For a few moments bustle engulfed the warehouse as the subteam formed up, commandeered equipment, and departed. Two watched them go, then flipped up his data goggles. “Think Six is ready to solo?”
“Were you? If the ruse works, it works. If not…” The big man shrugged.
“If the ruse works,” said Two, “Lady Ekadrina and her whole flock could come down on them.”
“That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”
“Master, we are in rebellion. We are not getting paid.”
“Oh, yeah. Then we’re doing this for honor. Hey, drop the kid a message and remind him to have his boys sneak in and out of the center now and then. Foot traffic, you know.”
“Nasty job,” said Two, “when the prey is just as able to pot you. Give me the low hanging fruit any day.”
“That’s how you get soft, Two.”
“Hold one…” Two held a hand to his ear, listened, then flipped down his goggles and started scanning the planetary network. “What was the name of that tavern where Lord Domino … The Mountain Dragon? The news dispensers here say there was an explosion there. Power cell overload or something.”
Big Jacques grunted. “Or something. Body count?”
“Ah … The sheep are being assured that the tavern itself was undamaged and will be serving Bartholomew Black as usual in the morning. No mention of bodies.”
“That’s nice.”
“Local bobs are investigating and the Riff of Yuts’ga is flying in from Great Hardwick in case there are Confederal implications.”
“In case.”
“Does the Riff know we’re on-world?”
“Not if you ain’t told him.” Jacques tapped his comm box. “My skinny tells me the Yutsgar Riff is a loyalist. So Pendragon maybe gave him a heads-up.”
“And…” Number Two listened again. “… Number One reports Lady Ekadrina’s ship entering parking orbit.”
Jacques considered that. “I hate coincidences.”
Domino Tight felt a numbness all over his body, as if he had been sealed away from the outside world and nothing in it could touch him anymore. His head, lolling to the side, saw nothing but the back door of the tavern and the boneless body of Five. Something sharp had been accelerated by the explosion and protruded slightly from the back of the man’s head, and Domino Tight could see enough of it to be glad he could see no more. His ears rang, and sounds also seemed far away, beyond the barrier encasing him.
But his vision had brightened, and with it, his spirits. Some of his colleagues liked to talk about “a life unworthy of life,” but when presented with the thing itself, Domino Tight found it always worthy enough.
The tavern door opened, and the banty man stepped into the alleyway. Oh, yes, he was in the Life! Look at the way he stepped, at the way his topaz eyes sought out threats, at the ready manner in which his dazer hunted out hidey-holes and snipers’ nests. And only when satisfied, did he step clear and to the side of Domino Tight.
He walked at an eerily canted angle, but the Shadow recognized that as the way his head was resting on the ground. His common sense, that integrated all of his sights and sounds and kinesthesia into a common image, was not yet in sync. The alley smelled orange.
“Do you wish surcease?” the stranger asked him. He held his dazer to the ready, muzzle pointing straight up.
Domino Tight tried to speak. “Tina,” he heard someone say, possibly himself, though it sounded like another. And why should he call on the young woman in the Gayshot Bo on far-off Dao Chetty?
The stranger’s bristles crinkled with his smile. “No one who calls on a woman is yet ready to depart. Quickly, tell me. Are you with the rebels or the loyalists?” He had reached into his pouch and removed a packet of some sort.
The Shadow gasped, and whispered, “Which do you want me with?”
The other man laughed— and Domino Tight glimpsed teeth sharper than a man’s ought be. He looked to the right, toward Fishbound Street. “I can’t stay here. The smart move is to leave you, but … I don’t like ambushes. Right after you left, the taverner finished his sentence by adding ‘not’ to the end. He laughed, like he’d done something clever. I took care of that for you, in case you need company on the ferryboat.”
The stranger opened a tear in Tight’s spun armor and pulled the rip apart. He placed his packet on the chest of Domino Tight; then he struck it hammer-wise with his fist.
The Shadow felt nothing. His body remained laminated by the concussion, and the blow might as well have struck someone else. But fire ran through his body. A tingling returned to his fingers and toes. “Th-thank you,” he managed to gasp.
“Don’t be too sure I’ve done you a favor. The booster won’t set your broken bones. You’d best get yourself inside a meshinospidal right soon. For now, adieu.” And the stranger stood, looked all directions, and vanished into the night.
Domino Tight found he could move his right arm. His right leg was not so fortunate, as he could see that it lay at more angles than knees and ankles could account for.
What the devil was a meshinospidal? His earwig had not yet resumed functioning; might need to be replaced entirely. It sounded vaguely like …
He snatched the spent emergency packet from his chest and held it to his still immobile face so that he could see the instructions upon it.
Printed in Gaelactic.
His savior had been a Hound of the Ardry.
Domino Tight laughed. He would take help whence it came and not ask too closely after it. He released the packet and the wind funneled by the alleyway caught it and it tumbled away toward Fishbound Street. “Tina,” he said again.
And the air rippled and a woman stood before him, having just thrown a cloak back over her shoulder. Her mouth opened in an O and she knelt by his side, probing for his hurts.
Perhaps he was delusional from the concussion. First a Hound where no Hound ought by rights to be; then a woman appearing from nowhere.
“Tina!” he managed to say.
“I told you to call me if you ever found yourself in trouble. You should not have waited so long, my dearest.” Then she unhooked her cloak and spread it over the both of them, and the darkness enveloped Domino Tight once more.
Oschous Dee Karnatika brought Dark Horse into High Yuts’ga Orbit, watching from the command chair in the control room with Ravn and Donovan to either side. Manlius, now hale, had returned to his own ship and was on his way to the Century Suns to meet with Dawshoo. Yuts’ga was a major node on the network of interstellar “tubes” and the number of ships in port was considerable. It was not a difficult docking for all that, as the Long Moon had plenty of facilities, and long-term parking was shifted by valet over to the First Equilibrium point.
However, no one touches a Shadow’s ship but his trusted magpies. Oschous told Number One to “ping the parking” and see who was on-world.
Domino Tight and Pendragon Jones. Gidula. Big Jacques.
“Awfully crowded,” Donovan commented.
“Yuts’ga is a major node,” said Oschous. “Many pass through.”
“I thought Big Jacques was tracking Ekadrina,” Ravn said.
“He was. Either he gave up, or…”
“Or he didn’t. Is her ship here?”