The Angel's docking slip was swarming with port police. Ben speeded up, visions of murder and mayhem dancing in his head.
A massive official looking person intercepted him. "Captain Boykin?"
"That's right," Ben answered, eyes on his boat, "what happened here?"
"Seems like somebody tried to break into your ship."
That got Ben's full attention. "Who? Why?"
The officer shrugged. "No idea, they ran before we showed. Smart boy you've got there, he vacuum sealed both locks before waving us and didn't open till we'd identified ourselves."
"Thanks." Ben said, mind still racing. "Any damages?"
"Not so far as we can see. Might want to check over your circuitry though."
"Yeah, we'll do that."
"You did real good, son." Ben said a little later, after Cody still draped in the gunbelt had given him a blow by blow of what had happened.
"Sonya and Jade said it was the Orange and Blacks." the boy added, beaming.
Both girls nodded emphatically. The shock seemed to have solidified them nicely.
Moon was shaking her head, and so were the twins. "Can't be." Keri said. "No way they could have caught up with us this soon."
"Maybe they didn't." said Ben. All six kids looked at him. " You've been laying false trails by dropping credit-chips to be found and used by others - right?" The girls nodded in unison. Ben sighed. "One of the finders must have gotten spooked by your Orange and Blacks and decided to hide in the mines."
"We don't understand." said Kimi.
Ben explained: "The mines here on Vulcan are always hungry for workers. They ask for no papers and are real co-operative about filling out new ones. A term in the mines is a good way to change identities."
"Oh." this time it was Keri. "We didn't know that."
"No reason why you should." Ben soothed. "Just plain bad luck we should be here at the same time. I think maybe you should tell me exactly who these 'Orange and Blacks' of yours are?"
It was Kimi who answered: "We don't really know, they're who the Alliance sent to catch us but they're not Alliance personnel. They wear Orange and Black so that's what we call them."
"And skulls in their ears." said Moon.
Kimi nodded. "That's right. Little gold skulls in one ear."
"And their heads are shaved and they have a sort of tattoo right about here." added Keri pointing to her hair line.
Great. "Sounds like you've got the Heng-te after you." Cody flinched. Five pairs of puzzled girlish eyes urged Ben to continue. "They're high class hired enforcers, you name it they do it up to and including assassination."
Kimi tilted her head. "You've met them?"
"God no!" Ben said with some vehemence. "But I've heard of them. They're considered pretty fearsome."
It was Moon who spoke. "They're good, but not as good as us."
Ben surely did hope so. "Okay," he said briskly, "the port police have agreed to set a watch over us, which might stop our friends if they're trying to be subtle-like. I've done my dealing, we'll all stay buttoned up snug in the 'Angel' 'til it's time to leave."
Six heads nodded.
"Jade, I'll thank you to cancel tonight's session. I want you and Sonya to try to solidify yourselves if you can - we'll need all hands if anything further happens."
Two heads nodded. At least they'd heard him.
"Moon, monitor every frequency you can reach, if something's planned against us maybe we can catch an inkling early."
She picked herself up and headed for the set on the bridge. Ben noted she'd left dolly behind.
"Right, everybody else, back to work. Boat don't maintain herself."
Jade frowned hard, as if trying to remember somewhat, then turned and went into the kitchen.
Sonya just looked confused, one of the twins took her by the hand. "C'mon, Sonya, you can help us." and the three of them headed aft to the engine room.
"Cody, put the gun back where you found it." as the boy turned to go. "Oh and son," he looked back, "you did real good, but as a rule it's better to shoot from cover."
The ten year old nodded seriously. "I'll remember that."
Ben hoped he wouldn't have to, but he wouldn't bet a wooden credit on it.
He elected to sit up that night, Moon sat by him skimming the frequency band but nothing happened. Their new cargo arrived bright and early and loaded without incident. Then the fueling truck came by and topped off their tanks. And at lunchtime a messenger arrived with a credit ticket for their old cargo.
Ben brought it back to the table to read, and whistled. "Clear profit of four hundred - not bad for a single run."
"That's a lot of money." said Sonya, who'd started taking notice of things again.
He shook his head ruefully. "Not when you're running a ship. Still it's a nice little nest egg no question."
"We're going to have to cash it." said Moon.
"Definitely. Don't want your friends tracking us by data trail."
"We'll take it." Moon stood up and the rest of the girls followed suit
Ben frowned. "Don't you think wandering around the dockside might be a trifle dangerous for you girls, things being what they are?"
All five shook their heads. "Won't attack the boat if we're outside it." said Jade in her own voice.
"Go for us." added Sonya
Moon smiled one of her thin, nasty smiles. "Then we'll get 'em."
But Ben didn't like the idea of his girls using themselves as bait - so he determined to go along.
Cody was left to sulk alone in the boat, with strict order to open to nobody but Ben's ownself.
As it happened the walk to the exchange was medium long, and completely uneventful, as was the walk back.
"Guess our friends don't want to try anything in front of witnesses." Ben observed, knots in his belly untying.
"Guess so." Moon seemed disappointed.
The other girls looked to have forgotten all about the Heng te. Jade floated along in her bubble, arms outstretched to keep passerbys at a distance. Sonya played cat's cradle with one of her necklaces and the twins skipped merrily along, hand in hand.
As they came up on the Angel's docking slip Ben veered aside. The girls veered with him. "I'm just going to make a last check of our cargo before the buyer claims it - no need for you to come along." he told them.
Moon's pale eyes slanted at him sidelong. "Yes there is."
That should have warned him - but it didn't. Afterwards he reflected he must be getting slow witted with age.
Ben's thumb-print opened the little personnel door and lights came up automatically as they went in. They cleared the outer circle of high piled crates, came into the more open middle - and suddenly there were Heng te everywhere; men and women both dressed alike in dark orange uniforms with black harness and gunbelt over, the ideogram for 'hunter' tattooed on their smooth heads. They surrounded Ben and his girls at floor level and a half dozen more were poised on crates aiming weapons of various kinds down upon them.
"Stand as you are!" a cadaverous chum ordered.
The girls froze, eyes darting and Ben noted the Heng te fronting him was looking over his shoulder at them - a mistake. He grabbed the woman's extended gun arm and pulled her into a neck lock swinging her round as a shield. Projectiles thunked into her body and she went limp as he twisted the gun free and took out one of the shooters on the crates.
But his girls were already in motion: Sonya took a running leap flattening two men with a spectacular double kick; Keri dropped below the fire line in a perfect split then curled one leg around to slice the feet out from under the nearest Heng te; A woman grabbed Kimi from behind and she kicked backward over her shoulder knocking her assailant cold; Jade downed one man using the edge of her hand like blade and threw another right into his comrades fire; Moon kicked a woman in the throat then hooked backward with the same leg to catch a man in the side while cold-cocking a third Heng te with a straight right.
Ben dropped his shield and rolled backward over a crate and into cover, a bullet and beam both whizzing over his feet as he did so. He picked off two of the remaining shooters then a wire looped over his head, digging into his flesh and choking his breath. He struck backward with the butt of his gun but failed to connect, things started to go dark... Then he was lying on the floor, gasping for breath, Jade standing over him and a body draped over some cargo at an angle impossible for an intact spine. The girl didn't spare him a glance, just leaped over him onto a crate took her bearings and sprang on some other poor chum.
Lying comfortable on his back Ben had a pretty good view of the proceedings. There seemed to have been some twenty or thirty Heng te - and it wasn't anywhere near enough. The highly trained enforcers lasted a bit longer than the 'jackers had - but not much. His girls were here, there and everywhere; striking out with feet and hands, punching, snapping, throwing, and making occasional use of dropped weapons, fragments of crate, trade goods and so forth. Ben lay at his leisure taking note of their various styles. The twins tended to work in tandem, graceful as toe dancers and using a lot of dancer-like moves. Sonya on the other hand was downright acrobatic, jumping and back flipping, hand-springing and cartwheeling fighting as much with feet as hands. The other two girls favored more conventional martial arts techniques: Moon's style was flamboyantly wushu but Jade's had an economical karate flavor to it. Two minutes later the last of the Heng te lay broken and bleeding on the floor and the five girls gathered round Ben.
"You all right?" Keri asked, sounding worried.
"Chivalry," Ben informed them, still on his back, "is stone dead. From now on I intend to restrain my gallant instincts and allow you girls to handle any donnybrooks that come our way."
"That would be smart." said Moon.
"Be fair," said Kimi, "if Ben hadn't distracted them we could've gotten hurt."
Moon nodded. "True enough."
Ben climbed to his feet and gave his 'lil darlings a concerned once-over. "Any of that blood yours?"
They looked down at themselves, seeming to notice the liberal red splashes staining them from head to toe for the first time.
"No." Sonya answered and the rest nodded agreement.
"What do we do?" Jade asked.
Ben looked around at the wreckage, organic and inorganic and grimaced. "We leave now, right this minute, before the port police find this mess and start asking questions."