Audacious

28

The tables in the restaurant showed evidence of hasty abandonment; not all the chairs were upright. The diners, men and women, now lined the side walls and back. Very nervous men. Scared women.

Then again, the nervous were likely scared, too. And the same with the scared. The captain was right. This was no place for a lady.

But Kris was a Longknife, not a lady.

She left the bystanders to her Marines and concentrated on the two guys trying to look cool at the one occupied table toward the back of the room. One wore a white shirt and slacks. The head Bone Man? The other sported red slacks and a bright yellow shirt with poet sleeves. If that was the Rocket Man, he'd certainly never seen rocket exhaust. Two women sat behind them in skimpy, but colorful garb. Were they adornments…or the brains?

That was only one of several questions Kris needed fast answers to.

Why were there two bosses here? Had her Marines interrupted a gang confab? Would one gang come to another gang's hangout?

Clearly, Kris needed to know more about gang diplomacy and etiquette.

But then, maybe there was nothing in the handbook for what a gang did when it kidnapped the buddy of a princess.

Maybe she wasn't the only one making this up as she went along.

Not waiting for answers, Kris repeated her opener from the street. ''I am Princess Kristine of Wardhaven and you have a friend of mine.''

The guy in white diffidently tossed that away with a flip of his wrist. ''If you are this Princess Kristine, then there's a big pot of gold on your head.''

Kris spotted the movement out of the corner of her eye. A man, half hidden by the woman in front of him, whipped out a pistol and fired.

The first shot went high, burying itself in the ceiling.

The second shot smashed into Kris's left arm.

The obsolete lead slug stung like the blazes through the spider-silk bodysuit. It held, though more of Kris would be black-and-blue tomorrow.

The three sergeants' automatics barked once…and within a split second of each other. The darts made a tiny triangle between the eyes of the shooter.

What they did to the back of his head was indescribable, but quickly revealed. He was slammed back against the wall and pinned there…but only for a second. Then his lifeless body began to slide down to the floor. Behind his shattered skull was a smear of blood and gore.

On the way down, his bowels let loose, proving again—unnecessarily for Kris—that sudden death is a messy, undignified affair.

All this must have come as news for some of the gangers. Many turned green. Several emptied their stomachs.

Kris plucked the 6-mm pistol slug from her arm and tossed it aside. Obsolete, it was just the thing the spider silk was made to stop.

Jack took a step forward, his pistol held low and ready. He let his eyes rove the room. ''Anyone else want to try something?''

He got no takers.

Jack and the three sergeants took station beside Kris, quartering the room between them. ''I don't suggest any of you move until we finish here,'' Jack said. ''Breathe if you must.''

Kris took three steps forward, and settled herself in the empty chair at the two boss guys table. ''Yes, I'm the Princess Kristine with a pot of gold on her head. Now you see why I'm still doing my hair every morning…and no one has collected on that pot of gold. Shall we ignore that topic for a moment?''

Both guys nodded silent agreement.

''Now, then,'' Kris went on, ''I understand that you are holding a young man by the name of Bronc. I have never met the fellow. He is not in my service. But he seems to have gotten too close to one of these damn Longknifes and this has caused grief to him and others who treasure his company. I do not like that.'' Kris let that sink in. She allowed plenty of silence because neither gang boss looked like thinking was his forté.

Leastwise, not what most people considered thinking.

''I think you have him. I want him back. Will you return him? Please.'' Kris learned early that a wise politician always said please…even when he was breaking someone's arm.

Polite costs you nothing. Always be polite, Father said.

The two guys eyed each other, apparently not willing to be the first to make the concession. Behind them, the women were having some sort of silent communication between themselves, but Kris's view was blocked by the guys.

Kris let the silence stretch. Then stretched it some more. About the time it started to bend and twist, the guy in white broke eye contact with the other, looked around nervously at the gangers lining the wall,…and the Marines looking at them over their automatics and said, ''Fran, get that little hot dog.''

The young woman in white didn't seem to like the order, but she didn't argue. Instead, she sashayed out, distracting most of the males in the place.

Not the Marine sergeants. They kept hard eyes on their quarter of the room.

As did Jack.

A long moment later, Fran returned with a beanpole of a young fellow that Kris took for the requested Bronc from the yelp of the young girl beside Abby. Though terror still gripped the dining room, at least two pairs of eyes lit up in joy.

And then everything changed.

From somewhere, Fran produced a dinky little pistol. Though small, held at the nape of Bronc's neck, it looked ready to do lethal business.

''Now we do some real talking,'' Fran snarled.

''Wrong,'' Kris snapped. ''Longknifes never negotiate with hostage takers.''

The look the woman gave Kris actually seemed like surprise.

But the other woman was out of her chair, and moving to take station beside the two, now a pistol in her hand.

''Lars, you get the Longknife broad here, and you piss it all away. I always knew you were stupid, but, I thought here was something even you couldn't foul up. But you did!''

''Trixie, you're not supposed to talk like that in front of the gang,'' the red and yellow man pleaded, showing which color was really his.

Kris shook her head. She had walked into an intravarsity dustup! It was bad enough to have all these guns out, but to have the lines of command among those she was bargaining with go all poof! Bad day.

Enough of this.

''Snipers, do you have a shot?'' she barked.

''I have the white one'' and ''I have the colored one'' shot back. The snipers didn't have their long guns out, but looked over the sights of automatics with extended barrels and laser sights.

Kris blinked, and Nelly showed Kris what she wanted to see. Both lasers were solid on the foreheads of the two women.

''Put your guns down and step away from the boy or both of you will be dead before Fran can pull the trigger,'' Kris said. ''Do this very calmly and very smoothly, because if the sniper that has Fran in his sights even thinks she might be starting to think of pulling the trigger, he will scramble her brain before she can form the thought.''

''Yes, Your Highness'' came from one sniper.

Fran took her eyes off Bronc for a second to look at Trixie. For a second longer, the two of them seemed undecided.

Then their gun trained from Bronc to the table where ''their'' men sat.

The boss men had been eyeing ''their'' ladies and seemed ready for this. It must have been clear to all that, having started something, there was no way to finish it with all four of them alive.

The boss men went for their guns as the women rounded on them. It looked like it would be a close run thing.

But two pistols fired from among those against the wall.

The women didn't go down easy. Six rounds as fast as a revolver could fire spun them around in a horrid dance.

Fran got off one round. Trixie two. The shots only tore up the floor.

Which left four men with guns out. And Jack and a Marine sergeant staring at them over sights. Maybe two snipers as well.

''Check fire, Marines,'' Kris ordered in a soft, but no less commanding voice.

''Holding fire.'' came from several points behind Kris.

''We came here for our man,'' Kris said. ''He should not have been taken. We will leave now.''

''He wouldn't have been taken,'' the Bone Man said. ''But he was bugging us.''

''Bugging both of us for you,'' Rocket put in.

''I have ordered no bugging of any establishments on Eden,'' Kris began slowly. ''Young man, have you talked with me before?''

''No, ma'am, ah, Hiner.''

Kris let the young man's problems of what to say to a princess go by. ''Abby is my personal maid. She has visited this neighborhood. Abby, did you ask anyone to bug anything?''

''No, Your Highness. I specifically told Bronc and Cara to stay clear of you and anything involving you. You have always been adamant that we do not involve children, and I know better than to cross you on that.''

''We're not children.'' came from two directions. Kris ignored that, but made a mental note to explore later just what areas Abby did feel fine crossing her on.

''Jack, Abby, are there any bugs operating in this room?''

''Captain, would you cover my quarter for a moment?'' Jack said.

''My pleasure,'' the captain said, and metal sliding on leather told Kris what was going on behind her.

Abby and Jack both produced debugging gear and began to roam the room. Both of them soon reported negative findings, then Abby frowned and stooped to run her bug finder over the bodies of the two former gang-boss mistresses. ''The only thing live here are two bugs, one on each of them, high-end, very expensive, and still transmitting. Do I burn them?''

Kris shook her head. ''Capture them. Let's see if they tell us anything. Bronc, do you have your bug cleaner?''

The boy nodded.

''Take it over to Abby and see if your gizmo can find what she found.''

He did, with no results.

''I'd say that your girls have been messing with you,'' Kris said to the two fellows across the table from her. They did not look happy at that.

''I wonder who they were passing that info to? Who gave them bugs so good, so expensive? Interested in finding out?''

The two guys looked like they'd rather be stripped and whipped before their gang members than say yes, but they did.

''Abby, you able to corral those bugs?''

''Contained, Your Bossiness.''

The gangs seemed to enjoy the irreverence. Kris shrugged it off. ''Bronc, would you mind taking a contract to work with one of my techs, a chief by the name of Beni? He likes strange things that eat electricity.''

''But Abby told me to stay clear of you,'' the kid said. But he was grinning.

''Don't look to me like you can,'' Kris said. She stood. ''Gentlemen, it seems to me that our interests are flowing, if only temporarily, in the same gutter. I want to know who your girls were working with. I suspect you do, too. I remind you that Bronc and Cara are now under my protection. You don't want to have anything happen to them or the next visit from me and mine will leave nobody standing. You understand me.''

The two guys eyed each other, like scorpions…under the foot of a very big camel.

''Hey, if your enemy is our enemy, don't that make you our friends,'' Bone Man said.

''That's the usual way of looking at it,'' Kris agreed.

So all was ending well, Kris thought, as she turned to the captain.

But he was standing stiff, only his hand moved to tap his earbud. Kris caught the last half of a sentence spoken in Gunny's familiar drawl. ''…alert message. Repeat, Red alert message. Two Marines down and dead. General Trouble's wife is gone.''