Amber let out a scream of joy, as the windows shattered, and Jack swung through feet first, gauntlet firing. He let go of the rope sling and straightened, the battle armor shining in all its glory.
Tears slid down Amber’s cheeks as she got to her feet. Killing Jack Storm in his full battle armor was like trying to kill the sun itself.
“Amber! Get down!”
She dropped to the floor as told, and lay there, cheek down among the glass shards, sobbing in fear and happiness.
Jack laid down a sheet of laser fire that set off the flooring. A curtain of fire roared upward, cutting off a bank of mercenaries from Amber. He did a somersault over the curtain, firing as he went. He tried to cock his left fist, his ears roaring with the heightened pulse of the bloodsong Bogie sang.
The room was filled with mercenaries. Jack had a split second in which to wonder where Rolf got the clout to hire like this, then whirled, as a man stood, readying to throw a percussion grenade. Left-handed, he shot. The grenade went flying and came to rest at the edge of the stairwell. He clipped off a second projectile shot, sending it over. Yells cut short told him he’d stopped a second band of men in their tracks.
The gauges showed a red field. Jack pumped his knees and did a somersault, carrying him and the line of fire away from Amber. As he landed, he laid down another spray of fire. The mercenaries tumbled over one another to stay out of range.
A grenade splattered on his armor, knocking him back. He stumbled and righted himself, and took the attacker’s head off so neatly, the laser cauterized him at the neck.
But with a red field, he couldn’t go on like this much longer. He chinned the mike.
“I don’t want you,” Jack broadcast. “Just Rolf.” He turned, and-pointed the left gauntlet at the far bank of windows. He flexed his fingers, triggering the laser cannon. The wall blew out and the wind whistled freely. He turned back around to view the psychological effect of his mayhem.
The mercenaries looked at one another. Their faces were pinched. Jack could read their thoughts as if they’d been spoken. Why should they face him for a few credits, just to save Rolf’s hide? Like miraculous waters of old, they parted, and their employer stood crouched in the middle.
Rolf weighed his options. He eyed Jack, then straightened up from behind his shield. It clattered to the hotel ballroom floor. “Take the suit off and fight man to man,” he challenged. “You win … I let you walk out of here with Amber. I win…” The man grinned evilly. “I have what I came for.”
“Jack, no!” Amber, struggling to her knees, begged him.
The suit was nearly out of power, anyhow. Jack didn’t have a lot of options left. He reached up and took his helmet off. “You heard him,” he told the watching men. Weapons were holstered at his words.
Don’t leave me. Berserker joy ebbed. Jack felt suddenly, dismally, alone.
“I’ll be back,” Jack said quietly. “If not … get to Amber, somehow. Okay?”
*?*. Then, reluctantly, as Jack beamed a mental picture of Amber climbing into the suit and escaping with the power remaining, Fight free.
Jack peeled the suit off. He stood it up on its own, Flexalinks locked into position. He looked at Amber. She was in the process of discreetly sawing loose her ropes with one of the glass shards. She looked back, wide-eyed and innocent. He looked to the suit, trying to communicate with her, then turned his back, desperately hoping she understood.
Rolf approached. He left his shield rocking on the floor. Suddenly, he leapt, bright metal shining in his hand.
Amber yelped. “He’s got a knife!”
Jack dodged, but not in time. The man hit him in the shoulder, a shoulder already mottled purple with the beating he’d taken that morning. Jack reeled back. The knife opened up a nasty weal along his ribs. The point stuttered on a bone and twisted away as Jack gasped and went down.
Bare-torsoed, as he always was when he wore the suit, Jack was at an extreme disadvantage. As he rolled over to escape a second lunge from Rolf, something hard dug at his thigh. He left a crimson streak on the floor. Then he remembered the ceremonial Fisher knife. He feinted clutching his side as he got to his feet, instead pulling the knife from his pants pocket.
He turned, weight forward on the balls of his feet, ready, his knife glittering in his hand. Surprise flashed across Rolf’s face. His knife was slender, a switchblade of plastisteel, made so as not to set off metal sensors. Jack’s was a hunting knife, tempered metal, jagged edge … a wicked killing blade, compared to the epee-thin switchblade.
Rolf lifted his knife and gave a tiny salute. Then he settled into his crouch and they circled one another cautiously.
“You can’t last long,” Rolf said. “That’s a nasty cut. And you look like shit. Someone’s already beat the crap out of you today.”
Jack ignored the pain. He felt the knife hilt warm in his hand. “Don’t have to last long. Just long enough to face you.”
Footsteps echoed down the stairwell. Jack flinched, his attention going to the noise. He saw Purple coming down, with a contingent of their own fighters. He looked back to Rolf. Too late. The knife came at his face. Jack parried, but the heavier and healthier Rolf held him in a deadly embrace.
Rolf’s flint dark, soulless eyes glittered. “You’re about to die. And for what? Gutter slag like Amber? You know what she is? Do you?”
Breathing heavily, Jack fought to break the other’s hold. They circled locked in a sinister dance.
“I’ll tell you what she is, dude, since she hasn’t. She’s an assassin. Got that? She’s got powers … has she shown them to you yet? Let’s hope she doesn’t. She can kill with her mind.” Rolf’s lips pulled away from his teeth. A vein pulsed in his temple as he inexorably wrestled the knife closer to Jack’s throat. “I’ve got her trained. She doesn’t even know it. But her targets are already locked in. Subliminal like. I say the right buzz word and off she goes. Boom! Like a time bomb.”
Amber made a faint sound at Jack’s back. But he couldn’t afford to listen to her. “No,” he said, in her defense. He couldn’t say more as he struggled just to breathe.
“That’s right. Subliminal. She doesn’t even know who to stay away from, but she’s a killer, Jack. Remember that. Now you don’t want to keep me from walking away with her. I’m the one who programmed her. I’m the only one who can deprogram her.” Rolf took a deep breath. “So long, sucker.”
Rolf brought the blade down and shifted his hold. Jack took a deep breath as the blade bit into his throat, but Rolf’s new hold slipped on his bloody torso, and the blade turned wrong. Fiery pain sliced across Jack’s throat as he twisted out from under the knife.
Rolf hit the floor with a thud. He let out a grunt as Jack slammed on top of him and grabbed a handful of greasy, brown curls. He tilted Rolf’s head back and brought the ceremonial knife down.
“Just tell me who bankrolled you, Rolf. Who told you where to find us and gave you the money to go chasing us.”
Rolf made a hissing noise. Then he got out, “Gilgenbush.” He tried to shrug loose. “You’ve got some real enemies, whoever you are.”
Jack pressed on the knife blade. “Are you sure?” He wanted to hear the name Winton—oh, how he wanted to hear that name, even though it meant that Winton now knew who his enemy was and how to reach him. But Jack wanted even more desperately to be able to reach Winton. For the Sand Wars. For Claron. For his dimly remembered home. His vision blurred with pain and dampness. “Are you very sure?”
“Christ; I’m sure! It’s Gilgenbush, the rogue general.”
Jack thought of Skal, his friend and honorable enemy, and began to draw the blade across Rolf’s swelling throat. The skin parted at the point and the first few crimson drops welled up.
“Hold!” Purple’s voice rang out authoritatively. “Hold in the name of Pepys, Emperor of the Dominion.”
Breathing gustily, sweat obscuring his eyesight, Jack looked up and squinted. He saw the small, compact man moving down the stairwe
ll. He stayed straddling Rolf and left the blade resting on the skin of his throat. “I would suggest,” Jack said huskily, “not moving until we find out what’s going on.”
Rolf stayed very still.
“Jack,” Amber said, her voice quavering. “It’s him. It really is.”
Jack felt the blood seeping out, from his side and from his neck. He fought to keep thinking coherently. He wiped the back of his left hand across his face and eyes, keeping the other with knife steady at Rolf’s neck.
The Purple and the emperor stopped in front of Jack. Pepys was a wiry, compact man, with frizzy red hair, already terribly thinned, and electric green eyes that smiled at him almost before the rest of his curious face did.
“Let him go, Storm,” the emperor said, kindly. “Purple here has filled me in on the situation. But, I may remind you, Rolf is a guest of the ex-ruler of this world, and diplomatic courtesy requires that we let him go unharmed.”
Purple said tersely, “You need medical attention. Jack. Amber’s safe now.” He leaned over. “And he’s our employer.”
Employer? Jack blinked. He felt very cold.
The emperor nodded. “You’ve done a good job here. Discretion is the word, of course. The sooner you let him up, young man, the sooner we can discuss your joining my elite guard. Purple has recommended you very highly. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll be going places—if you live.”
“… answers,” said Jack faintly. “I need some answers.”
Pepys reached for the knife. “Then I suggest we make sure you stay alive to ask the questions.”
With great effort, Jack unclenched his hand from the knife, letting the emperor take it. In a swoop of blackness, he heard Amber scream, very faintly.
Amber rubbed her bare shoulders. In the late night breeze, her evening gown ruffled and billowed, carrying an echo of the glow from the rose obsidite palace. She went to the parapet and looked down over the cities. “I keep wishing it would rain,” she said. “To clear the air.”
“We can go back someday.” Jack answered.
“Skal and Mist would like that.” She smiled wistfully. “I’m sorry about Claron.”
He shrugged. “The project’s not hopeless. At least terraforming is workable there. On Dorman’s Stand—it’s not.” He paused, both of them thinking of the planet lost forever behind a Thrakian curtain of sand.
Good fighting, Bogie interjected. Amber reached out and patted the suit sleeve. She looked up at Jack, who stood, helmetless beside her. The scar at his neckline was barely noticeable. “I’m glad you kept the suit.”
“Get rid of Bogie? I couldn’t think of it. Besides, he’s good as new.” And, somehow, in the last few weeks, Jack had won obedience from the demon-driven fighter presence within. He felt an uneasy rapport with the warrior spirit.
“He?” Amber grinned.
Jack shrugged. “Feels like a he.”
“Maybe it’s a she.” Amber tossed her head. Her light ash brown hair flowed back over her shoulders, with a subtle scent of perfume. “What about it, Bogie?”
“Questions,” Jack said. “We all have questions.” He reached out and put an arm around Amber, drawing her close to the suit. Bogie put feeling into the Flexalinks, and it was like hugging her to his bare skin. Amber flushed demurely. “Tomorrow I’ll start working on the answers.”
She looked up at him, her golden brown eyes shining. “I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you,” she said suddenly, boldly.
“Well, maybe not all the answers tomorrow,” Jack returned, bending down to her. “That one I can handle tonight.”
—«»—«»—«»—
Solar Kill Page 22
