Declassified

As Kajek moved toward the door, the Selay stepped into his path, intent upon voicing his outrage despite the fact that Kajek couldn’t understand a word the reptilian said. Kajek backhanded the scaly pest, launching him up and back against a wall. The Selay collapsed to the floor, stu

Footfalls echoed from the corridor outside, followed by weapons fire. Kajek drew his plasma rifle from its sheath on his back and followed the sound of his fleeing bounty. He pivoted into the hallway, his rifle level and steady. The reek of human sweat and fear pheromones lingered in the muggy air. Following the scent, he arrived at the building’s central staircase and glanced down. The open layout of the building’s interior made it all but impossible for Qui

Kajek charged his weapon to full power and ran up the stairs. He paused at the roof-access doorway and listened, but heard nothing, and then he opened it. Bright sunlight half-blinded him for a moment, and he tensed in anticipation of an ambush. None came. Wind buffeted his ears, and sirens wailed in the distance.

The roof was peppered with squat blocks, housings for climate-control turbines, but none were large enough to provide cover for Qui

Drawing near its edge, he spied a pair of handholds for a ladder. It’s a long way down, human,he gloated. Can you climb faster than I can shoot?He poked the muzzle of his rifle over the roof’s edge and fired a few blind shots, just in case Qui

There was no one on the ladder, on any of the escape platforms, or in the alley far below. Each platform had a single, featureless portal marked “no reentry” in Gorn Standard, meaning Qui

He froze as he felt the icy kiss of metal on the nape of his neck.

Qui

•  •  •

Qui

“Back up slowly,” Qui

The Nausicaan turned his head ever so slightly to peek back at Qui

“Yeah, at point-blankrange.” He steadied his aim. “That means you’ll live—but with mud for brains. Now toss the rifle, crab-face.”

The command elicited a growl from the bounty hunter, but then he hurled his rifle away, into the alley behind the building. Seconds later, Qui

He lowered his aim and shot the Nausicaan twice, once in the back of each knee. The hulking alien howled and collapsed in a heap. Qui

Qui

“Kajek.”

“Ganz sent you?”

“Yes.”

He crouched above Kajek and pointed his pistol at the bounty hunter’s face. “So, what’s this about? Zett? Or something else?”

“Zett.”

“Sonofabitch.” Qui

“Killing me will not save you,” Kajek said. “Ganz will send others.”

“I’m not go

“Is that your story?”

“It’s the truth.” Qui

“We all have it coming, human.”

“Some of us sooner than others.” He backed away from Kajek and made a threatening gesture with his pistol. “Do notcome after me again. Because I promise: next time, I willkill you.”

The Nausicaan spread his fangs and gri

8

Bridy had no trouble following the Klingon spy’s path through the crowded streets of Tzoryp. All she had to do was look for pedestrians who had been knocked down or shoved aside, or for vehicles that had slammed into walls, barricades, or each other while trying to avoid hitting the lunatic sprinting through traffic.

She had shoulder-checked and trampled more than a few people herself in the past few minutes, and the angry choir of sirens and horns swelling in her wake made it clear she also had inconvenienced a fair number of drivers.

Rounding a corner, she spotted a commotion on a footbridge above a busy road. In the middle of the kerfuffle was the spy, still ru

The footbridge was littered with fallen bystanders. Bridy vaulted over some and sidestepped others, and she only narrowly avoided a wild, random blast from the fleeing Klingon. She leaped over the stairs at the end of the bridge and was less than thirty meters behind her quarry.

The Klingon headed for a starship construction yard, fired his disruptor to vaporize a force-field generator along its perimeter, and raced headlong through the massive eruption of white-hot sparks. Deep warning klaxons clamored across the sprawling industrial park and resounded off the metal scaffolds that surrounded a small starship’s skeletal frame, most of which lay below ground level in a yawning pit full of robotic welding arms.

Workers in powered full-body load-lifter exoskeletons lumbered awkwardly out of the Klingon’s path as he dashed through the work site and over a ramp into the starship frame, unleashing a flurry of disruptor fire every step of the way. As the last worker plodded clear of Bridy’s path, she raised her phaser and opened fire on the Klingon. Her weapon’s electric-blue beam sliced through a chunk of the starship frame but missed the enemy agent.

She followed him across the bridge and inside the guts of the half-built ship just in time to see his feet leave the top step of a ladder at the end of a narrow passageway. Determined not to let him increase his lead or lose her inside the maze of the spaceframe, she pushed herself to keep up a breakneck pace. Three steps short of the top of the ladder she caught sight of the spy and fired. The Klingon dodged around a corner, and Bridy’s phaser beam missed him and struck a small hydrogen pod at the far end of the passageway.