“Good. Bring the bracelet to me, and I’ll give your crew the run of the city for shore-leave, and you access to a secluded part of the Gorge for training.” he said, and I watched as his body guard moved onto the balcony around him, while two large squads of soldiers moved through doors set in the walls below, to occupy the space in front of the cells.
My heart sank. This did not look good.
11—A Guarantee for Good Behavior
Mack and I backed up, as far away from the front of the cell as we could get without plastering ourselves against the rear wall. Both of us made sure we had enough space to move. I glanced at the dividing wall, annoyed that the images partially obscured Mack’s cell. He followed my look, frowned, shrugged, and faced towards the soldiers in front of him.
I followed his gaze, and saw that both squads had formed up, four across, close to the wall. Mack was eyeing the men, and probably thinking the same thing I was, except...
I glared at the images hanging between us, and remembered the flickering lightnings that had played over the wall the last time I’d poked it. With a hurried glance towards the guards at the front, I took a shuffle closer to the wall and poked it again. After that, I gave the guards my full and undivided attention.
I wondered how they were going to get in, given I still couldn’t see a door in front of the cell, but I didn’t have to wonder for long. That question was answered as the wall in front of Mack’s cell dropped into the floor. As soon as it did, the squad in front of him moved into the cell. I waited for the same thing to happen with mine.
It didn’t. I backed up, trying to work out how to get in to reach Mack. Couldn’t think of a way, except out the front through four ranks of really alert men.
The first four guards didn’t take him on. They just split and started to move around him. Mack backed up some more, and then decided he didn’t want to get trapped against the back wall. I reached out and poked the wall, again, remembering what had happened last time.
Mack feinted at the guard furthest from the divider, before turning and delivering a perfectly placed spinning back kick into the guard trying to slide by him with the divider at his back. The kick sent the man into the barrier, just as the charge leapt along the wall.
I could have done without the screaming.
That was all it took to bring down the wall in front of me, and I didn’t wait for the guards to cross. As far as I was concerned, there was only one person who needed to die today, and he was on the balcony above our heads.
Which would do him little good if I could clear enough space for a run-up. Now, all I had to do was activate the nans to release the stim into my system—and the best way I knew how to do that was to start a fight. I looked at the soldiers, still lined up where the wall used to be.
Nice of them to volunteer.
I leapt forward, and watched their blasters come up. Bastards.
It was enough for me to kick into a forward flip, glad Delight had insisted on gymnastics training with her crew. The flip created panic in the front rank, as I shortened the distance faster than they were expecting, and changed the trajectory in a way they hadn’t anticipated. I don’t think I’d shown them that trick the last time I was here. More fool them.
The landing brought me down in the center of the middle rank, but it wasn’t clean. I clipped someone’s shoulder with my hip, on the way down, and jolted sideways into the man beside him. That was both good, and bad. I knocked the blaster out of the guy’s hand, which was good—but I failed to regain my balance enough to get my feet under me, which was very, very bad.
I landed amidst a forest of boots and legs, with the blaster not far from my hand. It would have been better if these guys had been completely green, or of the same caliber as most of the house guards I’d encountered before, but they weren’t. They were combat veterans, something I was reminded of, when three booted feet came down on my arm, as I reached for the blaster.
The boots that landed along my body and pinned it were an additional reminder, as were the blasters levelled in my direction from the front row, which had now turned and taken a few steps back to give their colleagues in the second row room to move. Except for the captain—and there was always gonna be one.
He dropped into a crouch beside my head and smacked me hard in the jaw with a very solid fist. Well, fuck.
I was cuffed and dragged to my feet in record-quick time, my ears still ringing from the blow. I didn’t know what to expect after that, maybe a thorough beating to teach me a lesson, or something similar. It didn’t happen. Instead, the captain pulled me across his chest, a beefy forearm curled around my throat. I waited for the nans to kick in, and realized I hadn’t given them enough time. Guess that was one of the bugs Mack and Doc were gonna have to iron out.
Problem was, Mack was deep in the shit. Sure, he’d managed to throw another two guys into the forcefield, and then Barangail had turned it off, so his men now had the entire double cell to work with. It did the same for Mack, but there was only one of
