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listen up. We've got one, possibly more snipers out here, and the worst thing
you could do is come to our rescue. They'll nail anything that enters the
clearing. Their objective is the camp and everything in it. Dig in and don't
let
'em have it."
"Roger. We understand and will obey," Red said formally.
"All right. Doc, you read me?" "It's hard not to. You never stop talking."
"Cut the crap and listen up. Get your shit together and be ready to move when
I give the word. We've got people down and some may still be alive."
"I'm ready Section. On your command." Marla heard the radio conversation only
dimly. She was concentrating on a tiny red infrared dot. It had started as a
pin prick of heat against the vast backdrop of the jungle. Now the pin prick
had become a dot, and as she got closer would soon become a blob. And that
blob was going to die. "What the hell are you doing? If this is your idea of a
joke ..."
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"Shut up." Renn was peeking up and over the lip of the trench. Vanessa was
beneath him, almost submerged in the water and mud. His knee guaranteed that
she'd stay there. She didn't know what was going on, and he didn't have time
to explain it to her. The .75 felt puny in his hand.
The sniper and Renn was pretty sure there was only one had a large-caliber,
scope-mounted rifle and the whole jungle to hide in. If he stood he was dead.
But Marla was in the jungle. She'd find the bastard, and when she did, God
help him. Renn smiled and Vanessa screamed. She pointed up and behind him. He
turned as something huge blotted out the sun.
Time to move. Dan didn't think it, he felt it, and scrambled down from his
leafy perch.
While his children attacked he would move a hundred yards to the right. From
there he could nail them entering or leaving camp. Eventually they'd have to
do one or the other. Wait a minute, what was that? A moving shadow. But
shadows don't move, at least not that fast, oh, a doggie! Nice doggie!
"Always fire two rounds, not just one." Boater's voice rang in Renn's ears as
he squeezed the trigger. The .75 roared six times, three sets of two, blowing
big holes in the lifter's body.
What remained fell on him and Vanessa with a duH thump.
Chin eyed the table full of electronics from the safety of the bunker. Red had
shoved him into it and ordered him to stay. But what if some bozo put a round
through their radio? The back-
up had a bad case of swamp rot. How the hell would they call the shuttle? He
wanted to tell someone, but the marines were manning the perimeter defenses,
and he wasn't wearing a radio. Chin heaved himself up and out of the bunker.
He took a quick look around and ran. Just as he reached the table Doc yelled,
"Above you!" Looking up, Chin saw a horrible winged monster diving straight at
him.
Marla was a living weapon. The target was a man, a blob of guilty red, holding
his confession in his hands. He'd killed, and she was judge, jury, and
executioner. She was a blur as she traveled the last twenty yards, and
unstoppable wolf thing, its entire beingness centered on the sniper. She
didn't understand his outstretched hand, or hear his voice calling, "Here
doggie!
Come to Dan, doggie!"
Grabbing something off the table Chin threw it at the descending monster. The
object didn't even come close, but it did cause the lifter to throw out its
wings like giant air brakes, and gave Doc the additional half second she
needed. She squeezed the trigger and held on. Doc didn't like auto slug
throwers. Even with dampers they tend to ride up. Energy weapons don't do
that. Still the slug thrower was doing one helluva job. At first tiny pieces
of the monster seemed to fly off, then it staggered, and fell like a rock. Doc
followed it down until the slug thrower clicked empty. It hit the middle of
the compound with a meaty thud. She smiled. Not bad for a pecker checker.
Jumo and Renn helped Vanessa out of the trench. She looked at the dead bodies
and threw up. Politely turning their backs the two men saw Marla emerge from
the tree line. As she approached the blood on her muzzle and chest spoke more
eloquently than words.
Chin was staring at the dead lifter and shaking like a man with swamp fever.
Doc patted him gently on the arm. In her view, he was a jerk, but she felt
sorry for him. "Scary, aren't they."
Chin looked up and nodded. "But what's even scarier is that I might have
thrown this at the lifter." He held up the radio.
For a long time they just stood there grinning at each other. Doc finally
broke the silence. "You know what? I'm just a grunt, but if I were you, I'd
use that thing while it still works." Chin smiled. "You know what? I think
you're right."
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PART THREE
Citizen
Chapter Thirteen
Shinto flipped a switch and waited while two sets of armored duraplast doors
whirred open.
Stepping out onto the veranda, he took a deep breath of night air. It had a
slightly salty taste picked up from the Pacific Ocean some fifty miles to the
west. Behind him one of the twins whimpered. Broken bones most likely. No
matter, he'd summon medical attention in a few minutes.
First, however, he'd savor the moment. As always, the massive sexual release
had left him relaxed.
A rare thing in Shinto's life.
In spite of his name, Shinto was not Asian. He was in fact of mostly European
ancestry.
His name was taken from the Shinto shrine where his mother abandoned him just
outside Osaka. He was about three months old at the time. No one knew for
sure, but it was assumed she'd left him for a better life among the stars,
lifting with other indentured colonists to settle some distant planet. If so,
she departed during the very end of the three-hundred-year-long mass exodus
which drained off most of Terra's excess population.
Denied a family, Shinto raised himself within the cutthroat subculture of
state run orphanages. There he learned to steal, to hate, and to kill. Once
released he used those skills to good effect, combining them with the single
legacy left him by his mother, a natural presentience.
He didn't understand his gift, but knew it was real. It had saved his life
many times. On the most recent occasion he'd stepped out of a nightclub and
into the sights of a legal assassin. Sensing something was wrong, he pulled
Donna in front of him, and felt her jerk as the flechettes hit. His bodyguards
killed the assassin, and a few days later, her employer as well. That was two
months ago. He still missed Donna. It takes a long time to train a good
mistress. Enjoyable though they were, the twins were a poor substitute.
So, thanks to his ruthlessness and presentience, Shinto was a wealthy man. And
it took a wealthy man to live in a modern replica of a sixteenth century
castle, high in North America's
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