“Rusco, give it up,” shouted Baer. “You’re a dead man. You’ve no ship and your explosives can’t last forever.” His panting voice rose above the shell chatter. “Tell you what—give me the phaso, and I’ll call it even—”
“Phaso? Why didn’t you say so?” I called.
Restless rumblings came from the huddle, like a nest of rats from where I counted three, with weapons cocked, laser sights trained in my direction. I ducked, held my breath behind a mound of shredded tin. Wished I was the invisible man right now.
Baer held up a hand to the others to hold their fire. He advanced like a hairy beast.
“Tell me where it is, Rusco.”
“If you really want it, Baer, it’s in the conduit leading to the Barenium cylinders in my ship. I hid it there, taped it to the silver metal siding for safe-keeping. Go ahead and check—it’s out of harm’s reach, and the hands of even my own crew.”
“More like a trap,” he jeered.
“Believe what you want. Send one of your crew members to check.” I ducked down, inching away from there to another overturned console a few yards away.
I hoped they’d fall for the lure as I’d bomb-rigged that conduit. It would mean one or two less thugs for me to kill.
How everything was going to shit right now. It would kill Starrunner’s Barenium drive for good but better that than dying here at the hands of these cutthroats. A gamble. I hadn’t counted on both TK and Wren being neutralized so soon.
One of them left on quiet feet; I could feel a lightening of presence. It was about the same time I noticed some other dark figure trail after him with a hobbling gait. TK? Where was that sneaky fuck going? Maybe he was going to take down the errand boy. I hoped so.
My explosives were done. I’d been reaching for a fallen hunk of metal a yard away from my defensive position. It lay in open sight, but I was afraid that if they saw the small movement, they’d blow my hand off. And I wasn’t about to let that happen again.
I tried to keep Baer talking. Fortunately Wren had made herself quieter than a church mouse. Make the Baer blunder. The man had a gun, I didn’t. A distinct disadvantage in this miserable situation so any winning trick was a good one. I’d grab onto it like a drowning man grasped for straws.
“I’m not sweet on the phaso, truth be told, Rusco,” said Baer. “Just tell us where the amalgo is, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
Just like that, you slimebitch, as if we were old pals? I grinned. “The amalgo’s a little trickier, Baer. Truth be told, it isn’t here, hate to tell you. I put it somewhere safe. Thought you’d like that.”
He chuckled. “I do, and that’s good to hear. For a second, I thought you might have gone and done something stupid like destroy it to spite me. After that unfortunate incident back on Trellian.”
“No, nothing like that, Baer. I got better things to do with my time than play the spiteful bitch.”
“Haw haw. You’ll have to tell me where it is sometime. I got a short temper with this one at the moment.”
To my right came a shuffle of feet. I could hear two of them. Flanking me like foxes at the henhouse, moving inch by inch, expecting that I had another detonator to trigger, but I’d drawn my last card.
“Tell your gophers to stay back,” I croaked. “Otherwise I’ll blow them up like the rest of your tainted meat.”
Baer nodded, signaled the two to stop. “So, what do we do now?” he said. “Seems as if we’re at a stalemate.”
I let the seconds pass. I was running out of options. Just when I was about to do something desperate, I detected a hint of motion back near the landing dock entrance.
TK, the mysterious sod, was slinking by the side wall. The crystal ring clutched in his trembling hand; it radiated that queer iridescent glow that had always mesmerized me. What was the fool up to? Maybe he thought to use the phaso as a bargaining chip? To save his own hide? Why had he left Wren, though? Seemed cowardly in my opinion. I couldn’t quite figure it.
The dark animal shape of Baer lunged out of the shadows and intercepted him, speaking low in his ear. “The phase-shifter or I blow your cock off, asshole.”
TK whirled, looking as surprised as I’d been. “Stay back or I nuke it,” he rasped, twisting on his hips. He jammed his weapon down at the phaso.
“Go ahead, blast it, you muttonhead, you die next.”
TK’s eyes flicked away, a trickle of anxiety running down his hollow cheeks.
“Don’t be stupid, TK,” I warned him. “Give him the phaso. Or we all die.”
“Shut up, Rusco. We’re all dead anyway!” He turned, scowling at me like a fishwife. “You let Billy die. I owe you nothing. You left him out there, you bastard.”
“Think again. Billy’s dead and you can’t save him.”
“We might have saved him,” he whimpered. The old man was all choked up. “He might have gotten away.” He lifted his gun hand to wipe at his running nose.
A moment of distraction that allowed Baer to put a ruby ray between his eyes. TK dropped like a strawman, the phaso rolling out of his hand like a pinwheel. One of Baer’s goons reached to snatch it up then disappeared in a haze of multicolored light. The idiot hadn’t grabbed it properly, so he winked out of existence much as had Billy and Mitch, unaware of the alien device’s potential.
Baer
