Angel of Destruction Read Free

like the specs it sent. Didn’t they say it was a dray? That looks like a distance carrier, to me.”
    “Hard to say,” Fisner replied politely, just in case she was talking to him. “But it does seem a little other than one would expect. Maybe we could ask the captain about it. Get a tour. You never know what’s coming out of shipyards these days.”
    He was lying, in a way, because he knew quite well that it was a heavy transport freighter. It hadn’t come to deliver stores to Okidan. It was here to take the Okidan Yards for everything it could plunder.
    The dock-master clearly didn’t have a clue, not yet — just the germ of a suspicion. She pivoted slowly around in her seat and stood up, frowning slightly. “Good manners to go say something, either way. Coming?”
    “No, thanks. I’ve got finishing up to do.”
    Inventory validation was a chore, but it had to be done. Since the Combine Yards were the largest in system, it had quite naturally fallen to the Combine Yards to oversee and facilitate, to manage all of the administrative details required to keep the flow of traffic moving, to provide insurers and contract holders alike with assurances as to the quality and condition of goods, to collect and remit fees and taxes, and generally to act as the Bench proxy in Port Charid.
    The dock-master left Fisner to his task. He was alone; and after a moment he locked the office door, secure in the knowledge that the observation ports — which were proof against unplanned decompression — would not be easy to break in, should someone on staff try to find shelter in the office from what was to come.
    On the station’s master monitor screens Fisner could see the dock-master cross the load-in apron to where the freighter’s cargo umbilicus debouched into the load-in docks. No one had appeared from the freighter yet. Abandoning his task for more pressing concerns, Fisner moved to the dock-master’s master-board to cut the video feeds between the docks and the rest of the warehouse complex.
    The dock-master’s chair was still warm from her body heat. Fisner hefted it to test the weight, and smashed it down across the master communications nexus board. The auxiliary fail-safe panel was on a subsidiary board some paces removed, and he left that intact. He had no intention of dying here.
    There were people coming out of the freighter’s umbilicus now, the cheerful color of their Langsarik blouses clearly visible even at a distance. They had the dock-master, but she had yet to panic — at least to judge by appearances. Was it his imagination, or was she looking up into the monitor, up into the screens?
    She knew he was in the office. She might be hoping for some quick-witted action on his part.
    Fisner bore her no ill will. It wasn’t her fault. It was the fault of the Bench, the Jurisdiction’s fault for suffering Langsarik predation to go unpunished. Fisner set off the station alarms: standard emergency procedure, and it would bring everyone on station running to the load-in docks. The freighter’s crew had had enough time to get themselves into position by now, and were lying in wait.
    The Bench had said that he had no claim against Bench or Langsariks for damages, that the loss he had suffered had been through misadventure. An accident.
    The Angel of Destruction said differently.
    The Angel of Destruction said that it was an offense against the Holy Mother herself that an ungodly and alien hand had been permitted to steal from Dolgorukij, and with impunity; an amnesty was no punishment for such a crime. The Angel of Destruction had sought him out and recruited him, sounded him out and tested him, tried his mettle and his faith — but at the end of it all the Angel had opened its arms to him and welcomed him, granted him membership in its sacred fellowship and made him the agent of the vengeance of the Holy Mother against the Langsariks at Port Charid.
    The warehouse staff were unarmed; the slaughter was quick and