Imperial Bounty (9 page)

The roar of the crowd filled the coliseum as a squad of marines led by Major Tellor rushed in to surround Princess Claudia and escort her off the terrace. As she left, Claudia didn't even glance at the men she'd condemned to death. That was already part of the past, and her mind was on the future. Her future, the way she wanted it to be.

As the princess and her escort disappeared through durasteel doors, Major Tellor turned and shouted, "Good riddance, asshole!" Then he was gone.

No sooner had the Major spoken than a voice McCade recognized as that of the taxi-driving assassin filled the arena. "Get ready to die, McCade!"

"Doesn't anybody like you?" Phil asked calmly as he checked the action on his submachine gun, and then tucked it back into its shoulder holster.

"It's his breath," Rico interjected as he made sure the safety on his grenade launcher was in the off position. "Sam's breath would kill an Il Ronnian Sand Sept Trooper at thirty paces."

"I'm forced to disagree," Phil replied thoughtfully, sighting down the length of his energy rifle. "The truth is he's ugly. Uglier'n a swamp beast headed south. Sorry, Sam, but somebody had to tell you."

McCade's reply was forever lost, as the word "assassin" began to flash on and off across each Zombies' chest, and a cheer went up from the crowd. The formal warning had begun. Assassins must also reveal red clothing, but since the Zombies were already dressed in red, that rule had been fulfilled. It occurred to McCade that a 3-D team comprised of professional assassins was hardly fair to the other teams. But, he reflected as he checked the load on his handgun, what else is new. Now he understood why they'd been allowed to keep their weapons, so that the assassination would be completely legal.

It was the taxi driver who delivered the formal warning. "Attention! A level-three licensed assassination will be carried out on Citizen Sam McCade five seconds from now!"

The announcer cut from the tight shot of the assassin, to a tight shot of McCade. The bounty hunter exhaled a tight stream of cigar smoke, flicked the butt over the edge of the terrace, and said something to the shaggy variant on his right. Damn! If there was only some way to mic them. Oh, well, it would still be good. Of course with, let's see, eight Zombies left, the three of them probably wouldn't last long. But on the other hand, none of them looked scared, and from all appearances they knew how to handle their weapons, and that was a good sign. Maybe they had a chance after all. Holy Sol—what if they won—that would really give the crowd something to cheer about! The underdogs come from behind and all that. Attendance would soar, and bigger crowds were more fun to manipulate. The announcer began to hope.

"There's not much the ground team can do to us off the top . . . since we're up here . . . and they're down there," McCade observed. "Nonetheless, when they get into range, Rico can work them over with the grenade launcher. Phil, I'm afraid you're the only one who can deal with their aerial squad, and I'll try to keep the jumpers busy. Questions?"

"Yeah," Phil replied, "what's a nice variant like me doing in a place like this?"

"Talkin' too damn much," Rico said with a grin. "Here they come."

Naturally the aerial team arrived first. They opened fire at long range, liberally spraying the terrace with lead and coherent energy. Ducking down behind the low wall which ran the length of the terrace, McCade forced himself to wait. Rico did likewise. Neither had weapons appropriate to the situation. Phil however was another story. Resting his energy rifle on the top of the wall, he fired with scientific precision. Meanwhile, the Zombie air team twisted and turned trying to throw off his aim. And it would have worked on anyone but a variant. But Phil had gone into full augmentation, and his enhanced vision, combined with perfect coordination, cost two Zombies their lives.

He killed the first by carefully punching an energy beam through his reflective visor. The pulse of coherent energy burned a perfect hole through the man's head, while simultaneously pushing his brains ahead of it. So as the energy beam emerged from the back of his helmet a jet of blood and brains came with it. Meanwhile, his belt continued to keep his body aloft and propel it forward. Seconds later it crashed into the side of the tower and slowly cartwheeled to the ground below.

Phil's second kill was less elegant than the first, but equally effective. He aimed for the woman's chest, but as if sensing his intention, she suddenly tried for more altitude. As a result his shot hit her anti-grav belt and destroyed its power pak. She fell like a rock, and her scream followed her down to the hard surface of the playing field.

As the second member of the aerial squad died, the volume of incoming fire fell off, and McCade stuck his head up to take a look around. The jumpers were damned near on top of them. Scrambling to his feet, he realized they intended to jump over him and land on the inside of the terrace. Then with the jumpers behind, and the remaining member of the air team in front, they'd be caught in a cross fire. He jumped to the top of the wall and yelled, "Clear the terrace!"

Following his own advice, McCade leaped out and away from the terrace. As he fell toward the playing field far below, there was a sickening moment when he thought he'd misjudged the distance, but then the robocam was there, floating below him, and as he hit, he threw his arms around it and held on.

As luck would have it, the announcer had activated that particular camera just before McCade jumped from the terrace, so the whole crowd lived the moment with him. The announcer swore happily as he fought to keep the robocam from crashing. What a shot! The crowd watched as McCade struggled to obtain a one-armed grip, finally managed to do so, and then pulled his handgun. Suddenly the crowd began to cheer. Deep underground, the announcer grinned. Their sympathies had shifted.

McCade felt the robocam slowly sinking, and heard a grinding noise from inside it as the announcer pushed its drive to the edge of burnout. Then he saw that the jumpers had landed on the terrace, and one was now bouncing out toward him. But the Zombie had jumped too hard and was coming almost straight down. As he went past, McCade fired four times, and saw all four slugs hit their mark. The jumper continued on down to crash into the ground.

Meanwhile, the two remaining members of the Zombie ground team had taken up positions below McCade, and were firing upward. McCade almost lost his grip as two slugs hit him and were deflected by his body armor. Any closer and they'd have gone right through. Then he felt the robocam jerk as a slug hit it. It was sinking even faster now, and trailing gray smoke. In a few seconds he'd land right in their laps.

Suddenly there was a loud cracking sound, and a Zombie disappeared in a red-orange ball of flame. Rico had managed to scramble down to the next terrace, and bring the grenade launcher into play. But now McCade was so low the big man couldn't fire again. If he did, the flying shrapnel might kill both friend and foe.

McCade twisted around, trying to bring his gun to bear on the man below, but found he was unable to do so. He watched helplessly as the Zombie took off his helmet and threw it down. It was the taxi driver. Grinning a sadistic grin, the assassin raised a minilauncher, and took careful aim. He squeezed the trigger, and then watched with amazement as another robocam swooped in front of the tiny missile, and disappeared in a flash of light. The small explosion peppered McCade with tiny pieces of plastic and metal, but none of it penetrated his body armor.

"That's one for me, you bastards!" the announcer shouted gleefully as he banged his fist on the console. "This is my show . . . and it's gonna end my way!"

McCade let go of the robocam and jumped. His feet hit the assassin right in the chest, and threw him over backward. Falling backward himself, McCade hit the surface of the playing field hard, and had the wind knocked out of him. His mind ordered his body to get up, but nothing happened. All his effort seemed centered on sucking precious oxygen into his lungs. Not so the assassin. Shaken but not hurt, he staggered to his feet, and pulled a sidearm. McCade felt the oxygen hit his lungs and the energy flow through his body at the same time. He rolled right just as the Zombie pumped two large caliber slugs into the ground where he'd been. Coming up on one knee McCade fired three times, the first shot taking the assassin in his right knee, the second in his chest, and the last between his eyes. As he toppled and fell a tremendous cheer went up from the now-partisan crowd.

McCade looked up as he heard a string of shots from above. A jumper tumbled end over end to crash onto a distant terrace, and Rico uttered a defiant battle cry. Then McCade's heart fell as the big man's scream of victory ended in a grunt, and he crumpled to the ground. The last of the aerial assassins had nailed him from above.

With a growl of rage, Phil leaped thirty feet straight up, and wrapped the flying assassin in a bear hug. Locked together, they began to drop as Phil's additional weight overloaded the anti-grav belt. As they fell, Phil slowly closed the circle of his arms. The assassin listened helplessly as his armor started to creak and groan. Then with a sort of morbid fascination, he heard loud cracking noises as it began to break, followed by the snapping of his own bones. Mercifully he lost consciousness before he hit the playing field and Phil landed on top of him.

By the time McCade arrived, Phil was already starting to get up, the assassin's body having cushioned his fall. "Thought I'd drop in and give you a hand," the big variant growled.

The last Zombie was a jumper and he moved as though his heart wasn't in it. He jumped from a high terrace, and McCade picked him off with a single shot. After his body hit the field there was total silence for a moment, followed by wild unrestrained applause as the entire audience came to its feet. Not only had the underdog won, he'd done it in spectacular fashion, and they loved it.

McCade wasted no time basking in their applause. Rico was down. He couldn't tell if the big man was dead or wounded, but either way, that was his first priority. And his second priority would be getting the hell out of there, before Claudia could arrange another attempt on their lives. To his surprise a robocam bumped into his arm and the unmistakable voice of the announcer issued forth. "Your friend is only wounded. He'll be okay. My robots have him in an automedic right now. Is there somewhere you'd like to go?"

"The spaceport," McCade replied gratefully. "We've got a ship there."

"Gotcha," the announcer replied. "Do exactly as I say and you'll reach the spaceport without further trouble. After that, you're on your own."

McCade agreed, and soon found himself in a robo-controlled aircar along with Phil, and an unconscious Rico, whose entire right leg had disappeared inside an automedic. A cloud of brightly colored aircars flitted all around them. They were all listening to the announcer on their radios, and, urged on by his voice, they waved and cheered. Doing their best to smile cheerfully, McCade and Phil dutifully waved back. The unofficial escort was the announcer's idea, and a very effective one. Not only would the crowd make it difficult to execute an attack, they also made it stupid to launch one. With McCade and his companions riding a wave of public approval, to attack them within minutes of their victory would not only smack of poor sportsmanship, it would also amount to very stupid politics. McCade knew Claudia was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. To take and hold power she would need a good measure of public approval. She'd just lost some by taking a public position and losing. At this point a public attack could turn a minor loss into a major public relations disaster. So McCade felt fairly sure she'd control her temper and bide her time. Meanwhile, they'd get the hell off Terra and into the relative safety of space.

A few minutes later the aircar landed next to
Pegasus.
Under McCade's watchful eye, two robots transferred Rico from the aircar to the ship. Then he and Phil engaged in one last round of waving and smiling, before ducking into the main lock, and cycling the outer hatch closed. Once in the control room, McCade was amused to find that a second customs inspection had been waived, and
Pegasus
was already cleared for lift-off. Apparently Claudia was as eager to get rid of them as they were to go.

After considerable urging from Main Port ground control, the swarm of aircars backed off to a safe distance, and gave
Pegasus
enough room to lift. As she roared toward the sky, the announcer swung his feet up onto the console, and lifted a glass in salute. For the first time in many years he felt good about himself. "Good luck, McCade. We made one helluva team."

"More food, slaves, and while you're at it, more cigars!" Rico's voice boomed over the intercom.

"Shall I kill him, or would you like the honor?" McCade asked Phil.

Phil shook his shaggy head in amazement. "I'm a trained biologist, and I can't believe that a single man can eat that much, and be that big a pain in the ass. It isn't normal."

McCade grinned. "If you're suggesting that Rico isn't normal . . . I'll go along with that."

"I heard that!" Rico said accusingly. "Here I am, layin' wounded . . . nearly starvin' ta death . . . and my friends sit around insultin' me . . . me—the one that saved their miserable lives . . ."

McCade reached up and flipped a switch, cutting Rico off in mid-complaint. "Well, much as I'd like to hang around and shoot the breeze with you guys, it's time to get to work."

"Sure," Phil grumbled, "you take off for Joyo's Roid while I stay here with the crazed convalescent. Why don't I go while you stay?"

McCade grinned as he got to his feet. "Because I'm the bounty hunter, remember? And besides, from what I hear, it's damn hard to get off Joyo's Roid unless they decide to let you. So somebody's got to be here to save my ass if I get in trouble."

Phil sniffed loudly, only partly mollified. "Maybe, but just make sure you don't have too much fun."

"I promise," McCade replied readily, and flipped the intercom back on.