Star Risk - 04 The Dog From Hell

The Dog From Hell Chris Bunch

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For Richard Knee

Un Gentilhomme de Honneur Et sans Reproche

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ONE

The castle loomed above them on the bluff, centuries-old stone, dank, brooding. The surrounding moss-dripping dark oak trees seemed as old and decaying as the sprawling fortress.

The sound of the five Star Risk operatives' boots on the cobbled walk was all that broke the wintry silence.

"A hell of a place to get ambushed," M'chel Riss said, a bit nervously.

"I've seen worse," Chas Goodnight said. "Trouble is, I can't remember just where, or when."

His laugh echoed, sounding forced in the silence.

The sniper focused sights on the oncoming five.

Not the expected, hoped-for targets, but two very beautiful women, one looming monster, a tall man who was very good-looking, and another man who could have been an elder professor.

Unexpected�but they'd do.

Range� check� wind� not to worry about any wind� finger sliding to the trigger�

***

It had started two weeks before.

M'chel Riss, who was on com watch, greeted the other four members of Star Risk (remarkably all on their base world of Trimalchio IV at the same time) somewhat smugly: "I have a job for us. A nice safe job. A job with children, even."

"Ugh. Children," Chas Goodnight moaned.

"What is the matter," Amanandrala Grokkonomonslf rumbled, "with small examples of your progeny?"

Grok was large, 2.4 meters in any given direction. He was covered in surprisingly silky fur that, to many humanoids' envy, never needed combing or care. He claimed to be primarily a philosopher, and his race was known for Deep Thoughts. It was also known, as was Grok himself, for being more than somewhat murderous, and an evil deity had well equipped them with sufficiency in the way of fangs and retractable claws.

"Not mine, I hope," Goodnight said. "I'm most careful about things like that. And don't think I don't like children. I do. At three hundred and fifty degrees, baked for forty minutes per pound, basted with honey and vinegar every hour."

"Don't be so misanthropic," Jasmine King said. "You were a child once yourself."

"I was," Goodnight said. "And a miserable little bastard, too."

Goodnight was the team's commando expert. Tall, considered more than good-looking, he'd been one of the Alliance's "besters," surgically modified to have an assortment of talents, from accelerated reaction time to seeing in the dark, when a tiny battery at the base of his spine was activated.

He'd been used by the Alliance, mankind's fairly ineffectual governing body, as a supercommando and covert action specialist until he discovered that he vastly preferred being a jewel thief to being a hero.

Star Risk had rescued him from a deathcell, and made him a partner. Even the other four, hardly ethical sorts, considered him dangerously amoral.

"Children can be many things," Friedrich von Baldur said sententiously. "Details, if you would?"

"Pickup on Earth," Riss said. "Escort eight eleven-year-olds from their residential school to their extended study center on Lefarge XI.

"Payment by certified check, being transferred as we speak to Alliance Credit� uh, assuming that the rest of you approve the job.

"Payment five hundred thousand credits retainer, plus one hundred thousand credits per diem, plus expenses, plus another half a mill performance bonus if everything works out."

"My," von Baldur said. "Was that the offer?"

"Of course not," Riss said. "That was after I did a gentle bit of negotiation."

M'chel Riss was 182 centimeters tall, blond hair, green eyes, built like a runway model. She was also an ex-Alliance Marine Corps major, specializing in weaponry, tactics, and demolitions. She quit the marines when a superior got pushily romantic, and ended up the second member of the deliberately tiny Star Risk. She'd been recruited by its founder, von Baldur, (real name Mital Rafinger, never used), who'd left the military just ahead of an investigation for malfeasance, embezzlement, and misappropriation of government funds.

Von Baldur was known for his expertise in not only white-collar crime, but also several species of martial arts. However, the dapper man looked more like someone's rich uncle, or perhaps a most debonair executive.

"A steep little amount they're willing to come up with for a simple piece of babysitting," Goodnight said. "Congrats, M'chel. Or should I ask, what's the risk?"

"Our employer�sorry, potential employer�one Amel Friton, said very little. We're needed because the parents of these little charmers�her words, not mine�are uniformly wealthy, and are worried about their nursery angels," Riss said.

"You believe her?" Goodnight asked.

"Of course not," Riss said. "We're not that broke right now. Do I look like an idiot?"

"Earth," Jasmine King said dreamily. "Yum. Paris. Double yum. I don't own anything from rue Montaigne. Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. Triple yum."

King's French accent, like everything else about her, was perfect. She was, impossibly, even more lovely than Riss, and was gifted with an eidetic memory, charm, and perfect business sense. She was so perfect that a previous employer had tried to weasel out of paying her, on the grounds that she might actually be an android, built by some unknown alien civilization.

There was silence for a moment, then: "Of course, I vote yes," King said. "And I assume you do as well, M'chel?"

Riss nodded.

"Earth," Grok said. "Little children. Interesting. I shall participate."

"And I," von Baldur said. "I am fondly considering London's bespoke tailors."

"Oh, hell," Goodnight said. "Make it unanimous."

"Very, very interesting," Grok said. "Since the beginning is on Earth, home for you sentimental fools, I assume we're all going on for the inspection?"

"And for the side bennies," M'chel said.

The sniper, as trained, gently squeezed the trigger�

They were just passing a granite facing handcarved with the words saint searles, trade please use rear entrance when Riss caught a flicker of motion and color�purple�out of the corner of her eye, shouted "Incoming!" and went flat.

She rolled as she hit the cobbles, hand reflexively unsnapping her purse and pulling out a large Alliance-issue blaster.

M'chel saw a figure running from a hide in the brush, had the sniper in her blaster sights, and was squeezing, just as the purple balloon smashed on the ground.

Red splattered everywhere. Riss had an instant of panic, then realized it wasn't blood�and most importantly wasn't her blood�and smelled something acidic.

A memory bubbled up.

Catsup. An Earth seasoning. She'd tasted it in London, and her mind shuddered a little at the memory.

Before her pistol went off, she had time to recognize the sniper: A rather chubby little girl with long brown hair, her fat legs twinkling like a metronome as she ran from them.

"Shit!" she managed, catching herself before the gun went off.

Goodnight touched the right side of his jaw, came out of his accelerated bester state, and lowered his gun, a rather small if long-barreled and ornately engraved projectile weapon. He got to his feet.

All five Star Risk operatives had gone flat, and now picked themselves up.

Grok walked forward to the sniper's hide, examined the abandoned weapon without touching it. It was an improvised catapult. Three other full balloons lay beside it on the grass.

Goodnight looked down at the tear on the knee of his brand-new, trendy suit, black with subdued pinstriping. "That little bitch," he growled. "I shoulda gunned her down."

"Chas, that isn't exactly�" King began, then saw the smeared red stain on her fresh-from-Paris Chanel jacket. "You're right. You should have shot her down. Like a damned dog."

Grok was burbling�his race's equivalent of laughter.

"Children," von Baldur said mildly. "You must learn forgiveness� and what expense accounts are for."

"Yes," the rather severe-looking and -dressed school headmistress, Amel Friton, said, "Our charges can sometimes be a bit�shall we say�bumptious. But they are full of life, and that compensates for a great deal."

Jasmine made a note to double the cost of replacing her outfit on the expense account, and forced a saccharine smile.

"The culprit, I rather imagine, will have been Lithia. She has been evincing� an interest in ballistic science of late.

"But regardless of youthful high spirits, this breach of proper manners to visitors cannot be allowed. I shall speak to her harshly, and require her to give up her desserts for a week. She has been rather liberal in the avoirdupois area of late, and the deprivation will do her no lasting harm."

Goodnight was thinking of asking why chubby little Lithia's melon couldn't be wailed on for an hour or so with a club, but held his tongue. No doubt his recommendation wasn't in league with current educational theories.

Friton eyed the five, as if to see if there was going to be any argument. Four of them, cowed by the memory of their teachers, said nothing. Grok, out of respect for native customs, did the same.

"Saint Searles has existed for six centuries," Friton said. "Always with the aim of helping our country's�and later our world's, and then the Alliance's�leaders, busy with the duty of governing the lesser, raising the next generation of women to be capable of stepping into their parents' shoes.

"We have had great success over the centuries, and I am proud to say the tradition continues unbroken. To continue this tradition, we have always been willing and able to provide whatever services our clients require, always remembering we stand in loco parentis.

"Even when the unusual occurs.

"Such has, in fact, happened recently.

"A group of our girls were recently on a field trip. There they encountered a woman who found them not only charming, but reminiscent of herself at their age.

"Her name is Lady Ardent Rosewater-Jones, and she is the principal shareholder on a planet named Porcellis, which is famed within our Alliance for providing recreational opportunities.

"She offered a chance for the girls she'd encountered to study economics on her world for a year or two, and for those who wished to pursue a career in commerce, the chance to enter her employment. This was, you might imagine, a bit out of the ordinary, but my administrators approached the parents of the girls involved, and without exception they approved.

"All of them wished to ensure there were no problems, given these parlous times, in the girls' arriving on Porcellis, and since, frankly, there have been incidents of kidnapping for ransom of pupils at two of our sister schools in Belize and Zurich, I wanted to ensure proper security. Your firm came highly recommended, although the two recommendees wish to remain anonymous."

Friton tapped a very old-fashioned bell. "One of my staffers will accompany the girls, to ensure you have no problems in communication."

A door opened, and a woman entered.

Goodnight held his eyebrows down.

"This is Miss Alice Sims, one of our newer staff members."

Alice Sims was dark, sultry, and of medium height, and she made her school uniform look like an outfit designed for pornographers. She eyed the five, her chin tipped down demurely, and her eyes lowered for an instant when she saw Goodnight.

Friton introduced Star Risk.

Sims, in a low voice matching her body's promise, said she was pleased to meet them, and would do all she could to ensure their job went smoothly.

"And these are the girls who will be your charges."

Sims went to another door, and herded in eight girls in school uniform.

One of them was the dark-haired girl who'd sniped at them, Lithia.

Friton named them: Lithia, Lis, Megan, Kel, Erin, Arbra, Jo, and Von.

All of them looked normal, well-scrubbed, and alert.

They politely responded, and were taken out by Sims, who, at the door, looked back and gave Goodnight a look of infinite promise.

"Exactly how you choose to take the girls to Porcellis is your business. I do not intrude in the practices of experts."

Jasmine had questions about clothing, diet, and so forth. A secretary gave the others a grand tour of St. Searles. Everything was very old, and looked as if it had been in the care of several generations of furniture breakers.

Hanging in the halls were portraits of former pupils, in their later lives.

Riss was interested to note how many were dressed in various racy styles of previous generations of the demimonde.

They were brought back to the main office, given final good wishes by Friton, and left.

The dankness outside had turned to a light, bleak rain.

Riss turned back to look at the school.

Along a battlement, she saw a line of what she thought, at first, to be particularly nice-looking gargoyles, then realized they were the eight customers.