The koob resistance had been making noise of late.
Bowie pulled an attachment out of the front of the stock and screwed it into the end of the barrel. A longer suppressor that increased accuracy and muffled sound. From the shadows of the room, he fired and hit the first sniper with a single shot, and then with barely a pause, nailed the second. Both men slid onto their backs and lay on the sloped roof. The sunglasses confirmed that fading vitals indicated death.
Then Bowie stepped out onto the roof and made his way across the covered gardens, following long beams of wood that supported the screens guarding the parties below. He could hear the guests cavorting and cackling. Shrieking as more alcohol and drugs were consumed along with the lives they were debasing.
Some distant part wondered what the sweet little Tennarian girl was doing. She didn’t belong here. She was from some other place, not this one.
Not your problem, Jack, he told himself and made his way toward the edge of the Pleasure Palace. Below him he saw nothing like the bacchanal going on in all the other quadrants of the garden. This was nothing more than a gathering of the most stately and powerful of the guests. All of them in clusters of earnest conversation. Doing big business no doubt, he thought as he scanned the crowd looking for the zhee. The sunglasses were picking up vocals and translating. Interesting stuff. Private plans the public would scream murder over.
Dividing up the carcasses of the Kublarens. And the Republic. Making everything new the same as it was before. The House of Reason 2.0.
He spotted the target.
In his sunglasses he got another message.
Target confirmed.
He fired once. That’s all it took. Looking right down at the zhee not more than forty meters from him, it was an easy shot. The zhee holy man was surrounded by his coterie of body guards. All of them armed with suicide vests as per protocol. That was something you learned in navy intel. Because you didn’t want to learn it the hard way.
They were talking with the local head of the koob clan. A frog dressed in Utopion clothes and sporting gold medallions and even a crown. A dozen others like him all looking nothing like the dirty rebel tribesmen they’d been less than a decade before. Looking now like any of the many on all the worlds of the Republic who’d sold out their own for a bigger, better deal.
The single blaster shot fired from Bowie’s sniper rifle variant hit the zhee in the head. Had to make sure. Pumps and pipe wasn’t good enough.
Target termination confirmed.
The donk’s head exploded across the other guests, showering them with blood and matter. They stood there for half a second, stunned that they wouldn’t hear the rest of the deal he’d been making with his publicly avowed enemies concerning the fate of everyone on Kublar.
But Bowie didn’t see that. He was already gone and moving for the exit. Quickly back across the covered gardens as Kublar’s sun sank behind the walls, throwing blue shadows along the interior.
He made the window back into the accountant’s business suite when the first zhee body guard detonated, thinking it was a double cross and convinced that his religious fervor to murder assured him a place in the eternal pasture the zhee believed in.
Bowie had no idea how many of the inner sanctum guests were killed in that fiery moment. He had already reconfigured the weapon into a briefcase and was briskly making his way back into the party. Stunned guests, having heard the blast, were already making their way toward the grand main entrance as security professionals pushed past, racing for the maelstrom of mayhem that was unfolding in their most secure zone. Desperate to protect Sustus Caul.
Jack Bowie spotted the Tennarian named Honey. She was pressed against the pillar. Suddenly forgotten and scared. Her prized orange skin standing out against the contrast of the white sculpted column she was anchored to. Clinging to it as though that were the only constant in the galaxy. To leave it was to fly off into insanity. Her large wide eyes were uncertain and filled with not fear, but definitely worry. Her tentacle arms writhed across the column. Her beautiful humanoid body rigid with fear.
Guests screamed and raced for the exits and their private vehicles and security teams.
Bowie spotted a bottle of Fraught and picked it up as he approached the beautiful Tennar.
“Care for that drink?”
She looked at him in stunned amazement that quickly turned to fear. And then suddenly recognizing him as the pilot, she smiled like they were old friends well met.
“I think something’s happened… Is the party over?”
Bowie looked off toward the Pleasure Palace.
“Yes, Honey. I think it’s over now. Would you like a drink?”
“Where?” she asked.
Jack Bowie inspected the bottle.
“Probably not here. But this is a serviceable gin. Allow me to escort you out of here and we’ll find somewhere to drink it.”
“Where?” she asked, refusing to peel herself away from the column. As though she were frozen, or petrified, unable to leave and trust the unknown. Stuck to the pillar forever like some mythical beauty about to be fed to monsters.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Bowie said, taking her arm. “Someplace cozy, I suspect.”
And then they were off. He was leading her away through the chaos, and filching a ride just as the koob resistance suicide-bombed the main gate. And their assault teams came out of the feathery trees and across the UberGolf course.
She looked at him as he drove away from the sudden battle. A fireball rising in the rearview mirror. The sound of automatic blaster fire being exchanged between security and koob insurgents.
“Today turned out a lot differently than I thought it would.” She took a deep breath. Then she smiled at him. Because she
