"That fucking bitch!"
"Get her, you idiot!"
The moment Thandi heard the shouts, she understood what must have happened. She discarded her count-off.
Now.
She was through the duct, holding the edge with her hands and swinging down gracefully in a half-somersault; then, a short drop to the floor of the tube, landing silently on her toes.
Abraham Templeton and all of his men were facing away from her, staring at the open duct next to the tool box which the princess must have used for her escape. Several of them were still shouting, with Abraham's furious voice overriding the rest. Thandi could see the feet of a man disappearing into the vent as he set off in pursuit.
Bless you, girl. You may have just saved my life.
One-two-three strides, moving like a ghost. Abraham Templeton died without ever seeing it come. Thandi's fist crushed the back of his skull like an egg. Her ensuing kick drove his corpse into his followers, sending half of them sprawling.
The nearest one left standing swivelled his gun hand toward her. A Scrag, he was, with the fast reflexes and the sneer to go with it. The sneer didn't fade even when her hand closed over his wrist. The Scrag, well-trained, simply began a standard disengagement maneuver.
Thandi knew the counter, but saw no reason to bother with it. She just slammed the Scrag against the wall of the duct, using his wrist to hurl him as if he were a toddler. Almost as an afterthought, she broke the wrist.
He slumped, stunned, his gun falling to the floor. Thandi ignored the pulser. Speed and sheer force would be her best weapons in the here and now.
One and a half long strides put her in the middle of them. They were still confused, several just getting back onto their feet. The stride ended in another kick, which caved in a rib cage. An elbow strike shattered a face and broke the man's neck in the bargain. An open palm strike did the same for another. A spinning side kick broke a thigh; the follow-on kick dislocated the shoulder.
Now, a Scrag, quicker and stronger. For the first time, she had to block a blow. And did so with such violence the man's forearm was broken. An instant later, Thandi's fist shattered his sternum, driving bone into his heart. The Scrag fell back, dying, a look of sheer astonishment on his face. The expression of a man who'd thought to face a woman in battle, only to find a monster in disguise.
She danced back, poised, ready-
No need. Her women were there, now, and Thandi had only left two of Templeton's men intact. The fact that they were both Scrags didn't help them in the least. Made it worse, in fact, since the women had a score to settle. Which they did, bare-handed, so savagely that Thandi was almost appalled.
Almost, not quite.
That still left the man who'd gone into the duct after the princess. As well as three of the men whom Thandi had taken down, but not killed.
She hesitated, but only for a second or two. Captain Rozsak had specified Templeton and his lieutenants, but he'd made it clear he'd be even happier if Thandi removed all of them from the equation. The man was paying the freight, after all-and, besides, Thandi wasn't really sure who among Templeton's men might have been taken into his confidence.
So, again, death danced through the corridor, stamping out lives under pitiless and iron-hard heel strikes. It took but a few seconds.
Then, Thandi studied the duct into which the princess and her pursuer had plunged. She'd lose almost all her advantages in there, but…
No help for it. That was part of the deal she'd made with Victor Cachat. They needed the Manticoran princess-alive-in order to keep the trap unfolding. Thandi's job was done, almost. But she knew that Victor was trolling for much bigger fish.
Her lips quirked for a moment. A deal's a deal. When in Erewhon, do as the Erewhonese do. And I really don't think I want to piss off Victor Cachat anyway.
Her women, seeing the little smile, grinned back. The expressions made them seem more like she-wolves than ever.
"You lead, great kaja. We'll follow."
For once, there was not even an undertone of mockery in the words. Studying their faces, Thandi understood that she'd sealed their loyalty completely. The exercise hall was one thing, and even broken bones knit soon enough. Whereas this-
Great Kaja, indeed. Death on two feet. The fact that they'd seen those same two feet, now and then, wearing elegant sandals and looking very feminine, only added to their satisfaction.
"Make us their chattel, would they?" snarled one of the women. She glared down at the corpse of one of the Scrags; then, just for good measure, stamped its face into a pulpier mess.
Since Thandi couldn't think of a fancier battle plan than-after them! follow me!-she said nothing. Just stooped, retrieved a pulser from the floor, and wriggled her way into the ventilation duct.
It wasn't until she'd gotten maybe twenty yards in, that the obvious problem occurred to her. She keyed to Cachat's channel, feeling obscurely unhappy that the man was proving to have feet of clay, after all.
"This isn't going to work, Victor. Templeton-both of them, Abraham as well as Gideon-was certainly staying in contact with his men on the Felicia III. It's not as if we're the only ones in the galaxy who have personal communicators."
"Don't worry about it," he replied immediately. "How are things at your end?"
"Oh. Uh, forgot to tell you. Everything's fine. We just took out Abraham and his men. All except one, who went into the ventilation ducts after the princess escaped."
She could hear him chuckle. "Why am I not surprised? And on two counts, I might add. The first count being that you're just as murderous as you claimed to be. But it's like you said: I won't tell you how to do mayhem, you don't tell me how to do scheming. I'm counting on Templeton's men in the Felicia knowing that things have all gone wrong, Thandi. But the key is that they won't know exactly why or how or what. Am I safe in presuming that you didn't give Abraham time to make coherent reports?"
Thandi felt simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. Embarrassed by herself; pleased that the man of her increasingly frequent fantasies-one of them flashed through her mind that very moment, in fact-didn't have feet of clay, after all.
And crawling through a duct in pursuit of a desperate criminal is no time to be having fantasies. You idiot.
"All right," she said gruffly, covering her embarrassment. "What's the second count?"
"Anton Zilwicki up to his tricks. The other girl-the one Templeton left behind in the gaming hall-has gotten over the shock. Mild concussion, maybe, nothing worse. But she's coherent now, I can assure you. And it turns out that she's the Manticoran princess. The one you're chasing after is Berry Zilwicki."
Again, she could hear Victor chuckle. "And let me tell you-I speak from experience-Zilwicki girls can play merry hell in a tunnel. Good luck, Thandi."
And so Lieutenant Palane crawled on, resolute, determined, hand pulser clenched in her fist. No one watching would have imagined that she did so while being distracted by a veritable cascade of florid fantasies.
Except, possibly, for Victor Cachat-who was increasingly uneasy at the effect that mezzo-soprano voice was having on his nervous system. But he had the advantage, at the moment, of facing something quite a bit livelier than a dull, gray-painted ventilation duct.
A Manticoran princess, no less, and one in full and fine fury.
"Don't tell me you couldn't have stopped them! I'm not an idiot, whoever-you-are, and if you could drop all of those bastards around this table like you did-I was under it, you know, watching 'em fall like flies-and quit trying to tell me I'm concussed!-I just banged my head a little!-then you could have taken them all out! Before they killed my soldiers! Before they grabbed Berry!" The next words came in a waiclass="underline" "The best friend I've ever had!"