Cobra Alliance

'Never mind the gate—we can go over the wall just as easily here.' A corner of Jonny's mind considered the possibility that the Trofts had spy-mikes on them. 'First, though,' he added for their benefit, 'I want to see if the house lasers are set to fire on outgoing targets.'

Still no sign of enemy soldiers. Moving to the former window cover, he hefted the metal for a quick examination. Kyrelium steel, all right, about five centimeters thick. He had no idea whether it would do for what he had in mind, but there was no time left to find anything better. Bracing himself firmly, he gripped the panel on either side, raised it over his head like a makeshift umbrella... and with everything his servos could manage, he hurled it toward the distant wall.

He'd never gone to the limit in quite this way, and for a long, horrifying moment he was afraid he'd thrown the panel too hard. If it cleared the wall—and in the process ruined his pretense of ignorance as to the defensive lasers there—

But he actually had nothing to fear. The panel arced smoothly into the sky and dropped with a crash of breaking branches into the middle of the distant patch of forest, a good twenty meters in from the wall.

And it made the whole trip without drawing any fire.

Jonny licked his lips. So the automatics would most likely leave them alone. Would the live gunners who were undoubtedly up there abstain as well? There was nothing he could do about that but hope that they were still relying on the wall itself to ultimately stop him. If they were... and if his plan worked...

'Ready for a run?' he whispered to Ilona.

Her eyes were still on the spot where the kyrelium plate had ended its flight. 'Phrij and a half,' she muttered. 'Uh—yeah, I'm ready. Toward the wall?'

'Right. As fast as you can. I'll be behind you where I can theoretically handle anyone who tries to stop us.' One final look around—'okay; go.'

She took off like the entire Troft war machine was after her, running in a half-crouched posture that offered at best an illusion of relative safety. Jonny let her lead him by perhaps five meters, enhanced vision and hearing alert for any sound of pursuit. But the Tyler Mansion might have been deserted for all the response they drew from it. All lined up on the balcony to watch us slag ourselves, no doubt, he thought, recognizing as he did so that the strain was beginning to affect him. A few more seconds, he told himself over and over, the words settling into the quick rhythm of his footsteps. A few more seconds and it'll be over.

At the edge of the forest he put on a burst of speed, catching up to Ilona a few steps later. 'Wait a second—I have to find that kyrelium plate.'

'What?' she gasped. 'Why?'

'Don't ask questions. There it is.'

Not surprisingly, the heavy metal was undamaged. Jonny picked it up and balanced it like an oversized door in front of him, searching for the best and safest handholds.

'What... you... doing?'

'Getting us out of here. Come here—stand in front of me. Come here.'

She obeyed, stepping between him and the plate. 'Arms around my neck—hold on tight... now wrap your legs around my waist... okay. Hold tight, whatever happens. Got it?'

'Yeah.' Even muffled by his chest, her voice sounded scared. Perhaps she had a glimmering of what was about to happen.

Twenty meters to the wall. Jonny backed up another ten, getting the feel of the extra weight distribution as he gave himself room for a running start. 'Here we go,' he told Ilona. 'Hang on—'

The whine of the servos was louder in his ears than even the thudding of his pulse as his feet dug deeper into the dirt with each step and his speed increased. Eight steps, nine steps—almost fast enough— ten steps—

And an instant later his knees straightened to send them soaring upward.

It was a move Jonny had practiced over and over again back on Asgard: a high-jumper's roll, designed to take him horizontally over whatever barrier stood in his way. Horizontal, face downward, he neared both the top of his arc and the deadly wall... and an instant before reaching them, he let go of the plate now directly beneath him and wrapped his arms tightly around Ilona.

The flash was incredibly bright, especially considering that all he was seeing was the fraction of laser light reflected from the underside of the kyrelium plate to the surrounding landscape. There was a rapid-fire cracking sound of heat-stressed metal against the brief hiss of explosive ablation—and then they were past the wall, and Jonny was twisting to bring them upright as they arced toward the ground.

He almost made it, hitting at an angle that probably would have ruined both ankles without his bone and ligament reinforcement. Recovering his balance, he tightened his hold on Ilona and started to run.

He got halfway to the nearest building before the Trofts recovered from their surprise and began firing. Laser blasts licked at his sides and heels as he zigzagged across the open ground. I guess you're going to get one more datapoint, he thought in their direction; and, again pushing his leg servos to the limit, he took the last twenty meters in an all-out sprint. One second later they were around the building's corner and out of range.

Jonny kept running, aiming for a second deserted factory a short block away. 'Any suggestions as to a hiding place?' he called to Ilona over the wind.

She didn't even bother to raise her face from his shoulder. 'Just keep going,' she said, and even with the jolting of their run, he could feel her violent shiver.

He ran on, changing direction periodically, searching for a section of the city he could recognize. A kilometer or so later he found a familiar intersection and turned north, heading for one of the underground's secure phones. They were still a block away when the sound of approaching aircraft became audible. Jonny estimated distances and speeds, decided not to risk it, and stepped to the nearest doorway. It was locked, of course: but after what they'd just been through, a locked door was hardly worth noticing. Seconds later, they were inside.