He nodded wisely. The maneuver had merely been pulled for him to confirm that the blaster was still out. Both parties were aware of that.
“Okay then… eight fourteen be where they preparing, hooman. Central well. In twenty minutes, they’ll taxi out into the lift well and be raised to the hangar. We have until then to take the ship.”
“How many floors?”
“To top pad where launching happen?” asked Waria.
“Yes.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty floors from eight?” asked Bowie.
“No. Just twenty.”
“So twelve.”
“If that’s how you are wanting to see it, hooman. Then… yes. Twelve floors.”
“Why not take them in the berth?” asked Bowie.
“Ah. The bite of your fangs is prudent,” hissed the snake man. “Strike before the lift. But alas no do can. Berths are secure. Flaps Jonso keeps a security team ready during loadout. He work for big boss who provide happy girls for Caul’s party times. Like… ah… it would be like rushing a bunker with fragger between your teeth. You lose either way.”
Bowie looked skyward, scanning up the side of the dropship storage. It was typical. Racked storage with flyaway hangars on every berth. This place had been secured with only one exit up and out. And something wasn’t straight.
Waria was lying.
Or, as the old saying went… how do you know when a snake man is lying? Because his tongue is flicking. And Waria’s tongue was flicking back and forth pretty steadily. Like he was testing the air every ten seconds. Like he was lying through his fangs. But this was Jack’s only way in and the deadline was closing fast.
“How do we get in?” he asked.
“My ship on seven. We enter the ramp that winds up through the outside of the tower. Drive to nine, and board the lift as it passes. Neutralize Jonso’s crew. Take the dropship. Make the pickup. Carry the girls to Caul’s estate in Cliffside. Easy to be peasy.”
“Just easy peasy. No to be.”
Waria nodded making some look.
“Let’s do it then,” said Bowie.
And with that, Waria started the sled and drove down the block into the security station that accessed the ramp up to the berths.
A gloomy bot, battered and one-eyed and chattering in logic-numerica, accepted Waria’s code-phrase and they were in. It was dark and the dim lighting came in sudden bright washes as the sled crawled up the circular ramp that wound through the building. On level three, Waria mashed the accelerator and spun about, fangs bared and ready to fill Bowie with an easily deadly amount of neurotoxin. Murch squealed and dove for the steering wheel as the snake man lunged for the hooman in the back seat.
The first thing Murch did badly as he tried to drive the sled from the passenger seat, heaving his rotund barrel pig chest across the front seats, was connect with the sidewall of the ramp spiraling up through the levels of the dropship garage. He also terror-squealed.
Whether this was some innate swolly defensive technique to alert the herd, or the pig was generally afraid for its life, Bowie had no idea. He was too busy trying to throttle Waria with both hands because the collision with the wall along the ramp, and the sudden screech of ceramic and metal, sparks flying up into the dingy light of the climbing tunnel from off the tricked out sled, had caused him to drop the Python in the back seat.
Snake men move fast. Some say almost as fast as the galaxy’s other uber predator… wobanki. Which is pretty fast. Twitchy fast on the part of the wobanki. Lighting fast where Lahursians are concerned.
Though Lahursians are genus serpentoid, with a human-like body, they are serpents. And their propensity to strike and coil about their prey as fast as possible is old and well known. The best way to deal with them is to cut off their heads. And in lieu of a good head-chopping weapon, throttling them is your next option.
Jack Bowie had learned that, and a hundred other ways to kill the various species humankind had found out in the galaxy, during jungle phase with the SOTO groups in the Navy. Both of his thumbs were now pressing in, trying to collapse the windpipe of the snake man. Of course, Waria was trying to sink both fangs into Bowie’s jacket and dump both sacks of neurotoxin into the stupid hooman’s weak non-serpent body. Which would deal with the “hooman” effectively in less than fifteen seconds.
Waria leaned in closer, constricting every muscle and turning into an iron pole that seemed to loom over Bowie in the back seat as the luxury convertible sled slammed into another wall of the tunnel and the pig man squealed again with dire abandon.
Waria leaned in close, jaw unhinging, fangs dripping with poison as somehow the sled’s speed increased. Which, to Bowie, seemed unwise for all of them, given the current circumstances.
He couldn’t let go to get a hand on his other blaster, or the knives. But he had a knee and Lahursians had a solar plexus. A large one in fact due to their humanoid nature. Bowie smashed his knee up into the solar plexus while never releasing pressure from both thumbs on the windpipe of the snake man. One smash… two smash… the third smash did the trick and Waria reeled back and tried to inhale, temporarily releasing his airway. A second later Jack Bowie’s two thumbs snapped the snake man’s wide hyoid bone. When he felt it go, he released and pulled his holster blaster. He jammed it into Waria’s writhing belly and fired three times. Then a fourth. Waria collapsed back into the front seat, draping himself over the swolly who was still trying to drive from the passenger seat. A second later the speeding sled crashed into the side wall ramp hard, throwing Bowie onto the floor of the vehicle and the pig man through the front glass.
When Bowie opened one eye, he saw nothing but the flickering overhead
