Halcyon Nights (Star Sojourner Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

my account last time I looked. Your prices are a bit steep.” I started toward her. “How are you going to explain this when I tell the dons you're hustling customers?”
    Fear! Again. Stronger this time.
    It stopped me. A door had been thrown open between my mind and the outside world and I was powerless to shut it.
    A large wall mirror rumbled back, exposed a camera and the sickly pimp from the bar. Behind him a brawny tag with a naked paunch hanging over his fur pants leaned forward to peer at me.
    “Where the hell were you, you two dumb fucks?” April shouted. “I was caught in that dream!”
    “Hey,” the fur-clad tag responded, “you shoulda told us you needed help.”
    “You should've anticipated it!” she shot back.
    Pushy bitch!
    It was not my thought. I glanced at the furred tag.
    He was glowering at April. “You're the one said you could handle two like him. An easy vinewrap, remember? Only he's going to the dons, so now what?”
    I backed to the door. I didn't see how they could use my personal card. It still needed my retinal scan as a backup. Still, if they wanted it that badly, they must have found a way to forge it for a withdrawal. I could stop payment from a sidewalk autocomp, providing I made it to a sidewalk. But I couldn't resist asking as I opened the door. “Just one thing, April.”
    She stared at me, hair clinging to her sweaty cheeks.
    “Which loser's your husband?”
    “Both!” She spat as I went out the door. “Get him, you dumb grassmoles, before he gibbers to the dons!”
    Heavy footsteps behind me. I stumbled down the stairs with a hand on the banister, still shaky from that alien dream…encounter. I decided against the lobby, sprinted to the fire door and threw it open.
    The bastards were cranking up the drawbridge!
    I felt like a holostage swashbuckler as I ran up the rattling bridge, leaped, cleared the moat and rolled onto grass with an eyeball-jarring thud.
    Someone shouted “Stop!” from behind me. If I wanted to stop, I wouldn't be running. Shots! A flash of hot light seared a low rock wall as I vaulted it. I ventured a quick look back and saw a rad at a window lift his stingler and fire again. I threw up an arm as grass and dirt flamed to my right, and raced for my hovair.
    My hand shook as I thumbprinted the vehicle's lock and realized I'd left the window open. I threw open the door and tried to jump in. Tickbag, the dog from the bar, was curled comfortably on the driver's seat. “Move, you dumb son of a bitch!”
    He yelped as I shoved him off the seat. I prayed as I started the motor and taxied across bumpy ground. If that rad managed to hit the vehicle's batteries with his stingler –
    Tickbag scurried to the rear of the craft. The fur-clad tag jogged across the lowered bridge. In the moonlight I caught the glint of something long and heavy over his shoulder. A missile launcher! April and the pimp followed.
    I hit boosters, lunged skyward. Beneath me the trio set up their weapon. ”Shit!” I exclaimed as an explosion rocked the hovair. Below me, a boulder on a hill did a million years of eroding in a second that was very split. Tickbag whined and slid across the metal floor, his claws trying to dig in as we tore into the night sky. I felt his fear as another layer of my own. The comp corrected for buffeting winds as I made a dash for the other side of a hill. I flicked on my console screen and saw people swarm to their air vehicles on the Flats below. Six sets of headlights lifted and followed me as I headed for the hills. I switched my screen to nightvis, scanned, found a tight box canyon and dived into it. Too bad the ship's sensors couldn't see around corners! Too bad it wasn't equipped with a satellite tracking link. I checked rear visuals. The lights swooped down behind me. Those rads had the oysters for this box canyon, all right!
    “Follow this!” I muttered, flew a nape-of-the-earth line inside the canyon, saw moon-silvered boulders and pine trees rush