Crown of Slaves

Templeton wasn't too concerned about a possible—probable, rather—heavy-weapons unit. They wouldn't be directly positioned to cover his sister, in any event. Princess Ruth was not making an official state visit following a carefully pla

That still left the problem of his sister's immediate bodyguards, and those were a matter of great concern. Leaving aside the fact that they were much better trained and motivated than a pleasure resort's security guards, they'd also have weapons considerably superior to the ones in the hands of Templeton and his men. Hand pulsers, to be sure, not heavier equipment. But military-grade sidearms, in the hands of elite soldiers, were nothing to sneer at.

Templeton had even considered bringing chemical-powered weapons with him, instead of the puny personal use and sporting hand pulsers they'd brought. For all their primitive design, the right sort of chemical-powered guns could be far more lethal. But...

Not possible. Such weapons were very rare, which was exactly why Templeton was well-nigh certain the station's internal sca

Again, he congratulated himself for the shrewdness of his scheme. He'd calculated—correctly—that there would be enough hand weapons in the check-in room left by earlier passengers to arm the rest of his party. His scheme had been all the more shrewd, in that he'd been forced to improvise most of it the moment he discovered his sister was traveling to The Wages of Sin.

But, ever mindful of the sin of pride, Gideon didn't dwell on the self-satisfaction. Nor did he overlook the fact that there'd been an element of carelessness on his part involved also. Given the foul nature of his sister, he should have known from the very begi

He broke off the rumination. Everyone in the party was armed now—many with an extra weapon—and they were ready to begin the next stage. His men had dragged the bodies and tossed them into the weapons check-in room. One of them had even found a cloth somewhere and was begi

"Don't bother," said Gideon. "By the time anyone else comes in here, it will all be a moot point."

His cousin and chief lieutenant, Abraham Templeton, cocked an eye at him.

"You've decided, then, to kill the guards still in the docking bay?"

"Yes. You heard what that one guard told me, when I inquired casually. There's not another shuttle scheduled to arrive at that dock for hours."

Abraham nodded. The gesture was as much one of respect as agreement. Gideon had pla

"That's enough time for us to do the rest," Templeton continued, "as much of it as will set off all alarms, anyway. And it'd be safer to leave no one behind who might wander over here and set off a premature warning."

Abraham nodded and gave the assembled team a quick inspection. His eyes lingered for a bit longer on the new converts. Although they were generally unaccustomed to more elaborate weaponry, the new converts were just as proficient with simple hand weapons as they were with unarmed combat.

Stash returned Abraham's gaze with a lazy smile. "Be like butchering sheep."

Indeed, it was so. And Gideon felt his piety strengthened as a result. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, after all. And if it suited Him to provide Gideon with otherwise-flawed instruments for His work, Gideon Templeton was not a man to question God's will.

Templeton had been very concerned himself, about this stage of the plan. Concerned enough, in fact, that he'd almost decided to follow Abraham's advice to leave the two remaining guards in the docking bay untouched. The problem, in a nutshell, was that they did not dare attack the guards while still in the bay. No matter how slack, not even low-paid security guards could be taken down by a direct assault without managing to set off at least some of the alarms. And since the white noise generator couldn't suppress actual weapons discharges, there would be the added risk of one of the guards managing to fire his pulser.

Stash had assured Templeton that he could handle the problem through misdirection. Or—if Stash didn't match the physique of one of the guards well enough—one of the other new converts could do so.

So it proved. Gideon was able to observe the events indirectly, using a tiny holobug set up by Jacob.

The docking bay was attached to the security lounge by a short corridor. Unlike the bay or the lounge, there were no audio-video monitors set to cover that corridor. There would undoubtedly be energy sensors, but those were of no concern.

Gideon found it hard not to suppress a sneer—and did suppress it, only because of his constant vigilance for the sin of pride. Heathen si

Gideon watched Stash, now dressed in a uniform taken from one of the dead security guards who had approximately his size and build, amble down the corridor. "Amble" was the right word, too. No old Faithful could have managed that slovenly shuffle—nor the equally slack ma

The arm-wave, too, was perfect. It's done, boys. Shift's over—so let's get us a beer. All of it conveyed without Stash having to say a word—or give the two guards more than a glimpse of him.

But... it was the glimpse they'd been expecting. Indeed, awaiting. So, within seconds, the two men appeared in the corridor, walking in the easy ma

Stash was facing away from them, down on one knee, apparently adjusting the fit of one of his boots. His face was obscured by the bill of the cap on his head. As the two security guards came alongside, one of them said something. A jest, apparently, judging from the grin on his face. Templeton couldn't hear the actual words, because the miniature transmitter Jacob had set up alongside the corridor's wall was not able to pick up audio signals.

It didn't matter, anyway. Stash was moving again, and this time there was nothing either slovenly or shuffling about it. He came up like a tiger out of its crouch, striking once—twice—

Then, quickly, finishing the work once the guards were on the floor. It was all over in a ma

One of the new converts went to help Stash carry the two bodies into the security lounge. It was the work of a few more seconds to stuff them into the weapons room with the other corpses.

Then, all was done except the final strike on the princess. Gideon's initial plans had worked to perfection. They departed the security lounge, filing down the corridor leading to the halls of the Devil's playground where the whore sister would surely be found.

First Lieutenant Ahmed Griggs was not a happy man. To put it mildly.

Not because of anything to do with his own people, of course. He and Laura Hofschulte had chosen Sergeant Christina Bulanchik's squad from Griggs' own platoon for the detail for several reasons. The biggest one was Bulanchik herself, a long-service noncom who, like Griggs, held the Sphinx Cross. Several of the other members of her squad had been decorated for valor also, but that wasn't particularly uncommon in the Queen's Own Regiment. Almost all of its perso

Since they'd entered the pleasure resort, a part of Griggs' mind had never stopped cursing. Some of those silent curses, needless to say, had been visited on the princess herself. But not many. No one expects a headstrong young woman to be sensible about security, after all, especially the people assigned to protect her.

More of his curses were visited on the now-absent head of Anton Zilwicki. Haring off on a mysterious mission for a month, leaving his daughter and the princess to manage their own affairs!