Hellflower (v1.1) by Eluki bes Shahar Read Free Book Online

noke-ma’ashki alMayne!"
    He might not of known what the words meant, but he sure followed the tune. He had The Knife Worth A Afterlife out and pointing at me, which did not bother me half as much as the fusion-cutter did.
    "Butterfly!" Paladin shouted in my ear. Tiggy took a step toward me. I wondered if that thing could slice as well as he obviously thought it could.
    "Not now," I suggested without hope. They both ignored me: "The plans I have of that level of the Justiciary show an air vent leading out of Storage and Receivables that should get you past the sealed section. And if you keep talking to the alMayne like that you won’t have to attempt it-you’ll be dead."
    Thank you, Paladin. "Death is least of my worries," I said aloud. On the other hand, Paladin did have a point.
    "Look here, hellflower, how’d you like to live and grow old and raise up a whole garden of ‘flowers instead of buying real estate?" Tiggy continued looking earnest. Fusion-cutter continued upping the ambient temperature in Dead Storage by leaps and boggles. Paladin continued wringing his hands in my ear.
    "We can get out through vents. There’s one in here-see? And you look skinny enough to fit."
    But oddly enough Tiggy Stardust did not look like escape was high on his list of life goals. I said how ‘flowers drop everything for a good old honor-bashing session, and here I was getting one free for nothing. The fusion-cutter was just about in with us, the door was as pink and glowing as an Imperial sub-lieutenant, and I gave up and decided it was time to play ace-king-trump.
    "Saved your life, o’noblyborn — at least you should have the good manners to cooperate in your own rescue."
    That got him. He looked real pained-not as fried as me for having had to push his honor buttons but miffed all the same-and put his sacred ferrous oxide butter-spreader away.
    "Very well, chaudatu. I will cooperate. What is it that you wish?"
    "The damn air vent. It’s got to be around here somewheres, and then you an me can—" There it was-about halfway up the wall and probably just as hard to get the grille off as the last one was. "Can climb wall, ace cover off vent?"
    He looked up, nodded, and went back to glaring at me with pellucid raptor-blue eyes. Damn but don’t I love having cannon-fodder to do the heavy work.
    "So do it. And get in. I’ll follow you." I turned my attention to covering our retreat.
    ###
    The legitimates should of been a tad bit more cautious. I mean, the confiscated weaponry in Dead Storage would do credit to an Imperial Armory, and a whole lot of it was catch-traps and explosives of one flavor or another.
    I climbed up a .cabinet using the open drawers for footholds and played ringtoss with some grenades for hoops and the door for a spindle. By now the door was yellow-white. The grenades stuck, and a mo ment later they blew, and I fell off the cabinet but rallied dazzling-like in time to catch a glimpse of Wanderweb Guardsmen in full powered armor lying in a tangled heap around their fusion-cutter. Then it was up in the sky junior birdmen time for yours truly, and being dragged up a wall by a cross hellflower with your lungs full of caustic perdition is another experience I don’t recommend.
    ###
    "Hellflower?" I said to some of Tiggy’s more interesting backbones a while later.
    "Ea, chaudatu?"
    "You can shoot organics now."
    "Thank you, chaudatu. "
    I figured by now that my choices on Wanderweb was death or lifecontract slavery, so it didn’t really matter now how many people I shot on the rest of the way out. Over the RTS Paladin was getting as close to using harsh language as he ever had, saying how I should of dusted Love’s Young Dream about six firefights ago, that I thought with my internal organs, that Wanderweb Free Port was going borneo trying to figure out what was going on, and, oh yes, I’d started a nice oxy-fire on the Admin level I’d just left and had I thought about how I was going to get to the lift to