Sighing, feeling a melancholy tide rising in her heart, the Russian woman pointed the rocket, waited for the aiming tone, thumbed the activation switch, and cast the rod-shaped weapon free. The aeropack whined again, forced into a tight maneuver and she curled up her legs, zipping into the mouth of a side airway. Behind her, the missile spiraled away in free-fall, then the engine ignited with a flash, the tracking mechanism locked onto the gondola and the rocket blazed up the shaft.
A concussive whoomp! followed and a wave of superheated air rushed past. In the mouth of the airway, hands braced against the sides, Van Belane turned her head as flaming debris plunged past. Two bodies wrapped in flame careened by and then the burning balloon itself wallowed into the depths.
Popping a stick of cinnamon-flavored chicle into her mouth, Van Belane turned and loped off down the airway, letting her skinsuit turn opaque and flicking nightsight lenses down over sullen, ice-blue eyes. "Damned Shtlantskee carrion…lapdogs of the Empire…"
Smoke billowed in the shaft, but the constant pressure of air from below began to clear away the fumes. In the airway shaft opposite where the Russian commando had disappeared, Sergeant Dawd raised his head from the floor of the tube, gray-green eyes filled with a grim light. He waited another hundred heartbeats, saw that the last of the smoke was gone and no slinky, black-haired shape had reappeared in the other tunnel, and lifted himself to his knees.
"Safe, mi'lord. For the moment at least."
Tezozуmoc sighed and the Skawt helped him sit up. A twist of the wrist released a combat knife to cut the tiemeups holding the prince's arms behind his back.
"I'm terribly sorry," the prince said in an unconvincingly contrite voice, "but…what is your name again?"
"Dawd, mi'lord." The Skawtsman avoided meeting his master's eyes, concentrating on sawing through the plastic composite. The serrated back edge of the knife made it tricky work. "Eagle Knight in your service, ex-Fleet Marine Sergeant."
"A Tequihuah…Well done, master Dawd." Tezozуmoc drew out the words, trying to affect a fashionable languor. The prince tried to focus on the Eagle Knight – to fix an image of the short, dark-haired Skawtsman in his mind – and was struck by an impression of the man looking more a scholar than a soldier. Even near-shaven, Dawd's black hair was unkempt and wild, and his smooth round face suggested a puckish humor.
"Now wait a moment… Aren't there supposed to be two of you accompanying me at all times?"
"Yes, mi'lord." Dawd's tone became rather more clipped than before, though he was a man who prided himself on a clear, cultured voice. The sergeant could feel the youth – more than a boy, he thought rather morosely, and less than a man – trembling under his hands. "Master Sergeant Colmuir is also in your service."
"And where is he?" If anything, the prince sounded aggrieved.
"I believe, mi'lord" – the sergeant's jaw clenched – "that Cuauhhuehueh Colmuir has…has plunged to his death while attempting to apprehend the terrorists who attempted to kidnap you."
"Kidnap?" Tezozуmoc drew back a little in surprise. "The ahuienime – those joygirls…they were terrorists?"
"Yes," Dawd managed to get out. "They were. Mi'lord. A Danish or Russian kommando, I would venture. Very…dangerous."
"Kidnapped. I was kidnapped." The prince's face slowly lit with delight, perfectly even teeth white in the darkness of the tunnel. "By the Holy Ever-Virgin Mother of God, I was kidnapped!"
Sergeant Dawd did not react, though he could feel the ulcers in his long-suffering stomach begin to pucker with acid.
"This…" Tezozуmoc clapped a friendly hand on the Skawt's shoulder. "Is the best news I've had…oh, in ages! Wait until my father hears this!" The prince suddenly paused, staring at Leslie's stony expression. "Master Dawd? Why such a long face? This is good news! Someone – dire enemies of the Empire – perhaps even the infernal Danes! For the love of Christ, they thought I was worth doing away with!"
Sergeant Dawd turned, frowning, raising a hand for silence. Lights were beginning to flicker on the roof of the tunnel and a booming, chattering noise filled the air. He could hear people laughing, their voices raised in drunken, inharmonious song.
"Lie flat, mi'lord," the Skawtsman whispered, struggling to keep from just jamming the boy's head down onto the corrugated metal. He checked to make sure the magazine was full, then thumbed back the safety on the Nambu 10mm. "We're not safe yet."
The vast, round shape of a party barge drifted past. The balloon was festooned with glittering lights, including a broad glowing videopatch showing drunken rabbits dancing under a smiling moon. "Drink Mayahuel beer," boomed a recorded voice, "and be more fertile!"
The gondola swayed into view, crammed with masked people laughing and singing, then rose majestically past. Dawd lowered the automatic slowly.
A black figure swung into the opening of the tube, boots clanking on metal.
Tezozуmoc leapt up, shouting in fear, and cracked his head against the curving roof. Groaning in pain, the prince collapsed, clutching his scalp, fingers bloody. Dawd breathed out a long sigh of relief and flipped the automatic back into the holster on his gunrig.
"Not dead, I see," he said, nodding to Master Sergeant Colmuir.
"Nawt yet," grinned the Aberdeen-man, keeping his head low. "But close, very close…what about him?"
Dawd turned, staring in disgust at Tezozуmoc, who was curled up and whimpering. "Take him home, I suppose. Clean him up. Nothing else to do now."
As an aside, he leaned close to Colmuir. "Master Sergeant, why did we ally ourselves with these…savages?"
"Oh, lad," Colmuir nodded sagely, "it was them or the Anglish. And compared to the Anglish…well, we've still the better of the deal wit' these heathens."
The lean-faced master sergeant grinned at Dawd's sour expression and snaked a tabac from his pocket. The older man looked a little battered – craggy brow and seamed face spattered with blood and bruises – in the flare of the self-lighting cigarette. "Don't make such a face, lad. It's a man's work, isn't it? Better than wasting time in University!"
"I suppose," Dawd checked his weapons and tools by touch. "The pay is better."
Colmuir chuckled, taking a long drag. His long-limbed frame was bent almost double to keep a graying head from knocking against the roof of the tunnel. "Most don't think so, but you've seen both sides of the fence, haven't you? D'you miss the hallowed halls of aca'deme?"
Dawd grunted. "I suppose…but grading lower-form essays on early Mйxica poets lacks something of the spice of our activities here."
The master sergeant ground out his tabac. "Let's get him out of here, then."
Tadmor Station The Edge of Imperial M,xica Space
The murmur of four thousand impatient travelers filled the transit hall, making it difficult for Gretchen Anderssen, field xenoarchaeologist for the Honorable Chartered Company, to hear the politely soft voice of the Albanian Spaceways ticket agent in front of her.
"I am sorry, Anderssen-tzin, but your tickets have been changed."
"Changed?" Gretchen scowled uneasily at the little Nisei woman, tucking tangled blonde hair back behind her ear. "By whom?"
"By the issuing authority. There is a note and a new travel packet." The ticket agent tapped her pad and a metal plate slid aside on the countertop, revealing a comm panel. Anderssen pressed her thumb onto the receptor pane and crossed muscular arms, steeling herself for bad news. Though nearly a century had passed since the Empire's conquest of Earth had driven her parents into exile on the Skawtish colony-world of New Aberdeen, the middle-aged Swedish woman didn't expect any superior – either in business, or in a social setting – to treat her as anything but a tool to be moved from place to place as the needs of the community bid.