This was the sort of job for which the cutter was intended, though the ‘tools’ wouldn’t have been as popular in Marine Reaction Companies had they not been so effective in hand-to-hand—hand-to-paw—combat. Kowacs swept the powered blade in a wide arc while the non-coms poised to rake the interior if anything moved when the wall fell away.
Kowacs’ mouth was open. To someone outside his head, he looked as if he were leering in fierce anticipation.
In reality, he was stiffening his body to absorb a burst of shots. Weasels inside the warehouse might decide to fire into the center of the pattern his cutter drew, and the first he’d know of their intention was the impact of bullets sparking through the sheet metal.
Three quarters of the way around the arc, Kowacs’ blade pinged on a brace; the section wobbled like a drumhead. Sienkiewicz leaped at the wall behind the heel of her right boot, burst into the dark warehouse, and sprawled over a pile of furniture stored there.
“Bloody Hell!” she snarled as she rolled to her feet, but their helmet sensors indicated the warehouse was cold and unoccupied. Kowacs and Bradley were laughing as they clambered over the accidental barrier.
Kowacs swept his eyes across the clutter, using sonic imaging rather than white light. Sienkiewicz had tripped on a sofa. Like the rest of the furniture stored in clear film against the back wall, it was ornate, upholstered—
And quite clearly designed for humans. Short-legged Khalians would find it as uncomfortable as humans did the meter-high ceiling of a Weasel bed alcove.
“Let’s go,” Kowacs said, but he and his two Marines were already slipping down the aisle between stacked cubical boxes of several sizes. The glare of whatever was going on in the center of the compound flickered through the louvered windows at the front of the building.
Sergeant Bradley’s load of combat gear bulked his wiry form, changing the texture of his appearance in a way that it didn’t his heavily-built companions. He was taking shorter steps with his right leg than his left, and the twitch of his pack amplified the asymetric motion.
Kowacs glanced at him.
Bradley looked back, his expression unreadable behind the faceshield. “No problem, cap’n,” he said. “We ain’t holdin’ a track meet.”
He pulled a five-unit grenade stick from his belt, poising his thumb above the rotary arming/delay switch that would tell the bombs when to detonate.
Kowacs didn’t have to see Bradley’s face to visualize the smile that was surely on it.
The sort of smile a cat wears with its teeth in a throat. The sort of smile Kowacs himself wore.
The windows were narrow but the full height of the front wall. They flanked a door whose crossbar had a manual unlocking mechanism on this side. Sienkiewicz worked it gently, holding her plasma weapon ready, while Kowacs and Bradley peered through the louvers.
The only light in the warehouse was what trickled through the windows themselves. There was no possibility that those outside would notice the Headhunters preparing for slaughter.
The Khalian vessel was small for a starship, a cylinder no more than sixty meters in length; but, unlike the Bonnie Parker, it wasn’t designed to land outside a proper spaceport. The pilot had given up trying to balance on his lift jets and had dropped to the ground. The narrow-footed landing legs, intended to stabilize the ship on a concrete pad, carved through the flame-blackened sod like knifeblades; the belly of the craft sank deep enough to threaten an explosion when the jets fired again on lift-off.
The hundred or more waiting humans crowded close, some of them yelping as those behind pushed them against still-hot metal. Vapor puffed from the starship as an airlock started to valve open.
A big air cushion vehicle with polished brightwork, its wheeled outriggers lowered for high-speed road travel, pushed close to the airlock with a careless disregard for the clamoring pedestrians. As a ramp extended from the starship, the car’s door opened and a plump, self-important man got out. His multi-colored clothing was as rich and obviously civilian as the vehicle in which he’d arrived.
“Say when,” Sienkiewicz demanded, her foot poised to shove open the door and fire her plasma weapon. She had no view of what was going on outside. “Say when!”