The Ramal Extraction Read Online Free PDF Page B

green bolt shot from her fingertip and struck him. He jittered, dropped his weapon, and fell, spasming and twitching as his nervous system burned out.
    Sims shook her hand. “Ow. Ow! I keep forgetting how much that stings!” She stuck the tip of her finger into her mouth.
    Now
it was over. Except for what would no doubt be a major investigation into the Rajah’s guards, to see who was apt to cut loose at him again and who’d step in front of those guns to save him…

SIX
    The head of the Rajah’s Security Unit was a massive, swarthy man, two meters tall and maybe 130 kilos; he had a thick, black beard but a shaved head, and he looked as if he could chew nails and piss needles. His curved knife had a plain, well-worn grip-scales, and the sidearm he wore was a massive, gray-handled thing in a beat-up leather holster. No silks, he was in a blue flexsuit and traction boots.
    Nothing ceremonial here; this was a man who used his weapons a lot and was geared to move in a hurry.
    Wink wondered if his pulse wand would even slow the giant down if he decided to give him grief. Be interesting to find out…
    The security man, introduced as Ganesh, stood at the head of a long, oval table made of wood with a beautiful, close-grained flame pattern in it, light against dark.
    Behind him on the wall, a hologram flowered, and Ganesh nodded at the recording.
    Cool air flowed over them, a welcome relief to the heat outside. Wink had never liked hard tropics. Give him atemperate world with mountains and a lot of liquid water, that was his kind of planet. Deserts and jungles? Leave those for lizards and apes.
    There weren’t any other locals here except the Rajah’s prospective son-in-law, Rama, whose father, if Wink remembered his briefing, was the son of the rajah next door. Jadak? Something like that?
    For their part, they numbered half a dozen: the colonel, Jo, Gramps, Gunny, Kay, and himself. All of them carried holstered sidearms now, and there were a pair of CFI troopers outside the conference-room door with assault rifles watching their backs, with two quads more at the transports.
    The half-size holoproj showed a courtyard, viewed from maybe four meters above. The courtyard was full of colorful tropical plants, a small bubbling pool of water with orange-and-white hand-sized fish darting about in it, and a walk of what appeared to be dark cobblestones or a pretty good imitation of them.
    After a few seconds, a woman appeared, walking from the right side of the frame toward the left. The woman wore a sari-style garment in what looked to be a pale blue silk, with matching slippers. A slight breeze molded the cloth to the front of her body. From the drape of the cloth, she was obviously female, a bit thin, but curvy. Her hair was dark, parted in the middle, and worn in a long braid that hung midway down her back, and she carried a cage of bamboo, containing a scarlet bird the size of a small parrot, but with a straw-yellow-colored, toucanlike bill.
    “The Rajah’s daughter, Indira,” Ganesh said. His voice was high, girlish, and Wink had trouble reconciling that soprano with the man’s appearance. There was something spicy on his breath, a pleasant, mintlike odor.
    As they watched the recording, a figure approached the woman from directly underneath the security cam. He was taller than she was by a head, wearing a gray coverall witha hood, and she turned to face him as he drew nearer. Only his back was visible.
    There was no audio, but the woman said something.
    “She asks, ‘Who are you?’” Ganesh said.
    Indira frowned.
    The man—perhaps a large woman?—pulled a small pistol from a coverall pocket. The figure wore thin gloves.
    Indira tried to run, but the gunner fired before she could take even one step. She dropped the bird’s cage, clutched at her belly, and doubled over—but stayed on her feet, swaying.
    The cage hit the cobblestones and broke apart.
    The bird freed itself from the wreck and took to the air. Three