“Run!” Jack barked at them and entered the shopplex, suddenly overwhelmed by the heady floral scent of an extremely expensive luxury perfume counter. The place was a palace to commercialism and high-end goods. Three stories, sculpted like some grand duke’s bedroom from the lost ages of the early galactic civilizations, it rose above into the nether reaches of the shopping complex. Vibrant tapestries and massive sparkling chandeliers ornamented the place and drew attention to the latest must-haves in fashion, timepieces, luggage, and jewels. All done with an artistic commercialism that seemed polished and professional.
Jaw-dropping on any given day.
But Jack was facing three well-dressed young people, definitely luxury store clerks in well-cut business suits that showed their trim and compact physiques. All of them were holding military-grade assault blasters with charge packs laid out on the perfume counters. Incredibly expensive bottles, like the home of some fantastic genie from the movies that got made on Al-Kaz back in the glory days of Monster-Adventure Flicks twenty years gone, had been swept aside, and in some cases lay broken and smashed on the floor. Tens of thousands of credits’ worth of expensive perfume lay in heady puddles beneath the shining leather shoes of the three holding blasters at near point-blank range on Jack who’d skidded to a halt.
“This is the intercept team, Jack,” noted Elektra in his ear. “Keep moving to the back of the arcade. Enter the service corridors and watch out. We have reports some of the zhee shopping here are armed and looking for you already.”
The intercept team for the arcade was comprised of two pretty women, business professionals who easily could have been fitness models, and a handsome male who looked like the epitome of an entertainment’s star spy.
And nothing like a real spy at all.
The man nodded at Jack as both girls flashed dazzling smiles that said they were enthusiastic about their work.
Jack managed his trademark bashful leer at both and ran on. He was moving through high-end crystal stemware when the three opened up on the four pursuing zhee who flung themselves through the doors of the arcade, thinking they were hot on the heels of a fleeing target with no protection.
Brutal high-powered automatic blaster fire set up to crossfire from three counters facing the front doors made short work of what remained of the zhee mullah’s security detail that had been tasked with pursuit.
A moment later Elektra updated Jack over the comm as he followed a sign that led to the maintenance areas of the stores.
“Pursuit eliminated. Move to the street out the back, Jack. And watch yourself.”
People all across the store were screaming and security alarms were blaring as the sound of blaster fire at the front entrance faded away. Jack made it to the back service area’s access hall, pulled the door open, and pointed the blaster down its gray, lifeless length. Shadowy and barely illuminated by wan overhead lighting, this place was the opposite of the glamorous front of the house.
Halfway down the length of the hall Jack saw a dead worker, and he wondered if Team Nilo’s people had iced someone just so the facade of the perfume counter sales-security intercept team could be maintained. Approaching, he saw the slashed-open neck, blood pooling. Everything screamed zhee kankari knife. But it was the bloody hoofprints that confirmed the story of what had happened here. Hoofprints stamped in the blood and leading down the hall just the way Jack was heading.
No doubt the zhee were picking up a few opportunities for some bloodletting amid the mayhem. They always made the most of the galaxy’s problems. That was the zhee way.
So they’re here and looking for me, thought Jack as he ran. He moved down the hall quickly, thumbed the overpower on the Python to dump half the charge pack into the next shot. He wanted to make sure he put down whoever he meant to hit so he could keep moving quickly.
The fresh, bloody hoofprints faded as he entered the shipping and receiving warehouse at the end of the hall. Columns and pyramids of container goods rose up into the darkness of the place. Jack entered the main access to the loading docks, bypassing bots who seemed little concerned with the sudden crisis and wild murder taking place in all quarters of the store, and the city for that matter.
A moment later a forklift sled with two zhee mares, black robes flying, came at him out of a dark side corridor. There was no way he was getting out of the way. The thing was wide and moving fast straight at him. He threw himself to the side, hoping they wouldn’t just cut repulsors and take an easy shot at him as it came to an immediate, grinding stop.
They didn’t. They could barely operate it. A moment later they failed to hit the brakes and smashed into a fat column of boxes awaiting the next step in the merchandising process. This didn’t deter the murder-eyed mare at the controls who merely smashed one hoof against the left turn pedal and pivoted the wide loader on a dime. Both of their black robes flew like wicked shadows.
Jack fired on the fly and hit the lift sled.
Nothing. They were coming back.
Jack scrambled to his feet and ducked down the main access hall heading toward the loading docks. Behind him the two mares on the lift hit the side wall, knocked over what must’ve been hundreds of thousands of credits in crystal merchandise, something the stores carried specifically to cater to the newly rich zhee households, and careened out onto the main access in pursuit of Bowie.
The other mare, hanging onto the lift from a place no one was ever meant to hang on from, chattered wildly into her datapad. Bowie didn’t have to speak zhee to know
