StarCraft II: Devils' Due (4 page)

ounce. And while Tychus did break a sweat and the

veins stood out on his neck as he lifted and pushed

the huge piece of furniture, he nonetheless managed

to move it slowly and steadily onto the back of

Raynor’s vulture. Jim would sit directly in front of it.

Jim tried to help, but he did little more than guide the

jukebox and quickly strap it down. Together, they

heaved the now-useless dol y off the side.

Tychus stepped back. “First round of drinks at

Wayne’s is on you, buddy. Now let’s haul ass.”

With that, he mounted his own vulture. Raynor

glanced back at the jukebox, marveled at his own

stubborn foolishness, and fol owed.

The chase was old hat. But they had never let Butler

and his posse get this close to them before, and

Raynor had never had a three-hundred-plus-pound

jukebox on his hoverbike before, and he was alarmed

at how much it slowed him. Too, the credits strapped

to his back made balance even more precarious.

Findlay was already a rapidly disappearing speck in

the distance. His voice crackled in Jim’s ear over the

comm.

“I said haul ass, not drag it.”

“I am,” Raynor replied.

Tychus said something that would blister paint off

the wal , and Jim saw his friend curve to the right and

come back. “I’m going to draw them off and give you

a chance to get some distance, Grandma. What the

hel are you going to do with that thing?”

“The cave,” Jim said, referencing the place where

they had first caught sight of the maglev. “It goes

pretty deep, and it’s in the middle of fekking

nowhere.”

“I’l meet you there. If that thing fal s on you, though, I

ain’t coming back for you.”

“Oh yes, you wil ,” Raynor said. “I stil got a shitload

of Confederate credits on me.”

Tychus chuckled and gave Jim a one-fingered

salute as he roared past him and in the direction of

Butler’s posse. Raynor returned the salute and

headed off as fast as his overburdened vulture would

take him.

Tychus was not an incautious man. Even when he

seemed reckless to others, he knew exactly what he

was doing. But he also enjoyed having a little fun with

fate from time to time, and now seemed to be a pretty

good opportunity.

He grinned, imagining the confusion that was going

through Butler’s mind as he headed
back
in their

direction, then veered sharply to the left. And he

laughed out loud as they al came to a screeching halt

and scrambled to change direction in order to fol ow

him. He heard shots, but they went wide; no one was

going to be able to aim for at least a few seconds,

and by that point he’d be leading them on a merry

chase.

For al his joking with Jim about Wilkes Butler,

Findlay knew the man was never to be taken lightly.

Once you started underestimating the enemy, that

was when he pul ed something that got you kil ed. One

hoverbike had already recovered and was barreling

down at him. That was, Tychus suspected, the good

marshal himself.

Tychus and Raynor had scouted out this locale for

several kilometers around. While he did not quite

know it like the back of his hand, Tychus suspected

he was more familiar with it than Butler, and headed

southwest to where he knew a nice little obstacle

course would present itself.

Here in the New Sydney badlands, ravines,

canyons, and the tower-like formations colorful y

known as “hoodoos” were everywhere. The route

Tychus took now was an alternate one he and Jim

had scouted out and dismissed once they found the

cave and the coolness it provided. It was twisted,

convoluted, and dangerous—and therefore exactly

what Tychus was looking for.

“Any sign of pursuit?” Tychus asked Jim.

“Nope,” came Raynor’s voice. “Looks like you got

them al fol owing you.”

Tychus slowed down slightly, just enough to tease

his pursuers with the hope that they might actual y

catch him, and then took them to an open area where

dozens of long, jagged hoodoos erupted from the

earth. He drove straight toward one, veering at the

last second. Butler’s men were good: they missed the

stone pil ar.

This time.

They weren’t so lucky the third time Tychus made a

seemingly suicidal run at one, veering at the last

minute. Two of Butler’s men were fol owing too closely

and col ided spectacularly as they awkwardly

attempted to avoid the rock. One of the bikes slid into

the eons-old rock formation. A huge chunk toppled

free and a third hoverbike narrowly avoided it, only to

lose control and go spinning into the dirt.

Four more were stil coming. Tychus lost one of

them zipping in and out among the columns, and

another when he led them straight for a dramatic

drop-off, swerving at the last minute. He took the

curve too fast, however, and found himself staring at a

sheer rock wal . Swearing, Tychus leaped off the

vulture scant seconds before it slammed into the

stone. He hit the sunbaked earth hard enough to have

the wind knocked out of him, but not hard enough to

injure himself or—perhaps more importantly—

dislodge the credit-laden pack strapped onto his

back, and came up with his AGR-14 in his hands.

Gunfire spattered erratical y around him. Findlay

dove for the cover offered by a huge boulder and fired

the rifle, taking down one of the two remaining

vultures. The man leaped out of harm’s way but did

not land as wel as Tychus did, and as the final vulture

came to a stop and there was a sudden silence in the

hot air, Tychus heard the wounded man swearing.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Tychus warned as

the man seated on the remaining intact vulture

pointed a pistol at him.

“Tychus Findlay,” said Marshal Wilkes Butler. He

didn’t lower the weapon. Tychus didn’t lower his. They

stared at each other.

This was not the first time the two men had found

themselves in this position. Wilkes Butler was in his

early forties, of middling height and build. He was

almost entirely ordinary looking except for a thick

head of glossy black hair, a magnificent mustache

that almost completely hid his mouth, and absolutely

piercing blue eyes. Now he wore a helmet with a visor

that hid both black hair and blue eyes, and the gun

didn’t waver.

“Wilkes Butler,” Tychus rumbled in return.

“Where’s your buddy?”

“Nowhere you need to worry about,” Tychus replied.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it mighty hot

out here. I could use a shower and a woman or two

and a cold beer or three. Maybe you can go rustle up

some iced tea or something.”

“You’ve stayed a step ahead of the law for too

long,” Butler said. “If you’re so hot, I know a nice shady

prison cel for you.”

Tychus sighed, brought the rifle over toward the stil -

swearing but living man, and planted a single spike

between his legs a scant two inches from his crotch.

The man squealed and scooted backward, an action

that simply produced more pain.

“I missed,” Tychus said. “I won’t miss again. You

shoot me, my finger convulses—your man is dead. Or

else without some equipment I think he’l miss right

badly.”

Tychus saw the muscles in Butler’s jaw clench and

could almost hear the man’s teeth grinding together.

After a moment, he lowered the gun. Tychus made a

beckoning gesture, and the marshal tossed the gun—

careful y—in Tychus’s direction.

“I always said you was smarter than you looked,”

Tychus said. “Off the bike, and slowly. Mine seems to

have met with a mishap.”

Butler obeyed, his eyes looking daggers. With the

rifle, Tychus waved him back to stand over near the

wounded man, who, if he wasn’t imagining things,

looked grateful at having been spared death or a fate

worse than.

“Thank you kindly, Marshal,” Tychus said, straddling

the vulture. “Nice bike you got here.”

Without another word, Tychus roared off into the

distance. A scant second later, he heard shots being

fired, but they went wide. He grinned and turned the

bike back toward the cave where he would

rendezvous with Raynor.

“Busted your darling yet?” he asked Jim as he

approached.

“Nope,” came Jim’s voice in his ear through the

link. “Waiting for you to unload it, you big ox. What’s

taking you so long?”

“Had to change bikes. You intent upon keeping that

antiquated music box?”

“Hel yeah. I’m coming back for her. I got a feeling

she’s going to come in real handy one day.”

“You know what’s handy?” Tychus said. “A shitload

of credits to buy beer, cigars, and women.”

“You got me there.”

TARSONIS CITY, TARSONIS

Tarsonis was the habitat of the rich and famous,

of captains of industry, of scientific geniuses and

political masterminds. The gleaming towers of its

capital rose proudly, glittering structures whose lines

were elegant and harmonious. They created an

unparal eled skyline, representing the pinnacle of the

Confederacy’s technology: not just a city, but a super-

city. This was where deals—of al varieties—were

struck, and where someone emerged flush with

victory and someone went home licking his wounds,

only to come back for another round. Any new fashion,

event, or technology was seen and applauded and

courted first here by the Old Families of the

Confederacy. Tarsonis in al its splendor was in its

own way not quite real: a high-tech toyland where

fortunes were lost and made daily and al could be

mended with the right wine, or cigar, or drug, or

whispered word. The very air of Tarsonis City—so

unimaginatively named by the Old Families, who were

not particularly imaginative themselves—capital of the

planet, seemed to thrum with power and felt thick with

intrigue.

There was, as was true of al things, a shadow side

to the shining city. There were slums, and al eys, and

people lying in them. Some were even alive. They had

no beautiful homes with verandas, no servants. They

did not dine on expensive imported food; sometimes

they did not dine at al . In a place cal ed the Gutter—a

slum that ran beneath most of the shining city, even

under the senate building, Nagglfar Hal , its marble-

columned glory lit as brightly as if it were midday—

there was filth, and death, and malice. Tarsonis was

as ugly as it was glorious.

An elderly, white-haired man strode down the steps

of Nagglfar Hal with a briskness that belied his years.

Hale and tanned, with the practiced smile of the

lifetime politician, Senator Westyn MacMasters

emerged from its hal owed depths. He waved genial y

to the throngs assembled as if they were old friends,

even though they were separated from him by lines of

Special Service agents who wore expressions that

indicated they didn’t give a damn about the

forthcoming speech, only about protecting their

charge. As MacMasters approached the podium

decorated with the crest of the stars and bars of the

Terran Confederacy, there were stil more lights:

those of cameras filming the event. A band was

playing the Confederate anthem, “To the Eternal Glory

of the Confederacy,” and doing so rather wel . It

finished to great applause, and MacMasters smiled

out at the crowd before beginning his speech.

The man in the window of the building kitty-corner to

the senate building knew Tarsonis City wel . He had

lived there until his late teens, viewing the city from a

private terrace of a sixty-three-room mansion.

His name had once been Ark Bennet, son of Errol

Bennet, of the Old Family Bennets, and he knew the

man who was currently in his sights had dinner with

him, played with his two sons. But the man in the

window, who blinked steadily, regulated his breathing

and practical y his heartbeat as his world slowed

down, was no longer that privileged, impossibly

sheltered young man.

As a teenager, straining against the constrictions