Having been in a crouching position, Seven was the least affected by the blast. Two hadn’t been so lucky. He’d received a full-frontal blast, and was blown back against the wall. He was still trying to figure out what had happened when Amber set off the second round. His extremities now sliced to ribbons, he could only slide down the wall, leaving bloody smears as he did. Seven collected his senses just long enough to watch in horror as the stun grenade rolled from the man’s bloodied hands.
Granny’s Jesus! He frantically began to crawl down the hallway, ignoring the searing pain racking his body. Seconds later, there was another flash behind him, and he felt the concussion of the blast roll over him. If he’d been standing, he’d had the breath knocked completely out of his lungs.
Fortunately, he and both backups were already on the floor, sliced up and moaning in agony. On the positive side, even though they were covered in blood and smarting from the searing pain, they were still functional. Hoping that there wasn’t going to be a third round, Seven rose slowly and gathered his wits.
“What the hell’s going on up there?” Frost shouted again in his earpiece. He’d obviously heard the blasts and has seen the carnage on their combat cams.
“Booby traps, sir,” Seven replied as he winced in pain. Reaching up, he pulled one of the jagged barbs from the bridge of his nose as it was obscuring his vision. It didn’t come out nearly as clean as it went in, ripping and tearing his flesh and scraping bone and cartilage. Tears filled his eyes as he squinted up from the intense agony. He pressed a button on his wrist pad, activating ‘Dr. Feelgood,’ the medical pouch attached to his thigh by an elastic band. Instantly, a spring-loaded hypodermic needle thrust into his muscle, injecting him with a cocktail of military grade painkillers. He closed his eyes, waiting for the meds to kick in and his head to clear.
Unfortunately, Frost was not going to allow him a moment of drug-induced relief. “Echo Tango One, do you copy? Report!”
“Echo Tango One is down. The rest of us are cut to shreds!”
“Are you still a go?”
“Affirmative,” he said, waving up Six and Five. Six took up position opposite the door from him, as Five pulled Two back down the hall out of the combat zone. The old man was unconscious and losing a lot of blood. He probably had some internal injuries from being ground zero to the stun grenade blast. More than likely, he was going into shock at this point. He needed a medic, ASAP.
Echo Tango Alpha, this is Echo Tango Two, requesting immediate medvac for Echo Tango One. Code Red. Repeat, this is a Code Red.”
“Echo Tango Two, we copy your Code Red.” Cee Tee was online now, taking control of the routing of personnel. In the heat of battle, he was the man who moved the pieces around the board.
“Echo Tango Alpha, we are regrouped and going in …” He resumed his stance by the door, as Six reached for the handle. “In three … two …”
All right, you bitch!
Six twisted the handle.
Time for some payback!
“One!”
What the hell’s that noise?
***
Frost had just climbed out of the command HC parked outside the inn. He’d been monitoring the extraction team from inside until things had gone bad. A gut feeling told him he needed to get into the fight. Even though he was not in full combat gear, he’d grabbed a pulse rifle off the rack. Obviously, even he had underestimated this rogue, Thomas. And that, after lecturing the kid. Now, he had men down and egg on his face. He would not make this mistake again.
He’d taken just a few steps when he heard the roar behind him. In the dusky twilight, he turned just in time to see an old aerotruck swoop in at treetop level. It was coming in fast and hot.
Was that a Pegasus? I’ll be damned! Bastard does have style!
The fact that he was off the skyway meant the Gus had been heavily modified and was illegal. The “free sky” days had been over for almost thirty years. At the very least, its bumper restraint had been turned off. This was no easy feat. It took somebody who knew what they were doing to achieve this, as well as willing to serve a five-year prison term. He knew immediately that this was his man.
He threw up his pulse rifle and fired off a short burst before the truck streaked past him and around to the right of the motel. Coming straight at him, it was moving far faster than he first estimated, and he doubted he’d done little if any damage at all. Whatever Thomas had under the hood … he wanted one just like it.
“Look sharp, boys!” he spoke into his mic. “We got a bogey coming around our six!”
At that, he took off in a jog toward the left side of the building.
***
Seven burst into the hotel room just in time to see an aerotruck fill the window straight ahead. What the hell? Is that a Pegasus? It caused him to hesitate just long enough for Amber to stand and put a People Popper right into his chest.
Fuck! She shot me! The bitch fuckin’ shot me! Even though it was no match for his PolyRmor, it still had enough force at this range to knock him backwards. The intense heat of the round flaming out burned like a ball of hellfire, heating up that spot in his body armor, blistering his skin just beneath it, on his left breast and sternum. He caught a glimpse of the pistol-wielding, furry bitch as he stumbled backwards into
