Part 23 (1/2)
”Nothing that concerns you,” Karoly said. ”As of right now, you've been pulled off the job.”
Shada frowned at her. ”What are you talking about? I've been with Mazzic for over twelve years now. You can't end that kind of relations.h.i.+p with the snap of a finger.”
”We can, and we are,” Karoly said. ”It's clear now that Mazzic's group isn't going to become the galaxy-spanning organization that the Mistryl hoped when they first planted you on him. And with Talon Karrde's Smugglers' Alliance all but defunct, the Eleven have decided you're just being wasted here. It's time for you to move on.”
”Fine,” Shada said, taking two steps back away from Karoly along the roof edge and craning her neck as if trying to see if she could catch a glimpse of Karoly's client. ”I'll tell Mazzic tonight that I'm resigning as his bodyguard. We can leave in the morning.”
Karoly shook her head. ”I'm sorry. We leave now.”
Shada looked back, leveling a hard stare at Karoly and surrept.i.tiously gauging the distance between them. Three meters; just about right. ”Why?” she demanded. ”Because your new client wants to murder him?”
Even in the dim light she could see Karoly wince a little. But when the other woman spoke her voice was firm enough. ”I suggest you try to remember who we are, Shada,” she said.
”We're Mistryl. We're given orders and we follow them.”
”I'm also Mazzic's bodyguard,” Shada said quietly. ”And once upon a time the Mistryl were given honor and obeyed duty. Not just orders.”
Karoly snorted under her breath. ”Honor. You have been out of touch, haven't you?”
”Apparently so,” Shada countered. ”I've always tried to believe that being a Mistryl put me a few steps above the garbage heap of mercenaries and a.s.sa.s.sins-for-hire. Forgive my naivete.”
Karoly's face darkened. ”We do what's necessary to keep our people alive,” she bit out., ”If some slimy Huts wants to back-blade some other slimy smuggler, that's none of our concern.”
”Correction: it's none of your concern,” Shada said. ”It is mine. I have a job to do, Karoly; and you can get out of my way or you can get hurt.” She reached up to her harness and locked her safety line&mdash Karoly's hand seemed to twitch, and suddenly there was a small blaster in it. ”Freeze it,”
she ordered. ”Move your hands away from your body. Empty.”
Shada held her arms loosely out from her sides, fingers spread to prove she wasn't holding or palming anything. ”You'll have to kill me to stop me,” she warned.
”I hope not. Now turn around.”
This was it. Arms still held away from her body, Shada rotated ninety degrees to face the skylight&mdash And taking a step backward, she dropped off the edge of the roof.
She'd half expected Karoly to get a quick blaster shot off before she disappeared over the edge. It didn't happen; Karoly either freezing with surprise or else too self-controlled to fire uselessly. But Shada didn't have time to speculate on which it was. The safety line snapped taut, and suddenly she was caroming off the wall as she swung down and to her right, pivoting about that last anchor she'd set near the rooftop. Another two seconds, she estimated, and she would pa.s.s the midpoint of her oscillat ion and swing up again to the rooftop where Karoly and her blaster waited.
She had just those two seconds to find a way to take down her onetime friend.
The startled blufferavian didn't even have time to squawk as Shada s.n.a.t.c.hed it from its nest. She managed to grab one of the eggs with her other hand, and then she was swinging back up toward the roof.
And her two-second grace period was over. Even as she c.o.c.ked the bird over her shoulder in throwing position Karoly appeared above her at the edge of the roof, hurrying toward the spot from which Shada had jumped, her eyes and blaster tracking down the side of the building. She caught sight of Shada-floundered off balance for a split second as she tried to halt her forward movement and s.h.i.+ft her aim&mdash And with a grunt of exertion, Shada hurled the blufferavian at her face.
There was no time for Karoly to think, no time for her even to pause and evaluate. There was a sudden confused flurry of wings in front of her as the blufferavian tried to recover its equilibrium; and in the absence of thought, powerfully ingrained Mistryl combat reflexes took over. She jerked back, the movement eroding her precarious balance even further, twisted the muzzle of her blaster toward the incoming missile, and fired.
The blaster bolt caught the blufferavian dead center, and suddenly the flapping wings became a turmoil of flame and sparks and acrid smoke. Karoly ducked away from the fireball, twisting her head to the side&mdash Just in time to catch Shada's thrown blufferavian egg squarely across the bridge of her nose.
She gasped as the egg splattered into her eyes, throwing her free hand up to try to wipe away the semiliquid ma.s.s blinding her as Shada hit her safety-line feed release again and vaulted up onto the rooftop. Circling a couple of meters to her right to get out of the line of fire of the blaster still waving in her general direction, she angled in.
She reached Karoly just as the younger woman got her eyes cleared, kicking the blaster out of her hand as she tried to bring the weapon around toward her. The blaster hit the edge of the roof behind Karoly and bounced off into the darkness below. ”Sha.s.sa,” Karoly hissed the old curse, jumping to her right out of Shada's reach and producing a gleaming knife from somewhere. ”Shada-”
”I'm obeying my duty,” Shada said, sidestepping to her right away from the knife tip.
”You've still got the option of getting out of my way.”
Karoly hissed something else and lunged forward. Shada sidestepped again toward her right, feinted toward Karoly, took another quick step to the side and then changed direction back toward the skylight.
But Karoly had antic.i.p.ated the move. Blinking more of the egg out of her eyes, she took a long step the same direction, her knife waving warningly. Shada countered by stepping perilously close to the roof edge and taking two quick strides along it in an attempt to get around onto Karoly's left side away from her knife hand. Karoly spun around in response, knife held ready. ”Don't make me do this, Shada,” she snarled.
Snarled. And yet, Shada thought she could hear a buried note of pleading there as well.
”All right, Karoly,” she said softly. ”I won't.” Snapping on her climbing harness's feed lock again, she leaped backward one last time along the edge of the roof&mdash And the safety line that her carefully ch.o.r.eographed sparring maneuvers had threaded neatly around behind Karoly snapped up tautly to catch the younger woman across the tops of her low boots. Flailing her knife uselessly as her feet were yanked out from under her, she fell with a painful sounding thud flat onto her back.
Shada was on her in an instant, one foot coming down on Karoly's knife wrist as she slapped away the other hand and then jabbed stiffened fingertips into the soft spot beneath her rib cage. With an agonized grunt Karoly folded up around the impact and toppled over on her side. Shada jabbed again, this time behind Karoly's ear, and the younger woman relaxed and lay still.
Breathing hard, Shada reached over and s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife from Karoly's limp hand, cutting her safety line before she wound up tangled in it herself. The fight hadn't taken long and had been reasonably quiet, but odds were that Karoly's client had heard the ruckus and would be coming to investigate. If she could arrange to meet him halfway&mdash A movement at the corner of her eye was her only warning. But it was enough. Even as she threw herself to the side in a flat dive a blaster bolt sizzled through the air where she'd been standing. She rolled back to her knees, eyes sweeping the raised section of rooftop and locating her a.s.sailant: a p.r.o.ne figure in a black poncho and hood, the protruding snout of his blaster rifle tracking toward her. Snapping her hand up, Shada threw Karoly's knife toward him.
The sniper rolled instantly to the side, leaning his head into the relative protection of his arms and rifle, the weapon now spitting its deadly fire on repeater mode as it tracked toward her. But in this case the old bounty hunter's reflex had betrayed him. The knife spun precisely into its intended target not the dodging sniper himself, but the flicker of blaster fire from his weapon. It cut across right in front of the gun barrel, the bolts catching the blade and blasting it apart in a blue of molten shards and reflected light.
And for the next pair of heartbeats the sniper would be effectively blind.
Two heartbeats was all Shada needed. She came all the way up off the roof, leaping over the sputtering blaster fire now tracking blindly toward her, fingers darting into her plaited hair for one of the lacquered zenji needles. It came free in a cascade of loosened coils; and as her feet hit the roof again, she threw it.
And with a m.u.f.fled clatter the blaster fell silent.
She was beside the sniper in an instant, twisting the weapon out of the dead man's hands and running across the roof. If the sniper was merely the backup and not the main attack, she might still have failed. Skidding to a halt beside the skylight, she crouched at its edge and peered down into the high-ceilinged room below.
She hadn't failed. Three meters below her was an ornate decorated table, with Mazzic and Griv on one side and the Kubaz and a rough-looking human on the other. The two sides had already exchanged cases and were in the process of checking their new prizes. The Kubaz shut his case after what seemed to be a cursory examination, standing stiffly behind the table with an obvious air of expectation about him. It took Mazzic another minute to be similarly satisfied with his side of the trade, then he too close d his case. He nodded pleasantly to the Kubaz and took a step back from the table, his mouth moving with what were probably his usual farewell remarks. The Kubaz remained where he was . and as Mazzic and Griv took another step back, his air of expectation gave way to one of puzzlement. His long snout twitched in indecision, clearly wanting to look up but just as clearly not wanting to telegraph the surprise ending he was still expecting.
Still, if a surprise was all he wanted, Shada could oblige him. Lining the blaster rifle up on the base of the alien's long snout, she tapped the barrel lightly against the skylight.'
All four of them looked up. The Kubaz's expression was impossible to read, but his companion's more than made up for it. His mouth fell open in stunned disbelief, his hand dropping to the blaster belted at his side. Shada s.h.i.+fted her aim to his forehead; slowly, he raised the hand-empty-to his chest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mazzic throw her an abbreviated salute, and then he and Griv walked out of her field of view.
Shack kept her weapon trained on the Kubaz and his friend for a count of thirty. Then, throwing them the same salute Mazzic had just given her, she backed away from the skylight.
”It's over?” Karoly's voice asked from behind her.
Shada turned to look. The younger woman was standing beside the dead a.s.sa.s.sin at the edge of the upper roof, her expression impossible to read. ”Yes,” Shada told her. ”Your client decided not to go back on the deal after all.”
Karoly looked down at the body at her feet. ”The Eleven aren't going to be happy about this.”
”I'm used to people not being happy with me,” Shada sighed, lowering the blaster rifle to the rooftop. ”I'll get by.”
”This is not a joking matter, Shada,” Karoly growled. ”You've been given a direct order.
You stay with Mazzic now and they'll have a squad on you before the week's over.”
”I'm not staying with Mazzic,” Shada said. ”As I told you, I'll resign as his bodyguard tonight.”
”And you think that will fix this with the Eleven?” Karoly scoffed.