Unser was still screaming invective at a passive-faced Flairty.
"I want out," Ringstorff muttered, "pure and simple."
He started to rise. So did Lithgow.
The door to the Mesan suite erupted in a flash. The concussion knocked Ringstorff off his feet. In a daze, he saw Diem and Lithgow and Flairty hammered to the floor as well. Fortunately, the two Masadans who'd remained standing next to the door absorbed most of the force of the explosion. Their shattered bodies went flying across the room.
Ringstorff knew he needed to act immediately, but his brain and nervous system were still responding sluggishly. So he wasn't able to do much more than lurch to his knees and gurgle an inarticulate protest before people started pouring through the ruptured doorway.
He was a bit surprised to see two women coming through first. Then, recognizing their distinctive phenotypes and facial structure, understood the reason. Scrags. Faster, probably, than the two Mesan security guards fumbling at their weapons. Since they'd been the farthest from the door, they'd managed to remain on their feet.
Fat lot of good it did them. The first woman through the door had a pulser in her hand and fired two quick and expert bursts. The two guards went down, dead before they landed.
The second woman strode over to Flairty, who was still lying prone on the floor, her gun pointed at the back of the Masadan's head.
And good riddance, thought Ringstorff. At least he wouldn't die without seeing the bastard zealot sent to his grave first.
But, to his surprise, the woman didn't fire. At the last moment, she swiveled the gun aside and just kicked Flairty in the back of the head. It was a powerful kick but not the lethal one she could have so obviously delivered. Just enough to daze Flairty completely.
Four men had now entered the room, moving a bit more slowly than the women. One of them remained standing near the door, a pulser in his fist but pointing at no one in particular. One of them came toward Ringstorff, another headed toward Diem, the third toward Lithgow. Lithgow, like Ringstorff himself, was now up on his knees. Diem was still flat on the floor, apparently unconscious.
The approaching men were carrying hand pulsers but, like the one by the door, didn't seem to be planning to use them. Not immediately, at least. Ringstorff decided he and Lithgow still had a chance—a piss-poor one, true—and tried to gather himself for a sudden lunge.
Then the man coming toward Ringstorff stuck out his tongue—stuck it way out—and Ringstorff froze. The genetic markers were easily visible and . . . unmistakable.
"Shall we dance?" the man jeered. "I don't recommend it though, Ringstorff. I really doubt you're up to being my partner."
Audubon Ballroom. More fanatics. I'm dead meat.
"My name's Saburo X, by the by. Give me any shit and I'll blow off your arms and legs, cut off your nose and feed it to you. Be a good boy, and you'll live. Maybe a long time, who knows?"
Mutely, Ringstorff gave him a nod. Then, without being asked, clasped his hands behind his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lithgow do the same. Nobody in their right mind—certainly not anyone on Mesa's payroll—was going to doubt a Ballroom fanatic's threats of mayhem.
Apparently satisfied, Saburo X glanced at the woman who'd kicked Flairty.
"It was well done," he said. The words sounded a bit grudging.
"Of course it was," she replied. But there was no heat in the response. True, she was frowning. But it seemed more like a frown of concentration than displeasure.
"Do that again," she said abruptly.
"Do what?"
She stuck out her tongue. Saburo goggled at the sight. Then, his jaws tightened.
"Please," said the woman, as if the word didn't come easily to her.
Saburo suppressed whatever angry words he'd been about to speak; hesitated; shrugged; and stuck out his tongue again.
The woman examined it for an instant.
"I can live with that," she pronounced. "In fact, it looks kind of intriguing. I'm Lara. Have you got a woman?"
The Ballroom member was back to goggling. "Not recently," he choked. "Why?"
"You do now," Lara stated, as casually as if she were announcing the time of day. "I don't like being without a man, and the one I had isn't going to live out the day. The stinking pig."
She reached down with her left hand, seized Flairty by the scruff of his blouse, and yanked him easily to his feet. Flairty wobbled, his eyes still dazed, held up only by Lara's grip.
"You can take a while to get used to the idea," she announced. "But don't take too long. I'm horny."
She began muscling Flairty toward the door, carrying him more than guiding him. On the way, she gave Ringstorff a cold glance.
"Give my new man any trouble and you'll be lucky if you die before he's done. I'll—"
By the time she had Flairty through the door, Ringstorff felt sick to his stomach. The ex-Scrag female's vivid description of the mayhem she'd inflict on him made Saburo seem like a saint.
"She's crazy," Saburo choked.
"I dunno," said the Ballroom terrorist who was now manhandling Lithgow to his feet. "I thought the last bit had a certain charm."
"Not that, Johann," replied Saburo, shaking his head. "The other part."
Johann grinned. "I dunno," he repeated. "I'm not sure I'd argue the point with a woman like that, myself. Besides, you were complaining the other day that your life was too boring."
"Especially his sex life," chimed in the Ballroom member by the door. "Bored me to death about it, he did, just yesterday." He, too, was grinning. And by the time he finished, was looking at the other ex-Scrag female still in the room.
"And what's your name?" he asked.
She grinned back. "Inge. But don't push it. I want to get a report from Lara first."
* * *
Less than five minutes later, the four Mesans had been bundled into an expensive private air-car waiting by a service entrance behind the Suds. By then, Ringstorff had gotten over his astonishment at the ease with which the abduction had been managed—there had been no one along their way through the huge edifice, not even so much as a janitor—and was now grimly certain that his life hung by a thread. This was obviously not just an Audubon Ballroom operation. Somebody high up in the Erewhon hierarchy must have run interference for them.
As he was half-thrown into the back seat of the luxurious vehicle, piling on top of Diem, he caught a glimpse of the monogram on the controls.
Imbesi. Oh, what a nightmare.
* * *
By the time Imbesi's private shuttle launched, carrying Flairty and the three Mesans up to The Wages of Sin, the major families who ruled Erewhon had their representatives already inspecting the damage.
"We can live with this," pronounced Tomas Hall, as his eyes ranged through the Mesan suite in the Suds.
"Barely," hissed Alessandra Havlicek.
The third member of the planet's triumvirate shrugged. "It's really not a problem, Alessandra. Four dead, all flunkies—two of them Masadans, from the look of the bodies. Big deal. The wrecked door's got the management of the Suds more upset than anything."
Havlicek was not mollified. "I don't like Walter Imbesi's high-handed ways. He's really pushing it, in my opinion."
Hall shrugged again. In private, the gesture was less restrained than it would have been in front of a public audience. But there was no one in the room beyond themselves, three bodyguards—and, of course, the representatives of the press.
Hall turned toward one of the reporters. His third cousin, as it happened. Like everything else on Erewhon, "freedom of the press" was refracted through a family prism.
"Keep it quiet for now, would you?" For all the politeness of the question, it was really a command.
The third cousin understood how it worked. Perfectly, in fact, or he wouldn't have enjoyed his position.
"No sweat. An unfortunate accident. We'll have to run a little vague on that, or the Suds management will get upset at the sugge
stion of incompetence."
"Blame it on the Mesans themselves," suggested a second reporter. An adopted member of the Havlicek clan, she was. "Fiddling with dangerous psychedelic drugs, no chemists they, an open flame presumed to have been present—boom." She chuckled harshly. "That'll do it. Nowadays, anybody will believe anything about Mesans."
Her harsh chuckle was echoed through the room.
"Done," said Fuentes. He cocked an eye at Alessandra.
Grudgingly, she nodded. "As you said, we can live with it. For now. But Imbesi better damn well have a good reason—and explain it to us fully, too, none of his usual caviling."
"What is he up to, anyway?" asked Hall. The question was addressed to Fuentes, who'd been the one to receive Walter Imbesi's hurried call.
"Don't really know. But I don't share Alessandra's skepticism. Not fully, at least. Yes, Walter can be a pain in the neck with his daredevil ways. He's also as shrewd as they come. So I'm for letting him have the reins for a bit. Let's see what happens."
Since all three were in agreement, Fuentes brought out his communicator. This was no delicate hidden device, but a full-powered one easily able to reach the space station.
"All right, Walter," he spoke into it. "We'll cover you from this end. But that's it. You're on your own for the rest—and you're the cutout. If whatever you're doing goes sour, you take the fall."
The response came immediately. "Of course. Thanks, Jack. I'll be in touch."
"Sooner than you think," was Fuentes' curt reply. "We're on our way up there ourselves, Walter. Leaving now."
* * *
Everyone was in place, finally, everything set. Gideon Templeton took a moment for quick prayer. Then spoke the battle cry of the Church of Humanity Unchained, Defiant.
"The Lord's will be done."
Chapter 24
Victor had gambled that when the time came, the Scrag would do it casually, so as not to alert anyone with a sudden motion.
"Casually," in these circumstances, meant slowly. Before the Scrag had even gotten the hidden pulser out of his bag, Victor had already taken two quick strides toward him and was within three meters. Fine range for his special palm gun.
The Scrag's eyes widened. Thinking and moving as quickly as that genetically enhanced breed could do, he realized he couldn't get out the gun in time and tried to hurl the entire handbag at Victor.
But Victor, though no "superman," was highly conditioned by training and exercise. If he wasn't as fast or as coordinated as the Scrag, he was close enough.
Thtt, thtt, thtt. Victor was taking no chances with a Scrag. If he died from an overdose, good riddance.
The Scrag was down, Victor's hand already plunging into the handbag. He groped for the gun by feel alone, however. His eyes were elsewhere, ranging the gaming hall to find the Manticoran princess.
* * *
Donald X was too thick and muscular to move that quickly. But speed was really not essential when dealing with a man bedazzled by Ginny's flirtation. The security guard never even noticed him coming until Donald's arm went round his chest, pinning his own arms. A couple of seconds later, Donald had the guard's pulser in his hand and sent the man flying with a powerful heave.
Donald took two steps to get shelter behind the gaming table. Then, like Victor, looked to find the princess. The center of the action would be on her. He paid no attention to Ginny. Usher's wife was no fool and her part in the affair was over for the moment. Donald caught a quick glimpse of bare legs squiggling under the gaming table, and grinned thinly.
Part of the grin was because his three comrades had arrived. One of them positioned himself next to Donald, while the other two went to ground in flanking positions which would allow them the best possible field of fire. Their guns were out and ready to cover the area where Templeton's main crew would make the attack. Mostly, though, he was grinning because he knew that with Ginny safely out of the way, Victor Cachat would be able to devote his full concentration to murder and massacre.
Donald X had seen Victor in action, once. Pity Templeton!
* * *
Sergeant Christina Bulanchik and Corporal Darrin Howell, assigned as Ruth and Berry's close escorts, were also alert. Their attentive eyes swept the crowded chamber endlessly, and the brains behind those eyes reacted with professional paranoia the moment the random drifting of the crowd in the gaming hall was interrupted by sudden purposeful movement. Highly trained instincts reacted with instantly enhanced attention, and their eyes narrowed as at least a dozen men separated themselves from the crowd by the simple act of moving in coordinated unison. The troopers understood they were under attack even before they spotted the guns in the hands of their assailants.
Howell's left hand darted out, catching Berry by the shoulder and spinning her away and to the floor with far more haste than care, even as his right hand flashed towards his pulser. Bulanchik reacted with matching quickness, sweeping Ruth behind her and sending her tumbling towards the floor, as well, as the sergeant went for her own holster. Both troopers managed to draw their weapons, but the time they'd taken to get their charges out of the line of fire had cost them precious fractions of a second. Before either of them could fire, they were dead in a hurricane of pulser darts.
* * *
"Werewolf!" Christina Bulanchik's warning cracked like an old-fashioned pistol shot over the Queen's Own's com net. That single code word was the most terrifying thing any member of a Manticoran protective detail could hear, and Lieutenant Ahmed Griggs reacted to it instantly.
He hadn't been facing the same direction as Howell and Bulanchik, and so he'd missed the initial swirls in the crowd which had alerted them. But Bulanchik's warning snapped his pulser into his hand with the serpent quickness of trained muscle memory. The safety came off in the same fluid movement, even as his brain dropped into the ice-cold, detached mode of a trained bodyguard who was also a highly decorated combat veteran. His eyes swept the crowd before him, seeking threat sources, and the pulser came up smoothly, so smoothly, as the first assailant identified himself. Griggs couldn't have explained exactly how the man had done that. It was something about his stance, the way he moved against the crowd, the expression in his eyes or the tenseness in his shoulders. It was something that shouted the truth to the lieutenant's trained senses, and his pulser hissed in a precise, three-dart burst that blew the terrorist's chest apart.
Ahmed Griggs was a crack shot with any hand weapon, and his entire being was focused on the crowd before him as people began to scream in terror. The quicker-witted were already flinging themselves towards the floor, and a tiny corner of his brain felt a flicker of gratitude as the innocent took themselves out of the line of his fire. Another corner realized that personally shooting attackers was the worst thing he could be doing. That his job was to command his entire detachment, to enforce order and coordination upon his people's response.
But there was no time to worry about what he ought to be doing. All he could do was respond, and his succeeding quick bursts took down three more men—all dead—before he was struck by the first return fire. A pulser dart mangled his shooting arm at the elbow in the split second before several more darts ripped into his legs. They lacked the full velocity of military-grade weapons, but even civilian-grade darts attained a velocity no chemical-powered firearm could have hoped to match. The darts were more than sufficient to reduce bone to splinters and rupture flesh. Griggs went down hard, his entire body screaming with agony, and his pulser landed on the floor beside him.
By then, the four other troopers in Griggs' unit had taken down an additional six men—and, again, all of them from fatal wounds. Ten assailants down—half again their own number, despite having suffered the loss of two troopers before they could fire even a single round.
Three of them were down, as well, and Laura Hofschulte was the only one still in action. She'd gone to one knee behind the dealer's console—pausing only to grab Ruth and throw her forcefully under the gaming table as the princess
tried to climb back up onto her own hands and knees. Now her left hand stabbed the panic button on her belt com pack, alerting the detachment's supporting Erewhonese heavy-weapons squad, even as her right hand tracked onto a fresh target. She squeezed her trigger, taking down yet another attacker, but there were too many threat sources, too much background clutter to hide them from her, and she knew it.
She spotted another weapon coming at her from the left flank and twisted, bring her pulser across her body, tracking into the threat. The man's eyes met hers at a range of less than four meters. Strange eyes, a flashing thought told her, and a memory trace shouted the word "Scrag!" at her. There was shock in those eyes, as well. Disbelief at how rapidly and lethally the outnumbered detail had responded to the threat, mingled with hatred and predator arrogance that turned ever so fleetingly into something else as the muzzle of her weapon found him.
They squeezed their triggers in the same heartbeat of time.
* * *
It was as splendid a response as anyone could have asked from the soldiers of the Queen's Own, fighting in the worst conceivable circumstances: a stand-up gunfight at point-blank range in the middle of a huge mob, reacting to a surprise attack in greatly superior numbers from every direction. The names of the detail's troopers would be duly recorded on the Wall of Honor in the Queen's Own's Permanent Mess in Mount Royal Palace, along with the Adrienne Crosses each of them received for his or her actions that day.
All of them posthumous. In the end, they were simply overwhelmed.
* * *
Through the haze of the shock, Griggs could hear screaming erupt throughout the huge gaming hall. Unlike his own people, who'd taken pains to avoid hitting innocent bystanders, the attackers had been careless. Not even the Queen's Own could have avoided hitting any bystanders in a fight like this one. Anyone who thought they could have was dreaming . . . or completely ignorant of the realities of high-powered weapons. No, there would have been innocent civilian casualties, whatever happened and even leaving aside the security guards, with their much lower standard of training, elsewhere in the hall. But the Masadan terrorists' complete indifference to those casualties made them far, far worse. Blood and bodies were everywhere, in a whirlwind of carnage, and the sheer number of attackers told Griggs this was a major operation. He was sure whoever had planned this attack would see to it that every possible danger to them was cleared aside.