Read Return - Book III of the Five Worlds Trilogy for Free Online Page B

slammed with blinding overforce into the side of the hill below, obliterating the hovel that had been there.
    Shatz Abel studied the blackened crater that remained, where once a hill had been.
    “That’ll do,” he said, and then ordered Andrew to land them at Tombaugh City, just as a small flotilla of Plutonian defense force ships arrived, providing escort instead of battle.
     
    T o Shatz Abel’s delight, the local magistrate was there to greet him when he disembarked.
    “Shatz!” the man cried. A skilled and oily bureaucrat, he had progressed through many channels of Earth and Titan politics before finding himself, not to his surprise, appointed overseer of the prison planet Pluto. It had been a simple choice in the end, since he had been offered either administration or incarceration.
    “Larsen—or is that Larceny?” Shatz Abel laughed, enjoying the other man’s change of expression from charm to florid anger and back to guarded charm—all in a matter of seconds.
    The man held out his hand, which Shatz Abel did not take.
    Lowering it expertly into a sweeping gesture, Larsen exclaimed, eyeing the number of personal troops disembarking from the pirate’s ship, “Welcome to Pluto!”
    Instantly realizing his mistake, he added, “That is, welcome back to Pluto!”
    “I just visited my old quarters,” Shatz Abel said, folding his arms across his massive chest and pinning the man with a level stare. “I was thinking of paying a similar visit to Tombaugh City.”
    “No!” Larsen blanched, but instantly recovered. “I mean, what a wonderful joke!”
    “It’s not a joke—if I don’t hear what I want to.”
    “Anything! Anything!”
    “Have things been lonely without Wrath-Pei?” the pirate asked.
    Squirming, the administrator answered, “That’s not the exact … terminology I’d use.”
    “All right, I’ll be blunt. Wrath-Pei’s gone, now we’re here. And we’re going to be very good friends, right?”
    Still squirming, Larsen rejoined, “It’s not … quite that simple—”
    “Of course it is!” Shatz Abel said, gathering up the man’s tunic front in his fist and drawing him close.
    “You see,” Larsen whined, “there’s a little matter of Prime Cornelian.”
    “That’s just the point! When the time comes, you’ll side with King Shar and let Cornelian blow in the wind—right?”
    “There’s a treaty…”
    Shatz Abel loosened his grip slightly on the man’s tunic. He brought his face close to Larsen’s and growled, “You signed a treaty with Mars?”
    Trying to answer and unable out of fear, Larsen merely nodded.
    “Show it to me.”
    “I …’
    The pirate pushed the bureaucrat away and opened his meaty fist. “Put it here—now!”
    Behind Shatz Abel, his crew spread out menacingly; the Tombaugh City officials who had come with the administrator backed fearfully away.
    “Are you sure you want to see the actual piece of paper? I could tell you what it says—”
    Letting anger blossom, Shatz Abel growled and continued to hold out his palm.
    Larsen turned, quaking, and motioned to one of his underlings; the man turned and fled.
    “And while we’re at it,” the pirate said as they waited, “how’re the pickings around here lately? Since Wrath-Pei’s demise, there must be plenty of Titan scrap in the pipeline—”
    Forgetting his fear, Larsen bubbled, “Oh, yes! In some ways, things have never been better!”
    Shatz Abel snorted. “We’ll be taking our share of that, too.”
    Instantly, the administrator’s face froze. “Oh, I didn’t mean to say there was plenty! It’s just that … it’s a little better than it was!”
    The pirate snorted again, loud enough to make Larsen jump. “As I said, we’ll be taking our share for the war effort on Earth.”
    The underling returned, running as fast as he had leaving; fighting for breath, he placed a rolled parchment tied with the red ribbon in the administrator’s hand.
    Roughly, Shatz Abel took the paper, tore off