embroidered

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Fancy and cheerfully decorated fabric, once, designed to please and stimulate customers. Now, half of it was soaked in gore. Blood was beginning to drip from the tassels onto the floor.
"Surround the table!" he shouted. "Get her when she comes out." Templeton was holding the chemotracker in his left hand, his gun in the right. He stooped across the body of a fallen Manticoran bodyguard and lifted the fringe with the chemotracker, taking care to point the pulser away. In his fury and excitement, he still had enough self-control not to risk killing the slut with an accidental shot.
* * *
"Okay," said Victor softly into his throat mike, "it's definitely a kidnaping, not an assassination. So hold your fire for a moment. If they'd just wanted to kill her, they'd already be aiming under the table. Get ready. Remember—Templeton stays alive. The one next to him also, the man wearing the blue embroidered jacket. He's the lieutenant. Abraham's his name, some sort of relative. Leave one other alive, so they can get the girl out easily."
"Which one?" murmured Donald's voice in his ear.
There was no time for anything fancy. Victor picked the one with the gaudiest clothing. "The Scrag wearing that irridescent yellow outfit. Those three stay alive. Kill the rest."
* * *
As soon as he stooped low enough, Templeton spotted the two figures huddled in the shadowy gloom under the table.
"Come out, sister mine," he hissed at the woman in the royal finery. He went down on one knee to get a better angle and aimed the pulser at his sister's companion. "Come out at once. Or I'll kill the Zilwicki bitch."
That much he would give his sister credit for. She didn't hesitate for more than a split-second before beginning to crawl toward him. Craven and cowardly, at least, the whore was not. That

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