Chapter 21
Maybe not whole, but I was alive and had one last piece of unfinished business to carry out. The prosthetic started to feel like a part of me, more natural. Maybe I was just getting used to the lack of sensations in my right fingers? I had this mechanized hand on the end of my wrist, something that used to be flesh and bone.
The ship crossed the gulfs back to Elphi Alpha. Returning in good time, our first priority was to ditch this stealth craft. We traded our state-of-the-art vehicle for Bantam, an Alpha-Omega Beamer similar to my own Explorer. Regzie’s WR, whom we’d done business with during the impound scam, was happy to oblige. He and his associates gave us an extra bonus in change—15k yols, citing our current track record of good business relations. I convinced them to throw in a bunch of tools and ship accessories on the side.
“A mighty fine piece of hardware you have there, Mr. Rambo. Any more trades you’d like to propose, bring ’em our way.”
“Sure, I’ll do that.”
It was time to give Jesra and her brood of planets a rest and let Baer and his men’s ghosts lie. I took the Beamer on a direct course toward the inner planets, Tarsus.
“Where now?” Wren asked from across the bridge’s conference table. A pang of worry flicked across those dark-shadowed eyes.
When I didn’t reply, she grew more restless. “Rusco, don’t do anything stupid. That fucker Mong will break your legs and pluck out your eyebrows.”
“Don’t worry, Wren, nothing so dramatic. If I want dear old Mong dead, I’ll leave the heavy lifting to Batman.”
“Very funny, but seriously, why not let sleeping dogs—”
“Relax.” I outlined my plan to her. The fact that Pazarol was still alive was a loose end that couldn’t be tolerated. “Dollars to donuts, Mong’ll contract Pazarol to be my next executioner.” I grimaced, recalling Pazzy’s last promise of playing bounty hunter.
Wren shook her head in dim frustration. “Does it ever end?” She rubbed her eyes, heaving a sigh.
We came in smooth and low over the north end of the shell-shocked industrial zone that marked Belgen’s business section. Buzzing the haggard clumps of trees, we left Bantam just under a half mile away in an abandoned yard, not far from Pazzy’s crib. Close enough to make a mad dash if we needed to, far enough away that our landing would draw no undue attention. I cut the engines, grabbed my gear, the arsenal of weaponry and snips to cut the wire fence guarding the lot, then we’d have an exit hole readily accessible when the time came to hoof it out of there. It’d be nip and tuck. I had a remote control for the ship. I could run and operate Bantam in limited scope in case we needed the fury of her guns if the situation got desperate. I hoped to hell not.
I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the pungent odor of ozone, tar and something else—a far-off reek of petrochemicals lacing the air from some tall, grimed smokestacks farther down the way. A smoky glow lit up the early evening haze.
I convinced myself the main goal of our expedition was a rescue mission, of the workers whom I’d seen so bruised and mistreated. If Pazarol was there and just happened to get in the way, well, too bad. Right, Rusco, who are you kidding?
I slowed up, my determined stride coming to a halt at the sight of the crumbling line of the brick warehouse. Wren paused at my side, limber and relaxed, as if we were just staking out a kid’s birthday party. She had recovered nicely from her scrape at Belisar, given the regen and the efficient muscle machine she was. Those years on Talyon had sure toughened her up, surviving those scuttling dervishes and creepo mad boys. They’d blooded her like a SEAL, ironically made her ideal for the purposes I had in mind. Her loyalty was without question. We were like two peas in a pod. I grinned. Bonnie and Clyde, victims of violent disaster, lost family and trauma at an early age.
We moved with low-crouching strides, noiseless, straight toward the warehouse, through the tall, dry prickle-weeds and past the broken crates and skids, the old disused machinery.
The front and side exits we needed to secure. The guards were all inside. The cameras would pose a problem.
There’d be no grand entrance, no bombs or glitter. Just a stealth op, my specialty—the lives in there needed protection and a more delicate touch than the hack and slash fireflares I was used to. Dressed in my ragged camo suit and Wren in her black Kevlar gear, we slunk in like cats, our Uzis and R4s slung on our shoulders, the backup weaponry snug at our belts. I hunched just out of the view of the first overhead camera and aimed my disrupter at it, a thin black rod, bulbed at the end to shoot out a black net of spidery film. The sticky gel covered the lens and would dissolve in three minutes, giving us time to plant our explosives and move on. The lens would revert back to its original state. Enabling the cameras again was a key component in our undetected break-in. Just a brief outage, Ned. Must have been a technical glitch.
Wren did the same to the side cam. All this in prep for our exit, if exit there’d be. The tricky part would be getting the workers out, the young women and boys I remembered vividly with their bruised cheeks and blackened, despairing eyes. There was an ample margin of knuckle-gnawing in this excursion. A hair’s separation from death. Many things could go
