Chains of Freedom (16 page)

"You can't open it without my help, and I won't help you," the governor announced.

"Oh, I think you will." RJ pulled the laser and pressed it against his head.

"You're going to kill me anyway," he scoffed.

"Use your brains. As long as you have hostage value, you're safe," she said. "As long as you don't give me any trouble, you're worth more to me alive than dead."

"The gas should have dissipated by now." She motioned towards the limo. "Of course, if you're not going to be cooperative . . ."

The governor moved over to the limo. The door was geared to his finger prints, and those of his entourage. No one else was going to be able to get in. He opened the door, and RJ smiled broadly. "Very good."

She motioned David towards the open door.

David threw in the dummy case, and pulled out a similar one. He coughed. "Damned shit! Damn you, RJ," he coughed again.

"Don't be such a wimp, David. A little sleeping gas never hurt anyone." She took the case, smiled, walked over to the hood of the limo and set the case down. Then she looked at the governor expectantly.

"Open it."

"And if I won't?" he asked.

"Then I kill you and take my chances. And yes, I know that the wrong combination sets off a charge that can blow up everything for a ten-foot radius. Therefore, my friend and I are going to stand way back here while you open it. Just in case I've read you wrong, and you are the hero type." She held the laser on him.

Jack hesitated. He looked at the combination buttons. He was a loyal Reliance man. Press the wrong buttons and he did them out of their trophy. Of course, he also blew himself up. Damn it, if he opened this case for them, he was putting a Pandora's box in their hands that would take the Reliance months to close, and they might kill him anyway. He keyed the first sequence of numbers.

If he opened this box, he was betraying the Reliance. He did the second sequence of numbers. Again he paused. He keyed in the third and final sequence and the lid flew open to reveal his personal computer. RJ smiled, walked over and closed the lid. The combination was now a permanent part of her memory. She picked up the case and smiled at the Governor.

"I thank you and the people thank you," she said.

She looked at David, and he came over took the case, and started for the police car.

She grabbed Bristol and started pulling him along.

He was surprised at the direction they were suddenly going in—not towards the stolen police car, but back towards his limo. She had no intention of using him as a hostage or for ransom purposes. Bristol's attention was captured by the body of one of the first-class soldiers that had fallen across the hood, his sword still clutched in his hand. If he could just stall her, there was a chance.

"Why me? What have I done to you? What have any of us done to you?"

"It's not what you've done to me, Bristol," she spat, stopping and turning to face him. "It's what you asked me to do to others. I was sent on a 'cleansing' mission. The order for the authorized slaughter of unarmed civilians came across your desk. You ordered it."

"The thinning of the population is necessary . . ."

"Then you should understand everything I do." There was a noise in the brush; nothing dangerous, probably a rabbit, and she turned only for a second, but it was long enough for him to pick up the sword and sling it into her side. Apart from a nasty tear in her shirt, nothing happened. She slung off the face shield and helmet in anger, and when she did a look of total shock crossed Bristol's face.

"You . . . But why? Why?" Total confusion. He obviously knew too much, so she shot him in the head before he could say anything else.

David came running up. He had seen the sword hit her. "RJ . . . !"

"And you didn't want me to wear the chain," she said lightly.

"Why'd you kill him? I thought you said he was insurance . . ."

"That's what I told him. I knew he'd consider himself to be too important to kill," RJ said grinning smugly.

"You planned to kill him all along!" David shouted in disbelief.

"It's not like I didn't tell you that I was going to assassinate him. If it makes you feel better, he did try to kill me," she said. "Think of it as reflexive. When someone tries to kill me, I kill them back."

David threw up his hands and stomped back to the car as RJ dragged Bristol's body over and loaded it into the limo.

She flung in a grenade and closed the door. She was in the police car before the grenade detonated. She looked back and grimaced.

"Yuck! What a mess."

David refused to look back. Just the thought of blood and various body parts thrown against unbreakable glass was enough to make him sick.

"Was that really necessary?" David protested.

"Dead people don't talk," RJ said, by way of an explanation.

RJ hit the siren, and they roared off. She patted the case and smiled.

"Now there will be no stopping us. We will be invincible." She let out a stream of maniacal laughter just to mock his moral concern, but the fanatical gleam in her eyes was real enough.

"I don't know, RJ," David said in a troubled voice as he shoved the case into a backpack to conceal it from view. "I'm beginning to wonder if the end justifies the means."

"Always! Always, if the end is freedom," RJ said sternly.

"What gives us the right to kill?" David asked hotly. "What makes us any different from the Reliance?"

"We are right, and they are wrong. That is all the difference I need." RJ was beginning to lose patience with him. David was the poop at every victory party.

David looked at the bag that held the case. "I just find it revolting that this little box is worth nine lives."

"Ten, but who's counting? Sit there and condemn me, David. I really couldn't care less. You talk like it's a game, at which you believe I'm cheating. This is not a game, David. It's a war. In war, people die. Whoever kills the most people wins. That's the only rule that counts."

She took the news of Governor Jack Bristol's death very hard.

Jessica Kirk was senator of Zone 2-A, but it wasn't because she had lost the head of her military that she ordered Reliance flags to be flown at half-mast. That wasn't why she had locked herself in her room and refused all visitors. Nor was it why she had flung herself across her bed and broken into tears.

Jack Bristol had been her lover, and she had loved him. She hadn't believed he was truly dead till she'd seen the body. Or, rather, what was left of the body. It had been all she could do to keep her composure intact till she got back to her room. Now she cried.

She cried for the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, for wasted time and nights spent alone that could have been spent with him, and she cried for all the things she should have said, and never quite got around to. When she had finished crying, she decided to go after RJ.

She dried her eyes and went to her terminal. She punched up every bit of data on RJ, and then she called her new temporary head of the military.

"Fools, you are looking for the out-of-the-ordinary. Look for the ordinary. Look for a military or police vehicle. I want everyone checked out. If one of them doesn't belong, then you've found RJ. She couldn't have gotten more than a hundred miles away by now. Don't fuck up this time. I want her, and I want her dead. If anyone spots her, they are to wait for backup. I don't want her to get away. Do you understand, Perkins?"

"Yes, Senator," he said, "but . . . we have no idea what she looks like or . . ."

"She looks like someone tough enough to kick the asses of several Reliance soldiers at once. She looks like someone smart enough to make elaborate plans and carry them out successfully!" Senator Kirk yelled."She looks like an Elite. Find a female Elite in that sector who isn't supposed to be there, and you've found her. Now get your asses in gear. If she gets away, heads will roll." she turned off her terminal.

She fought the tears.

"Fat, incompetent fool!" she screamed in rage. This was all Jago's fault. All her requests had been denied or overlooked. She talked daily with Right, and he was trying to do his best for her, but getting Jago to take any action more exerting then scratching his own ass was close to impossible. Now Jack was dead. Was it her fault? Was there anything that she could have done that she hadn't? She could think of no stone she had left unturned.

Till now, Jessica Kirk the senator had let the chain of command deal with this. In fact, Jack had more to do with the RJ thing than she had. But now, Jessica Kirk the lover wanted revenge. Suddenly it had become personal.

"Oh, you are clever, RJ. Very clever. But this time you have met your match. You cannot fight me and hope to win," Jessica muttered into the emptiness of her office.

Jago and his band of fools had more or less ignored RJ, hoping that she would go away. RJ hadn't gone away, and now Jack was dead. Eventually, they would all pay, even that malignant tumor they called a sector leader. Yes, even Jago. They'd all pay for her grief—for Jack's death. But first she had to deal with the main perpetrator of the crime. First, she had to kill RJ.

She stood up. "I can be clever, too." She walked over to the mirror. "Let's see you match wits with a master." She stared at the image in the mirror. Her eyes were bluer than blue, and already clear of any signs that she'd been crying. She ran a comb through her platinum blonde hair and checked the makeup on her dark skin.

RJ was humming in her usual tuneless fashion. David was chewing his nails. He had quickly joined that group of people who firmly believed that people who couldn't carry a tune shouldn't try to sing, whistle, or hum
. Especially
hum. He was about to lose his cool and scream rather loudly at her, when she abruptly stopped. He immediately wished that she would start up again. The lack of humming no doubt meant that there was something a lot worse about to take place. His fear was confirmed when he saw RJ looking in the rear-view mirror.

"Don't look now, but we've picked up a military patrol," RJ announced cheerfully.

David turned to look, and a laser blast hit one of their tires.

RJ managed to put the vehicle into a controlled skid, and they stopped. "Damn! I told you not to look." She grabbed the pack that held the case. "Let's move!"

David didn't wait around for further instructions. He got out of the car and rushed to catch up with RJ.

"They're going to kill us," David whined.

"They're not going to kill us," RJ said. "Just keep your head, and do what I tell you. Here, take this." She handed him the pack, and he put it on his back. She started to unwind the chain.

The damned patrol was almost on them, and she was playing games. It wasn't a small patrol, either; a topless vehicle, three motorbikes and a three-wheeled ATV. The ATV was in front, and that turned out to be a bad place. As the three-wheeled contraption roared in for the kill, its driver met with the killing end of RJ's chain. The driver fell, but the vehicle kept going.

RJ jumped on the trike, and ordered it to stop. She quickly slung the chain around herself as David boarded, and she was off before the rest of the patrol realized what had happened. They recovered quickly, however, and the chase was on.

The trike wallowed like a pregnant cow. It had never been designed for more than one rider. Their pursuers were closing in, and the laser blasts they fired were getting closer and closer to their mark.

"They're going to kill us!" David moaned, close to hysteria."They're going to kill us. You shouldn't have killed our hostage!"

"They're not going to kill us," RJ stated flatly, gunning the machine for all it was worth. She knew there was only one place that this beast was going to be able to stay ahead of the patrol: off the road. The problem being that there was no place to get off the road right here. RJ took a quick shot at their pursuers. Surprisingly, it hit one of the motorcyclists square in the chest and sent him flying.

Fortunately, RJ had driven these things before. On some of the outer planets, three-wheeled ATVs were the most popular mode of transportation. David had never been particularly happy with RJ's driving, and at this moment it seemed to him that if the patrol didn't kill them, RJ would.

"They're going to kill us! They're going to kill us!" David's whine was beginning to sound like a chant.

"They're not going to kill us!" RJ shouted over her shoulder, as she finally swung off the pavement and onto a dirt road. This gave her an edge. She still couldn't find a place to get into the woods. If she could find a small trail they wouldn't be able to follow. A laser blast clipped the trike's fender and showered David with sparks. RJ jerked the trike sideways and swung it down an even more primitive road.

One of the bikes skidded out in the gravel. The rider was thrown into a tree, and the bike slid on down the road.