

Соавторы: Marco Palmieri,Dayton Ward
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

6

“That sure looks like the Orion ship,” Quinn said, studying the vessel through his miniature binoculars. He and Bridy were across a wide avenue from a starport hangar even more decrepit than the one in which they’d landed. Its structure was mostly open, a series of heavy girders wrapped in barbed-wire mesh. The hangar had a few entrances, each blocked by a metal gate and armed guards.

Bridy peeked over the edge of the roof’s low safety barrier. “If the Gorn were looking to secure this ship, why park it in plain sight?”

“For starters, these are the biggest hangars in the city, and probably the only ones large enough for a ship that size. For another, keeping it in plain sight makes it harder for someone to break into it without being seen.” Quinn surveyed the street-level security. Traffic on their side of the avenue was heavy, but the other side was empty, having been cordoned off by Gorn infantry.

Beside him, Bridy made a clicking noise with her tongue. “The Gorn have big hangars on the other side of the planet, don’t they?”

“Sure.” Quinn lowered the binoculars. “But those areas are for Gorn only. Can’t have the Orion crew wandering around out there. And if they drop the crew here and take the ship there, it’d be too obvious they’re punking the Orions.”

“Fair point.” She glanced at the hangar. “Man, the Gorn are all over that thing, aren’t they?” She held out her hand. “Can I have the binoculars?” Quinn handed them to her, and she used them to study the Orion ship as she continued. “The ground crew looks like it’s mixed species. Some Tiburonians, a few humanoids I don’t recognize, a couple of Saurians. Think we can use that?”

Quinn nodded. “Probably. Impersonating ground crew is our best bet.”

She lowered the binoculars. “Swiping some maintenance uniforms might get us inside the hangar, but none of them have access to the ship’s interior. And I don’t think either of us can pass for a Gorn.”

“No, but we could pass as Orions. You did it before, on Amonash.”

“And nearly got my ass shot off—thanks for reminding me.” She handed the binoculars back to Quinn. “What’re you thinking? Posing as the ship’s officers?”

He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. Judging by the uniform markings on the troops closest to the ship, sentry duty’s been left to the grunts. Talk fast enough and rough enough, and we might be able to get aboard.”

“Sounds like a long shot to me. For starters, we don’t know the names of any of the ship’s officers or crew, and the Gorn probably have a complete manifest.”

“Okay, then that’s our first objective: get a copy of the manifest.”

Bridy shook her head. “Forget it, that could take all week.” She pursed her lips. “We’re overthinking this. How about a simple distraction?”

“Such as . . . ?”

She pointed out details of the hangar. “Exposed coolant tubing—snipe that and the entire hangar fills with smoke and toxic vapor in fifteen seconds, tops.”

“Making it the last place I’d want to be.”

“It would only be dangerous for people on the ground.” She pointed at the top of the ship. “One of us could use the leak as cover to rappel down from above and enter the ship through its dorsal maintenance hatch.”

“And get shot by the sentries posted outside the hangar, who’d have a perfect angle to see over the commotion.”

Bridy folded her arms. “Good catch.” Then her mood brightened. “What if we cut the power at the same time? Plant a charge on the underground relay from the city’s mains, and set it off at the same time we snipe the coolant line?”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be suspicious at all.”

“Who cares if it is? Once I’m in, I can hack the memory banks from the engine room and be out in under two minutes.”

Quinn conveyed his doubts with an arched eyebrow. “Let’s say you’re right. What’s your exit strategy? You’ll be inside a ship teeming with Gorn military, above a hangar filled with poison gas, in the dark.”

“If I sabotage the transporter scrambler mounted at the top of the hangar, I can use my rubindium transponder to activate the Dulcinea’s remote transporter recall. As long as the merchantman’s shields stay down, I can beam out before anyone knows I was there.”

He gently slapped his forehead with his palm. “Right, the transporter. I keep forgetting we have it. I got so used to living without one on the Rocinante.” Lifting his chin toward the hangar, he said, “Now all we need to do is wait eight hours until nightfall, find a way to put you on top of that hangar, and make our play.”

“First, we’ll have to get you a silenced projectile weapon,” Bridy said. “One you can use to snipe the coolant line without giving away your position.”

“I have one on the ship. What else?”

“Just a deck of cards to help us pass—”

An explosion tore through the hangar, a radiant orange fireball rending metal and scattering bodies. The shock front lifted the Gorn troops off the street below and hurled them across the avenue into traffic, which was halted half a second later by the blast wave rolling vehicles like dice. Searing heat slammed against the building beneath Quinn and Bridy as they flattened themselves on the roof, letting the brunt of the blast roar past overhead. The thunder of detonation faded, leaving behind the groaning of metal and the moaning of the wounded.

Quinn peeked over the crumbling edge of the roof at the devastation beyond while Bridy fished out her tricorder and powered it up. Inside the hangar, the Orion ship was ablaze, its hull fractured and collapsing. Beyond the crackling of flames, Quinn heard disruptor shots echo from the hangar’s far side. “We’ve been aced.”

Bridy adjusted the tricorder’s settings. “One Klingon life sign, male and hauling ass, leaving the hangar’s rear entrance and moving east.”

“Give you three guesses who has the intel we came for.”

She drew her phaser. “Time for Plan B.”

Bridy threw herself flat against one of the alley’s rough limestone walls and went from a full run to a dead stop without turning the corner. Half a second later, Quinn slammed into her and nearly knocked her into the street.

He disentangled himself from her. “Why the hell’re we stopping?”

She thrust her elbow backward and knocked him free. “Our Klingon pal’s less than twenty meters away.” She tilted her head to her right. “We need to catch him before he spots us.” She pulled her hood forward to better hide her face, stepped into the street, and beckoned Quinn to follow. “C’mon. Stay close to me.”

They merged into the thick, fast-moving crowd. Bridy slipped and dodged her way forward, edging through narrow gaps in the river of bodies, closing the distance to the fleeing Klingon with each step. She used the folds of her cloak to hide her hands: she held her phaser in one and her tricorder in the other. Every few seconds she glanced at the tricorder, which was still locked onto the Klingon’s bio-signature. “He’s crossing the street,” she said, lifting her chin toward the target. Leaning slightly to her left, she got her first clear look at their quarry.

The Klingon seemed short for his species—Bridy estimated his height was no more than 170 centimeters—and he was slight of build. He wore drab civilian clothes and carried a disruptor in a hip holster. His swarthy, sinewy arms were bare, and a peculiar, metallic-looking wraparound sunshade concealed his eyes. He had close-cropped black hair with matching sideburns and a goatee.

Quinn nudged Bridy’s arm. “We should split up and cut him off.”

“Good idea. You go left and cut through that alley. I’ll stay on his six.”

“Copy that.” Quinn fell back a stride, stepped into the street, and darted through a break in the traffic. A few vehicles blared their horns at him, but no one—including their target—seemed to pay the commotion any mind. Then Quinn slipped into an alley that ran behind a row of buildings on the next block.

Bridy waited for the next break in traffic. The sun beat down like a hammer of fire, and she sleeved sweat from her brow. At last, she crossed and continued closing the distance to the Klingon agent. Street vendors made aggressive efforts to waylay Bridy with samples of their wares, which ranged from fruit and vegetables to exotic textiles and bizarre gadgets whose purposes she couldn’t begin to imagine. She sidestepped the overzealous hawkers or shoved them aside and sustained her pace until she was within a dozen strides of the Klingon.

Twenty meters ahead, Quinn emerged from an alleyway and set himself in position to intercept the target. The intersection was an ideal spot for them to take down the Klingon, because he had only one obvious escape route, and Bridy knew it would lead him down a dead end. They had him.

She quickened her pace and nodded at Quinn, who drew his stun pistol.

A pulse of charged plasma streaked overhead with a piercing screech and blasted away a chunk of the alley wall above Quinn’s head.

He cursed as he leaped to cover behind some empty barrels, trailed every step of the way by a furious volley of plasma bolts.

The crowd in the street scattered in multiple directions, all of them moving away from Quinn, the apparent target of a crazed sniper. A dozen panicked aliens collided with Bridy, the only person other than Quinn who didn’t seem to be running for her life. She was too busy trying not to get run over while scanning the fleeing throng simultaneously with her eyes and her tricorder for the escaping Klingon. As she feared, he was retreating in the midst of a dozen other bystanders—and as he looked back, he saw Bridy staring directly at him. She tried to hide the tricorder, but it was too late. Her cover had been blown.

Crap.

Quinn leaned out from behind cover just long enough to return fire in the general direction of his attacker, and then he ducked to avoid another barrage.

Bridy turned and followed the incoming fire back to its source: a Nausicaan on a rooftop with a scope-enhanced rifle. She lifted her phaser and fired at him, but struck the front of the building half a meter beneath his perch. The sniper recoiled momentarily, then trained his sights on her. Bridy ducked into a doorway just in time to avoid having her head shot off.

Gray smoke that stank of scorched metal filled the air. Bridy slung her tricorder at her hip and flipped open her communicator. “Quinn! Do you read me?”

His anxious voice crackled with static. “Bridy, get outta here!”

“I can’t leave you here.”

“Every second you’re yapping, the Klingon’s running! I know this shooter—he’s here for me. You get the Klingon. I’ll handle this.”

“You’re sure?”

“On three! Ready?”

She holstered her phaser and checked her tricorder. The Klingon’s bio-readings were continuing to move away at a brisk pace. “Ready.”

“One. Two. Three!”

Quinn popped up from cover, firing wildly at the Nausicaan while letting out a whooping battle cry. Bridy sprinted from the doorway, down the street, and around a corner in pursuit of the Klingon. She struggled to hold her communicator steady while she ran. “I’m clear! Meet me at the ship!”

“Roger!”The next sound over the comm channel was a shrill whine of weapons fire, followed by a string of Quinn’s most colorful curses. Then the channel clicked off. Bridy closed her communicator, tucked it away, and drew her phaser as she pressed on, desperate to make up lost ground.

The street behind her echoed with weapons fire and the whine of approaching sirens, and for a moment she suffered a fleeting pang of guilt at leaving Quinn to fend for himself. Then she shook off her doubts. He’ll be fine,she assured herself as she broke into a full run. I’m sure Quinn knows what he’s doing.

7

Quinn yelped in pain as a bolt of supercharged plasma grazed his left shoulder and burned a streak through his jacket, shirt, and flesh. He zigzagged and ducked without slowing down, while wondering, What the hell am I doing?

Fiery streaks of orange blazed above his head as he turned a corner. He stumbled and slid half a meter on the gritty pavement. He tried to break his fall by extending his left arm and was rewarded with searing pain in his wounded shoulder. Muttering curses, Quinn pushed through his pain and kept moving.

His footfalls crunched on bits of gravel and echoed off bare walls of sun-baked stone. Overlapping them were those of Quinn’s pursuer, a Nausicaan bounty hunter he had seen haunting the dom-jot tables aboard the Omari-Ekonmore than a year earlier. The lanky humanoid was much faster than Quinn had expected, and he seemed to be closing the distance between them at an alarming rate.

Desperate to get a few steps ahead of the bounty hunter and lose him in the maze of intersecting alleyways—some of which were nothing more than short passages that dipped under buildings and connected to other alleys—Quinn caromed off walls and crashed through loose mounds of garbage while trying to make turns at a full-on sprint.

Bounding up a short flight of stairs, he saw a door ajar directly ahead. He charged through it into a sweltering kitchen and slammed the door shut behind him. Clouds of scalding vapor billowed around him as he twisted and dodged past the cooking staff, most of whom looked like Saurians or Kaferians, an antlike species that had always given Quinn the creeps. One of the Saurians stepped into Quinn’s path holding a saucepan from which blue-and-orange flames danced. A frantic chorus of chittering and hissing filled the air, but Quinn blocked it out and kept on moving lest the Nausicaan follow him through the back door.

He hurried down a narrow corridor toward the dining room, hopeful that he had found a place to hide. All I have to do is pay off the maître d’ and get a table in the back,he told himself. Once the Nausicaan moves on, I can go back to the ship.

Quinn’s hopes of hunkering down in a safe haven vanished as he stepped into the dining room. Every patron in the restaurant was a Gorn. Two dozen archosaurs looked up at him and, in unison, hissed their disapproval. Two massive Gorn standing on either side of Quinn lunged at him.

Just my luck,he realized. I pick the one joint in the alien quarter that’s reserved for Gorn only.

The Gorn bouncers seized him with scaly hands and lifted him several centimeters off the floor. Quinn flailed his hands to get their attention. “Hey, guys, c’mon. I can see the door, right? I can let myself out, really. There’s no need to—”

They hurled him through a green-tinted window.

He struck the glass-strewn pavement first with his elbows, then with his chin. Pedestrians recoiled and gave him a wide berth. Jagged shards of shattered glass cut his palms as he forced himself up. He glared at the widening circle of spooked aliens that were staring at him. Thanks for making yourselves into a target with me as the goddamned bull’s-eye,he fumed. He lurched back into motion as a plasma bolt ripped into the street behind his foot, turning asphalt into slag.

Shouldering and shoving, he made his own path through the crowd. People raced in all directions at once, all whipped into a panic by the screeching of the Nausicaan’s rifle and the wild ricochets of hot plasma deflected off metal surfaces.

A fiery flash kissed Quinn’s face with heat as it ripped past and slammed into the back of an alien woman half a stride ahead of him. She collapsed face-first, dead before her limp body struck the sidewalk.

Quinn ducked and detoured right, down a wide alley. As soon as he did so, he realized it was a mistake. Less than fifteen meters away, the alley came to an abrupt end more than twenty meters above the next street, which had been built at a lower elevation on the hill. There were no doors in the alley and no sign of a ladder or staircase ahead. Screams resounded from the street behind him: turning back was not an option. There was nothing to do but run faster and try to leap over the street ahead to a window of the building on the other side.

His breaths were ragged and short and his heart slammed inside his chest as he ran for his life. At the last moment he fixed his sights on a closed window just below the roof of the building, kicked hard off the last edge of ground beneath his feet, and launched himself over the gap.

For a fraction of a second stretched by his fear, he felt himself rise . . . and then gravity took over. Free fall made his guts feel as if they were about to erupt from his mouth. Arms windmilling, he screamed with primal fear as his body traced an ever steeper arc across the void.

Bolts of energy raged past him, each one closer than the last.

The building’s façade raced forward to meet him.

He shielded his face with his crossed forearms as he struck the window. It shattered into millions of granular bits as he made impact. Then he struck the heavy, burgundy-colored curtain on the other side and pulled it with him as he fell to the floor. He tucked and rolled, only to become half-cocooned in the drapery. Shouts of anger and alarm went up from the next room while Quinn thrashed and kicked and pulled himself free of the smothering fabric.

Another barrage of plasma fire surged through the bashed-open window. Quinn ducked for cover, then blind-fired a return salvo. He kept firing out the window as he backed out of the room and pushed past a furious Selay, whose cobra-like hood was fully spread in an impressive threat display.

“Sorry,” Quinn said to the irked reptilian as he made a break for the door.

The portal slid open ahead of him, and he retreated into the corridor. He looked around for a lift, only to see it crisscrossed with a strip of green tape printed with alien symbols that he was fairly certain meant “out of service.”

There was one central stairwell. Its design was open and airy, which to Quinn meant vulnerable as hell. He pondered his options: try to descend seven floors before being intercepted, or climb one floor to the roof.

From the apartment he’d vacated came the crash of another window breaking and the heavy thud of a body landing on the floor.

Quinn bounded up the stairs to the first switchback, drew his stun pistol, and shot the lock off the door to the roof. The door swung open ahead of him.

And away we go.

Kajek rolled onto his back, ignored the hissed threats of the Selay standing over him, and roared as he plucked a thick shard of broken glass from his left forearm. He had remembered Cervantes Quinn from their fleeting acquaintance on the Omari-Ekonas a paunchy, middle-aged human given to sloth and alcoholism—not as someone with the stamina or gurambato make a leap such as this.

He tossed aside the jagged hunk of glass and stood. Either Quinn has changed or I’m chasing the wrong person.

As Kajek moved toward the door, the Selay stepped into his path, intent upon voicing his outrage despite the fact that Kajek couldn’t understand a word the reptilian said. Kajek backhanded the scaly pest, launching him up and back against a wall. The Selay collapsed to the floor, stunned but clinging to consciousness.

Footfalls echoed from the corridor outside, followed by weapons fire. Kajek drew his plasma rifle from its sheath on his back and followed the sound of his fleeing bounty. He pivoted into the hallway, his rifle level and steady. The reek of human sweat and fear pheromones lingered in the muggy air. Following the scent, he arrived at the building’s central staircase and glanced down. The open layout of the building’s interior made it all but impossible for Quinn to have escaped by descending. Then Kajek looked up and saw it was only one flight to the door ajar at the top of the staircase. He’s on the roof.

Kajek charged his weapon to full power and ran up the stairs. He paused at the roof-access doorway and listened, but heard nothing, and then he opened it. Bright sunlight half-blinded him for a moment, and he tensed in anticipation of an ambush. None came. Wind buffeted his ears, and sirens wailed in the distance.

The roof was peppered with squat blocks, housings for climate-control turbines, but none were large enough to provide cover for Quinn. Kajek turned in a slow circle, looking for any clue as to the human’s path, but the roof’s surface was pristine white concrete. The building was flanked on two sides by much taller buildings, and its front offered nothing but a sheer drop to the street thirty meters below—leaving only the rear of the building as a possible escape path.

Drawing near its edge, he spied a pair of handholds for a ladder. It’s a long way down, human,he gloated. Can you climb faster than I can shoot?He poked the muzzle of his rifle over the roof’s edge and fired a few blind shots, just in case Quinn was lurking on the ladder, hoping to snipe Kajek when he showed his face. The sharp whine of plasma fire echoed and faded away, met only by silence. Curious and concerned, Kajek slowly leaned forward and looked down.

There was no one on the ladder, on any of the escape platforms, or in the alley far below. Each platform had a single, featureless portal marked “no reentry” in Gorn Standard, meaning Quinn could not have used one to sneak back inside the building. The bounty hunter furrowed his brow, baffled.

He froze as he felt the icy kiss of metal on the nape of his neck.

Quinn’s voice was low and steady. “Don’t move or you’re dead.”

•  •  •

Quinn strained to stop his bloodied hand from trembling as he kept the muzzle of his pistol against the Nausicaan’s neck. His arms, back, and chest were aching and cramped after hanging upside down for nearly two minutes from a narrow beam on the underside of a mid-flight landing in the building’s main staircase. He had dangled like a bat twenty meters above the atrium floor while waiting for the bounty hunter to pass him on his way up the stairs.

“Back up slowly,” Quinn said. He backpedaled two steps and let the bounty hunter retreat from the edge. “Throw your weapon off the roof.”

The Nausicaan turned his head ever so slightly to peek back at Quinn. He sounded amused. “That’s a stunpistol, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, at point-blankrange.” He steadied his aim. “That means you’ll live—but with mud for brains. Now toss the rifle, crab-face.”

The command elicited a growl from the bounty hunter, but then he hurled his rifle away, into the alley behind the building. Seconds later, Quinn heard the clatter of the weapon striking pavement far below. “Nicely done,” he said.

He lowered his aim and shot the Nausicaan twice, once in the back of each knee. The hulking alien howled and collapsed in a heap. Quinn planted one booted foot on his foe’s neck and relieved him of a disruptor pistol, two combat knives, and a bandolier of miniature grenades.

Quinn nodded to himself. “That’s better.” He shackled the bounty hunter’s wrists with his own magnetic manacles. “I set these to release automatically in four hours. By then you might get the feeling back in your legs, if you’re lucky.” He rolled the ugly bastard onto his back. “What’s your name?”

“Kajek.”

“Ganz sent you?”

“Yes.”

He crouched above Kajek and pointed his pistol at the bounty hunter’s face. “So, what’s this about? Zett? Or something else?”

“Zett.”

“Sonofabitch.” Quinn frowned and shook his head. “I knewdusting that little prick would come back to haunt me.”

“Killing me will not save you,” Kajek said. “Ganz will send others.”

“I’m not gonna kill you.” He poked Kajek’s chest. “You’re gonna take a message to Ganz. Tell him Zett went out of his way to come after me. The little thug made it personal, and he got what he deserved.”

“Is that your story?”

“It’s the truth.” Quinn stood. “Zett had it coming.”

“We all have it coming, human.”

“Some of us sooner than others.” He backed away from Kajek and made a threatening gesture with his pistol. “Do notcome after me again. Because I promise: next time, I willkill you.”

The Nausicaan spread his fangs and grinned. “You will try.”