Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition Read Online Free PDF Page B

they struggled against the odds growing up on crummy worlds, they were here to save Empire, personally round up DeCaster and his evil disciples and kick Morphiea’s ass single-handed; that was what going Elite did for you, right? Who was here for a career, for the housing benefits, for a dacha in the Thai systems when you were pensioned off?
    He had all that waiting whenever he wanted it.
    ‘Me, I’m Haunt.’ Shade looked up. ‘Any of you ever visit Idaho?’ she said, her face a pale mask. No one spoke. ‘It’s a good clean world. I remember when we took it. Tamed the Schirr, brought them into our order. Made them a part of an Empire they could be proud of.’
    ‘Yen, God and Hamburgers,’ Joiks quipped. The three pillars of Earth repatriation, as named by some stand-up on the Proxima circuit.
    Haunt ignored him. ‘So you see, I am a relic of a time when if you saw a Schirr on a vidscreen, it was just some new ugly to point at. To laugh at. See, a Schirr knew its place back then.’ Haunt looked round at them. ‘Me and DeCaster went into service at the same time. I joined up when the Earth embassy on Idaho was taken out. I’ve spent fifteen years fighting Schirr and their allies.’ She paused for a few moments. Her voice was quieter when she spoke again, the dull look back in her eyes. ‘The Army promoted me out of the front line, but I
will
see DeCaster dead within my lifetime.
That
is why
I
am here. Why all of us are here.’ She turned to Shel, the faintest trace of a smile on her face. ‘All right, where the hell
is
here?’
    Shel consulted his palmscreen. ‘The planetoid has no name. It’s a speck of rock in distant orbit around Vertigan Majoris.’
    ‘Edge of Empire,’ breathed Lindey. Her tight red curls were plastered to her head with sweat.
    Roba spoke up, almost nervously. ‘We’re as close to the Spook Quadrant as anyone can get.’
    ‘We’re several thousand miles within Earth space,’ Haunt said, too quickly, too loudly. ‘Our rights to be here are universally recognised, you understand that, Roba?’
    Shade noticed Denni trying to catch his eye. She whistled silently through her teeth, and he nodded. Roba must be feeling lucky to have raised Morphiea at all, given Haunt’s track record.
    ‘I understand that, Marshal,’ Roba said quietly.
    ‘You’d better,’ Haunt told him. But just for a moment she looked suddenly uncertain, as if aware she’d overreacted.
    Shade had never seen her give the slightest concession to what other people thought of her. He caught Denni’s eye. She looked oddly apprehensive, like she was really spooked. He tapped his hand against the needle mark on his wrist. ‘The drug,’ he mouthed.
    Haunt seemed to have recovered herself. ‘All right, Shel. Mission objective.’
    Shel tapped some buttons on the palmscreen: ‘Our objective is to locate and secure a Schirr cypher and disable two droids operating inside the planetoid.’
    ‘Two!’ warbled Frog in disbelief, grinning round at the others. Seemed the drug hadn’t left her with any ill-effects. They probably ingested worse stuff than that at the kindergarten where she grew up. ‘Took us four weeks to get here, boys and girls, and we’ll be done in an hour.’
    Haunt wasn’t smiling now. ‘These are new droids, still crated up in the hold. Principal Cellmek has advised me that no one’s met Kay-Dees like these, in
conditions
like these, on any prior training,’ she said simply. ‘Consider this active service.’
    The words were enough to crush what little ebullience there was in the cramped cabin.
    We’re not Elite, thought Shade. We’re not the best.
    We’ve just survived.
    ‘How did I ever get here,’ he whispered to himself, shutting his eyes as he tried to shake the lingering hold of the drug. He wanted to enjoy the dark for a couple of seconds.
    But Shel had overheard him. He was consulting his top-secret little pad. ‘After turning your back on escort assignment, Adam Shade, you