Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) Mark Wandrey (e novels to read .TXT) 📖

opSha and began rifling through their minimal clothing. Once Sato finished with the last to die, he went on to one of the others. Rick finished, and Sato was working on the last of the attackers. The sirens were noticeably closer. In the dead opSha’s hand, he found the cloth-wrapped bundle.

“Son of a bitch,” he snarled and took it back. He was almost finished when he remembered the logic probe and touched one of the opSha’s pinlinks. It showed functional. He used his pinplants to link the logic probe to his slate and triggered a full diagnostic. It wouldn’t execute; the pinplants were encrypted. He wasn’t surprised; he was frustrated.

“Rick, cut this bastard’s head off.”

“What?”

“I need to get into his pinplants.”

“Then do it, but hurry.”

“I can’t with what I have here.” He gestured at the deceased alien. “I need his head.”

He couldn’t tell what Rick was thinking, only imagine it. Why had Sato become so suddenly bloodthirsty? In reality, Sato had never been overly squeamish. He disliked personal violence while simultaneously being keenly aware he was a warship and weapons designer, and those machines caused untold loss of life. The realization he’d almost set loose a doomsday device was the first time he recalled feeling regret or remorse in regard to his chosen profession. At the moment, though, he wasn’t feeling particularly squeamish.

When Rick continued to hesitate, Sato dug into his toolkit. There was a knife there, just not a very big one. When Rick saw the little blade, he cursed and gently pushed Sato aside. Schnict! The Æsir’s 60-centimeter-long blade slid from the right arm and came down with smooth precision, severing the opSha’s head. Shrill screams came from the crowd of museum goers, some of whom had come closer after the fighting stopped. Now they fled in terror as Rick’s arm blade dripped bright red blood.

Sato shuddered a little, despite his new lack of squeamishness. The eyes were still open. He bent with the intention of picking it up only to retch and nearly puke.

“I got it,” Rick said and tucked the head under his left arm. “No way we can catch a taxi now, though.” He gestured toward the museum parking lot, 500 meters to their left. A stream of police vehicles were flooding in, and men in armor jumped out. “Time to go.” Rick grabbed Sato around the waist. “Hang on.”

“Wha- Oh, boy!”

The Æsir turbines spun up in an instant, and they leaped into the air. Not quite leaped. Sato knew the load capacity of the Æsir, and it was pretty close. Rick executed a low-altitude transition to lateral flight, zig-zagging between an office building and a parking garage. Sato felt a different kind of sickness.

“How are the jump turbines handling the load?” he yelled over the screaming engines.

“I’m at 112%,” Rick replied. As his voice was coming from speakers, he was able to cancel out much of the engine noise and make himself easily heard. “Don’t worry, it’ll be enough to get us out of here. I can reduce power, but I’d have to fly higher.”

On cue, the sound of a siren and powerful flyer fans screamed past nearby. The police were using aircraft to search for them. Sato closed his eyes and hung on, trusting Rick to get them to safety.

* * * * *

Chapter Ten

Rick ran a diagnostic on the armor while Sato got his more advanced tools unpacked. The scientist seemed no worse for wear after they’d spent 30 minutes doing escape-and-evasion against the Tokyo police.

After they’d returned to the hotel via its flyer landing pad, he’d logged into the Aethernet through their room’s connection. He didn’t want to use his personal node and risk that the authorities had identified either of them. They hadn’t. The news was reporting the incident as a fight between alien mercs.

Some of the witnesses suggested the opSha had attacked a tourist, Sato. There were only a few blurry images of the scientist, not enough to ID him. The story continued that some unknown alien in combat armor had intervened. There were better pictures of him, but of course he was wearing his cloak, and the armor hid all his features. Popular theory seemed to be that he was either a Lumar or a Torvasi. It didn’t matter; they were clueless.

As he monitored the news and worked on assuring his armor wasn’t damaged, he watched Sato work. Now that they were in a controlled environment, he was all business again. A scientist working on a problem. He’d set out all the items taken from the opSha on the room’s small table.

There were three intact handguns of the same design the one had tried to use on Sato. A small pile of credit chits numbering no more than 200 credits. Four Yacks from the dead opSha, which all matched the specimens. The last things were a strange glove which looked like it was made of cobwebs and a metallic cylinder 5 millimeters by 10 centimeters long.

“Any of that stuff mean anything?” Rick asked.

Sato picked up the glove. “Not this,” he said. “Though they used this to try and access my pinplants.”

“What were they trying to do? Kill you like that one committed suicide?”

“Maybe,” Sato said.

“And that other thing, the cylinder?”

“This…” Sato picked it up and held it. “This is familiar.” He spun it between his fingers, casually, like one would a stylus. He examined it closely, slowly turning it over in his hand. All Rick could see was a tiny logo, a star casting rays in all directions. “Nothing is coming to mind, though.”

Rick nodded to the dismembered head. “Did I carry that all the way back as a grisly souvenir?”

“No,” Sato said and moved to the head. He made a slight face of disgust as the dead eyes stared at him. The ears had