War of Alien Aggression 4 Taipan Read Online Free PDF Page A

big paws. Three more Hellcats crouched. A millisecond's glance at their eyes showed they were aiming themselves at Holdout and Gusher for a 1/3 gee body-slam. Colors got brighter. Forms became more voluminous and the gnaw in Jordo's gut was all gone now. It was the same for all of them.
    The redsuits shouted, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" Hardway 's crew wanted to see this. None of the gunners or reds were going to break it up or call in the Staas Guards to stop it – at least not until somebody won. Most of them put money down on the fight within the first few seconds. That's why Jordo didn't understand how the Staas Guards got there so fast. Just after he connected with the big Hellcat's jaw and delighted in the almost perfect energy transfer, he caught sight of them flooding into the Pit through the forward and aft hatches.
    The Staas Guards didn't bother ordering anyone to break it up. They knew the Lancers, so they knew it was futile. They let their truncheons do the talking.
    Jordo locked eyes with Pooch as she brought an elbow down on Dirty's ribs. When she finally saw the two-dozen, incoming Staas Guards, the smile on Hellcat 1-1's face invited all of them to come get some. Pooch had enough for everyone.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    Harry Cozen, Asa Biko, and Dana Sellis flew back to Hardway in the longboat with Pardue, but Matilda Witt asked Ram to stay behind on Taipan for another hour so they could go over 'a few niggling details', as she put it.
    At first, she poured more Scotch for herself and made small talk that appeared to be of no consequence at all – patter, really. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to design a flavor profile the human palate can actually taste in the low air pressures most space-going vessels maintain? My chef had a professional fit." From the way her eyes flicked here and there around the room and then back to Ram as she spoke, he got the impression she thought someone was listening. She rose from the couch, stepped quietly to the desk, and withdrew a polished wooden box from a drawer.
    "Of course, I'm sure Harry has all of you eating hard tack biscuits."
    She opened the lid in front of him, and inside the box Ram saw six devices he recognized because Harry Cozen had a box full of them, too. They looked like halved robin's eggs. They were multispectral noisemakers.
    She fixed the suite of counter-surveillance devices to the bulkheads and even the diamond-pane portholes of her compartment. After she set one on the deck, the surface of Ram's melted ice and watery scotch turned nearly opaque with the vibrations.
    Witt said. "We can speak freely now."
    "Do you really think someone is listening in? On your own ship?"
    "Harry's not above planting an entangled q-link device on you or buying one or two of my crew to put one in here for him. And he's not the only one that might be listening, Mr. Devlin. But no matter who has their ear to the door, so to speak, all they hear now is a symphony of random noise."
    Ram Devlin and Matilda Witt regarded each other in silence for the next few seconds. Both of them realized a negotiation was about to take place and since the winner in any negotiation is always the party that least appears to want the deal to happen, neither one of them said a word at first.
    Matilda Witt began on a deceptively innocent tack. "I never took you for a collector of precious rarities, Mr. Devlin. That Honma & Voss pistol you carry as a sidearm – they only made two-hundred of them and the ruby at its core came from the Lost Caliphate's vault."
    "That's right."
    "I'd like to buy it," she said.
    "It's not for sale. It was a gift."
    "I know that gun, Mr. Devlin. Harry Cozen pried it from the death clutch of a Revolutionary Guard Colonel – one of the few in that elite corps not to get vaporized. He carried it for a few years. Then, he gave it to a woman named Mickey Wells, his bodyguard."
    "Did you know her?"
    "You did."
    After so much time spent with Harry Cozen, it took more than