StarCraft II: Devils' Due (9 page)

skirt, and long legs. As she heard the door open, she

turned around and stepped away from the window.

Butler swal owed hard. Her face was exquisite, with

pale skin, high cheekbones, and green eyes. Red hair

tumbled down her shoulders. Her breasts strained

against the buttons of her dress as if the fabric were a

hated jailer. Her legs seemed to go on forever and

ended in dainty feet in stiletto heels. She smiled at

him, ful red lips parting to reveal even white teeth.

“Uh …,” he managed, “may I help you, miss?”

The smile widened. She put her purse on the desk,

moved over toward him with the grace of a big cat,

and closed the door.

“I don’t—”

She turned around and draped her arms about his

neck, smiling up at him. Her perfume made him

slightly giddy.

“My name’s Daisy,” she said, in a sultry voice, “and

I am here al morning because those two fine,

upstanding gentlemen, Tychus Findlay and James

Raynor, felt that you should have some kind of …

recompense … for your stolen little ships.”

Butler swore, firmly removed her hands from his

shoulders, and pushed her away as he raced for his

desk. He slammed a hand down on the intercom, and

his cultured voice was heard throughout the station.

“This is Marshal Butler. Al officers available, to the

depot. Now.”

Daisy sighed as he raced past her out the door.

Halfway out, Butler paused, stuck his head back in,

and fixed her with an intense gaze.

“Stay right here.” Her knowing laughter fol owed him

out. He ignored her.

Raynor and Findlay. Damn their eyes.

By the time he got there and had hopped off his

hoverbike, al the officers in the area had been alerted

and had arrived. The building’s alarms were wailing,

and the poor fel ow whose job it was to open up in the

morning looked like he was waiting to be shot in the

head.

Butler would have liked to have obliged, but he

wanted to shoot Raynor and Findlay even more.

Besides, on this planet, men who were wil ing to work

on the right side of the law for the paltry sum of credits

the government parsimoniously doled out were few

and far between. He couldn’t lose any of them—not

even the idiots.

He didn’t waste time with “What happened here?”

or even “How did they get in?” The answer to the first

he already knew, and the answer to the second was

irrelevant at the moment. Instead he asked, “What did

they get?”

“Two planet-hoppers, sir,” the man said. He looked

slightly less nervous, but only slightly.

“Damn it.” Now they
did
have ships.

“Any leads, sir?” asked his deputy, Rett Coolidge.

Rett had the distinction of being the last one Findlay

had injured in the recent chase and had come

perilously close to losing a certain part of his anatomy

that most males were extremely partial to.

Butler smiled bitterly beneath his mustache.

“Tychus Find-lay and Jim Raynor,” he said.

Rett swore violently. “What makes you say that? Not

that I don’t believe it.”

“They had the audacity to send a girl to serve as

‘recompense.’” It was real y too bad he couldn’t have

the girl arrested. While prostitution—at least by that

name—wasn’t legal on New Sydney, exotic dancing,

right down to performing buck naked, was. And she

hadn’t said that she was offering her body. She likely

would, when questioned, say that Jim and Tychus had

hired her to go “dance” for the good marshal. But

she’d have to be one hel of a dancer for her

performance to pay for two planet-hoppers.

“Go to my office,” he told Rett. “Hopeful y there’s a

woman stil there.”

Rett raised an eyebrow, and Butler scowled at him.

“Come on, Rett, she’s one of Findlay’s and Raynor’s

girls. Find out what she knows. We can hold her on

associating with known criminals if we have to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir!” It was the security chief of the depot, and his

face looked considerably brighter than it had a few

minutes ago. “The transponders affixed to every

government vehicle are stil working. Looks like they

couldn’t disable them.”

Hope flickered in Butler’s heart. “Wel , cough it up,

son. Where are they?”

“They’re about forty kilometers due west of here.

They’re not moving.”

Butler frowned beneath his mustache. Why steal

planet-hoppers if you were just going to stay

stationary planetside? The hope died back down but

did not vanish altogether.

“They could be loading cargo,” he said. “Al units,

let’s go.”

Marshal Wilkes Butler and his entire staff, save for

a skeleton crew left behind, arrived a few moments

later at the location the transponders indicated. He

sat on his bike for a ful minute, digesting what he

saw.

Of course, there were no planet-hoppers, with Jim

and Tychus busily loading cargo.

There were two vultures. And that was it. No one

said anything. There was only the tick-tick of engines

cooling and the sound of a wind kicking up. One of the

bikes fel over.

“They switched the transponders,” said Butler, with

unnatural calm. “They broke into a marshal’s depot.

Stole two space-worthy vehicles. Switched the

transponders and had time to hire a girl to come

make sure our faces were rubbed in it.”

His men glanced at one another uneasily but wisely

stayed silent.

Butler dismounted and walked to the remaining

standing vulture and glared at it, his hands on his hips.

His eyes narrowed, and he reached down and

plucked out a tiny microphone.

“Findlay? Raynor? Listen and listen wel . You think

you’re so clever. I make you a promise, boys. You

come on my world again, and I wil have your asses

thrown in jail so fast, it’l take an hour for your heads to

catch up with them. You got that?”

And he threw the tiny mic down on the rocky soil,

crushing it beneath his boot heel with more savage

energy than any of his men had seen in him before.

Safely out of reach, Tychus Findlay and James

Raynor were laughing so hard, they couldn’t talk.

“Oh, man,” breathed Jim, “that was too much. I

couldn’t fly straight there for a moment.”

“Hel , Jimmy, you couldn’t fly straight if you were

sober as a preacher and had nothing else on your

mind.”

“I ain’t been drinking!” Jim retorted.

“Maybe you should be,” Tychus replied. “Might help

you straighten out.”

Tychus

was

right.

Their

current

careers

necessitated that they become jacks-of-al -trades.

They’d flown a lot of vehicles in their day, and so could

manage an attempt at almost anything. Just not very

wel . It would probably have made their departure from

New Sydney quite comical to watch, if anyone had

been watching. They’d opted to take two, just in case

the law got onto them and they had to split up. Such a

tactic had often worked wel for them. Now, though,

Jim wondered if maybe they should have just picked

one: perhaps both of them in a single vessel might

have made for one good pilot.

Jim glanced at the viewscreen to see the other

smal vessel ahead and slightly to the right. He

snorted; Tychus was stil weaving.

“You’re one to talk. I’ve seen four-year-old girls who

were better pilots than you.”

“Maybe we should enlist them into our gang, then.

We could use a decent pilot.”

Jim laughed. “Speaking of girls,” he said, “although

a bit older—how the hel did you talk Daisy into going

in to see ol’ Butler?”

“Girl’s sweet on me. She’l do anything I ask.”

“And anything for money,” Jim added. “Sweet or

not, girl’s got a lockbox for a heart. Al of Wayne’s

girls do. How much did it set you back?”

“Not a single cred.”

Jim was so surprised, he found himself drifting, and

pul ed on the yoke to resume a straight course.

“Real y?”

“Mmm-hmmm. Told her I’d pay her when I got

back.”

“And she agreed to that?” Jim was surprised.

“Again?”

“Told ya, Jimmy boy. Tychus Findlay has charm.”

“Wel , then you better be putting it to good use,

because we’re going to need to get permission to

land.”

“Don’t need charm, Jim. Daisy did a bit more than

delay ol’ Butler. I told her exactly how to disable a

certain part of their communication grid while she was

waiting for him. It’s gonna take them a while to figure it

out and then replace it. Until then, no official

messages going out, and in the meantime, we got us

two official law enforcement vehicles. Watch this.”

Tychus’s voice took on a calm tone. “Horley Barton

Space Station, this is Officer Tyler Whitley and my

partner, Officer John Tanner. Here for the routine

inspection. Requesting permission to dock.”

“You guys are early. Hasn’t been a ful month since

last time.”

“Vacation time coming up,” Tychus said.

An understanding chuckle. “I understand, sir. We

are ready to receive code.”

Code?

Shit …

Tychus’s voice came over the private channel. “You

better rustle up a code, Jimmy, or we need to beat

one hasty retreat….”

Frantical y Jim started searching the planet-

hopper’s computer. A disturbing number of codes

began to scrol across the viewscreen. Jim cross-

referenced them with the name of the station.

“Any time now, Jimmy,” came Tychus’s laconic

voice.

“I am going as fast as I can,” snarled Jim.

“Officer Whitley? Is there a problem?”

“Not at al ,” Tychus said, his voice smooth and

calm.

Jim’s heart was racing. There. That one looked

promising, and he stabbed a finger down to transmit it

to the station.

There was a long pause.

Jim blinked. “They gotta be onto us. I told you we

shouldn’t have sent Daisy in. Butler’s probably already

notified them.”

“Keep your panties on, Jimmy. Butler’s fast, but he

ain’t that fast. And sometimes the easiest way to get

into a place is just to walk through the front door.

These are legit planet-hoppers. The numbers

checked out just fine.”

“Yeah,
hot
legitimate planet-hoppers. They’re going

to be reported as stolen within ten seconds if this

code doesn’t—”

“Transit beta four-zero-five-two, you’re clear to

dock, Officers. Please proceed to docking bay 39,

ports A and B. Enjoy your stay.”

Jim closed his eyes and exhaled in relief.

“Thank you kindly,” Tychus said, as if there never

had been any doubt of anything at al .

Jim flanked Tychus as they headed for the space

station. He could see docking bay 39 and ports A and

B directly ahead, on the second tier of the slowly

spinning station. There certainly didn’t seem to be

anything amiss.

“So far, so good,” Jim remarked.

“That’s true enough. But within about five minutes,

you and I wil be mixing with the populace of the

station and heading for our freighter loaded down with

crystals,” Tychus pointed out.

Jim relaxed. It wasn’t like they’d never done things

like this before. They’d just never done it in stolen law-

enforcement vessels. A furrow creased his brow for a

moment as the thought came, unbidden, of the one-

way conversation with Myles. About how his mother

wouldn’t accept her son’s money because of where it

had come from. She would have a few choice words,

he was sure, about him being in a stolen law-

enforcement vehicle.

Raynor punched a couple of buttons with

unnecessary vigor before he found the right one and a

map of the station appeared. It was extremely basic,

laid out on an easy-to-fol ow circular grid. Public

docking bays formed the outer, widest layer, C. As

Raynor maneuvered the smal vessel, doing his

utmost to fly casual y, he could see that al kinds of

ships were docked there in ports of varying sizes,

from smal one-person ships to several extremely

large ones. Most of them looked as if they’d seen

better days.

The second level, B, the one to which he and

Tychus had been directed, seemed to have more

workmanlike vessels. This layer was designated