“Should I wake up Snow Leopard?” Priestess asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s just a couple of Taka.” I re-read the data. We watched the two unknowns, slowly approaching the top of the ridge. The trees masked the images much of the time. Deadeye’s auxiliaries were moving briskly down our ridge, heading for the valley. It would be quite a chase. The console continued to glow red. Suddenly it pinged again.
ANOMALY, the screen warned, POSSIBLE CAMFAX IMAGE SUPPRESSOR.
READINGS STILL INCONCLUSIVE. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE REACTION.
My blood went cold.
“Thinker!” Priestess stood up in alarm.
“The aircar!” My fist went down on the alarm, and the red alert claxon shrieked to life. I charged out the door, snatching up my E. I reached the aircar in an instant, leaping in as the assault door snapped open, Redhawk thrashing to life from an airbunk in the aisle. He slept in the car.
“Scut!” Redhawk cursed, “What is it?!”
“Move!” I said, “We’ve got targets!” Redhawk scrambled into the pilot’s seat and started flipping switches, tangled red hair flying as the car came to life, a sharp whine building to a throaty roar. The squad charged through the door as the aircar left the ground in a rising cloud of red dust. Dragon, Coolhand, Psycho, then Ironman, then Snow Leopard, then Merlin and Warhound scrambling in last. Nobody was dressed for combat but we were all armed.
“Count!” Snow Leopard, looking around wildly, no shirt, slipping into a camfaxed coldcoat.
“All here except Priestess on the tacsite!” Coolhand replied.
“Go! Go! Across the valley,” I urged Redhawk. The assault door slammed shut.
“Brief me, Thinker,” Snow Leopard ordered, fully alert and clutching an E.
“Two guys on the ridge over there. Scanner says they may be carrying image suppressors.”
“Image suppressors!” The squadmod had slipped away beneath us and suddenly the valley was below. The thickly forested ridge came right at us.
“Have you got ‘em?” Snow Leopard asked.
“I’ve got ‘em,” Redhawk replied. I could see the two figures on the cockpit scope, nearing the ridgeline.
“Comtops!” Warhound started tossing the helmets out of the storage bins. We lost altitude quickly, approaching the treetops. I slipped a comtop over my head, and the darklight lit up the dimmed interior of the car, a ghostly green world, swirling with phantoms.
“They hear us! They’re running.”
“Splitting up!”
“Form two elements for foot pursuit,” Snow Leopard commanded.
“Deadeye, we’re after them,” I said. “Keep coming!”
“We are coming, Slayer! Thinker, Deadeye, out!”
The assault doors snapped open and the night wind whipped into the car. A wild-looking bunch, we had dressed for a quiet night in the squadmod, but we all had E’s and comtops, and our targets were in terminal trouble. Coolhand pulled on his liteboots. Psycho leaned out the door with his Manlink, grinning like a hungry cannibal. He hadn’t even put on his comtop. We saw nothing out there except a dark sea of writhing treetops.
“Hit ‘em with stunstars, then insert us,” Snow Leopard said.
“I’ve got this one,” Redhawk said. The forest flashed brightly beneath us and a thunderclap split the night.
“Get the other one.” The aircar banked steeply and we held on tight. I could see the second target on the scope, darting past the trees. Redhawk fired again, and the screen erupted in a sheet of light. A second thunderclap sounded.
“Get us down there, Redhawk!”
“I can’t get through the trees-I’ll put you down on those rocks.”
“They’re both still moving!”
“The stunstar’s weakened by all those trees!”
“Decar!” The aircar hovered dizzily as Snow Leopard leaped into the dark, clutching his E. I followed Coolhand and Dragon, dropping down onto solid rock. My darksight lit up the night, the aircar hovering in a storm of green dust, tall trees all around us, Psycho and Ironman suddenly beside me, then Warhound and Merlin-all there! The aircar shot skyward again. We had been dropped onto a great cliff of yellow stone, at the top of the ridge overlooking the valley. We hustled down into the forest.
“Priestess, Snow Leopard. We’re on the ground, going after the targets.”
“Snow Leopard, Priestess. Tenners.”
I ran crashing through thick shrubbery, between tall black trees, under a tangled canopy, along the ridgeline. Cold and dark and wet, a forest for winter wolves, a place for hunters and prey, a bad place to die. I saw one of the intruders, magnified on my faceplate, sprinting down the opposite slope. Dragon and Psycho charged along beside me, and now we hurtled downhill, a wild fall, bouncing off trees and branches, tearing through nasty spiked bushes.
“Eeyow!” Psycho was in shorts, his legs suddenly cut and bleeding.
“Stunstars and V,” Snow Leopard ordered, “nothing else!” Psycho raised his Manlink and fired a stunstar, splitting the night, a tremendous flash and bang, the concussion hitting me right in the chest. I slowed briefly, aimed at the fleeing target, and fired a burst of auto V, V-min. Dragon fired V as well. We ran forward, again. Suddenly I careened down a steep dirt cliff, grasping at roots and branches, falling heavily into a tangled mass of vegetation. I struggled to my feet and forced myself forward.
The target, still on scope, weaved and danced. Psycho fired his Manlink again, the stunstar ripping through the air, the forest erupting ahead of us, a tremendous crack.
“He’s down.” Another flash, off to the left, and the aircar whistled past overhead. The car fired at the other target, whirling around for a second pass, an evil bird, glinting starlight.
We approached the target carefully. He was down, not moving.
“Careful! Keep it on v-min.” Psycho and Dragon and I had him bracketed. Coolhand caught up with us.
The target was face down in the muck, limbs askew. We would not even have seen him without the darksight. He wore camfax, head to foot. A cylindrical package laid a few marks away, also camfaxed. I took hold of his shoulder and turned him over as Dragon and Psycho stood over him with their weapons. His head rolled back loosely, his face plastered with mud and leaves. I brushed them away. An Outworlder! His eyes were open, glazed.
“He’s not breathing!”
“I’ve got him!” Coolhand was with us, and pulled a medkit from his coldcoat. He slammed a biotic charger onto the man’s chest and triggered it. The shock coursed through the Outworlder’s body.
“No response!” Coolhand tried it again. The body twitched, without life signs.
“Deadman!” Coolhand tore off his comtop and tossed it away. His narrow face streamed with sweat, and his curly brown hair was plastered to his brow. He checked the life signs, then triggered the device again and again, until smoke began to rise from the body. The Outworlder’s eyes remained open, his mouth agape. His body twitched, but the life signs did not change.
“No response,” Psycho said. “He’s dead, Coolhand.” He was on one knee, kneeling by his Manlink. Coolhand finally pulled the device away.
“Deto!” Coolhand was furious. The biotic charge should have worked.
“That’s an Outworlder,” I said.
“That’s a Systie,” Dragon said. Full body camfax. Good stuff, but he couldn’t hide from the Legion.
“What killed him?”
“Must have been the stunstar.”
“Snow Leopard, Coolhand. We’ve got our target. Looks like a Systie-stone dead! We couldn’t save him.”
“What? Death’s gate!” The response came immediately. “Ours is dead, too! He won’t respond to the biotic charge.”
“What the hell, over?”
“Don’t know, Coolhand. Investigate thoroughly.”
“Tenners.”
