Fair Prey - Star Wars Gamer #1 Read online

Noone reached the zenith, looked down at a sheer three-meter drop, and jumped. He hit the surface and a chuff of air involuntarily escaped his lips. Strangely, the ground looked artificially smooth and sounded hollow. Noone advanced several paces, saw another, shorter drop, and hopped down.

  He'd been standing on a cage. The solid durasteel sheets composing the rear and sides were partially buried, but the front-a wide panel of tightly meshed squares-was fully exposed. Realizing he had to keep moving but curious in spite of himself, Noone placed his face up to the grid and peered inside.

  Something slammed against the door with a crash and a sizzle. Terrified, Noone took a step backward, tripped on a stone, and landed flat on his backside. The thing retreated into the darkness at the rear of the box as angry yellow sparks played across the surface of the mesh.

  A force cage. Designed to deliver an incapacitating stun shock to any prisoner who attempted escape. Noone had seen plenty of them throughout his lifetime and had even been locked inside one during a disastrous early burglary. The standard factory installed locks were fairly easy to defeat.

  He stood and placed one hand safely against the interlacing bars. The shock charge in a force cage was projected across the interior surface only. The caged beast stirred and turned its head-if one could call it a head-in his direction.

  It was a lamproid. The other lamproid, Noone reminded himself, the female that Viveca was arrogantly saving for future venery. The primitive creature was utterly hideous, a parasitic intestinal worm that nature had insanely blessed with a colossal frame and a predator's instincts. Its oily gray skin was blemished with crosshatched electrical burns. The floor of the narrow enclosure swam with fetid animal waste, blood, and bile.

  The lamproid drew its barbed face up to the mesh, across from Noone's palm. The metallic grid began to hum dangerously but the creature stopped short of the crippling stun field. A tiny wet filament curled from between two yellowed fangs and quivered in the air as if sampling Noone's scent. Abruptly the appendage retracted. The beast reared back and seemed to take careful stock of its visitor.

  A bothersome itch attacked the nape of Noone's neck. He raised his good arm to scratch until he realized the tickle was emanating from inside his skull. The creeping sensation slowly spread across the top half of his brain as if probing for a way inside. He stared back at the lamproid, fascinated. Telepathy, or something else?

  The tingling grew stronger, more insistent, until it felt as if a flapping moon moth had crawled in his ear and become trapped in his cranium. An instant later, twin streaks of warmth shot from the top of his spine and the fingertips of his left hand. Both streams followed bone and converged at his shoulder, generating a hot glow that made a slow turn around the injured joint. Noone was dimly aware of his pulse pounding.

  The alien perception gently withdrew, and with it went most of Noone's pain. Astonished, he held up his arm and made a fist. Fresh blood oozed from the puncture wounds and glistened on the soiled bandages. Oops. That didn't heal it, just made it easier to bear. He pressed down on the dressings and looked back at his benefactor. "Uh .., thanks. Thank you."

  The lamproid didn't move. Noone felt an uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes, like the onset of a sinus headache. Words leapt unbidden to his tongue.

  "You have to get out of there."

  More pressure.

  "I will open this door:'

  A gentle yank carried Noone over to the lock. His consciousness watched from a faraway place as his hands fumbled with his multitool and extended the hole punch. Child's play. A simple jig in the input slot disabled the stun field; a thrust-and-lift unlatched the bolt. The door swung open with a squeak.

  Still unsure what had just transpired, Noone watched as the lamproid vanished into the undergrowth.

  The nashtah strained at the leash. Its six taloned paws dug eagerly at the moist soil as it snuffled a heap of fallen leaves. Picking up the scent, the animal raised its chunky head and bayed with perfect joy. The howl cut off in a strangled urf as Viveca jerked on the taut lead. "Heel!" he barked.

  The forest zone had ended. Ahead of them, in an abrupt, obviously unnatural division, stretched the boulder zone. Thousands of titanic rocks lay piled in a vast jumble, some stacked atop one another like children's building blocks, others scattered randomly as if dropped from orbit. The hunt would be more difficult from here, but only slightly. Viveca doubted his prey had the sense to seek out the underground cave networks he had modeled after Trammic mome warrens, even though the entrances were obvious and they offered excellent cover. No, Noone would surely keep to the same straight-line path he'd followed thus far. It was a pity his landscape contractor hadn't gotten around to installing the spewing lava spouts.

  Viveca wrapped the nashtah's leash around his left wrist and transferred his heavy blaster rifle to the same hand. Wordlessly, he held out his empty palm. Rutt, the Houk manservant, removed a datapad-sized tracking device from his overstuffed equipment pack and handed it to his master.

  The Rodian Hunter-Trainer drone system was proving a major disappointment. Viveca tapped a command into the device and read the scrolling data. Two of the droids had found nothing, one had returned to the manor to fix its faulty repulsorlift engine, one was stuck in a stranglethorn patch not more than a klick from here, and the last - well, that one appeared to have vanished entirely. He would certainly have words with his Rodian arms dealer when they next crossed paths.

  Sometimes, the Krish decided, it was impossible to beat a trained Dravian hound, a loyal porter, and an afternoon of fresh air. The old ways were still the best.

  Still glancing at the drones' status report, Viveca shook the nashtah's leash and clicked his tongue. The animal leapt up and jubilantly pulled forward, clambering over the first column of stones. Viveca smiled. It was often difficult to follow a scent over rocky terrain, but Noone had been leaking blood ever since the onset of the forest tract. A spiked branch! Oh, it was rich. For someone to assume he would be taken in by such a prank was laughable; for the trap to backfire on such a person was hilarious. The final confrontation would be a delight. Well, Mr. Noone, it appears the hunt is at an end...much like your life. No, he wanted something snappy, something memorable. A merry chase, Mr. Noone, but -

  A dark twist erupted from the rocks ahead and shot forward with a sonic crack. Faster than the eye could follow, the attenuated blur launched itself at Rutt, who was standing directly in its path. In the same instant a loop of tight coils swung toward the startled nashtah like a hangman's noose.

  Viveca's breath seized in his throat and he let the datascreen fall from his fingers.

  One end of the indistinct attacker reached Rutt's chest and kept moving in a clean surgical stab through multiple layers of bone and cartilage. A barbed tail emerged from the center of the field backpack fleshed wetly in the light, and withdrew before Rutt's reflexes could mount a response. The Houk's hands went belatedly to the hole in his hart and his knees buckled.

  Viveca shifted his blaster rifle to his right hand and started to bring the nose up.

  The furious tangle wrapped around the nashtah and exploded outward, snapping the leash and propelling the yipping hound into the air. A severed leg spun crazily toward the treeline.

  Viveca brought the weapon to bear and readied a shot. With a boiling hiss, the creature fell upon him.

  Heaving rings of flesh enveloped the Krish with lightning speed and pitiless strength. The monster looped around his torso - pinning his gun arm - and brought its razor-toothed mouth forward in a predatory death strike. Viveca's left hand shot up and intercepted the demon's head just centimeters from the soft folds of his jugular area.

  The two stood locked in a silent combat of wills. Viveca's fingers dug into the beast's hot skin while its coils shifted and flowed along his body. The vice-hold on his blaster faltered and the Krish nearly yanked his weapon free. In response, the muscular rings clamped down and tightened their suffocating grip. The nightmare face drew closer, its ri
ngs of shredder teeth churning, and a quivering drop of clouded venom beaded at the tip of one fang. Viveca's arm shuddered with exertion.

  Letting loose a tormented grunt, Viveca budged the laser cannon one centimeter, then another. The serpentine horror constricted still further. The blaster continued to work loose in tiny jerks. Viveca felt an unbearable pressure building inside his skull.

  With a final, agonized wrench, the Mark II came free. Realizing its sudden peril, the beast loosened its coils and brought its tail stinger back for an eviscerating swipe at its enemy's belly. Something popped inside Viveca's brain and a trickle of blood ran from his nostril.

  His grip didn't slacken. Viveca placed the rifle's wide barrel against the creature's chin and fired.

  A roar of energy immolated the organic chunk and streaked up to the sky as a pillar of flame. The headless corpse went limp and Viveca dropped it to the ground. A pathetic finger of smoke wafted up from the ash-cauterized stump that had once been a neck.

  Disgusted, Viveca kicked the lamproid's motionless remains. The struggle had cost him a trophy head.

  From somewhere behind the nearest cluster of stone blocks the nashtah growled and barked with pain. Rutt lay facedown in the gravel and, by the looks of the exit wound, would never stir again.

  A manservant dead, a hound crippled, a lamproid wasted, and a perfectly splendid afternoon spoiled. Viveca's eyes smoldered.

  Noone had a great deal to answer for.

  Whatever magic elixir the lamproid had willed into his shoulder had a pretty weak duration time. Or perhaps the numbing effect lessened with distance. Either way, the joint was throbbing as painfully as ever when Noone entered the jungle zone.

  Bambooi reeds sprouted from the spongy soil in close bundles often or more. Other stalks, apparently a different breed, had diameters in excess of sixty centimeters at the base and spread into four tapering branches as they fought for the sky. The thicket stretched several meters above his head and swayed slightly as a breeze rustled the trembling clusters of starburst leaves. In some spots, the shoots grew so closely together that forward passage was impossible. Noone weaved through the gaps wherever they appeared and kept one eye on the position of the sun. He was forced to double back on his course four times in the first twenty minutes and was much relieved when, after a frustrating fifth dead end, he stumbled across what looked like a trail.

  The path, little more than a meter wide, ran in a relative straight line directly on the heading he needed to follow. Amazed at his good fortune, Noone broke into a weary jog.

  A sudden thought brought him up short. Why was there a trail here? It was far too clean to be a natural result of the bambooi's growth pattern. Since Viveca had engineered his hunting grounds to his personal specifications, he must also have designed this trail. And Viveca wasn't the type to make things easy for his playthings.

  Cautiously, Noone crept forward, scanning the ground and the shoots on each side for anything that looked out of place. After he'd gone a short distance without incident, the path abruptly doubled in width. He stopped before a small circular clearing. The path continued on its opposite edge.

  The perfect spot for a booby trap. The soil at the edge of the clearing looked rough and disturbed, and the dead reeds piled at the center appeared to have been cut with a vibroblade. Though Noone had never encountered one in life, every child who'd ever read an adventure serial was familiar with a Ralltiir tiger pit.

  Noone chuckled. He, at least, was no fool. Backtracking several paces, he began searching for a gap in the reed clusters that would allow him to bypass the entire clearing. Moving quickly - for perhaps the covered pit was designed to slow him down as much as catch him - he squeezed between two stalks and picked his way forward.

  Considering he'd left the main thoroughfare, the way was surprisingly easy going. It almost seemed as if he'd found an overgrown game run. The thought didn't reassure him, and he considered striking back for the main path. He should be past the trap by now...

  One step brought him up to the edge of a tiny pocket clearing; the second step carried him inside it before he could stop himself. Immediately, an invisible hand yanked him to the flat ground with such savagery his teeth shoveled a spray of dirt down the back of his throat.

  What happened? Noone raised his head, spat out the gritty mouthful, and came to the sickening realization that he couldn't move the rest of his body. He'd been paralyzed. The impact had ruptured his spinal column.

  Hold on, Noone reminded himself. No need to panic. His bleak diagnosis must be flawed, since he could clearly see his fingers twitching. He swept both forearms back and forth across the soil then wiggled his feet experimentally. A distant rustle answered him.

  Not paralysis, then. But something was pinning his thighs and torso to the ground with an inhuman strength. It felt as if an industrial freight hauler had parked on his back.

  With a groan, he realized the truth. A man trap. A one-meter square metal slab rigged with gravfield generators. Unlike standard repulsorlifts, which pushed against a planet's mass and allowed landspeeders to float, grav generators intensified the local gravity by a factor of eight. Once seized by a man trap, not even a Wookiee could fight his way free.

  But it couldn't hurt to try. A sustained push with his palms gained him nothing and brought about further agony in his injured left arm. Inexplicably, the relatively minor effort left him unable to draw a breath. Noone quickly tried to remember everything he'd heard or read about man traps.

  The news wasn't encouraging. Though advertised as a safe, non-lethal way to subdue a fleeing target, the Ubrikkian R-TechApp model had a number of detrimental side effects. Once pinned, a victim's lungs struggled to expand under conditions they were never designed to handle. The pumping of a heart became a laborious task to stave off cardiac arrest. Vital fluids toiled through grav-compressed passages and could burst under the strain. Eventually blood would begin to puddle in abdominal organs and the brain would shut down from lack of oxygen. Any bounty hunter who left a man trap unattended would return to find a dead mark.

  Not very sporting, is it? Noone wondered if Viveca's love for bloodsport would be satisfied by a finding a helpless victim choking on his own bile. He doubted it would, and that bothered him. Of course, like the tiger pit, Viveca's fun might lie in discovering whether Noone could avoid the trap in the first place. He hadn't. The hunt was over.

  Or was it? Was this another test of wits? Noone twisted his neck and scanned the brush. The Ubrikkian R-TechApp came with a remote activator and a 10-meter activation cord. It had to be close, and - there!

  To his left, wedged between a crowd of slender reeds just under two meters distant, glinted the silver plasteel of the remote activator. Its surprising proximity both puzzled and reassured Noone. Viveca could have buried the device well over the next rise. Instead, he'd placed it here - in sight and out of reach.

  The activation cable was likely plugged in to the closest corner. Noone's left hand scrabbled along the trap's smooth edge and located the attachment socket. A yank on the cord pulled it free from the shallow layer of dirt that had hidden it and caused the activator to slide forward a centimeter or two.

  The activation cord and grav plate were firmly bolted together. Noone knew he'd never separate them without a set of tools, but tried anyway without success.

  He pulled on the cord to bring the activator closer but the device was blocked behind a tangle of reeds. Breaking the cable was out of the question.

  A breeze swept through the clearing, cooling his sweat-stained face and bringing with it a sound that chilled him even further. The distant baying of Viveca's nashtah.

  Think, think! His multitool, tucked away in a pants pocket, might as well be on the dark side of Kabal's moon. He couldn't drag the activator into his grasp. Could he extend something over to the activator?

  He scanned the ground again. No rocks, no wires, no spools of fibercord. Around him, the bambooi shoots were the thickness of tree trunks.
Except, that is, for the underbrush. Stretching out his arm with a groan, Noone closed his right hand around a clump of tiny seedlings and pulled them out by the roots.

  The effort triggered an explosion of suffering in his chest and he squeezed his eyes shut until the agony subsided. His heart palpitated in weak shivering flutters.

  Each stem was as long as his forearm, as wide as his finger, and slightly tapered near the tip. What's more, each was hollow and surprisingly rigid. Noone broke the root segment off one plant and fitted the remainder onto the top of a second stem. The double-length pointer felt light in his hands and showed no sign of bending.

  He added two more shoots, then stretched out to pluck more. Fireworks popped behind his eyes. He tried to swallow but couldn't, and fluid leaked from his mouth. Another stalk painstakingly joined the interlocking pole.

  His legs, at the point where his knees left the grav plate, felt as if some fiend were amputating them with a plasma torch. Similar lines of fire burned across his upper chest. With a start, Noone realized that the man trap was actually keeping blood away from his punctured shoulder. If the wound had fallen inside the grav field when he'd been pulled to the ground, he would already have hemorrhaged to death.

  One final stem. With quaking hands, Noone lifted the swaying two-meter stick. In one of the small miracles that sometimes befall career gamblers, it didn't break.

  He shakily guided the prod toward the activator. As he tried to steady its path, dark blotches appeared at the edges of his vision, a shrill screech rang in his ears, and his pain eased tremendously, which terrified him most of all. It meant he was mere moments from unconsciousness.

  The stick stretched out toward the intensity control on top of the activator. If he could dial it down to two or three gees, he should be able to roll off the grav plate. The sun suddenly went dark.

  Concentrate, please concentrate, he willed himself. It's just you and the branch, the branch and the dial. Nothing else matters. The bambooi tip clanged uselessly off the base of the activator. Noone pulled it back for another try. Wobbling with tension, the pointer brushed delicately against plasteel.