“I've got a bad feeling about this,” he whispered. “Can you see what they're watching?”
“Looks like a newscast...”
“Oh that's not good...”
“It's not,” breathed Nina, “I think they've recognized you...”
One of the other girls from the Blue Moon leaned over Steele's shoulder from behind, “What's going on?”
“Nothing good... if anything happens, keep your head down. Tell the others.” Jack's hand rested on the grip of his sidearm. He tried to appear casually disinterested, not making direct eye contact. “It'll be the big scruffy guy with the beard...”
“What about the skinny guy to his left?”
“He's a wannabe. The beard is the real deal, he hasn't taken his eyes off us and he hasn't blinked yet. The guy with the white hair on the other side is the wild card.” Jack popped the released on his holster and pulled the hybrid 1911 clear, the muzzle pointing at the back of the empty seat in front of him. The charged particle rounds would pass through it without deviation.
“They both have their hands in their jacket pockets...”
“I see that.” Steele flashed a wicked smile, “Do I know you, mister?”
The big man blinked, “What?”
Success, he'd broken the man's concentration. “I said, do I know you... You're staring at me like a long-lost brother or something.”
“You... look familiar,” announced the Beard.
“I have that kind of face,” mused Jack. “Happens all the time. Forget it,” he waved with his free hand. The Beard nodded and turned his back, the others redirecting their attention back to the video screen. The cop in him wasn't sure if they'd lost their nerve, like a shoplifter being engaged by a store clerk, or if this was a sly tactic. He was hoping they'd lost their nerve but the little voice at the back of his head was telling him they were simply rethinking their plan.
“This is our stop,” whispered one of the girls from behind, “we must get off here.”
“Use the exit behind us,” he whispered back. “I'll follow you. Make it quick and don't stop, don't look back.”
Steele slid out of his seat to let Nina pass behind him, his gun hand still hidden by the seat back in front of him. “Go, go,” he breathed. He dropped back into the seat, sitting on its edge as he quickly checked over his shoulder, almost all the girls were out on the platform. The Beard's men were watching casually, perhaps waiting for the right moment. He had a feeling they wanted to shoot him in the back. He wasn't going to give them that chance as he rose from his seat, his gun hand hidden behind his thigh, backing toward the rear door.
They all moved at once, shooting on the run, charging him. He fired once before diving between the seats on the other side of the aisle, their pulse lasers slashing past him on both sides, burning holes in the seats. To prevent catastrophic damage or explosive decompression, the pulse lasers didn't penetrate most cover. Unfortunately for the Beard and his men, Steele's charged particle blaster didn't suffer the same limitation. Crouching, he could see the top of white hair, a gun hand over the top of the seat back shooting blindly. Peering past the edge of the seat in front of him, Jack squeezed the trigger twice, the distinctive bark of the hybrid 1911 echoing in the train car, the rounds punching through White Hair's cover with ease, producing a scream and a flailing of arms as he toppled over, his pulse laser skittering across the floor.
“C'mon Jack! I can't hold the door much longer!” shouted Nina from the rear exit.
“Keep your head down,” he shouted back, shooting over the top of the seat. Pulse lasers sizzled over his head.
“Give it up mister and we'll let the bitches go!”
“You can kiss my ass, fatman!” The train lurched and stopped, trying to resume its route, stalled by Nina at the door. Steele leapfrogged over the seat behind him, dropping to the floor, looking under the seats. Feet and knees... He squeezed off several rounds, the empty charged particle propellant casings tinkling across the train's floor. He heard the screams and jumped to a crouch, bolting into the aisle and heading for the rear door, crimson slashes flashing past him, one tugging at his jacket. With his free arm he collected Nina at the door as they rolled onto the platform in a tumble, the doors spasming. “Dammit,” he said looking down, “this was brand new leather. Fuckers...” He quickly swung, leveling the 1911, snapping off two quick shots just before the doors closed, spidering an outer window on the train before it pulled away. “Deal with that, asshole.”
“The girls went on ahead to see if they could pick a ship,” said Nina, rising to her feet, offering Jack her hand. He took it and she pulled him to his feet.
“Do they know what to look for?” he asked, checking his magazine, swapping it for a full one.
■ ■ ■
It only took Nina and Jack about five minutes to reach the docks, a cavernous area five stories tall, with network of metal walkways that extended around the end of the Island in an arc, docking clamps on articulated arms holding ships of various sizes in place above and below them.
Pausing in a shadowed area, they scanned for the girls. “Where the hell are they?”
“You don't suppose they got caught, do you?” asked Nina.
Steele scrutinized the ships at hand. “I hope not.” A jolt and rumble like rolling thunder shook the walkway beneath their feet, followed by sirens and flashing lights three levels below them. Nina shot him a concerned look. “Explosive decompression,” he grinned, “train go boom.”
Movement caught Nina's eyes, “Over there,” she pointed. About halfway across, a group of girls was running up the stairs from a lower level. Reaching the same level Jack and Nina were on, they continued up the winding staircase, taking two steps at a time. “Where are they going?” she wondered aloud. “There,” she pointed, answering her own question. The girls from 405 were leaning over the railing at the very top, waving the girls up, a ship berthed behind them.
“Let's go!”
Jack and Nina bolted out into the open, across the walkway toward the staircase. The girls from 405 were waving from above but Jack had neither the time nor the inclination to wave back. Thirty-feet from the stairs, he suddenly realized what they were waving about as two Syndicate men appeared from below, running up the stairs after the girls. Focused on the chase, they didn't give a sideways glance as they rounded the rail and up the next flight of stairs.
Stunned at his seeming invisibility, Steele lengthened his stride, pounding across the metal grating of the walkway, quickly pulling away from Nina. Closing on the two men ahead of him, he grabbed the rail as he neared, swinging the corner wildly and taking the stairs two at a time. Lunging hard he caught the closest man by the ankle, the thug lurching into the stairs face-first, splitting open his face on the edge of the stair in front of him, knocking him senseless. Steele scrambled over his body as the man's partner twisted in-flight, off balance, to confront him. Steele swung hard but the man was out of reach, leaning back to avoid the haymaker, still trying to maintain his footing. He backed hard against the rail, top-heavy and with a sweep Steele dislodged his footing and the man went backward with a scream, over the rail, falling onto a walkway rail two levels below with a bone-crushing thud.
Nina rounded from the landing below Jack, the Syndicate man behind him face down on the stairs, his face smashed and bloody, groggily fishing in his jacket for his pulse laser. She threw herself bodily on him, her knife grasped in both hands, her weight and momentum driving the lengthy blade between his shoulder blades to the hilt. Steele whirled at the scream but it was short-lived, Nina trying to wrench the blade free.
The sound of more footsteps ringing on the metal stairway from below seemed to be closing fast.“Forget it, kiddo,” he said reaching back, grabbing her hand, “gotta go...”
The dash to the ship was a minor maze of walkways leading to different ships, some ramping up in odd directions, the girls cheer-leading from the ship's berthing dock. Somehow there were twice as many women as before and
there were more coming from multiple directions.
“Where the hell are they all coming from?” asked Jack, tromping to a stop at the base of the boarding ramp. “And where the hell are we going to put them all?”
“Don't you worry about that,” said the woman from 405, the driver of the transport, “I got this,” she added patting his face. “You just get your ass in that cockpit and fly this thing. I'll work the dock controls.” Winnipool was her name, she was the older sister, the matron, the mother-figure for most of the girls. She had been around longer than most and she knew more than she probably should have.
Without hesitation or further deliberation, Steele grabbed Nina's hand and dragged her up the short boarding ramp. “C'mon, I need you with me.” The interior of the ship was a cross between a luxury yacht and a whorehouse, the warm, damp interior smelling musty.“Oh, what the hell,” he moaned, making his way to the cockpit, “it's a freaking party bus...”
“What's that smell?” asked Nina, wrinkling her nose.
“Booze, sweat and sex... if I had to guess,” muttered Jack, plopping down into the pilot's seat, steering Nina to the copilot's seat. “A decade of it...” He started flipping switches, activating systems on a preflight checklist hanging on the flight yoke. Good thing the air system was one of the first things on the list... he dialed the anti gravity to ten percent, enough to make the ship buoyant but a stable neutral.
“Mister! Mister!” screamed a girl running through the ship's interior, appearing at the cockpit doorway, “they're shooting!”
Steele sprang to his feet, pointing at Nina “Stay! Don't touch anything!”
“I'm not a dog, you know!” she called after him as he disappeared.
Laser fire came and went in all directions. God only knows where the girls got the pulse lasers, but they were doing a fair job of protecting the last group of girls sprinting across the metal walkways toward the ship. Where are all these girls coming from...? Steele ran down the ramp passing Ruby who spun and went down as he passed her, screaming in pain. He doubled back, holstered his 1911 and scooped her up, carrying her into the ship, lying her on the floor, darting back out.
“Everybody inside! Let's go!” From the top of the ramp he was able to see the hiding spots of some of the Syndicate men, pumping rounds through their meager cover with his particle blaster. He quickly became the focus of return fire, the red hot slashes splashing on the ship's hull, scorching the surface, smelling like burnt electronics. He ran down the ramp, allowing the girls to board, the Syndicate focusing on him. He whirled at the scream behind him...
“Winnie!” screamed the girls still on the birthing dock.
“I got her!” he shouted, pointing at the ship, “get aboard!” They retreated from the rail, carrying the only survivor of the last group that attempted to make it across to the ship, her unconscious form hanging limply between two girls, three more firing as they retreated to the safety of the ship.
Jack dropped to a knee next to Winnipool, who was crumpled against the docking control pedestal.“C'mon, let's get you inside...”
“I'm not going anywhere...” she wheezed, looking down at the two gaping holes in her stomach and ribcage.
Steele tried not to look at her exposed ribs, his eyes tearing up, “You'll be OK, we have a good doctor, we'll get you all fixed...”
She put her fingertips on his lips, “So sweet of you to say, but I was a doctor... in a life before here. We both know...” she inhaled sharply, her eyes rolling up before coming back to lucidity again. “It's alright; I never expected to make it off this rock alive. But I'm fine with it...” She patted his face as before. “You go, get those girls to safety... a better life...”
Steele could hear the calls of the girls and the running of boots on the metal walkways. He was about to be overrun. He turned back and kissed her on the forehead, giving her a hug. Words failed him.
“Let the wings of the Lords guide you,” she whispered. Go. Go hard...” She grabbed his arm as he rose, “Go hard...” her hand slipped away.
Torn, grieving for someone who he'd just met, he pushed the knot down in his stomach and mentally wrenched himself free, firing at the advancing thugs as he ran up the boarding ramp. He paused at the door looking over his shoulder, she smiled weakly and shot the first man to round the railing to the birthing dock.
■ ■ ■
Steele dropped into the pilot's seat and belted himself in. “Everybody sit or lie down!” He flipped the engine starters, listening to them spin up. “You might want to go sit with Ruby,” he said to Nina without looking, “she's hit.” It barely registered that Nina was up and out of the seat before he finished saying it, he was still thinking about Winnie's last words... go hard. His fingers poised over the engine igniters, he felt a little numb. A little numb and a lot angry. This is for you Winnie... The engines lit with a throaty tandem whump and he could imagine whoever was controlling the yacht basin's traffic losing their mind over lit engines inside the Island.
Going hard, Winnie... When Steele shoved the throttle forward, three-hundred feet of flame instantly incinerated everything and everyone on the walkways. The metal stairways and walkways turned to molten slag, docking arms and supports melting, collapsing under their own weight. Weakened docking systems burdened with moored ships crashed through the levels below, crushing them on the Island's floor and cooking everything within about a thousand foot radius, leaving the Syndicate's Island in utter chaos.
Glancing at the sensor sweep, several light craft launched from Rikovik's Reef proper and Steele realized they were about to have some very unhappy company. He slid the throttle to the far stop and input the coordinates for a rendezvous with the Raven. “TESS, connect us with Brian Carter.”
■ ■ ■
Brian's TESS lit up, her holo-screen popping into view above his wrist. “Incoming from Jax Mercury...” she cooed, smiling at him. Jack's face appeared, TESS' face becoming an animated thumbnail off to one side.
“I've got a little situation here, Bri...”
“Talk to me boss...”
“I've got fast movers at my back, and I'm flying an unarmed bus that can barely get out of its own way...”
Brian looked up from TESS' holo-screen, “Yellow alert!” The warning sounded, accompanied by flashing yellow lights throughout the ship. “Mr. Ragnaar, do we have his coordinates?”
“Aye, sir. Locked in.”
“Best speed...” nodded Brian.
“Aye, flying it like we stole it...”
“What's your ETA Brian?” asked Jack.
“Fifteen minutes.”
“I've got maybe five before they overtake me...”
■ ■ ■
The Lawmen were not particularly pleased with Steele's answers when they demanded that he return to Rikovik's Reef with the ship and its human cargo belonging to the Syndicate. No, and he certainly didn't offer anything to assuage their already surly mood. In fact, he probably made it worse. Much worse. Admittedly, kiss my ass, was not a viable negotiation tactic. But in Jack's defense, negotiation is about give and take, coming to an agreeable middle ground where both sides make concessions and both sides enjoy some progress. But you had to have something to bargain with... with an empty vacuum of options, Steele probably let his attitude get the better of him.
Strapped into the copilot's seat, Nina closely monitored the sensors and shields, allowing Jack to concentrate on flying. “There's something big on the edge of our sweep...”
“Concentrate on the ones shooting at us please,” he testily reminded her.
“Don't get your undies in a wad, I'm watching...” She adjusted the sensors, zooming in on the flight of pursuit craft which gave her a dimensional view, providing her with the details she needed. “They're bracketing left and right, you'll need to go up or down...”
Lances of intense green passed on either side, and Steele knew that was a warning shot. “Mmm, Boron guns. Lightweight stuff...”
“Can they hurt u
s?”
“Oh yeah. Our shields are light and we have no armor to speak of. Think you can route shield power aft when we need it?”
“Aft?”
“To the back, because it's about to get real dicey...” The ship bucked and the screen with the ships statistics showed an immediate drop in shield strength. “And that was just a love tap to remind us they mean business.”
Nina busied herself with restoring shield strength to the stern of the ship. “Sweeping in on the left...”
Steele pulled left, hoping to cross them in front of each other. But it was like trying to outmaneuver a sports car with a school bus. A few shots went wide, green lances lighting up the darkness, but still more connected with the rear shields. Steele began weaving as unpredictably as he could, up, down, side to side but he realized the bus wasn't going to last long. The Lawmen would simply pick them apart at their leisure. “They're trying to take out the engines,” he growled, manhandling the controls. “They're being careful not to damage the hull, they want their cargo back.”
“Coming in on the left again...”
Steele broke low, not wanting to repeat his earlier maneuver, the green streaks passing over the top of the ship. He immediately changed directions, flashes of green passing over the port wing.
“The ones on the right are dropping back.”
“Easier to match our maneuvers if they're not too close...” Steele wrenched the yoke over, barrel-rolling the bus as boron green streaks passed all around. The ship jolted once, then twice, the status screen lighting up with flashing yellow zones. “Shields can't take much more...” he winced. It jolted again, the screen flashing red as a warning buzzer sounded. “Dammit... shields are down!” He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, sweat stinging his eyes, helpless panic attempting to fight its way to the surface.
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 18