Azarov jogged across the grass and mossy earth to join Viktor and Ankari. “We couldn’t get a hold of Zharkov, sir. He wasn’t answering his comm.”
“You’ll have to do then,” Viktor said, relieved to see that his sergeant had come armed with a rifle slung across his back, as well as his usual pistol. “I’m sure you climbed trees in your former profession.”
“Fighting fires in the wilds back home? Yes, sir. Lots of trees. As long as these aren’t riddled by spiders, not a problem.”
“Spiders?” Ankari asked.
“Er, it was a joke, ma’am. I can climb anything.” Despite his brave words, Azarov eyed the trunk warily as he rubbed his hands on his trousers.
“I’d worry more about the parrots and dragons than any bugs,” Viktor said. “Especially the dragons.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll remember.”
Judging by the grimace on Ankari’s face, she had forgotten about the threat those represented. As far as Viktor knew, Lauren had not called with news on an antidote.
“They’re probably kept in a cage somewhere,” Viktor said, “so the mafia can control who gets bitten, but keep an eye out, regardless.”
“Yes, sir.” Azarov gazed toward the balcony high overhead. “We’re going up there to rescue the hostages, right? I’m surprised—er, I’d heard that you didn’t care much for corporate muck-a-mucks.”
“I don’t, but those mafia idiots are threatening the whole station, and they’ve already killed a bunch of people who are just here doing their jobs.” Viktor stared at Azarov. “You have a problem stopping them?”
“No, sir. No problem.”
“Good.”
Ankari took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
Though Viktor did not want to waste time, he worried about her decision to come along. Azarov had spent years in the forest before joining the Fleet, and he would have the needed experience to deal with heights and climbing. As much as Viktor respected Ankari’s combat skills and athleticism, he was less certain that a born city girl would take to trees like a monkey.
He stepped close to her. “You can stay down here,” he murmured. “Watch my back from the ground by that fountain over there.” He pointed to the mossy flagstones all around the central water feature; it did have a view up through the trees, all the way to the top.
“No,” Ankari said. “I can handle it. It was my crazy idea to confront the mafia, remember? I’d never forgive myself if I got you in trouble with them while I hid below.”
“But it’s all right if we both get in trouble with them?”
“Exactly. Then we can share the joy of hiding from their assassins together for the rest of our lives. It will be a bonding experience.”
Viktor did not find that answer reassuring, but he squeezed her shoulder.
“Nobody’s worried about me getting in trouble with the mafia?” Azarov asked.
“Soldiers never get blamed. Just their commanders.” Viktor waved to the tree. “Up we go. Stay on this side of the trunk, and use the foliage to your advantage so you won’t be seen. I’ll climb past the sixteenth floor, then jump down to the balcony when an opening presents itself. Follow my lead. Ankari after me, then Azarov.” He tapped his patch. “Borage, we’ll be up there in ten minutes.”
Judging by the stream of curses that came back, Borage was still working on the power problem. Viktor would not count on having that distraction when they reached the top. Too bad Striker hadn’t been caught on the station when the quarantine was enacted. He would doubtlessly have been wandering around with his bandolier of grenades, even if he was visiting a brothel or casino. Viktor could have used a few grenades.
Not wanting to dawdle longer, he stuck a lightweight pistol between his teeth and headed up the tree. Since nobody was filling his team in on how the negotiations were going or if the mafia people might make a move soon, he had no idea how much time they had, but he doubted it was a lot.
Using his hands and his boots for gripping, he pulled himself up the trunk to the first of the branches, pausing there to make sure the others were making it. He was pleased to see Ankari only a few feet behind him and Azarov off the ground, as well. He hadn’t known if she would have the upper body strength to pull herself up, but she was much lighter than he was, and more limber too. He nodded with satisfaction, then started up again. Now that the branches had started, the going was easier.
Squawks started up in the leaves nearby, and he curled his lip. Those were the parrots, but he wagered if they were around, some of those dragons were too. He hoped he was right about the cage, but kept his gaze toward the foliage as much as up the trunk.
Viktor reached the sixth story without trouble and paused to wait for the others in between floors. He tried to see up to the top floor—earlier, nobody had been out on the balcony, but that could change at any time—but the leaves hid any men up there from his view. When he checked on the others, he spotted two men in Fleet uniforms walking near the fountain. They carried sniper rifles in their arms and were discussing something as they looked up and pointed.
He shifted his weight, so he could take the pistol out of his mouth and use it if he needed to, but the Fleet men were not looking at his oak tree. They had their eyes toward the balcony on the other side of the atrium. Maybe someone had ordered them to fire at the mafia men if they tried to escape this way. So long as they didn’t spot Viktor and the others and mistake them for enemies...
Ankari pulled herself up to his branch, her face scratched, dirt smudging her cheek, and leaves sticking out of her hair. She looked like she had lost a fight with a forest, but she still smiled at him and nodded encouragingly. He could have kissed her, if there hadn’t been a thousand other things to worry about. Nonetheless, he vowed to take her out for a nice night somewhere after this, and then he would treat her to the pleasurable time he had been wanting to give her before this mess had started.
For now, all he said was, “Watch out for the snipers below. They might mistake us for trouble.”
“How would that be a mistake?”
Viktor snorted, then, as soon as Azarov caught up with them, continued climbing. He made it another six stories, noting that the sturdy trunk had grown thinner with less bulk to hide behind. He was tilting his head back to judge the rest of the climb—and whether they would be able to make it all the way to the sixteenth floor—when a screech sounded less than a meter from his ear.
He tore his pistol out of his mouth at the same time as he spotted movement. A scaled shape arrowed toward him. Talons slashed, raking for his eyes.
He ducked at the same time as he shot. The talons missed him, but his feet slipped. He slid, bark flying loose as he tried to dig in again with his heels. Afraid he would hit Ankari, he wrapped his legs around the trunk with the force of a vice grip. He halted, but his first shot had missed the agile creature, and the miniature dragon was wheeling about. It streaked between two branches, aiming at his face, its mouth open with fangs flashing. He fired again. This time, with a steady anchor spot, his aim was true. His laser struck it in the face. An instant later, a second beam cut into its belly from below. Either blow would have killed the small creature. Its momentum took it into the trunk, where it bashed against the bark, then fell.
“Watch out,” Viktor called down softly.
Ankari pressed herself against the tree as the dragon tumbled past her. She stuck her pistol back in her holster, and he gave her a nod, glad she had indeed had his back. Azarov was another ten feet below them, looking down instead of looking up. Viktor worried the snipers might be down there, readying to take aim at them. But it must have been a reporter investigating their climb instead, because Azarov pointed to a small black sphere: one of their floating cameras.
It swiveled to catch the dragon’s fall, then tilted back upward again, recording the team’s progress.
“Better than being shot at,” Viktor mumbled around the pistol in his mouth again.
“You’re sure? Did you see the last
doctored video that went out?”
“No.”
“Somebody doesn’t want you to look like a hero.”
“You say that like it’s a surprising development.” Grunting, Viktor returned to the climb.
As he reached for a branch, he jerked his hand back. Another of those dragons was perched upon it. He yanked the pistol from his mouth again, but the creature merely hunkered in upon itself, its wings hunched around its lowered head.
Viktor did not shoot. “I think that’s a regular one, a regular one that doesn’t appreciate the noise.”
The dragon skittered farther out on the limb as he climbed past, but it definitely wanted to avoid them rather than attacking.
Viktor climbed to the fifteenth floor, and the final balcony came into view between the leaves. Two armed men were pacing along it, peering down and at the other offices that opened up to the atrium on their level. Most of the doors were closed, except for a wide double door behind the men. That must be where the bigwigs were being held. Viktor could not see into the hallway from his spot—he could barely see the men through the leaves and through the patio furniture sitting out near the railing. He needed to ease closer before taking a shot. Once he revealed his position, he and his team would be at a disadvantage. Sustained laser fire would have no problem cutting through the trunk of a tree.
He crept higher, pulled his pistol out, and waved for the others to wait below. He wanted to take out those two men before Ankari and Azarov climbed out of the tree.
Before he could settle into a sniping position, one of the men leaned over the railing and fired. Viktor almost shot back, fearing he was the target, but the mafia thug was aiming at something far below. His comrade pushed aside a chair and came to the railing beside him.
Crimson laser beams streaked up from below. The snipers. Had those idiots decided to start a firefight from sixteen floors below? With the viewing window overhead? Viktor hoped that thing was reinforced with a powerful force field.
With the two mafia men distracted returning fire, Viktor would not get a better opportunity. He parted the leaves on his branch, aimed for the chest of the one shooting, and fired. Without hesitating, he fired at the second one. Both shots hit. The first man had been leaning too far over the railing to shoot, and he tumbled over it, arms flailing as he plummeted. The second man flew back, smashing into the wall.
The lights on the balcony and through the doorway behind it went out.
“Perfect timing, Borage,” Viktor muttered.
He ran to the end of the branch, leaped and caught the railing, then sprinted along the balcony toward the man still up there. He was clutching his chest and groaning. His eyes bulged when he spotted Viktor racing toward him, and he patted around for his weapon. But it had dropped from his hand when he fell backward. Viktor took him in the eye before he could reach it.
He pushed the body to the wall so it would not be visible to anyone peeking toward the balcony from inside the hallway beyond those open double doors. Next, he dropped into a crouch by the railing, checking below. He wanted to make sure those snipers would not fire at Ankari and Azarov when he waved for them to join him.
The men below appeared smaller than toy figures from this height. The foliage blotted out the view of much of the ground, but they crouched near the fountain, using it for cover as they aimed upward with their rifles. A couple of paramedics in white had run out to check out the mafia thug who had fallen. No, that wasn’t the thug—his broken body lay unmoving near the fountain. They had come out to drag away two men in propulsion boots. Ah, that must be what the mafia men had been shooting at. Someone else had been sharing Ankari’s idea.
Here and there, the news reporters hid under the shadows of the lower balconies, their heads visible when they peeked out from shelter. More of those black spheres zipped around the atrium, recording images. Ankari’s words that the news would be altered, possibly to place him in a negative light, did not surprise him. He thought about shooting a few of the cameras, but decided to ignore them.
One of the snipers fired up at Viktor. He had anticipated they would mistake him for another mafia man—or that they simply wouldn’t care if he was one or not—so he leaned back in time to avoid it. The orange laser beam grazed the balcony railing without damaging it. Plant lovers or not, the druids who had built this place had made it sturdy. Viktor glanced toward the dome above—it was much closer now, the stars and the edge of one of Nimbus’s moons visible in the black space. He hoped that was sturdy too. He couldn’t imagine a way of containing a breach in this huge space.
“Captain?” Azarov called from the oak.
Ankari stood on a branch beside him, her arms wrapped around the trunk, and her face pale as she peered downward. Whether it was the snipers that had her alarmed or the height, Viktor did not know, but the urge to hug her and tell her that nothing would harm her rushed to the front of his mind. He could do neither from here. He could only trust that she was strong enough to make the jump from the tree to the railing, despite her fears.
Viktor waved for them to come, then whispered his response via his comm-patch, not wanting to yell when he was certain more men waited inside. “Go. I’ll cover you. Both of you.” He found Ankari’s gaze through the leaves and the distance, and gave her a reassuring nod.
A clang came from the hallway leading to the offices. Viktor resisted the urge to peek down it to see if someone had walked out of a door. He was not ready to start a firefight, not until Ankari and Azarov were safe on the balcony. He did point one of his pistols toward the mouth of the hallway, watching it with his peripheral vision in case he needed to shoot an interloper. But he focused on Ankari, who was creeping out on one of the thickest remaining branches, following the same route Viktor had taken. He stuck his head through a gap in the leaf-and-vine framework underneath the railing bar, making sure those on the ground were concentrating on him rather than on the tree. The leaves should still be hiding Ankari and Azarov, but he didn’t want to take chances.
Another laser blast zipped up from below, and he yanked his head back. The beam sizzled through the air, glancing off the railing again.
Ankari crouched to jump, but lurched, an arm flailing. Terror shot through Viktor. He stood, reaching out, as if he could help her from here. He nearly revealed himself to the snipers below before he realized his mistake and stepped away from the railing.
Ankari dropped to all fours, gripping the branch with both arms. She was scowling at something Viktor could not see, something in the leaves.
“Is it one of those dragons?” he asked over the comm-patch, though he doubted she could hear him. Azarov, several feet behind her still, was the one with a matching patch. Viktor shifted one of his two pistols in that direction, watching the foliage for movement.
“Ralph? Killer?” someone called from the hallway. “Anyone trying to come up that way? You got trouble?”
Ankari swatted at something, then shook her head. Viktor finally saw it. It was one of those damned cameras, not a dragon. At least the small black sphere could not poison her.
He crouched down between two tables, so someone coming out of the hallway would not see him right away. He thought about shooting the camera, but the person who had spoken walked out of the mouth of the hallway.
“Ralph?” he repeated. “Kill—”
Viktor had never stopped aiming his other pistol in that direction, and he shot before the man spotted him. His aim was true and blasted his target between the eyes. Viktor knew he should move the body so it wouldn’t be visible to the next person who walked out, but he could not take his gaze from Ankari. She was back on her feet, one hand on a cross branch for balance. Seeing that she meant to jump, Viktor leaned through the railing again. This time, he fired. Not at the snipers—though he was tempted, since the louts were shooting at him—but at the water in the fountain next to them. Instead of unleashing a quick burst, he held down the trigger.
As Ankari took three steps along the branc
h and leaped for the railing, water and marble sheered from the fountain sprayed everywhere. The snipers raised their arms, shielding their faces. As Viktor maintained fire, they rolled away, perhaps realizing he could as easily hit them. He had the high ground, in all senses of the term.
Ankari flew through the air, her jump strong enough to carry her to the railing and over it. She just missed knocking into one of the tables and came down behind it, landing in a deep crouch. She found her balance immediately and ran toward Viktor. Though he wanted to race to meet her, he kept spraying water below, to keep the snipers busy while Azarov jumped. He lopped the tail off one of the lions that made up the focal point of the fountain. Thanks to all of those cameras around recording everything, he would probably get a bill for that later.
Taking the same route that Ankari had, Azarov ran along the branch next. He opted for sheer speed and power rather than balance, and he leaped for the balcony, his arms flailing. He cleared the tables and almost crashed into the wall.
Ankari reached Viktor’s side of the balcony, sweat bathing her dirty face and her hair full of twigs, but her eyes alight with excitement.
With his allies safely on solid ground, Viktor backed away from the railing. As much as he wanted to give Ankari that hug, his instincts demanded he pay attention to the enemy instead. A good thing, because as soon as he turned back toward the hallway, movement in the shadows caught his eye. He pushed Ankari toward the wall, so she wouldn’t be visible to anyone coming out, and he dropped to one knee behind a trash receptacle.
Two men ran to the corners of the hallway, painting the balcony on either side with laser fire. Partially hidden by the trash bin, Viktor squeezed off two bursts with his pistol. One man spotted him and returned fire even as he was hit. The trash receptacle proved poor cover. It exploded even as Viktor rolled away from it. He fired as he rolled and came up near the mouth of the hallway. He jerked his pistol around the corner, intending to finish off the men, but his rolling blasts had been effective. The two men had crumpled to the floor next to their fallen comrade, one dead and one groaning and clutching a smoldering wound in his abdomen.
Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company) Page 23
