Skydark Spawn

She looked through the glass in the locked door, peering first down the stairs and then up them. No one was there, but still her feeling of unease persisted. She opened the door and took a single step into the stairwell to get a better look.

Suddenly a hand was on her wrist, and another on her mouth. She was yanked into the stairway, her Smith & Wesson torn from her grasp as she was thrown onto the concrete landing.

The door almost closed behind her, but was kept open by a clip from somebody’s blaster.

“We weren’t expecting you,” a sec man whispered. “But we’re glad you could make it.”

The second sec man plastered a large piece of silver tape over her mouth, and they both worked to tie her hands behind her back with a strong piece of nylon cord.

“And not even a scratch,” the first sec man said.

The second one laughed. “The baron will be pleased.”

GRUNWOLD COULDN’T believe his luck. As he’d watched through the glass of the door, one of the two outlander women wandered out of her room, opened the door at the far end of the hallway and was caught on the other side by Fillinger and Kauderer.

And best of all, she’d opened the door and now they were free to enter the second floor away from the end of the hallway being watched by the guard.

“Canady and Edson stay here,” Grundwold barked hoarsely. “The rest of you come with me.”

He headed down the stairs, padding softly on the steps so as to avoid causing any noise that might alert the sleeping outlanders. When he reached the other end of the second-floor hallway, Fillinger and Kauderer were just finishing tying up the redheaded woman. They had replaced the clip in the doorway with a knife that had been wedged into the door frame. It kept the door open and unlocked and was in no danger of being kicked loose.

“Good work!” Grundwold said. “Do you know which room she came out of?”

“Second one on the left,” Fillinger answered.

Grundwold turned to face the rest of the sec men who were lined up on the stairs. “Two of you take her to the tower and wait for us there. If I’m not there in one hour, take her back to the farm and make your report to the baron.”

Two sec men grabbed Krysty by the arms and led her away.

“And don’t mess with her,” Grundwold called down the stairwell. “I want her handed over to the baron in good condition.”

He turned to the sec men directly behind him. “Follow me,” he told Lewis. “The rest of you cover the hallway. If the outlanders discover us, I don’t want any of them coming down the hall. All right, let’s go.”

Grundwold stepped back from the door, and a sec man opened it for him. He and Lewis padded into the hallway, moving quickly toward the second door on the left. They kept a close watch on the man guarding the far door, but he didn’t stir.

They stopped just outside the door to the room, and Grundwold peered through the doorway. There was a man on the bed, asleep. They would chill him and move onto the next room in search of the other woman.

Grundwold entered the room, went around to the far side of the bed and leveled his blaster on the back of the man’s head. On the other side of the bed, Lewis drew his switchblade, pressed the silver button at the top of the handle and the knife snicked open.

The man on the bed suddenly stirred, and in a single quick and fluid motion, he had a huge knife in his hand and was slashing it across Lewis’s belly. The sharp edge of the monster blade cut through the sec man’s jacket and abdomen, spilling blood and entrails onto the hotel-room floor.

Lewis stood there with wide eyes as his hands reached down in an attempt to keep his guts from sliding out of his body.

Grundwold leaped onto the bed, grabbed the prone man’s arm with one hand and jammed the barrel of his Persuader up under the man’s ear with the other. “I’ve got sec men all over the hall. If you make another move, or make a sound, I’ll chill you and the rest of your friends where they sleep.”

The man’s body tensed, as if he were going to try something despite the warning. “We’ve already got the redhead. If you want to see her alive, you’ll do what I say.”

That seemed to convince the man that putting up a fight wasn’t a good idea.

The man slowly got off the bed.

“You can get dressed, but I’ll chill you and your friends in a heartbeat if you try anything.”

The one-eyed man nodded, seeming to accept his fate, or perhaps realizing that fighting back at the moment would be futile. Whatever the reason, he cooperated with them and began putting on his pants and boots. When Ryan was dressed, Grundwold picked up the man’s knife and blaster and led him out of the room, then down to the end of the hallway where a half-dozen sec men were waiting. As soon as they were in the stairwell, the door closed behind them and the sec men who’d been waiting on the stairs began tying the one-eyed man’s hands behind his back.

“Tie his legs, too,” Grundwold ordered. “Give him enough slack to walk, but not to run.”

“Where’s Lewis?” one of the sec men asked.

Grundwold shook his head.

The sec man, a friend of Lewis, stepped forward and threw a hard punch into the prisoner’s stomach. Ryan doubled over slightly, but recovered quickly. The sec man threw a second punch, fully catching the one-eyed man’s jaw. His head snapped left from the force of the blow, but he showed no signs of pain or fear.

Grundwold swung his arm in an arc and caught the sec man with the butt of his blaster before he could throw another punch. “Take it downstairs, before you wake up the rest of them,” Grundwold hissed. “We’ve still got one more breeder to catch.”

The sec man unclenched his fist and grabbed Ryan by the arm, pulling him hard down the stairs. The rope between the prisoner’s legs caused him to stumble, then fall down a whole flight of stairs.

The sec men picked him up by the arms, then dragged him the rest of the way down the stairs and out of the hotel.

“Fillinger!” Grundwold said. “Come with me.”

Grundwold and Fillinger reentered the hallway and began searching rooms for the other outlanders. Grundwold checked the third room on the left and found it empty. He looked back along the hall where Fillinger had just finished searching the second room on the right.

Fillinger shook his head. The room was empty.

Grundwold waited in the doorway of the room he’d just searched, his lovingly maintained Persuader 500 trained at the man guarding the far door, who still hadn’t moved.

Fillinger opened the door to the third room on the right, directly across from where Grundwold was providing cover. He had the door halfway open when he stopped in his tracks and looked over at Grundwold and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the room.

Someone was sleeping in there.

Grundwold kept the Persuader trained on the guard as he moved across the hallway to join Fillinger. Then they entered the room together, with Grundwold again moving to the far side of the bed. When they were in place, Fillinger lowered the barrel of his remade longblaster onto the head of the sleeping outlander while Grundwold reached down to pull back the sheet covering the sleeper’s head.

It was truly Grundwold’s lucky day. Sleeping on the bed was the other breeder.

“Make a sound and you’re chilled,” Grundwold whispered in her ear.

She opened her mouth to let out a scream, and Fillinger pressed the blue-steel tip of his blaster even harder against the side of her head.

She closed her mouth and held her tongue.

“If you want to try your luck, you should have gone to the casino next door. We don’t play games,” Grundwold said. “Put on your boots. You’re going on a little trip.”

Flashing him a murderous look, but without making another sound, Mildred put on her boots.

Although she was fully clothed, Grundwold enjoyed the view of the breeder’s full, voluptuous figure, but didn’t allow the sight to make him careless. “We’ll take your blaster, thanks,” Grundwold said, picking up the target revolver from the table and tucking it into the waistband of his pants.

Grundwold and Fillinger each took hold of one of the woman’s arms and led her to the door. There was something about the look on the woman’s face that Grundwold didn’t like. She seemed to still want to fight back, and there was a good chance she might do something stupe like try to warn the others.