Read Online Borderlands: Gunsight by John Shirley - Free Book Online Page B

that front gate. If he took those guard tower men out, there’d be an alert, probably. Alarms, the whole shebang.
    Suppose he pretended to join Reamus—try to sign on with him?
    But there wasn’t likely to be time for all that—he had to get this done fast to make sure Daphne was safe.
    And besides, Jasper wouldn’t trust him if he signed on with Reamus, undercover or not. Boss Jasper had hired him for the other kind of infiltration.
    There was another consideration, too. From what he’d heard, Reamus had some men working for him who’d once been employed by Gynella. And they’d remember Mordecai. They’d kill him first chance they got if he tried to infiltrate by joining up, shoot him in the back.
    No. It had to be completely covert penetration. He had the auto-camo, he had the right weapons. And they weren’t going to be expecting anyone like him. They were outfitted to repel a big fighting force.
    Not that this was going to be easy. He couldn’t even take along a shield—it’d interfere with the camo, for one thing.
    The sun was sinking, seeming to extinguish in the ashen horizon, and lights were flicking on, all the way up the great mound that was Tumessa. The night wind rustled itself, stretched, and came skirling across the plains with a low moan.
    Mordecai growled wordlessly, deciding he had to get closer and move in—then stiffened, feeling a warning prickle on the back of his neck.
    Something was coming. Something . . . from above. Buzzard, maybe. Or a drone.
    He grabbed the assault rifle, turned, raised the muzzle to the sky . . .
    And Bloodwing landed on the muzzle of the gun, like a parrot landing on its perch.
    She cocked her head and looked at him curiously. As if she were saying, What?
    He snorted. “So you did see my signals.” She squawked and moved down the barrel of his gun, walking down it on her claws, and butted her head affectionately against his. “Good girl! Thanks for showing up! Wouldn’t blame you if you’d blown me off.”
    Bloodwing leapt up to his shoulder and settled in place. He put the rifle aside, started the outrunner, and drove to the southwest, almost randomly picking an approach to the fortress town known as Tumessa.
    He felt a little better with Bloodwing on his shoulder. At least now he wasn’t completely alone in this.
    And she’d be useful in this operation. She was good at attacking under cover of darkness. Bloodwing could be silent and deadly as a razor when she wanted to.
    And right now, Mordecai needed all the edge he could get.

H ow in Skagzilla’s Arse had she come here in the first place? How had she ended up in this strange, circular room?
    Daphne almost laughed, thinking about it. She’d fought her way across half the galaxy to be stuck in this little dome of a bedroom with a gigantic cannibalistic monster a few inches underfoot—and another kind of monster, not far off, who wanted her to be his little bed slave.
    Maybe it had all started back on the homeworld, the day she’d come home and found her brother shot to pieces, breathing his last, left to die on the bloodstained landing pad outside the house.
    And inside the house she found what was left of the rest of her family. Terrible things had been done to them . . .
    She’d known instantly who it was. Her father had warned them; had planned to get them all off planet, take the money he’d skimmed from the Creel Organization, start over somewhere out in the galaxy, somewhere they wouldn’t be found.
    Dad figured he had time before the cartel found its head bookkeeper was stealing from the cash flow off the slave trade. He knew they’d bust him for it eventually—the big man had asked for an audit, purely in-house—but he thought there was enough time to . . .
    There wasn’t. There was no time at all. Creel found out about the embezzlement faster than Dad had expected.
    An example had to be made. They sent their worst—the best of the worst. They sent the ones who liked the job.