Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (10 page)

“Nice bike,” Hank said, and then stomped on the man’s foot. The
polite biker howled in pain. Hank leaped on the cycle. Sai climbed on behind
him and they took off. “Sorry,” Hank called back.

Below, they saw the men who had been chasing Sai exit the
bar. The men pointed upward, and one of them took a wild shot that sailed
harmlessly to one side.

Hank turned the cycle toward the starport, skimming along
just above rooftops. The wind whipped his hair as buildings whizzed past below
them in soft blurs. “Do you think they have friends waiting at the dock?”

Sai shrugged. “At this point, nothing would surprise me.”

Hank activated his comlink. “Elsa!”

“Yes, Hank.”

“You haven’t noticed any unusual activity, have you? Strangers
hanging around for no good reason?”

“As a matter of fact, there are five men with entirely too
much time on their hands. They’ve been cruising the launch pads for the last
few hours.”

“Great. Change of plan. Do an emergency dustoff and meet me
north of town.” Hank closed the link.

Sai saw something flash out of the corner of her eye. She
looked back over her shoulder. A black sedan pulled up behind them, cruising at
the same altitude. It came up on their tail fast. “Hank, they’re behind us.”

Hank looked back at the rapidly closing vehicle. He cursed
under his breath. “Hold on,” he said.

Hank leaned the bike over and took a sharp right, much too
sharp for the sedan to duplicate, but although it lost some ground, the vehicle
managed to adjust its course and began to close again.

Traffic up ahead forced Hank to slow down. The sedan took
advantage and raced forward to bridge the gap. It seemed intent on ramming the
cycle. Sai tensed. At least earlier in the cab she’d had a modicum of
protection.

“Are you squeamish?” Hank asked.

“Why?”

“Because if you are, you’d best cover your eyes.”

Just as the sedan moved in for a strike to Hank’s rear
wheel, Hank slammed on the cycle’s brakes and dove straight down, allowing the
sedan to pass over them. He swerved around and headed north at the fastest
speed the bike could muster.

They raced past the residential district into the business
district before the sedan caught up with them again. This time it didn’t try to
ram them. Instead, it shot up beside them. The side windows buzzed open and gun
barrels poked out. “Hank! They’re gonna shoot us down!”

The passengers in the sedan opened fire. Blasts shot past
all around them. One of the shots hit low, toward the back of the bike, and
Hank struggled to keep it from spinning out. He took evasive action, cutting
power and dropping in behind their attackers. He pulled up and matched their
speed several meters above them.

“Grab my pistol!” Hank shouted.

She reached across and tugged the weapon from his shoulder
holster. The men in the sedan leaned out the windows to try for a better
shooting angle. Sai fired but the shot went astray. It was tough to shoot a
pistol at a moving target while sailing through the sky on a hovercycle. Especially
when Hank kept swerving to avoid blasts. Fortunately, their pursuers were
having the same difficulty.

“This isn’t going to work!” Sai yelled.

“Sure it is,” Hank said. “Watch.”

“Get us out of here, damn it! They’re going to kill us on
this thing,” Sai said.

“Not a chance,” Hank said, easing back.

A dark shadow passed over them with a deafening roar. A
spaceship soared just over their heads, matching their speed. From out of
nowhere, light flashed as a blaster beam shot out from the ship at the black
sedan. The vehicle exploded and flaming chunks of twisted metal rained down to
the ground.

“What was that?” Sai asked.

“Elsa, of course,” said Hank. “She’s a talented little
cybernetic wench. Here we go!”

Light from the tractor beam bathed them as it locked on. Slowly
they were pulled into the ship’s empty hold.

“Hey! I thought you said you needed to refuel.”

“I lied.”

“Why, Sergeant Cox, fancy seeing you here.” Chandler stood
over the prone, bleeding, and nearly naked security officer. “You working
undercover? Trying to act like a guy who got his ass kicked and his pants
stolen?”

“Ugh—what happened?”

“How the hell should I know? I was on my way
back to my ship and I saw you lying in the alley, so I stopped to check on
you.”

“The girl? Where is she?”

“You don’t let up, do you? I told you
before. I don’t know the girl,” Chandler said. “Is this some sort of interrogation
tactic? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you or something? Because it ain’t
working. I’m trying hard not to laugh at your sorry ass.”

“No, you idiot! This girl was here. She did
this—”

Chandler chuckled. “That little girl from
that bar did this to you? I don’t know where you’re from, mister, but in my
neighborhood we don’t admit to having our asses kicked by a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound
girl.”

Cox groaned and rose shakily to his feet.

“Is there someone I can call for you? A cop?
Oh, that’s right, you are a cop. Maybe your mommy? Heh, heh.” Chandler walked
toward his ship. “I’d get some pants if I were you. Some of these starport
bums might take that as an invitation to bend you over. Unless you’re into that
sort of thing.”

Chandler stopped, looked back, and smiled. “Oh,
thank you for guarding my ship. I’ll pass on a good word to Lord Randol about
you and your men.”

Cox made rude hand gestures at him as
Chandler walked away. Idiot. At least the girl was able to get away, but Cox
had managed to bungle the exchange. Still, the girl knew where to go. She would
be safe under Randol’s protection, and it freed Chandler up to pursue details
on Helen’s abduction. He used some of Randol’s credits to make that task a
little easier. His first step was going to be meeting this Vincent Maxwell
that he’d heard so much about.

Maxwell was going over corporate reports with an analyst
when the door to his office flew open and an angry woman wearing a Confed
uniform stormed inside. Maxwell’s secretary entered behind her with an
apologetic look on her face.

“Vincent Maxwell,” the Confed officer said. “We need to
talk.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the secretary said. “I tried to stop her.”

“It’s all right,” Maxwell said. He turned to the analyst. “Go
back over this again, and bring it back in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” said the analyst. He took his notescribe and
moved around the Confed commander.

When the secretary closed the door, Maxwell faced the commander.
“As you can see, I’m very busy. What can I do for you?”

“My name is Commander Joann Montgomery, and I’m here to find
out what the hell you’re doing.” Her eyes burned like fusion fire and she
ground her teeth so hard, Maxwell half expected them to crumble in her mouth.

He gave her an unflappable expression. “I was going over a
sales report.”

“Your corporate goons blew up half a city block on Raken! We’re
still counting the injured and the dead.”

“We had reports of—”

“That is
not
a corporate sector! You have no
jurisdiction there.”

“Look—”

She was having none of it. “In addition, I have three people
confirmed dead at Tyree’s, several injured, and damage to a building across
from the Bryant Hotel. Your corporate squad has no authority for any of this
and you’ve been dodging my calls all afternoon.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“No shit. You keep your corporate security teams out of our
territory. The spacer’s guild is shitting peach pits over this. You’ll be
getting a bill for all the damages your men have caused.”

Maxwell glared at her. “Listen here, Commander. If your
Confed people would do their jobs, my men wouldn’t need to go to the free zone
starport sector. You’ve done nothing to stop Thorne or any of the other
pirates, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you come into my office and stomp
around like you own the place.”

“You’ve got no right to criticize. We’ve been doing all we
can. You’ve got a security leak in this corporation that you could steer a
battlecruiser through. We’ve tried to get you to cooperate on covert action,
but time and again you’ve refused.”

“Director Casey refused. Not me. And if I have a lead, I’m
going to run after it and I don’t care if you get your regulation panties in a
wad over it.”

“I’ll have your job for this, you insufferable little
prick.”

“Someone stole some data from us, and we were trying to get
it back. Your people ignored our calls for assistance, so you’d best get down
off my ass or I’ll have
your
job.”

“You can’t blow up buildings and kill people with impunity.
You put a leash on your people now, because if any of them set foot in our
territory again, I will arrest them and dump them in a deep, dark hole. And
then I’ll be coming after you. Do you understand me?”

Maxwell smiled. “Oh, I understand. Now, you write this down
because you won’t want to forget it: I’ve already pulled back my corporate security.
I’ve put forward a reward for the capture of the fugitives, so hopefully
someone else will bring them in, but if you ever come into my office again
throwing empty threats at me, I’ll label you an enemy of the corporation.” He
stepped up close to her, invading her space. “Do you know what happens to
enemies of the corporation when they’re on corporate property?”

Montgomery blinked. The look in her eyes told him she did
know, but he wanted to drive it home for her.

“As an enemy of the corporation here on corporate property,
you lose all rights, and you’re taken down for a full deconstructive brain-scan
to ensure you don’t have any corporate secrets locked away. By the time we’re
done, you won’t be able to spell your name, assuming you even remember it. By
the time your bureaucratic buffoons at the Confed manage to cut through all the
red tape to get you back, all that will remain of your pompous ass is a
drooling mass of human flesh. Meanwhile, I’ll draft a sincerely apologetic
memorandum about mutual cooperation and communication breakdowns and you’ll be
put in a Confed home with the rest of the basket cases. Don’t fuck with me,
Commander. I mean it.”

She swallowed hard.

He remained in her space, his eyes burning into hers. After
enough time passed without comment he whispered, “You’re dismissed.”

Hank and Sai hustled inside the ship, sealing the hatch and
making their way forward to the cockpit. Hank sat down in the pilot's seat and
fastened his G-harness. “You’d better strap in.”

Hank didn’t speak again until the ship broke free of Raken’s
atmosphere and the artificial-gravity field kicked in. Then he unbuckled and
spun in his chair to face Sai.

“Okay, where to?” Hank asked.

“The Trent System,” Sai answered.

Hank ran the coordinates through Elsa. “All kidding aside,
we are definitely going to need a fueling stop along the way.”

“I have enough credits for that.”