inside the ops room. Saxon moved quickly through the galley area, panning the Buzzkill this way and that, going forward.
His mind raced through the tactical options open to him. He had to make a choice; he needed a better weapon, something lethal, and he needed it fast. He could set up a quick-and-dirty ambush, try to kill one of the others when they came for him, and take their gun-but that would cost him time. The second option would be to get into the cockpit, lock himself in there, and force the crew to land the jet on the nearest piece of ground, maybe Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Without at least one pilot, he'd have to handle the aircraft alone, and Saxon wasn't willing to trust himself on that score. With his rudimentary understanding of piloting, the best he could do in that case was ditch in the coastal shallows and hope he survived.
Every second he spent deliberating, they were getting farther and farther away from land. He nodded to himself. Take the plane, then, he thought. Figure the rest out later.
He could hear noises behind him. Namir hadn't come back on the mastoid comm after his first announcement, and Saxon imagined he'd be passing a new channel assignment to each of the others by hand. Another reason to move fast; once they were ready, they'd box him in and that would be that.
He thought about weapons again; at least it cut both ways. None of the standard-issue firearms used by the Tyrants could be discharged inside the jet, not without taking the risk of overpenetration. A 10 mm round could pass right through flesh and punch a hole in the fuselage, causing a catastrophic depressurization.
Saxon grimaced. Back down the length of the aircraft there was a weapons locker stocked with all he needed-a crossbow, maybe? A pulse gun? But he was thinking like Namir, and Namir would have posted someone there already. He'd have to make do.
Saxon checked his pockets for anything he could use, and his fingers touched the vu-phone. He drew it out and considered it for a second before hitting the redial key. There was a good chance he wasn't going to get out of this alive; if he could make his last few minutes count, maybe contact the hacker-movement from the corner of his eye spun him around, and he forgot the phone, coming up with the Buzzkill. He saw a flash of spiked blond hair and a figure in black combat gear burst from the shadow of a storage cabinet. Gunther Hermann collided with Saxon with such force that they were both propelled across the galley and through a folding partition into the next anteroom.
'This time it will be different,' Hermann snarled. 'I think I will enjoy this.' He struck out with a storm of blows that made Saxon's skull ring, lighting flares of pain behind his eyes. Blood hazed his vision and he threw a punch that cut empty air but little else. Hermann came in and hit him again; each shot to the head was like taking a hit from a sledgehammer. Saxon's body possessed a base level of subdermal armor, the
Rhino-class augmentation commonplace on Belltower spec-ops soldiers, but it wouldn't be enough to prevent the German's rain of punches pushing him into a concussion. He had to stop the mercenary, and he had to do it quickly.
Hermann had learned his lesson from their brief battle in the fight room, moving constantly, using his nerve-jacked speed to stay outside the swings from Saxon's cyberarm. He punched at air, drawing a sneer from the German.
He feinted into another haymaker that the younger man easily sidestepped; but while Saxon's other arm was only meat and bone, it was still deadly. His attention fixed on his opponent's augmentations, Hermann stepped into Saxon's range and he rushed him. He slammed the heel of his palm upward, breaking the other man's nose, and rode the momentum of the attack. Saxon's augmented legs powered him back across the cabin, with Hermann shoved out before him.
The mercenary slammed into a glass-fronted refrigerator and crumpled with a cry of pain. Saxon punched him hard in the chest, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone breaking beneath the blow. But Hermann would not submit, and he scrambled to extract himself from the debris, cursing in his native language.
Saxon drew the Buzzkill and fired a single, close-range shot. The electro-dart punctured Hermann's right eye, the discharge wreathing his head in a brief flash of lighting. Howling, he fell to the deck, wisps of smoke rising from burnt skin and hair.
'Stay down,' Saxon warned, and left him there, heading forward.
Hardesty was waiting in the corridor leading to the cockpit. He announced himself with the crash from a Widowmaker. Saxon dove for cover, bracing himself for the inevitable tornado of depressurization; but instead he caught the edges of a spatter of gooey matter that chugged into the air. Specks of it touched his bare skin and burned; the sniper was firing crowd-buster rounds, saboted cartridges that burst in the air and coated targets with a sticky mess of contact irritants. Saxon resisted the urge to tear at his inflamed skin and swore; the fluid wasn't lethal, but it hurt like hell.
And right on cue, Hardesty called out to him. 'They say this crap can kill a man, if he takes a shot to the face. Makes your throat swell up, chokes the air from you.' He snorted. 'Always wanted to see if that was true. Let me try it out.'
Saxon checked the stun gun. One round remaining. At this range, he'd do as much damage with harsh language. Gingerly, he peered out from cover. Hardesty was blocking the entrance to the cockpit, and behind him a door of reinforced steel and plastic closed off the path to the flight deck. If Hardesty had made it up here ahead of him, then Saxon knew his entry code to get that door open was now null and void. Any hope of taking the plane was lost. Now he had to worry about staying alive; somewhere behind or below him, Namir and Barrett were still in the game.
Across the corridor there was a stairwell leading to the other deck, but to reach it he would pass right in front of Hardesty, and give him ample time to unload the rest of the auto-shotgun loads into him.
Think fast. He ducked back just as Hardesty poked the Widowmaker's muzzle out and let off a triple-shot salvo. Saxon tasted vaporized capsicum in the air and winced at the acid tang in his throat. Above him, a portable fire extinguisher the size of a wine bottle sat in a recessed alcove. He snatched it from the clip securing it in place and held it like a club, bringing it down on the arm of a chair at the point where the discharge nozzle joined the foam canister. It bent on the first hit, and he repeated the action.
'What the hell are you doing?' Hardesty called. 'Trying to dig your way out?'
On the second strike the joint dented and a hiss of escaping gasses puffed white spray into the air. The third hit dislodged the nozzle and suddenly the canister was a fountain of cold, smothering vapor. Saxon hurled it down the corridor and heard Hardesty cry out in surprise as the makeshift gas bomb filled the enclosed space with choking mist.
Saxon vaulted toward the stairwell under cover of the distraction, even as Hardesty fired blindly, fluid-filled shells splattering all around him.
He mistimed the jump and stumbled on the metal staircase, almost tumbling headlong. Recovering, he broke into a run back down the length of the jet, kicking open the door to the main cargo bay; beyond it was the rearmost compartment and the stowed helo. There were weapons on board the flyer. If he could reach them Something caught his ankle; for a second he thought the aircraft was banking, but then he was spinning around and the deck came up to slam him in the face. Saxon scrambled to get up.
'Watch your step.' Barrett emerged from behind a cargo pod, pausing to bring down a heavy boot on the stun gun, lying where it had fallen from Saxon's pocket. He crushed the plastic-ceramic weapon with a grunt and eyed him. 'Namir?' he said to the air. 'I got him. Cargo deck, toward the tail section.' Saxon never heard the reply, but the grin that blossomed on Barrett's scarred face made it clear what was said. 'Got it.
Be a pleasure.'
The big man came forward, and like a complex mechanical toy, his right arm unfolded to allow a tri- barreled minigun to emerge.
'Go ahead, arsehole,' Saxon taunted. 'One shot from that cannon and you'll rip the hull open.'
Barrett gave a thoughtful nod. 'Good point, Benny-boy. In all the excitement, I kinda forgot myself there.' He laid his Missouri accent on thick, drawing out the moment as the weapon retracted; it was something Saxon had learned early on about the mercenary. Barrett liked to play up his brutish image, but he was more than just a thug. He liked people to underestimate him. 'Guess I'll just rip you limb from limb, then,' he added, striding forward. 'Shame. I kinda liked you…'
Saxon backed off, eyes darting around for a weapon. Barrett had come ready for anything, wearing the heavy anti-blast vest that was his signature operations kit. Nothing short of an armor-piercing round would cut through it.
