Mong practically fell to his knees in adulation of the precious artifact. “At last!” he rasped.
He held it up in his hands with reverence, lifting it to the grubby ceiling, and I could see the primitive, feral madness in his eyes.
The gunmen looked at him with odd curiosity, but I could see something of the falseness in those grins, as if they too thought their master was more than a bit off.
We came out of the warehouse and set out toward the ship, a man beside Balt carrying the prize.
A voice like a crow’s caw echoed off the stone behind me. I staggered in my limp, my good right hand slapping involuntarily to my hip—for a weapon I did not have.
“Hold it, you fucks,” came the voice. “Yeah, you!” The voice called louder.
Mong and his men kept walking as if deaf. I turned, saw a thin-faced security guard training his R3 at us at the edge of the watchhouse.
“I’m talking to you!” The man’s rifle came up with a click.
One of Mong’s men whipped out his weapon and plugged the guard in the brow. He fell in a crumpled heap.
In detached curiosity Balt swaggered over, treading over the body and grunting without a backward glance.
I licked my lips.
Mong beamed. “Mr. Rusco, you’ve been a good boy. You should be proud of your achievement today. I offer you my congratulations. This is history in the making.”
“Yeah, seems so, and I bet that dead guy is cheering you on.”
Mong sniffed. “That man will rise again, in another life. Long is the cycle of painful lessons to learn in this life and the next.”
“Is it? A little rabbit once whispered in my ear that the call of the screech owl isn’t to be considered an invite. I don’t buy into your spiritual jabber, or your warmed-over bible shit.”
Mong shrugged. “Your loss, Rusco. It means little to me.”
“Yeah, well—”
“And now, for the second part of this operation.”
“Let Blest go,” I urged. “He’s innocent in this.” I braced myself for annihilation.
“Nobody is innocent in this world, Mr. Rusco. People must learn to accept the consequences for the company they keep.”
I tensed, my teeth gritted for bullets to fly.
“Relax. I see you think I am about to snuff you out. No. On the contrary, I have plans for you. I reward those who bring me opportunities. I am not an ungrateful man. I am the angel of death. The ones who get in my way are blood sacrifices who are crushed under the boot of an enlightened future.”
“If you say so.” I let out a breath of contempt.
“Phase two may cure that defiance of yours, Rusco. If not, there is always phase three.”
“Just can’t wait.”
Mong chuckled, a grunt at the end of an evil threat, a throaty, brooding sound, the closest I’ve heard to a laugh. In truth...my bluster was pure bullshit and I felt a cloying fear rising as a crest of warm bile in my throat, bursting at the seams, on the heels of a repressed scream.
Chapter 15
Back on the Vulpin’s bridge, I looked down with wary distaste on Brisis 9, that slum planet of my nightmares as it slowly receded into the background stars. I wished the hell I’d never gone down there with Marty, my old co-partner in crime, and heisted that alien tech some months ago.
Our resident Star Lord seemed a changed man, all ebullience and bright smiles as he directed affairs from the captain’s chair. Now that he had a working amalgo, why shouldn’t he play captain of the universe? His despicable lieutenant Balt had dropped hints that the other amalgamator never worked, that its green glow had fizzled out long ago and the few attempts at exploration of its powers had denied him access to the alien worlds he so coveted. The box of small, disc-sized transporters given him by his erstwhile captain Baer had likewise yielded zippo, only toxic places of doom.
My hand ached like a bitch, my fingers skewed at unnatural angles. Torturer Balt had seen to a maximum of pain.
“Instruct your men on the amalgo,” boomed Mong in his resonant baritone. “Any who so much as touches the device, shall be skinned alive. Is that clear?”
Lieutenant Balt nodded, grumbling an acknowledgement. He beckoned Hadruk forward, the security officer, looking a cross between a bulldog and an ape, given his stoop, glinting baboon-like eyes and the bristly hair on his cheeks and the back of his hands.
The bridge, a dim-lit place with high ceiling, black panels, viewports and holo displays, showed various state-of-the-art equipment. The setup made Bantam look like a toy. As Mong directed operations from his raised seat, a crew of nine of his men hunched around various consoles, operating computers and monitoring sensors.
I’d not seen hide nor hair of my shipmate Blest since we’d last journeyed to Hoath. Mong had ignored all my attempts to wrest information on his status. He assured me he was being taken care of.
Mong kept me on the bridge right next to him, like a pet hamster, flashing eyes my way every minute, along with his precious amalgamator, that blood diamond of treasures he’d forced me to uncover for him at Hoath. Mong had stationed it by the weapons console where he could keep an eye on it. The device glowed with a baleful purpose, a sickly green, its parallel plates inviting vistas into nowhere. Exactly what this fuck Mong planned to do with it was beyond me. But I’d visited one of those alien worlds some months ago via the
