Free Stardogs by Dave Freer Page A

slightly shaking hands the footman wrote out the Princess’s itinerary. If he got out of here alive he turn over a new leaf… Then he thought of the reward he’d been promised. He licked his lips again.
    Salvatore took the list to the others at the table. The Dakada smuggler got up and looked at it. “It checks. Well, we can get your men the berths. Their stuff will have to come on at the Barhain II stopover. We own that shift of customs.”
    “Well, Sam?”
    The small man nodded. “Fine by me, San.”
    “And your men, Georgio?”
    “Blower Yu and Turk Osman. I’m giving you my best, Sal. I’ll have to pull them off somet’ing else, but like you say, if we can pull this one off…”
    The bald, ultraviolet-dried elderly man who had said nothing so far allowed his straight-line mouth to twitch into the semblance of a smile that didn’t extend as far as his eyes. He was from the asteroid miner’s union, and crucial to their plans. He was also wary. “We’ll be there, Carranzio-Heiki. We’ll have a ship waiting when they pop out of surf. Your boys’ll have maybe twenty minutes to get control, dump the barge and get us to jump instead. Maybe two hundred years ago, before the League set up their sector system, the dogs used to jump New Sahara - Caladar IV all the time. In all the rocks in the Caldahar System we can disappear for as long as need be.”
    Sal flicked a glance to Sam. The Union man had said too much in front of that footman. Well, he was about past being useful anyway.
    The spy shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Well… I’ve done it. Now, my money, and… and that boy, er, Mr Carranzio, Sir?” He licked his lips again, greed and other unpleasant desires overcoming his fear.
    “Sam’ll sort you out.”
    A week later they fished his body out of the sewers. His face, teeth and hands had been carefully mutilated. Sometimes the Yak didn’t like their victims being quickly identifiable.

    The Emperor sat, fat and impassive, and listened to his willowy, almond-eyed security chief.
    Selim Puk smiled cruelly. “They’ve taken it hook, line and sinker, my liege.
    “The Yak are implicated beyond doubt?”
    “Absolutely. I have names, dates, places. I lost a witness, unfortunately. That fool footman heard too much from Wright…the asteroid miner’s man. But we can do without a footman. One of the others will crack, when they see I know everything.”
    “It is one of your better plots, Selim. At one stroke we discredit the League, dispose of Shari and give me reason to crack down on the Yak, hard. They’ve been getting above themselves.”
    “And, if all goes according to plan, we have a Stardog of our own, beyond League control.”
    “Yes. But that depends on the agents in place. How do you rate this Brettan?”
    “Greedy, my Liege. Greedy, aging and impatient.”
    “And he is definitely not in League pay?” The fat-folds around the emperor’s eyes crinkled.
    “Definitely not. He has a deep grudge, a deep and a real one. If it were not for the League he would be a wealthy man. A very wealthy man. His older sister married a Leaguesman. One of Wienan’s, no less. She had a falling out with them, and tried to run away, with her child, more the fool her.”
    “Stupid. They might have let her get away, but not with a half-Wienan child,” said Turabi, with the clinical assessment of a master of dynastic elimination.
    Selim Puk snorted. “Jan-Pieter was brutally thorough, as usual. The young Viscount was in the Imperial Space Navy at the time, on a long patrol, which is why he didn’t get taken out too. The family purge was most thorough otherwise, and the purge of their assets left our Viscount literally destitute when he came home. Anyway, I’ve had him sent for. He should be here any minute now.” On cue there was a knock at the heavy door.
    “Enter.”
    Captain Viscount Martin Brettan’s nerves shrieked as he passed the bodyguards. He hoped it didn’t show. An audience with Selim