The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (42 page)

In the
grand scheme of his chosen career he could be considered a petty
thief. He found smuggling, weapons trading and gang associations
too much like hard work, and there were too many risks involved.
The boarding of the vessel within Confederation space had been one
of his biggest jobs in recent years, working alongside an ad-hoc
group of others he had met in a dingy bar sometime ago. They had
been useless, some succeeding in getting themselves killed even
before boarding the ship. He had decided to cut his losses there
and then, putting a round into the back of the heads of the
survivors, before rigging up booby traps and fleeing with what he
could.

That had
not been a venture he had enjoyed; not something he was used to.
Instead he preferred to focus on the things that were easiest to
carry and dispose of, mostly stealing to order. The trades were
quick, for the most part effortless and low-key. Starports were his
greatest outlet, travellers and entrepreneurs being his best
customers. Today, however, Arlos had been a waste of
time.

He started back toward the docking port he had left his ship
in, with the intention of heading to the nearest jumpgate and
departing the system for greener and more lucrative pastures.
Although, for some reason he was having difficulty making headway
deeper into Imperial space. The navigation buoys were oddly
reluctant to provide him with the necessary data. He would dig
through his ship
’
s databanks and see if the previous owner, from whom he had
so violently separated it, could be of any more help.

Glancing
over his shoulder, he noticed that his pursuer had also risen and
was once again tailing him, although not as subtly this time as
before. It was not the first time he had been followed when he was
trading, but judging from the way the woman had kept her distance
and her profile low, she was not one of the usual suspects. At
first, he had thought her to be in the same line of work as he was,
himself: some found it easier to let someone like him do all the
hard work and then pounce on them in the middle of a transaction,
relieving them of their hard-earned goods. Parasites; he hated
them.

But this
woman was far too cautious for that. He had dismissed the
possibility that she was a bounty hunter, chasing the reward money
for either his head or something he had stolen from the wrong
person. If she had been, then the pursuit would not have been such
a slow, quiet affair - more noisy, violent and very quick. No, this
was a new one to him and he could make few assumptions; though one
thing he knew he could be certain of was that the woman had decided
it was time to come out of hiding and was about to move in for the
kill.

* * *

Clare
Barber swept between the groups of people settled on the floor
around her. She watched her step as she did so, though she did not
take her eyes off her target, who walked now with a greater purpose
than just the wish to sell his haul and leave.

He still had the card, though. She had heard him enquire a
couple of times in the past hour as to whether anyone would be
interested in
buying
information
. They weren’t, of course;
these people only wanted to get away.

It
seemed to her that the man was either far too ignorant or far too
arrogant to appreciate the terrible fate that had befallen the
Imperium, and so it had come as little surprise to her that he was
having difficulties in offloading his stock here. She thought it
likely that he had, until some time ago, only operated in
Confederation and Independent World star systems, returning to
Imperial space now after attracting too much attention and needing
to disappear for a while. If that was the case, he was not having
much luck escaping unwanted attention here, either.

He
stopped walking and Barber, anticipating his next move, calmly
reached inside the jacket she wore beneath the blanket and removed
a pistol from within. Her finger clicked the safety off.

The man turned around, his and Barber
’
s eyes meeting for the first time,
his scowl telling her that he was not happy with being followed.
Many scars covered his face, showing many permanent reminders of
the cost of his chosen lifestyle. His eyes seemed to tell terrible
stories of all he had butchered whilst in the pursuit of that path.
He presented a look that would have had many hastily reaching for
their valuables, rather than incurring the pain and violence
promised. Barber was immune: she had seen many more terrible
things.

He sighed audibly before speaking.
“’
ve been
following me all day. Did you want to buy anything or is there
something else I can do for you?>” His voice was calm and
smooth, his eyes still locked on Barber
’
s. He was playing with her, trying
to throw her into a false sense of security, pretending that he was
not as threatening and dangerous as his looks might suggest, giving
her the chance to walk away.

Though the man spoke in an Imperial dialect, Barber knew that
he would understand everything she had to say to him. “You are
carrying something I want,” she said, with equal calm. The pistol
she gripped emerged from between the folds of the blanket that
still enclosed her and she pointed it casually at the
man
’
s chest.
“Hand over the data card. Nothing else, just the card. And do it
slowly.” Her other hand slipped the blanket from her shoulders,
letting it fall to the floor behind her.

Though
she had her pistol in her hand, she was not about to approach and
frisk the man herself. Her experience with people such as this
raider had taught her that they could be slippery characters,
unpredictable and desperate, and either very cunning or very
stupid. It mattered little to Barber which of those he might be,
since, no matter what, she could be certain he would be very
dangerous.

At the
sight of the pistol, people close to the pair started shifting,
shuffling backward and clamouring to stand and escape the scene
that was unfolding before them. Despite the sudden goings-on about
her, Barber did not take her eyes off her target.

The man
sneered, watching the people gathering up their belongings and
trying to get loved ones to move out of the immediate
area.

Barber
’
s
face remained stern. “I won
’
t ask you again,” she warned. She
could have shot him hours ago, but had refrained from doing so in
case of a defensive knee-jerk reaction from one of those assembled
in the immediate area, leading to her own death. She could no
longer risk that the man might get away, though, and had taken the
decision to confront him now.

The raider
’
s eyes widened, but his sneer remained. “Well, if you want it
so badly, why don
’
t you just come over here and take it?” he replied, reverting
his dialect.

Barber straightened her arm, training the gun on the
man
’
s head,
emphasising her point. The man
’
s sneer disappeared, his face
becoming serious. He reached into the coat he wore, his hand
fumbling around in an inside pocket.

Barber
tensed, anticipating the glint of a firearm and the need for her to
react. The raider removed something and threw it at her feet,
though it did not make the noise she was expecting: much louder and
clunkier, and with a metallic clasping sound. The gasps and sudden
cries about her confirmed her worries. She took her eyes off the
man for just a moment to see, resting a little way in front of her,
a tiny, flat octagonal device. A red light winked on the top of its
dark grey surface, steadily growing faster and faster. It was a
mini-mine, and it was about to explode.

Barber
ran back, trying to keep an eye on the man as the device went off,
fire, flames and smoke obscuring her vision. Through the haze she
sighted him, sprinting between the packs of people crowded together
on the floor. Ignoring the screams of terror around her, Barber
began a much more urgent pursuit of her target. The raider was
fast, darting between groups and huddles, and hopping over bags,
but Barber had few problems in keeping up. She kept a tight grip on
her pistol as she ran, stopping every now and again to loose off a
shot, none of which found their mark. The long coat the man wore
flapped around as he zig-zagged, ducked and leapt about, concealing
his form from her and making it much harder to know where to
shoot.

She
chased him for some time and soon had him cornered, the exit he had
been making for unexpectedly closed. Barber had seen to that when
she had followed him in, intending on minimising possible escape
routes. He hammered at the button next to the exit, but it refused
to open. She levelled her gun at his torso as he tried in vain to
prise the door open where it met the wall, his fingers struggling
to find anything to latch on to.

Barber had chosen a non-energy weapon for this assignment.
Though an energy weapon was more effective, within the context of
this fight it could destroy the data card she was after. Whilst she
was aware that the impact of a bullet could also damage or destroy
the card, the high amounts of energy dissipated by the impact of a
plasma or other energy shot could cause destruction by proximity.
And bullets served Barber
’
s requirements just as
well.

At the
last second, just as Barber squeezed the trigger, the raider ducked
along the side of the adjoining wall, and the shot that had been
intended for his heart slammed instead into his left shoulder.
Barber fired once again, but with the raider still ducking the shot
missed altogether, ripping through his coat and ricochetting off
against the wall behind him. The third squeeze clicked on an empty
chamber, the tiny digital counter on the top of the weapon flashing
two zeroes.

“
Bitch! I
’
ll kill you!” her quarry cried out
with a mixture of pain and anger, his right hand clasped around his
bleeding shoulder. Barber saw him swing around and aim his own
weapon. It looked like a laser pistol.

Barber
ducked down close to an assembled family, who panicked at the
sudden realisation they were now in the line of fire. The raider
appeared to be left-handed, or at least held the weapon with his
left, and with his shoulder wounded his aim was far from true. The
first shot cleanly missed its intended target, as well as
everything else, the thin red beam striking the floor behind
Barber, letting off sparks and leaving a scorch mark at the point
of impact. The second and third shots found targets, neither of
which were Barber. The first felled a man, hitting him square in
the forehead. The beam passed straight through his skull, leaving a
small hole in the front and back of his head before striking the
ground behind. The second struck a mother in the hand as she
reached across to grab her daughter, and the little girl screamed
in horror as three severed fingers fell into her lap.

Following his unsuccessful attempts to down his target, the
raider lunged forward with his outstretched right hand, and yanked
a young woman up off the floor by her long hair, just as Barber
prepared to raise her gun once more. The man held the screaming
woman in front of himself, shaking her head and shouting at her in
the Imperial dialect he had spoken to Barber in. At first, he
placed his gun against the woman’s temple, before he lowered his
quivering arm and rested it across her shoulder for
support.

Barber
felt no pity for the dead man or maimed woman, they were nothing
more to her than collateral damage. However, to shoot the innocent
woman held by the raider as a human shield went against her code of
conduct and her own moral values. Even though the Confederacy had
pressed upon her the tremendous importance of the data card she was
after, there were some things she refused to do.

The
raider began walking away, keeping parallel with the wall behind
him as the girl continued to sob with fear and plead with her
captor. He kept an eye on Barber the whole time, his laser pistol
pointed over the shoulder of his hostage. Barber sidestepped in his
direction, keeping up with his pace, her own gun trained on him the
whole time.

Why isn
’
t
he firing?
Barber wondered.
Is he low on ammo? Has his laser pistol
overheated?
The man was in a far better
position to attack than she was.

The three continued with their steady stepping dance for a
while, the raider seeking to move himself into a more strategic
position from where he could flee to the next docking port exit. He
made occasional snap glances around, to ensure he was not going to
trip over items that were scattered about. But as Barber already
knew, his current location was not going to permit him an easy
escape route and it could be seen that he was losing patience with
the girl he was dragging along. His wounded shoulder was also
making it more difficult for him to keep his arm straight, despite
being able to rest it across the terrified woman
’
s shoulder. Barber maintained a
relaxed demeanour, following his every step.