She sat back from the optics interface and slurped a liquid refreshment into her digesters. Inside her fourth birthing chamber she felt the stirrings of an offspring. It was an umulk, the largest of the offspring she was currently gestating. Very soon, the larvae would break out of its capsule and be born, soft wet spines hardening, mouth open and mewling with ravenous hunger. The prospect of having a shipload of suckling larvae gave the Parent a deep sense of satisfaction.
She slurped more refreshment before returning to the optics. She enjoyed the slippery, slightly bloated feeling of having the offspring inside her. It would be good to see her larvae grow and mature into fine Imperial warriors.
Sergeant Borshe, out of uniform and off-duty, sat outside the Renaldo Hotel with two New Manchurian gunmen. Inside the hotel his plants pretended to clean the lobby, their weapons stashed in the utility carts which had been provided by the intimidated hotel management.
Ari Steinbach had quickly tracked the Governor down to the Renaldo and sent Sergeant Borshe out to take care of things. The Renaldo was a very nice, but not quite elegant hotel along Black Beak Avenue. The Governor had checked in about an hour ago and then left alone, either to make contacts or to eat, as it was dinnertime.
“This will be an easy one,” said one of the gunmen. He wore a suit of the most elegant style with neck ruffles of indigo silk. He fidgeted with a Wu rattler, keeping the sleek black barrel pointed at the car door.
“Don’t count you’re swimmers yet,” said Sergeant Borshe, checking his watch and thumbing the safety off of his Wu hand-cannon. He was a big man with heavy jowls and hands the size of rayball gloves. He looked all wrong in his clothes, like one of the great bald apes yanked out of Garm’s southern jungles and shoved into a suit. “They’re due any second now, boys.”
The New Manchurian toughs looked at him in disgust. Borshe was always finding a way to call them boys or monkeys. Borshe noticed their expressions, but didn’t bother to acknowledge them.
“Just because they’re giants doesn’t mean crap,” spoke up the younger one in back. He also wore a sharp-cut suit so as to pass for a hotel guest, but had kept his cloth headband. He put the barrel of his rattler on the driver’s seat headrest, inches from Borshe’s ear. “This gun will cut any giant in half, no matter how big.”
Borshe didn’t bother to reply. He pulled a second hand-cannon from his rucksack and checked it thoroughly. Then he glanced in the rearview mirror. “Governor is coming in.”
The two toughs wheeled in their seats and they all watched as the cab slid up to the lobby doors and sank down on its skids. Borshe hit the dimmer and the windows went dark, shading the inside and hiding their faces and weapons. Goosing the power rod, he followed the cab up the drive.
Governor Droad wasn’t pleased with what he learned from the files he had purchased from the Captain of the Gladius. Nexus Cluster Command’s worst fears concerning the progress of Garm toward corruption and decay had apparently been surpassed since he had left Neu Schweitz three years before. Graft, smuggling and factionalism amongst the ruling elite had the colony teetering close to anarchy.
Equally disturbing, the previous governor had lasted only a few weeks into his term before experiencing a deadly accident over the red hork jungles in New Amazonia. The new governor was of the worst sort. Hans Zimmerman was a self-serving inbred crony of the ruling families. Spineless and unconcerned, he apparently left the job of rulership completely up to the aristocratic Senate, coming out of his permanent vacation only long enough to perform the most perfunctory duties of state.
As he climbed out of the cab, Lucas Droad saw the car coming up the drive out of the corner of his eye. The car was coming a bit too fast, but he wasn’t really ready for an attack yet, so he didn’t respond. He paid the driver and mounted the steps into the hotel lobby. The car pulled up behind the cab and the doors slammed shut behind the three men who piled out. Lucas looked back and noticed that the car had the windows dimmed even though the sky was entirely overcast. Then he saw the shape of a sleek black weapon and threw himself at the glass hotel doors.
Tossing the confused bellhop out of his way, he plowed into the lobby, drawing a slim-barreled pulse-laser. Bullets shattered the glass behind him and the bellhop was cut down, blood welling up from a dozen holes in his blue vest and staining his silver epaulets. Surprised to find himself still breathing, Droad sprinted into the marble-walled lobby.
Tapio Kuosa, one of his giant bodyguards, sat in the lobby reading a newsfax and sipping hot caf. He looked up as Governor Droad came running in. With one moment of eye contact the giant was up and drawing his weapon, but it was already too late. The Manchurian janitor behind him fired thirty rounds into the back of his huge head. The Finnish giant toppled forward. His body destroyed a rich horkwood table while the red ruin of his head crashed between two shouting guests on a silk divan.
Another assassin came out of the restroom with his weapon raised. Lucas dove over the front desk, flattening a clerk. The clerk’s hairpiece skittered across the floor. Bullets streamed over the desk and a woman screamed.
From outside there was a heavy crump of a high-powered weapon. The car the assassins had come in exploded into melting fragments. Lucas darted up over the counter and burnt away the throat of the man who had come out of the restroom while he hesitated, looking at the burning get-away car.
Then a big Anglo man pushed through the glass doors, holding a hand-cannon in each of his beefy fists. Lucas threw himself to one side behind the desk, taking a spray of plastic splinters in the face and arms as the hand-cannons barked in unison.
The assassin approached the desk, blasting head-sized holes in it as he came. Then the glass doors behind him simply disintegrated. His hand-cannons barked once more before he was seared by a direct hit of plasma from behind. As soon as the echoes of the plasma blast had died down, the sounds of the street outside could be heard through the opening. Charging into the breach came Jarmo Niska carrying a recoilless plasma rifle big enough to mount on an armored personal carrier. Two more black and silver dressed giants backed him up. More giants sprinted from the elevators and gunned down the last of the assassins in the hotel.
The remainder of the governor’s bodyguards thundered down the stairs and into the smoke-filled lobby. Jarmo made a quick inspection, then whistled and gave a quick hand-signal. Lucas still crouched behind the front desk with his pistol in his hands while the terrified clerk eyed him with dread.
“Do you think they’ve gone?” asked the clerk.
“Only until the next time,” said Lucas, giving the man a grim smile. He tried to get up and found that his leg had been injured.
“Are you hurt, sir?” asked the huge, moon-like face of Jarmo Niska as he loomed over the desk.
“Yes, my leg caught a few splinters, I think. Pull me up, will you?” While the hotel clerk gaped, Jarmo bent over the desk and gently lifted Lucas Droad into the air.
“I think that our location and identities have been compromised, sir,” said Jarmo stiffly. His yellow-blond brow furrowed deeply as he examined Lucas’ injuries.
“Obviously. So much for posing as a bank inspector, eh? Could you hand me a med-kit?” asked Lucas, tearing apart his left pantsleg and exposing a bleeding wound. He sighed, they had no time to pick out the red horkwood splinters and buckshot now. He simply sprayed on a double layer of pink nu-skin and tossed the empty canister. Meanwhile, Jarmo marshaled his team and placed them about the lobby in a defensive arrangement. Sirens sounded out on Black Beak Avenue as police cars and an ambulance rushed toward the hotel.