[02] Elite: Nemorensis Read Online Free Page B

for an instant, drawing back from the battered yacht like wings, then died away. SixJen didn’t bother asking Lex about life signs. If she’d miscalculated, if the fugitive was dead, she would have known it already.
    ‘We got range?’ she whispered, unable to stop herself glancing down at her left arm. The seven scars.
    ‘Surely do. At current drift … let’s see … closest pass is in three minutes. Out of range four after that.’ Lex, as ever, sounded inappropriately chipper. ‘You want me to start sl—’
    ‘Just stand by. I say the word and we go hot. All the way hot.’
    ‘Yep. We got some more comm-traffic out there, by the way.’
    ‘Let’s hear it.’
    A shrill sound expanded into the cockpit, so abrupt and abrasive SixJen autotwitched for her pistol.
    Screaming
.
    Something akin to panic, muffled deep down, swarmed into her.
She’s hurt! She’s dying! How does it work if she just bleeds to d—
    She stopped herself. Listened a little closer to the voice.
    Yes: unmistakably female, and yes: unmistakably shrieking. But …
    (Lex sniggered out loud.)
    But not in pain
.
    SixJen cleared her throat. ‘They’re … they’re broadcasting this at the Cobra?’
    ‘Uh-huh. They got no idea we’re intercepting. Heh … Excitable little thing, isn’t she? Oh, wait, here we go, matey’s just opened a line too …’
    Another voice. The same scrambled pomp-merchant mercenary who’d announced his arrival with such fanfare before.
    ‘Occupants of … occupants of the
Shattergeist
…’ it said, all but drowned by the shrieks. Even SixJen, generally blind to behavioural nuance, could hear the man’s awkwardness. ‘A-as a licensed agent of the Pilot’s Federation I’m … I’m here to claim a bounty placed on … on …’
    The orgasmic cries modulated down into something more akin to the mewing of a hysterical cat. SixJen thought she could make out a deeper voice behind it, grunting along in time.
    ‘Look,’ said the bounty hunter. ‘Look, if you could … if you’d just stop that for a second and listen, I’d …’
    ‘
Oh ffffuuuuuuuuuuckhereitcomesagaaaaainnn
—’
    ‘I’m … I’m trying to throw you a lifeline, you little shits! The P.F.’s got six grand on you – cuffed or carrion. I’m just … I’m just thinking maybe you send me on my way with … with a …’
    SixJen permitted herself a single, professional nod.
Smelling money.
    But the fugitives either weren’t listening or didn’t care.
    ‘Last chance!’ the merc hissed, frustration bubbling through the scrambler. ‘I have a three-ton plasmic warhead
right here
, and unless y—’
    SixJen killed the signal with a flicker.
Heard enough
.
    Took a deep breath.
    ‘Lex?’
    ‘Present.’
    Another breath.
Hold it. Try to feel it.
    (
Try to feel
anything.)
    Pointless.
    ‘Go hot.’
    The
The
awoke around her. Stabilisers shields sensors guns guns
guns
every every
everything
all at once, whirring and rushing to life. A vituperative ghost casting off its sheets. A baleful red heat-return winking open on her enemies’ screens.
    ‘Kill him.’
    The rush
. The fuming ragesounds of munitions ripping from pods, tubes venting lancets of compact hell. (There was a time she’d found this part thrilling.)
    Now she just sniffed and fiddled with the flechette.
    In the end the Bounty Hunter lasted less than a minute. In all the startled confusion of a newly emerged threat (she imagined him swearing and stumbling, alarms croaking, lights blaring, struggling to reorient and respond) he barely got off a single shot. His cannons were still incandescent from the dogfight, his railguns left stupidly unloaded, his shields still coughing from the debris collision. He’d thought himself alone. Alone with a defenceless victim, a single fucknormous Killkure™ missile and no need to consider anything else.
    The
The
had flickered to life behind his back like a piece of scenery, some dreary inanimate
nothing
safely disregarded, and spat fiery poison