StarCraft II: Devils' Due (16 page)

fumbling beneath the corpse, praying that his hunch

was right, when his hands closed on what he wanted.

He had the key.

He leaped up and sprinted to the far console,

shoving the key in and twisting it hard. The station

hummed to life, the relative brightness of the normal

lighting harsh after he had been so long in the dark.

Tychus and Daun were struggling, the body of the

hapless Fitz a barrier between them—one that Tychus

was exploiting. It made for a ghoulish sight, and Jim

felt bile rise in his throat. Tychus was pummeling the

man hard, but Daun was stil struggling to pul his arm

free of its flesh prison. And Jim saw, as Tychus did

not, that he was starting to succeed.

“Tychus! Let’s go!
Now!
”

Tychus looked up, and for a moment Jim saw not

his friend but something very dark and dangerous.

Then it was gone. Tychus knew and trusted Jim wel

enough to obey when Jim started barking orders in

that tone of voice. With a final savage punch that

jerked Daun’s already battered head brutal y to the

side, he threw both bounty hunter and corpse into a

console. Daun’s eyes closed and his body went as

limp as Fitz’s. Tychus nodded, then joined Jim as he

raced for the stairs.

Their relief was short-lived. As they headed up the

corridor at a dead run, bul ets slammed into the

bulkhead behind them. The shut and locked door

would delay Daun only for a few moments.

“Thought I’d kil ed that bastard,” Tychus muttered,

unusual y pale. On the other side of the door Daun

raged, his cybernetic hand punching dents in the thick

metal.

“You pieces of shit! You think you can escape me?

No one escapes Ezekiel Daun! Do you hear me? No

one! You’l die in agony, you—”

Jim tuned out the madman’s rantings and

concentrated on the door and the rickety freighter

docked there. They’d have to ditch the ship as soon

as possible, of course. The Skul s knew it, and now so

did Daun. They dove into the cockpit and then turned

to each other.

“Door ain’t opening,” Tychus said.

“Because someone’s gotta open it, and Daun ain’t

gonna oblige,” Jim said.

“You said there was a manual override for both

doors from the bay,” Tychus said.

“There is, over there. Next to the door to the—”

Suddenly there came a pounding. Daun had

reached the door to the bay and was attacking it.

They could hear his voice shouting. They couldn’t

understand his words, but they didn’t need to.

“—corridor,” Jim said.

“Good to go,” Tychus said. “Keep this door open for

me and hang on tight.”

“What? Tychus—”

Before Jim could protest, Tychus had already slid

from the cockpit and was at the manual override.

What was he thinking? He was opening the docking

bay door into space! Without a hardskin or at the very

least something to hang on to, Tychus Findlay was

going to get blown right out.

Jim frantical y prepped the freighter for launch,

glancing worriedly at Tychus as the bigger man

slammed down the release lever and the door started

to iris open.

“Come on, come on,
hurry
!” cried Jim.

Tychus did. The second the lever had clanged

down, Tychus Findlay had turned and was covering

the space in long strides. The door was opening

slowly. Tychus hurled himself toward the open

freighter door, big hands clamping down hard as the

vacuum of space hungrily sought to pul him out into its

embrace.

Jim raced from the cockpit to the door, leaning over

as far as he could, trying to pul Tychus in. Findlay’s

muscles strained and quivered, and Jim swore as he

saw Tychus’s thick legs being
lifted up
. Tychus

bel owed in anger and, with a last powerful tug,

maneuvered himself into the freighter. Few other men

could have done it, and even Tychus was red-faced

from the brief exposure to the vacuum of space. He

was sweating and shaking.

But he was inside. Jim pressed a button and the

freighter doors slammed shut.

The docking bay door was ful y open now. Jim

threw himself into the pilot’s seat and frantical y

slammed buttons. The freighter rose, and Jim tried to

get it out as fast as possible.

They shot forward, the drifting debris suddenly

becoming an obstacle course they took at high

speed. Jim was afraid they’d fly the old vessel apart,

but he wanted to get away—
now
.

Beside him, Tychus Findlay whooped. “Even if

Daun had gotten to us, last we’d see of him would be

him dangling like a damned marionette!” he said,

wiping his eyes. He flapped his arms disjointedly and

mimed choking, his tongue sticking out.

Jim started to laugh too. It wasn’t that funny,

actual y, and he knew hysteria when he felt it. But the

high-pitched peals of laughter rol ing off him released

the fear and adrenaline. He felt his whole body

shaking, and it was better to laugh at Daun than to

feel that sick horror.

“Yeah,” he said. “Guess we’ve seen the last of him.”

Tychus sobered slightly. “I wouldn’t be too sure

about that, Jimmy. I’d like to think that, but I think I’l

live longer if I don’t. My one sole desire right now,

other than to drink an obscene amount of alcohol, is to

get the fekk out of this star system.”

Jim was quiet for a moment. “I can’t do that. I gotta

get back to New Sydney.”

“What?” Tychus’s bel ow nearly deafened Jim.

“Madman like that is on our tail, and you want to head

right back to where he knows he can find us?”

“I got a message and—”

“
I
got one for you, and that is that Daun is bad news

of the absolute worst kind. You hear me?”

“Who the hel is he, anyway?”

Tychus folded his arms and sat silently angry for a

while. Jim knew him wel enough to know that the

anger was not directed at him.

When Tychus spoke, his voice was low and very,

very careful y control ed. “I don’t know much for sure,

and I thank whatever grace there might be in this

universe for that. The rumors and what we just saw

are bad enough.”

“Tychus …,” Jim began. “You know how reliable

rumors are. They—”

“I know my sources, too, Jimmy,” Tychus snapped.

“And when I say the rumors I hear would make you

crap your pants if I told you half of ’em, you can

believe it.”

Jim did. Nonetheless, he had to know, and Tychus

knew it.

The bigger man ran a hand through his short hair.

“He don’t just kil . He drags it out. Likes to torture his

victims in every way possible afore he kil s ’em. He

knows just where and how to hurt. There was one man

I heard tel of … Daun didn’t have a deadline on the

bounty, so he took his time. Got the man, and his wife.

Weren’t no bounty on her, but Daun got her just to play

with. Flayed the skin off her first, right in front of the

poor son of a bitch. Then did the same to him. Some

versions of the stories say he brought a few kilos of

salt with him and tried to—”

“Okay,” Jim snapped. “Enough.”

Tychus grinned, but it was a sham. “Suffice to say,

he’s a bounty hunter. With, from what I understand, a

damn good track record.”

Jim looked bleakly ahead. “Yeah. I got that much.

Feek, Ho-barth, Kydd …”

Tychus nodded, not looking at Jim. “Normal y I’d

say it’s a good thing when a man likes his job, but …

Daun likes it too much. I’m right glad we didn’t see

what he did to Hobarth and Feek, Jimmy. I wil tel you

that with my whole heart. What he did to Kydd was

bad enough.”

Jim listened. He had seen enough as wel . Daun

recorded
his kil s. Used them to terrify others he

planned to kil , watched them alone at home and

relived the moment, just like he said he did. Sick

bastard.

“We just got away from him. We must’ve had

angels on our shoulders.”

“No we didn’t.” Jim’s voice was bitter and hard and

came from a place of pain and impotent anger. “We

had a sap named Fitz-something who was in the

wrong place at the wrong time. That poor fel ow saved

our lives and lost his.”

“Better him than us,” Tychus said bluntly, then

added, “and better he died the way he did than the

way the other souls on that station probably died.”

That, Jim had no answer for.

Tychus grunted, rubbed his face, and sat up,

looking more like his old self again. “Now we gotta

ditch this ship and acquire another one, and we need

to do it fast. Deadman’s Port is just a jump away. I say

we go there.”

Jim was silent.

Tychus continued. “Deadman’s Port is—”

“I know what it is,” Jim snapped. “And I know who

runs it.”

He was pissed, and for a lot of reasons, not just

because Tychus thought he didn’t know about the

place. Everyone knew about Deadman’s Port. It had

been around for a long time, in one incarnation or

another, but always it had been a place for hiding out,

conducting dark business, and watching your back

even when you were with your friends.

Deadman’s Port was a major city—if you could cal

it that—located on the planet known as, logical y

enough, Deadman’s Rock. The place was a dumping

ground and scrap yard that made the one they had

just left look like a fine town house in Tarsonis City.

Bars, gambling hal s, brothels, and drug dens had

sprung up among the rusting metal husks of long-

abandoned ships and vehicles, like vermin finding

hidey-holes in humanity’s litter. Little was permanent,

except the fact that wherever you went on the place,

you could find something il egal, il icit, il -gotten, or il -

advised.

And the man who ran it was the king of slimebal s.

Scutter O’Banon.

He thought longingly of Wicked Wayne’s, of Misty

and of Evangelina, of the good booze and cheerful

laughter and comfortable beds. He wondered if it

would ever be safe for him to return.

“Jimmy, we got Ezekiel Daun on our tail,” Tychus

said with exaggerated patience, interrupting Jim’s

brooding. “I know you ain’t too keen on O’Banon, and I

know my bringing it up makes you sore and al , but the

man does have a very wide sphere of influence. I’d go

a long way and do a great many things to have Daun

quit sniffing around for me. And if you don’t agree

after what you saw back there”—he jerked a thumb

over his shoulder in a quick, harsh gesture—“then you

are just plumb crazy.”

Jim thought about it. Getting another message from

Myles had made him uneasy. He didn’t much care for

the idea of not finding out at least what the situation

was.

And then in his mind’s eye he saw Daun in his

duster, white teeth grinning through his goatee,

cybernetic arm catching the light. He saw the

hologram of his friend getting strangled and a bloody,

silvery hand punching through a man’s chest.

A shudder shivered through him. Tychus was right:

if Myles real y needed him, he’d send another

message on the fone, and Jim would know it was truly

urgent.

Until then …

“Tel me the coordinates for Deadman’s Port.” Jim

sighed.

DEADMAN’S PORT, DEADMAN’S

ROCK

It was, quite possibly, the single ugliest place Jim

had ever seen. A sickly gray haze hung over

everything, raw and malodorous and thick. The “port,”

as it were, was little more than a cleared-off area.

Dul -eyed men let them land and not very subtly

examined the freighter. Tychus indicated that said

freighter might just be for sale. An offensively low offer

was made. Tychus stated that the men had prostitutes

for mothers and suggested a much higher price.

Another slightly less offensive offer was made. Tychus

and Jim shrugged, took the credits, and off they went.

Whereas most planets had trees, this place had

rusted-out ships dotting the “landscape,” with venues

for traffic haphazardly weaving in and out of them.

Vermin, animal and human, scuttled about furtively.

Prostitutes made lewd propositions. They looked