In Fury Born

Which probably explained their attitude towards other people's laws. They had to make a living somehow, and their planet wasn't much help, she thought, crossing to the coffeemaker and watching with a corner of her brain while Megaira slipped them into orbit. They were a few hours early, and Alicia was just as glad. She'd recovered-mostly-from the experience Tisiphone had unleashed upon her, but she welcomed a little more time to settle down before she had to meet Yerensky's local contact.

She carried her cup back to the view port. Ochre and yellow land masses moved far below her, splashed with an occasional large lake or small sea. It all looked depressingly flat, and there were very few visible light blurs on the nightside. The one official spaceport was well into the dayside at the moment, but whoever was in charge hadn't even bothered to assign her a parking orbit, much less mounted any sort of customs inspection.

You didn't really expect one, did you? Megaira asked.

"No, but this is so … so-"

Half-assed? the AI suggested helpfully, and Alicia chuckled.

"Something like that. Not that I'm complaining. I don't know how Yerensky got those medical supplies out of the Empire and onto Maguire without any customs stamps, but I'd hate to try explaining it to someone else."

There would be no need. Alicia and Megaira both bristled, but the Fury sounded totally unaware of any resentment they might harbor. Their inspectors would see precisely what we wished them to, no more and no less.

Alicia didn't reply. She suspected herself of sulking, and she didn't really care. The reminder of all the unresolved hate and violence still locked away within her had frightened her. Not that she hadn't known it was there, but knowing and feeling were two different things, and -

Whups! Heads up, Alley-I've got our landing beacon.

"So soon?" Alicia's eyebrows rose.

Well, it's in the right general spot. A mental grid superimposed itself over Alicia's view of the planet, and a green dot winked on the nightside. There-about midnight, local time. And it's the right beacon code.

"I don't like it. Yerensky didn't say anything about night landings."

But neither did he say it would be a daylight landing, Tisiphone pointed out, and this time Alicia and Megaira were too intent on their problem to bristle. Indeed, there was no thought in his mind either way, so I would judge he trusts the discretion of his local agent. In that case, might there not be some valid reason for choosing to unload under cover of night?

"On this planet?" Alicia frowned. "I wouldn't've thought there was any reason to hide medical supplies. They're valuable, sure, especially on some of the lower-tech Rogue Worlds, but I can't see needing to hide them."

She hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged.

"Put on your Ruth face and ask for the countersign, Megaira."

On it, the AI replied. A few moments passed, then, They came back with the right response, Alley. Far as I can tell, this is them.

"Damn. Well, I guess we don't have much choice." Alicia sighed. "Load up the shuttle with the first pallets."

Yes, Tisiphone agreed, but I trust your instincts, Little One. May I suggest that this is a time for Top Cover?

"You may indeed," Alicia murmured, and felt Megaira's total agreement.

The cargo shuttle slid downward through the hot Ching-Hai night, cargo bay packed with counter-grav pallets, and Alicia lifted the combat rifle into her lap and slipped in a magazine.

Megaira and Tisiphone had both wanted her in battle armor, if for slightly different reasons. The AI worried about her safety, but the Fury wanted to see the armor in action, for its destructive capabilities fascinated her. Of the two, Alicia had found Megaira's argument more telling, yet she'd decided against it. No free trader could have gotten her hands on Cadre armor-Cadre Intelligence would have chased her to the ends of the galaxy to get it back if she'd tried-and someone might conceivably recognize it.

Besides, if some ill-intentioned soul was waiting for her, he faced certain practical constraints. His only objective could be her cargo, which meant he couldn't use anything big and nasty enough to take out the shuttle. She, on the other hand, had no compunctions about what she might do to him.

That sounds strangely little like "justice," Tisipohone jibed gently.

"On the contrary." Alicia jacked a discarding sabot round into the M-97's chamber and settled her left hand briefly on the forestock to activate its computer systems. "I won't do a thing to them unless they intend to do something to me."

Indeed?

"Indeed. But if they do have something pla

So there are times you see things my way after all.

"Never said there weren't." Alicia shifted to her contact with Megaira. How's it look from your side?

Everything's green, but I've got two aircraft to the south.

Data flowed into Alicia's brain, and her lip curled, for one of those aircraft had "military" written all over it. It might be an escort against whatever local menace had provoked this night landing. Then again, it might not.

Keep an eye on 'em, she thought back. I'm getting vehicle sources around the landing beacon, too. Air lorries, it looks like.

I see them, too. Want me to take a closer look?

No. Wouldn't do to spook them, now would it?

You're the boss. Just watch yourself.

Alicia turned back to the shuttle controls, wiggling to settle her unpowered body armor. It, too, was Cadre-issue, better than anything on the open market but not visibly different enough to call attention to itself. They were less than two minutes out now, and she let the first trickle of tick seep into her bloodstream and smiled wolfishly as the universe slowed.

The ground party watched the shuttle slide down the last few meters of sky and deploy its landing legs. Flat pads reached for the ground, dust devils danced in the turbine wash, and one of the air lorries moved away from the dust in a curve that just happened to point the rear of its cargo bed at the shuttle. The tarp which closed it flapped in the jetwash, and something long and ominous was briefly visible behind the canvas.

"They're down," a man muttered into his helmet com. "Ready?"

"Light on the pads," a voice replied in his earphones.

"Good. I hope we won't need you, but stay loose."

"Yo," his phones said laconically, and he turned his full attention back to the shuttle. He'd expected a standard shuttle, and avarice flickered as he realized this one was almost twice that size. It must contain an even bigger chunk of Yerensky's cargo than he'd anticipated.

The shuttle's after hatch whined open and extruded a ramp, and he changed com cha

"Try and take the pilot alive," he reminded his gu

His nerves crackled as subsiding dust billowed around the ramp. Any minute, he thought, still gri

But the dust settled, and no one emerged. His waving hand slowed, his grin faded, and he suddenly felt exposed and stupid in the light.

Alicia killed the flight deck lights, popped an emergency hatch, and dropped to the ground on the far side from the illuminating lorry. That had been outstandingly stupid, she thought as she floated to earth on the wings of the tick. Anyone looking into that light would be blind as a bat, not to mention all the nice shadows it made on this side.

She melted into the darker shadow of a landing leg and juggled her sensory boosters. Without a combat helmet's built in sensor systems, she had to rely upon her own augmented vision, but she'd had lots of practice at that. She had to wind the boosters way down when she looked into the light, then pump them high when her gaze tracked across the dark, but that was a problem she was used to, and she grunted with satisfaction as she completed her count.

Eighteen, nine of them bunched up around the air lorry with the calliope and not a one of them in even light armor. Well, at least it proved their mastermind was no military type. Unless his name was Custer.

Megaira?

I see them, the AI replied, watching through Alicia's eyes as easily as Alicia might scan space through her sensors. Tisiphone was silent in the back of her brain, wise enough not to distract her at a time like this.

Somehow they don't look like the welcome wagon to me.

You watch your ass, Alley!

I will. You just watch those aircraft.

I'm on 'em.

Damn it, something was wrong! His waving hand fell to his side as suspicion became certainty and he realized how exposed he was in that vortex of light. He started to turn and order the lamps doused when something sailed past his head to thump and rattle metallically across a lorry freight bed.

The air lorry gunship vanished in superheated fury as the plasma grenade exploded, but Alicia wasn't watching. She'd turned like a cat while the grenade hung dreamily in midair, and the combat rifle was an extension of her brain and body. She didn't even see the sight picture, not consciously. She simply looked at her target, and the gunman's chest exploded.

The glare of the lorry couldn't quite hide her muzzle-flash, but she'd already found the two men who could see it. One of them died before he realized he had; the second while he was still raising his weapon.

The gun crew inside the lorry never knew they were dead, but screams of agony and terror rose from the men clustered about it. A human torch shrieked its way into the darkness as if the night could somehow quench its flames, and two more rolled on the ground, fighting to extinguish themselves. Three unwounded hijackers ran for their lives from the inferno, and the leader threw himself under his own vehicle and switched cha