Annihilation Page 4

  Glancing back over his shoulder, Theron saw only one gang member in pursuit. Alarms went off in his head, and he focused on the map overlaying his vision. He saw the side alley on the map a split second before it appeared to his left, giving him just enough time to throttle back. The early deceleration allowed Theron to narrowly avoid a collision as the second rider shot out of the alley just in front of him in an attempt to knock him off his swoop. Theron dived down and to the left, the sharp change of direction overstressing the stabilizers on the misbalanced vehicle. Instead of fighting to stay upright, though, he leaned into it and hammered the accelerator, pushing the swoop into a tight barrel roll that took him under the rider who’d cut in front of him.

  The kid following wasn’t able to mimic Theron’s move; the only way he could avoid ramming into his partner was by slamming the emergency brakes, stalling the engine as the other two swoops raced ahead and left him behind.

  The spaceport was only a few kilometers away, well outside the territory of the rider’s gang. With his friends no longer in the picture, Theron figured his pursuer just needed a little more encouragement to give up the chase. He released the grip of his right hand as he grabbed the blaster on his hip. The swoop bucked and swayed as soon as he let go, but now that he was used to the idiosyncrasies of the machine Theron managed to maintain control long enough to turn and fire a pair of quick shots at his pursuer.

  The bolts went nowhere near their target. Flying a swoop bike with one hand was a feat in itself; holding it steady enough to accurately aim was nearly impossible. Regardless, the bolts had the desired effect: the other rider decided he’d had enough and veered off, ending the pursuit.

  Theron slowed his vehicle and slapped his blaster back into its holster, struggling to keep the swoop online the entire time. Once he had two hands on the handles again, he took it back up to full speed for the rest of the journey. He arrived at the spaceport less than a minute later, bringing the swoop in for a landing near the main doors leading into the hangar bays where Teff’ith and her crew had docked their ship.

  A small crowd was milling around outside the entrance. Curious, Theron tapped an agitated-looking Sullustan on the shoulder.

  “What’s going on here, friend?”

  “Ugly business,” the Sullustan replied in his native tongue. “Hutt business.”

  “Which Hutt? Morbo?” Theron asked in Basic. He had a bad feeling he already knew the answer.

  The Sullustan shrugged.

  “Don’t know. Armed men show up, tell everyone in Bays Seven through Twelve to clear out. I don’t ask questions.”

  The distinctive sound of a heavy repeating blaster rang out from inside the hangar. The crowd collectively flinched and took a few steps back, leaving a clear path for Theron as he ran inside.

  Teff’ith was in the middle of loading crates of tightly packed spice onto the ship when she was suddenly hit with an overpowering sense that something wasn’t right. Nothing specific, just a half-imagined tingling in the tips of her lekku. Based on past experience she knew better than to ignore it.

  “Something bad coming,” she said in her heavily accented Basic, drawing twin blasters that she kept at her sides and scanning the spaceport for anything suspicious.

  Gorvich, the human who’d set up the spice deal on Nar Shaddaa, snorted as he finished his preflight inspection of the ship’s exterior.

  “You’ve been complaining ever since we landed, Sunshine.”

  Teff’ith’s lip curled up in a sneer. Gorvich had originally given her the nickname because of her yellow skin and “sunny” disposition; she was convinced he kept using it just to annoy her.

  She had a nickname for him too: Idiot. Hardly original, but accurate. In her twenty-odd standard years she had worked as security and muscle for low-level scum across the galaxy, trying to scrape out a living on the fringes of so-called decent society. She’d dealt with thieves, killers, slavers, and sociopaths, but nobody brought bile to her throat like Gorvich—not even that SIS agent who’d gotten her mixed up in a crazy suicide mission almost two years ago.

  It was tempting to just put Gorvich out of his misery with one clean shot between the eyes, but that would mean walking away from the Old Tion Brotherhood, and Teff’ith wasn’t ready to do that. The Brotherhood was growing fast, and Teff’ith was already earning a reputation. If she played her cards right, the next few years could see her moving up the ranks until she was the one calling the shots instead of taking orders from morons.

  Frinn—another member of the crew—grunted as he sauntered down the ship’s boarding ramp to join them on the loading platform. “Sounds like you’re just trying to get out of loading these crates,” he said.

  Teff’ith ignored him. He was almost as stupid as Gorvich, but he wasn’t in charge. She didn’t need to convince him of anything.

  “Forget the cargo. Gotta go. We leave now.”

  “Are you crazy, Sunshine? Do you know how much this spice is worth?” said Gorvich.

  “Can’t spend if you dead.”

  “Did you know she was this paranoid when you decided to bring her along?” Frinn asked Gorvich, smirking.

  “Think Morbo double-crossed us?” Teff’ith asked. “Sent goons to get our cargo?”

  Gorvich laughed. “Not likely. Morbo doesn’t even know we’re here.”

  Teff’ith’s eyes went wide. “What you mean?”

  “I’m not cutting that bloated slug in on our deal just because he thinks he owns this district. Figured we’d handle the deal ourselves and make an extra twenty percent.”

  “Idiot!” Teff’ith spat, barely suppressing the urge to unleash a volley of bolts into his chest at point-blank range. “Morbo knows! Going to get us killed!”

  Gorvich rolled his eyes, but Vebb, the fourth member of their crew, set down the crate he was carrying and joined the conversation.

  “Maybe she’s right,” the Rodian said. “I feel it, too. Something’s off.”

  As soon as he spoke Teff’ith realized what was wrong. The spaceport was always bustling with activity: crews loading or unloading their ships; mechanics making repairs. But instead of the familiar sounds, right now she heard only silence. All the loading docks around their vessel were deserted.

  “Down!” she shouted, diving forward, tackling Gorvich, and dragging them both to the ground behind a stack of crates still waiting to be loaded onto the ship.

  Vebb followed her lead, his thin, wiry body ducking behind the crate he had just set on the ground. Frinn, however, just stood where he was, staring at them with a look of skeptical bemusement. A second later a heavy repeating blaster echoed through the deserted spaceport and Frinn’s body slumped to the ground, his dead eyes open and his face frozen in the same stupid expression.

  Teff’ith poked her head up then ducked back down almost instantly behind her makeshift bunker as another volley rang out. From the sound she was able to pick out general points of origin for the shots.

  “Two shooters,” she said to Gorvich, tilting her head in each direction. “There and there.”

  Gorvich popped his head up briefly, then ducked back down as the assassins opened fire.

  “I can’t see ’em.”

  Teff’ith didn’t bother to tell him what a waste of effort his actions were. The far side of the hangar was shrouded in thick shadows and cluttered with heavy machinery for loading and unloading cargo from the incoming ships; the assassins were well protected and well hidden.

  “Maybe we can make a break for the ship,” Gorvich suggested as he checked the charge on each of his blasters.

  She almost let him try, but then realized she’d need his help if she was going to get out of this alive.

  “Shooters got the angle on ship. Cut us down if we go for it.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Teff’ith ran through the possible scenarios in her mind. The shooters had chosen their positions to pen them in and keep them from getting to the safety of the ship, but there was
a door in the rear of the hangar she might be able to reach. If she got through the door she could work her way through the adjacent docking bays of the spaceport and try to flank their attackers.

  “Slip out the back. Into Bay Seven. Circle around to Bay Nine. Come up behind.”

  “Sounds risky,” Gorvich said, eyeing the open stretch between their current position and the door at the rear of their hangar. “Want me to send Vebb?”

  Teff’ith glanced over at the Rodian, still cowering behind the crate. He was a good pilot, but not much use in a fight; he hadn’t even drawn his pistol.

  “You joking?”

  “What if there are more than just two shooters?” Gorvich asked.

  Teff’ith was surprised her idiot leader was capable of anticipating a trap, though she had already considered the possibility. If she had been the one planning this ambush, she’d have tried to flush the targets away from the ship and through the door at the rear leading into the adjacent hangar … and right into the waiting crosshairs of a third shooter. Bay 7 wasn’t in use; the lights were off, and try as she might she couldn’t tell if there was someone waiting in the gloom to spring a trap. But she didn’t see any other options. Better to just go for it and hope there were only two assassins.

  “Cover us,” she said, getting her long legs ready for the quick sprint to the door.

  Gorvich nodded, then popped up from behind the crates, screaming his fury as he unleashed a wild volley of shots to draw their enemies’ fire.

  Teff’ith took off, crouching low but moving fast as she broke for the door and the darkness beyond.

  Theron ran through the deserted hangars, heading toward Bay 8, where Teff’ith’s crew had docked their ship. He heard another round of blasterfire and took it as a good sign—there wouldn’t have been more shots unless Teff’ith and her people were fighting back.

  Charging into the middle of the firefight in Bay 8 was too risky even for Theron, so he took a detour through the adjacent hangar. He plunged into the darkness of the unused Bay 7, nearly knocking over a heavily armored figure half hidden in the shadows. A single, thick horn protruded from the center of his bald head, clearly marking him as an Advozse even in the near darkness.

  He was standing in the middle of the room with his blaster rifle raised to his shoulder, back toward the entrance Theron had come through, attention focused on the door leading into Teff’ith’s hangar. Hearing the pounding steps coming up behind him, the Advozse started to turn toward the new arrival, but Theron was on him before he could react. With a front kick he knocked the blaster rifle from the alien’s hands, then threw a quick flurry of punches at his face. However, the assassin wasn’t some clumsy street thug; he ducked under the blows and took Theron off his feet with a leg sweep.

  Theron rolled out of the way as his foe brought an elbow crashing down on the floor where his head had been an instant before. Still prone, he lashed out with his boot, but the Advozse turned away, and instead of crashing into his jaw it glanced off his shoulder.

  The assassin reached to his belt for his backup weapon. Theron was faster, snapping his arm up as he growled, “Toxicity ten,” unleashing the only unused weapon still left in his bracer. Unlike the arsenal of incapacitating darts, the single-shot pinpoint laser was lethal at a range of less than three meters. The bright intensity of the needle-thin beam pierced the darkness and struck the Advozse just below the horn protruding from the center of his brow, killing him instantly.

  The body toppled forward, momentarily pinning Theron beneath its bulk. Before he had a chance to roll the fallen assassin off him someone else came barreling into the room from the door on the opposite end.

  Teff’ith heard the assassins returning Gorvich’s fire as she raced, exposed, across the hangar floor. A pair of bolts ricocheted off the ground beside her as she dived through the open door and into the unlit room beyond, safely out of the line of fire.

  She slid across the floor and scrambled to her feet, bracing herself for the deadly impact of a blaster bolt from the possible third assassin waiting in the shadows. But the trap was never sprung, and Teff’ith grinned as she realized they might still get out of this alive.

  Assassins didn’t want to cut the bounty three ways. Greedy. Stupid.

  Eager to make them pay for their mistake, she rushed through the room and out the door on the other side. She never even noticed the two figures—one alive, one dead—lying in the shadows on the floor only a few meters off to the side.

  Theron watched Teff’ith race past, oblivious to his presence. Once she was gone, he rolled out from under the Advozse’s corpse and got to his feet. He preferred to disable opponents when possible, but sometimes that wasn’t an option. In any case, he wasn’t about to shed tears for a hired assassin.

  He’d saved Teff’ith from walking into a deadly trap, and he’d done it without giving himself away. But there were other assassins to deal with, and though Teff’ith might have gained the upper hand thanks to his intervention, he wasn’t about to leave her fate to chance.

  Moving more cautiously and keeping to the shadows, he slipped away in the direction the young Twi’lek had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 4

  TEFF’ITH EMERGED FROM THE DARKNESS of Bay 7 into the central supply room serving Hangars 7 to 12. Her original plan had been to go through the supply room into Bay 9 and try to come at the assassins from behind. But when her eyes fell on the heavy loader and a damaged fuel core resting in the corner, she had a better idea.

  The core was cylindrical in shape, one meter thick and two meters tall, and it weighed over a ton. It wasn’t uncommon for ships to make minor repairs while docked at a spaceport, but replacing an engine’s fuel core was a major undertaking. It wasn’t just the size that made repairs difficult. Residual fuel trapped inside the core was highly flammable. The core was enveloped in thick shield casing, but if the casing was cracked, and the liquid inside exposed to air, it could ignite.

  Teff’ith inspected the core. The casing was fully intact; it had probably been replaced because of a blockage in the lines. Reassured the engine core wouldn’t unexpectedly explode, she jumped into the loader’s operator seat and primed the starter. The compact vehicle’s powerful engine coughed, sputtered, and belched out a thick cloud of black smoke before finally catching. The loader had seen better days, but it would be good enough for what she had planned. She could feel the vibrations of the twin treads rumbling over the floor and up through her chair as she maneuvered the loader over to the fuel core.

  With a couple of button presses, she manipulated the loading arms so that they grabbed the fuel core at either end and hoisted it into the air, holding it lengthwise. She lowered the arms slightly until the core was level with her seat, allowing her to just barely see over the top of the cylinder toward where she was going. She spun the loader in place, then sent it chugging back through the door she had just entered.

  Theron heard the loader’s engine and quickly ducked into the shadows out of sight as it came chugging past, carrying a discarded starship fuel core. Seeing Teff’ith at the controls, he knew exactly what she was planning and decided it was time for him to make his exit. He waited until the loader disappeared through the door heading back to Bay 7, then he slipped into the supply room and out through one of the bays on the opposite side, confident she could take care of the remaining assassins without any more help from him.

  Teff’ith saw Gorvich’s eyes grow wide as the loader rumbled through the door at the rear of the hangar. The assassins still hidden on the far side opened fire at the new target, but Teff’ith was careful to keep her head tucked behind the fuel core, and their bolts deflected harmlessly off the cylinder’s thick casing. Gorvich took the opportunity to pop up from behind his cover and fire a few token shots at his attackers as Teff’ith steered the loader to where Vebb was hiding.

  “Time to go,” she shouted over the engine.

  She positioned her vehicle to block the assassins from getting a clear shot,
allowing the Rodian to scamper over to the ship’s loading ramp and disappear into the hold.

  As she turned the loader in Gorvich’s direction, one of the assassins finally broke cover and moved to a new position to get a shot at Teff’ith. The Twi’lek couldn’t make out the species through the helmet and full-body armor, but the figure appeared female.

  Finally presented with a target he could see, Gorvich seized the opportunity. His twin blasters struck with deadly precision, dropping the exposed assassin in her tracks before she had taken two steps.

  “Nice shot,” Teff’ith noted, grudgingly admitting to herself that Gorvich wasn’t completely useless.

  “Nice ride,” Gorvich responded, cocking one eyebrow at the loader.

  The lone remaining assassin fired off another round; once again it deflected harmlessly off the massive engine core. The ship’s engine behind them roared to life, and the hangar’s roof slid slowly open with a loud squeal as Vebb prepared for takeoff.

  “Green-skinned scum-sucker better not ditch us,” Gorvich spat.

  Your style, not his, Teff’ith thought. Out loud she said, “Get to the ship.”

  Gorvich shook his head.

  “I’m not leaving half our shipment behind. Get rid of this last assassin and we can take our time loading up the rest of the spice.”

  Teff’ith was about to tell him how stupid he was being when she saw something small and round flying through the air toward them.

  “Detonator!” she shouted, ducking down low in her seat.

  Gorvich dived behind the loader as the detonator exploded. There was a sudden flash of light and sound, and then everything went black.

  As her consciousness returned, Teff’ith slowly opened her eyes. She was lying on the ground, covered in a fine powder, and the only sound she heard was a piercing whine. She surveyed the scene around her, struggling to make sense of what had happened.