And found my lips tightening in my first genuine smile in a long, long time. Collected neatly together in the drawer were all the items Hchchu had taken from Bayta and me our first hour aboard the station: my multitool, watch, lighter, and data chips; Bayta’s jewelry, her reader and data chips, and the kwi.
And, most wonderful of all, my Beretta.
“No problem at all,” I told the Modhri as I grabbed everything and stuffed it all into my pockets. I checked the Beretta’s magazine, then flicked the selector to the snoozer side and chambered a round. “Brace yourself,” I warned as I stuck the gun into my belt and resumed my grip on the chair’s thruster controls. “This is probably going to be loud.”
I keyed the driving thrusters, and the desk took off like a carved wooden bat out of hell. It shot across the room and with a thunderous crash slammed into the door, bending and then shattering the panel as it was itself bent and shattered. Thumbing off the Beretta’s safety, I charged.
The Modhri was faster. Doug leaped out in front of me, loping along the floor like a greyhound who’s spotted a rabbit. He reached the crumpled remains of the desk, still hovering on its thrusters, and leaped up and over it.
Minnario wobbled violently as the animal negotiated the wreckage now wedged into the doorway, but remained in his seat. Landing on the far side, Doug paused just long enough for the chair to mostly come back to balance, then took off down the hallway. I did a sort of half jump, half climb over the desk that wasn’t nearly as graceful as the watchdog’s and followed.
I had just registered the fact that the receptionist’s desk was still unoccupied when Jagged Nose suddenly charged into view from around the corner.
Whatever he’d expected to see in the aftermath of all that noise, the sight of Doug and Minnario bearing down on him like an undersized elephant carrying a howdah on his back was definitely not it. Even at this distance I could see the Shonkla-raa’s eyes widen and his blaze pale as he took a reflexive step backward.
But almost before he’d finished that step he was back on mental balance. He set one foot behind him, bracing himself into combat stance, stretching one hand in front of him to take the brunt of the impending collision. He stiffened the other hand into a knife and cocked it back at his waist, ready to skewer either Minnario or Doug when they reached him.
Cursing, I threw myself flat on my belly on the hallway. “Veer right!” I snapped, bringing my Beretta to bear.
Instantly, Doug dodged to the side, Minnario’s chair again threatening to fall off with the sudden change of direction. Jagged Nose spotted me and my gun, and he had just enough time to do the eyes-widening thing again before I dropped him onto the floor with three snoozers to the chest.
I scrambled back to my feet as Doug came to a wobbly halt beside the unconscious Filly, his head darting back and forth. “We’re alone,” Minnario called softly. “But others are coming. Come quickly.”
“Thirty seconds,” I called back. Stripping off my jacket, I laid it out on the floor beside the hovering desk wreckage, then crouched down and reached to the rear of the desk, shutting off and retrieving one of the supporting thrusters back there. I laid it on top of the jacket and then pulled out the second rear thruster, that end of the desk dropping to the floor with a muffled thud as its support disappeared. I set the thruster on the jacket beside the first, then repeated the procedure with one of the front thrusters, leaving the desk balanced precariously on a single point.
“Now!” the Modhri called, his voice urgent. “Come now!”
“Go,” I ordered, eyeing the fourth thruster and reluctantly concluding that as the last support for the hovering desk it would be tricky and time-consuming to extricate. Wrapping the sides of my jacket around the three thrusters, I tied the sleeves together and tucked the bundle under my arm.
Doug had disappeared from the intersection as I scrambled back to my feet. Getting a grip on my Beretta, I sprinted down the hallway, passed the reception desk, and charged around the corner into the wider intersecting hallway.
And came to a screeching halt. There were others coming, all right: five Jumpsuits, hurrying toward me from that end of the corridor. A quick look over my shoulder showed four more coming from behind me, as well.
I breathed out a curse, wishing to hell that I’d been a little more circumspect in my approach to the intersection. If I’d seen the patrollers before they saw me, I would have been able to duck behind the receptionist’s desk, and with a little luck they might have all charged past into Hchchu’s office and missed me completely. Too late for that now.
Which left me facing nine armed opponents with twelve snoozers and fifteen thudwumpers in my Beretta and a pair of badly untenable options. I could open fire here and now, leaving my back open to one group or the other but offering the hope that the cross-fire landscape would encourage them to take out a few of their own number for me. My other choice was to retreat back to Hchchu’s office, where I would be trapped with a freshly murdered assistant director, and hope I could hold out long enough to come up with something clever.
Whichever option I chose, I had only seconds to implement it. The Jumpsuits had already picked up their pace as they spotted what could only be interpreted as a suspicious figure with ill-gotten loot in hand. All five of the Fillies I was currently facing had dropped their hands to the grips of their holstered beanbag guns, and the patroller slightly in the lead was already in the process of drawing his. {Halt, Human,} he ordered sternly.
I had just about decided that I had no choice but to have it out right here when a half-dozen watchdogs suddenly appeared behind the Jumpsuits, filtering into our corridor from different offices and cross-corridors. I glanced behind me and saw the same pickup posse closing on the other group.
“Damn,” I muttered, turning back to the first group of Jumpsuits. A nice, straightforward plan, and under other circumstances I would have welcomed the Modhri’s help.
But not here, and not now. There was no rational reason why a whole bunch of otherwise peaceful domesticated animals would suddenly gather and attack a group of Proteus security personnel. The news of such an event was bound to flash across the station with the kind of speed that only rumors and bizarre news could achieve, certainly long before Bayta and I could find a way off the station.
And even if the patrollers themselves never figured out what had gone wrong with their pets, the Shonkla-raa certainly would. And the minute they realized how and where the Modhri had been hiding aboard Proteus and started singing their siren song to the four-footed walkers, it would be all over. They would have Bayta, and they would have me, and death would be the best either of us could hope for.
There was only one chance I could see to get out of this before it was too late. It would mainly be the unprovoked nature of the impending attack, I judged, that would clue in the Shonkla-raa. Ergo, I needed to come up with some kind of plausible yet obvious explanation for their actions. Something that would fool the Jumpsuits, and might at least give the Shonkla-raa pause.
And I had all of two seconds to pull it off.
The only thing within easy reach was Bayta’s reader, tucked into my jacket pocket just in front of my left arm on the outside of my bundle of thrusters. I snatched it out, made a show of quick-punching a half-dozen keys at random, and held it high above my head.
And even as the rest of the patrollers drew their weapons in response, both groups of watchdogs slammed full tilt into them from behind.
It was as impressive a scene of utter chaos as I’ve ever had the chance to witness. In an instant every Jumpsuit had been knocked to the floor, yelping or screeching with shock, anger, and bewilderment as the watchdogs ran back and forth over their bodies as if they’d all gone insane.