[02] Elite: Nemorensis Read Online Free PDF

they?’
    ‘They shot that prick’s Killkure™.’
    The
Shattergeist
had syruped off into a warpspace gravitywell even as the merc’s dead Cobra, hanging beside the
The
, was rendered to atoms by the primed payload still lodged inside it. Sniped perfectly by a sexcrazed maniac.
    (A dying audio-signal from the fugitive, as it dopplered away to white noise, had faithfully broadcast the male passenger’s whimper at the woman’s cheerful observation that,
oh look
, he was Getting Stiff Again.)
    Thus ignominiously evaded, SixJen hadn’t wasted time fretting over her own safety. The fearsome wash of molecular waste and collateral debris was effortlessly deflected by the
The
, lighting up shields in great opaque sprays. But for every moment it sat braced against the tsunami, sense-blind and tide-tossed, the spout of exotic particles left by the
Shattergeist
dispersed, taking with them SixJen’s only shot at tracking it into hyperspace. By the time the slightest useful visibility was restored the signature was a dying wisp, and even then the stellar ash from the Cobra’s cremation, alive with obfuscatory EM-returns and corruptive radiation, would confound any attempt to pursue the prey for long minutes to come.
    No … SixJen didn’t need Lex’s talent for stating the obvious to grasp the simple truth.
    The
Shattergeist
was gone.
    ‘She’s good,’ the killer whispered, thoughtlessly slicing at her right arm.
    By way of afterthought:
    The other merc was barely alive. Cooked in his cockpit, then irradiated in his RemLok. SixJen was obliged to suit-up just to interrogate him in the vac-clean mouth of the
The
’s cargo scoop.
    Unmemorable face. A name she’d never heard. A Pilot’s Federation account unworthy of distinction.
    She said the word to him, just in case. He stared blankly, uncomprehending, through his visor.
    So she shot him through the face, shoved him back into space, and returned to the darkness inside.
    No fresh scar on her left arm today.

THREE
    Now?
    Now Myq held Teesa’s hand and stared into a dozen apathetic faces, plus at least as many SenseNet lenses, in an undecorated conference room aboard the Federation Coriolis station affectionately known as ‘Tun’s Wart’ – LaGrange-locked between the unremarkable Tun/Ton binaries near Exbeur. He smirked with a confidence he didn’t feel.
    ‘We,’ he declared, adopting the same insouciant drawl he’d used to loosen wallets and knickers back home, ‘are destructertainment.’
    The journalists failed to look impressed.
    Balls
, Myq thought.
    The lovers had detected the first incipient stirrings of mass attention, of notoriety, of –
say it
– celebrity, a couple of weeks after the Incident with the bounty hunters. Since the adrenal buzz of that combat they’d spent every non-erotic moment arguing over the merits of their preferred strategies, schizophrenically managing to pursue both, back and forth, according to whoever’s was the prevailing voice at any given moment. In phases when Teesa was the more persuasive (generally when assisted by narcotics and nakedness) a traditional pattern was observed: locate cargo vessel, smash to itty bits, buy more ammo and upgrades, repeat
ad infinitum
. Whenever Myq’s preferred policy was in the ascendancy (generally when Tee was asleep or their crotchal regions were too distressed to bear another assault) the
Shattergeist
pursued a more conservative manifesto: running a long way from the scene of their most recent outrage, refuelling, then running some more.
    The battle had shaken Myq in ways Tee would’ve mocked if he’d admitted them. The smug merc, the ruined Cobra, and then that second hunter (
for NoGod’s sake!
) popping up like a sheep-guzzling alpharhyncus disguised as a fucking boulder.
    Blowing Shit Up, Myq had concluded, was undeniably thrilling, and Not Being Blown Up Oneself was undeniably the preferred partner strategy. But
Almost
Being Blown Up …? Coming Within A Gnat’s Bollock Of Being