A subtle agency omnibus, p.57
A Subtle Agency Omnibus, page 57
part #1 of The Metaframe War Series
Jay spun around. Yvette was dodging the flashing strikes of the second assassin, the pair of them rotating through a blurred and deadly dance. He reversed the sword in his hand, throwing it toward Yvette.
She reached for the blade.
Jay dashed for the second blade on the floor.
Is there enough time?
* * *
“What the hell,” Luther shouted, backing away and dodging the strikes of the nearest Red Empire Assassin.
A second assassin flourished his swords, advancing on Chiara.
She fell into silence, time slowed down. The assassin ramped, rushing forward. She twisted away to the right as he went past her. She took in the room as she turned. Justin had vanished through the doorway. Five Red Empire assassins were rushing the Order guards in front of the table. Francis was engaging two more on the far side of the room as Juliette moved in behind him. Jay ran past a blood-soaked corpse for a fallen blade. Yvette caught a thrown sword, turning furiously toward her opponent.
Chiara leaned back hard as blades passed over her head.
Li was still chained to her chair. Peter and Anton blurring around her, a ferocious wall of bright metal and desperate intent.
Lamar stood in no man’s land, outside Anton’s and Peter’s defensive ring, his head swiveling, his face rigid with shock. Kain disappeared beyond the swarm of blades and bodies as the four Order guards stood firm before the onslaught of the best of the Red Empire troop.
Chiara leaped, flattening herself face up on the ceiling as the assassin lunged beneath her.
Weapons?
The glass on the floor glittered in the lamplight. She pushed back off the ceiling to land near the front wall. A gray blanket lay crumpled on the floor. She snatched it up, sweeping it over the glass toward the onrushing assassin.
The glass came alive. A glittering mist of shards flying through the air. She let the blanket go. It flew toward the assassin, spreading out like a sail in the wind. The assassin began to dodge aside but the glass was moving too quickly, and the blanket was too wide. The glass struck first, then the blanket wrapped over his front, covering his face and torso.
Chiara followed, both her feet striking him in the chest. She rebounded back, the man flying across the room, crashing into the far wall.
She grinned. He’d dropped one of his swords. She scooped it up, twisting around, the sword snapping up into a defensive position in front of her.
An assassin, his leather veil knocked away, blood streaming from his crushed nose, came at her from the front corner of the room. He ramped and lunged. Chiara ramped and defended. His first attack got past her defenses, scoring a cut across her shoulder.
She grimaced, giving ground. This one was a better fighter than the first.
Where was Luther, he’d disappeared?
She dodged again.
A second assassin, the one who had first struck at Luther, advanced upon her from the opposite side.
It was two against one, and all she had was one Red Empire sword to defend herself with. She vowed to sell her life at a high price. She plunged deep into silence, becoming one with the moment, energy surging through her.
The assassins struck, whirling past her.
She was alone.
She fought.
Blades ground against her sword. Sparks flew, glittering as they drifted away in slow motion. Reflected in the mirror-like shards of glass remaining on the floor. Her dark hair floated around her as she moved through the narrow spaces between the assassins’ shining weapons. Candlelight gleaming in her eyes. Four blades against one, her only hope was for one of her opponents to make a mistake.
The first to do so would die.
She held no illusions - she had to fight perfectly.
* * *
The shock passed, evolving into outrage.
His mind on fire, Deon Lamar took stock of his surroundings. Anton Slayne and Peter Lamb had brought weapons to an inquisition in clear violation of the law. Even worse, Francis Mirovar, a senior force leader of the Order of Thoth had hidden a katana beneath the judge’s table.
The violation of trust was more than he could bear. He screamed in inarticulate rage. He stood in a pocket of space devoid of violence, except for the righteous fury burning within his soul.
“Criminals!” he shouted, pointing at Francis. His face flushed, pointing at Anton and Peter, he screamed, “Criminals! Traitors! Spies!”
He spun around.
A Red Empire assassin blurred into the doorway. A straggler, the only member of the troop to enter the house via the back door. Their eyes locked on each other. The assassin rushed forward, his swords flat edges of shining metal at chest height.
As an Order traveler, Deon’s training emphasized unarmed combat against armed opponents. All the better to arrest a spy or traitor alive so that they could be interrogated.
He had an unassailable belief he could survive this encounter. With exquisite timing he pivoted to the side, taking control of the assassin’s right arm, he flipped him forward, face-first onto the floor. A sharp crack resounded through the room as the man’s face caved in on the polished hardwood.
Deon stepped back, the assassin’s limp body lying in perfect stillness at his feet.
The man’s death was a deserved death. The Red Empire had split from the Order twenty-three centuries ago. A rebellion that could end in only one way - destruction and death. He thrilled with the knowledge he’d assisted, even if in only a small way, with the destruction of the Red Empire.
Someone was shouting at him, the words lost in the wild noise of battle.
He exulted, turned and shouted, “Victory is -”
A pair of blades, their points soaked with his blood, appeared in front of his chest. The blows picked him up, carrying him forward to the front wall. The points of the blades drove into the drywall, pinning him like a bug on a cork board.
The swords dragged down and out, shaving through half a dozen ribs on either side of his spine. The world turned, he slumped backward, crashing to the floor.
Deon looked up, for the briefest of moments, his assailant loomed above him.
He flailed feebly with one hand, once, twice.
The world grayed out, and darkness swept in.
* * *
The Blue Dragon flashed through the air, sparks flew. The chains binding Li’s wrists dropped to the floor.
Li’s eyes flicked between Peter, Anton and the chaos swirling through the room, she snapped, “I can’t Ramp.”
“It’s the Truther,” Peter explained.
Anton shouted, “We’ve got to get her out of here.”
“Where?” Peter asked. “There’s helicopters everywhere.”
“Damn it.”
The Red Empire were all over the room. Only half the Order in the room were armed. Francis wielded the White Dragon, Jay, Yvette and Chiara had managed to capture blades from their opponents, but Lamar, Kain, Luther, Juliette and Li were unarmed or unable to fight.
A battle boiled mere yards from where Anton stood as the four elite Order guards held off the core of the Red Empire troop. Lamar slammed an assassin face first into the floor. The man’s head caving in on contact with the polished hardwood.
The largest of the Red Empire assassins, hanging back from the fight with the Order guards, peeled away to his left. He headed straight for Lamar.
Anton shouted, “Behind you.”
Too late - the big assassin plunged his swords through Lamar’s back. Blurring forward, he lifted Lamar off the floor and pinned him against the front wall. Dragging his blades out with a downward draw cut to maximize damage, he stepped back to get out of the way of the falling body.
The assassin turned around and faced Anton. Their eyes met - it was Marcus Drake.
“What the fuck?!” Anton swore.
A sick feeling surged through his guts. His breathing stuttered. His father’s words, ‘I will make you pay,’ slammed like a freight train through his soul. The edges of his world whited out - there was only Marcus Drake and the memories of April the 28th.
Drake strode forward. His booted feet reverberating across the floorboards. His dripping swords snapping up into an attack-defense position, the forward one low, the rear one high.
Anton stalked forward, the Blue Dragon in his right hand, the Green Dragon in his left. For a brief moment, they stood ten feet apart, staring at each other in silence as individual battles raged throughout the room and helicopter gunships rumbled like fire-breathing dragons overhead.
“Where’s my father?” Anton demanded through clenched teeth, his voice low with tightly-held hatred.
Drakes’ eyes tightened and he snarled, “Beyond your reach.”
“You know where he is?”
“Of course,” Drake declared, grinning.
“Tell me,” Anton demanded.
Drake’s face froze with hatred and he shouted, “Never!”
A red mist descended. Something snapped within Anton. Anguish surged up through his chest. His face paled, his hands stilled to stone-like immobility. Energy coruscated from the base of his spine, flooding muscles, nerves, and bone.
Silence rushed through him, swirling around a pillar of agony transfixed in the middle of his soul.
He ramped instantaneously.
Drake blurred, his swords arcing forward like the scythes of the angel of death.
Anton snapped his blades diagonally up and down, catching Drakes’ strikes. The Red Empire metal ground against the genius-forged meteoric iron of the Dragon swords. Splintering in silvery shards, they shattered into thousands of burning pieces. Blooming into twin clouds of glittering metal.
Drake kept coming. Closing to grapple where his overwhelming strength would be a decisive advantage.
Anton’s right foot lashed out. All the explosive power of his Ramp flowing through a simple front kick performed with perfect timing. Drake folded around it. All of his forward momentum arrested and reversed. He flew backward, smashing a hole in the wall and disappearing into the front yard of the safe house.
Anton followed him through the gap and into the night.
* * *
Justin leaped straight up the front of the safe house.
Streams of minigun fire ripped through the spot he’d been standing in. The two Harley-Davidson’s parked in front of the safe house were torn in half, falling away in crumpled heaps of burning metal.
“Now that hurts,” he remarked, landing on the roof in a crouch. He pointed the Milkor MGL he’d taken from his motorcycle’s saddlebags at the blackwidow and pulled the trigger. The launcher chuffed, a bloom of gray smoke trailing the grenade arching toward the helicopter.
The blackwidow’s sensors detected the incoming threat, incandescent flares streamed from the underside of the helicopter, lighting up the yard. Chaff bloomed to the left and right in glittering, silvery clouds.
The blackwidow’s technically advanced defenses were optimized to deal with smart weapons with sophisticated seeker warheads. The 40mm grenade heading toward it was a ‘dumb’ weapon that relied on the skills of the person firing the launcher to aim it accurately.
The grenade sailed through the flares, ignored the chaff and slammed into the lower left side of the helicopter. Its warhead exploded, sending a molten copper whip slashing through the armor and into the body of the machine.
Blurring to his left, Justin leaped from the roof to the top of a steel water tank next to the house. Mini-gun fire immediately cut through the tank, water sluicing around him. He dropped down to the yard, blurring forward with his right hand holding the MGL outstretched toward the helicopter. He pumped the trigger, the barrels rotating as he ran. Grenades looping toward the blackwidow.
The Helicopter turned on the spot. The mini-gun on the near side and the main cannon chasing him, 7.62mm and 20mm rounds stitching their way across the yard. A stray tracer round nicked the side of a diesel bowser next to the farm’s working barn.
It blew up, fire and black smoke fountaining into the air. The blast wave struck Justin from behind and blew him over, the MGL rolling from his fingers. He turned over onto his back. The Helicopter was about fifty yards above him, rocking to the side as the same blast hit it, brilliant flares and glittering chaff steaming from its sides. The first grenade scored a great slash across the nose, the second slammed into the middle of the near engine which promptly started sparking and giving off great puffs of black smoke. The third grenade missed it entirely, looping harmlessly away.
“Fall, you bastard, fall,” Justin growled.
The helicopter stuttered. Vents on the second engine opened, the far-side turbine suddenly roaring at full power - all pretense at stealth dropping away. The blackwidow righted, backed and pivoted, turning nose down toward him. Its main armament - the 20mm cannon lining up on him.
Justin scrambled back to his feet, diving back into silence, the Ramp flowering within.
A big, Red Empire Assassin smashed through the front wall of the house. Taking out the rail around the porch, he landed on his back in the front yard. The MGL was three feet back from his right shoulder, within reach if he saw it.
The assassin shook his head once. Blurring upright, staring fixedly toward the house. He pulled a pair of sais from his belt and flourished them, poised to attack or defend.
Anton blurred out, the Green and Blue Dragons in his hands.
Justin rushed forward, scooping up the MGL.
The gunship’s cannons remained silent, smoke and a dark fluid leaking from a rent in the armor just above them. The pilot grimaced, the blackwidow sliding to the left. The near side minigun pivoting around toward Justin cued to the gunner’s helmet - it pointed where he looked. The crew on the helicopter were fully focused on him. They ignored the others brawling in front of the house, it was the man with the MGL that was the immediate threat.
Justin blurred again, firing another round at the middle of the blackwidow’s cabin.
The gunner in the helicopter stared at the incoming grenade. The mini-gun on the same side swiveled around and up. Fire burst from its spinning barrels. A golden stream of tracers lit up the night sky, intersecting with the grenade, which promptly exploded twenty yards short of the target.
“Shit,” Justin hissed between clenched teeth.
He had one grenade left.
Justin blurred through the space where Anton and the big assassin fought. Dodging past them, he fired his last grenade vertically up through the floor of the blackwidow. The grenade disappeared through the armor into the middle of the cabin.
A bright flash lit the interior of the blackwidow. The inside of the canopy was painted a dark crimson.
The second engine died, the helicopter dropped like a stone.
Justin, Anton, and the assassin scattered.
The shadows of the night lurched forward as the blackwidow crashed into the yard before fleeing as the helicopter erupted into a huge fireball.
* * *
Marcus Drake and Justin had disappeared.
The flaming wreckage of the blackwidow gunship burned in the middle of the yard. Unspent ammunition randomly exploding. A Hellfire missile cooked off, the front half of the helicopter evaporating in a blinding glare.
The edge of the blast knocked Anton flying into the wall of the training barn. He fell forward onto the ground. Sparks were falling all around him. Several sizzled through his shirt, burning his chest and shoulders.
He jumped to his feet, patting himself off. The barn was on fire, flames leaping through it. It was already half gone. The hay bales lining the walls burning like dry kindling. The air was thick with smoke.
Two more blackwidows flew concentric circles around the safe house. They were bearing in on the yard at the same time from opposite directions. Mini-gun fire opened up from the left and right, golden streams leaping along the ground toward where he stood.
Anton blurred backward into the barn and hit the deck.
The heat in the barn hit him like a sledgehammer. The smoke enveloping him and stinging his eyes, he could barely see. Bullets ripped through the side of the barn, whizzing over his head. He hugged the ground. He held his breath. He had to do something about the helicopters - no one was getting out of this alive while they were still flying.
Scrambling to his feet, he blurred to the armory door. It was shut, waves of heat washing through the air above it. Anton ripped off his shirt. Wrapped it around his hands. Grabbing the door handles, he ramped and dragged the armory door open. It fell to the side with a reverberating clang.
Smoke immediately curled down the first step.
Anton dashed down the stairs into the darkness.
* * *
The room was a riot of colors. The Truther coursing through Li’s veins was in full effect.
Without being able to Ramp it was almost impossible to follow what was happening around her.
She was desperate to tell someone the truth. Anyone would do, but no one was asking any questions. It was a horribly uncomfortable sensation.
Li shook her head. Anton had run off after some assassin. What was he thinking? She didn’t need Truther to tell him precisely what she thought of his priorities. Thankfully Peter was steadfast, staying close - no one had even tried to come near them.
A spray of blood jetted across her face.
One of the Order guards fell to the floor, blood gushing from his headless neck.
A second guard stumbled to the side, three blades converging through his body. They were gone again in a flash. He fell to the ground, his eyes catching Li’s for a brief moment before they glazed over.
The line of guards was breaking.
Luther blurred from the side. Scooping up one of the fallen katanas, he leaped into the fray.
The two assassins who had been probing Francis’ defenses without success backed away, turned and rushed toward Peter and Li. Francis repositioned to best protect Juliette. His sword held defensively in front of him, ready to gut the first assassin to come near.
“About bloody time,” Peter declared grimly, his axes flashing through the air. In moments, he was a whirl of silvery metal as he clashed against the assassins.
She reached for the blade.
Jay dashed for the second blade on the floor.
Is there enough time?
* * *
“What the hell,” Luther shouted, backing away and dodging the strikes of the nearest Red Empire Assassin.
A second assassin flourished his swords, advancing on Chiara.
She fell into silence, time slowed down. The assassin ramped, rushing forward. She twisted away to the right as he went past her. She took in the room as she turned. Justin had vanished through the doorway. Five Red Empire assassins were rushing the Order guards in front of the table. Francis was engaging two more on the far side of the room as Juliette moved in behind him. Jay ran past a blood-soaked corpse for a fallen blade. Yvette caught a thrown sword, turning furiously toward her opponent.
Chiara leaned back hard as blades passed over her head.
Li was still chained to her chair. Peter and Anton blurring around her, a ferocious wall of bright metal and desperate intent.
Lamar stood in no man’s land, outside Anton’s and Peter’s defensive ring, his head swiveling, his face rigid with shock. Kain disappeared beyond the swarm of blades and bodies as the four Order guards stood firm before the onslaught of the best of the Red Empire troop.
Chiara leaped, flattening herself face up on the ceiling as the assassin lunged beneath her.
Weapons?
The glass on the floor glittered in the lamplight. She pushed back off the ceiling to land near the front wall. A gray blanket lay crumpled on the floor. She snatched it up, sweeping it over the glass toward the onrushing assassin.
The glass came alive. A glittering mist of shards flying through the air. She let the blanket go. It flew toward the assassin, spreading out like a sail in the wind. The assassin began to dodge aside but the glass was moving too quickly, and the blanket was too wide. The glass struck first, then the blanket wrapped over his front, covering his face and torso.
Chiara followed, both her feet striking him in the chest. She rebounded back, the man flying across the room, crashing into the far wall.
She grinned. He’d dropped one of his swords. She scooped it up, twisting around, the sword snapping up into a defensive position in front of her.
An assassin, his leather veil knocked away, blood streaming from his crushed nose, came at her from the front corner of the room. He ramped and lunged. Chiara ramped and defended. His first attack got past her defenses, scoring a cut across her shoulder.
She grimaced, giving ground. This one was a better fighter than the first.
Where was Luther, he’d disappeared?
She dodged again.
A second assassin, the one who had first struck at Luther, advanced upon her from the opposite side.
It was two against one, and all she had was one Red Empire sword to defend herself with. She vowed to sell her life at a high price. She plunged deep into silence, becoming one with the moment, energy surging through her.
The assassins struck, whirling past her.
She was alone.
She fought.
Blades ground against her sword. Sparks flew, glittering as they drifted away in slow motion. Reflected in the mirror-like shards of glass remaining on the floor. Her dark hair floated around her as she moved through the narrow spaces between the assassins’ shining weapons. Candlelight gleaming in her eyes. Four blades against one, her only hope was for one of her opponents to make a mistake.
The first to do so would die.
She held no illusions - she had to fight perfectly.
* * *
The shock passed, evolving into outrage.
His mind on fire, Deon Lamar took stock of his surroundings. Anton Slayne and Peter Lamb had brought weapons to an inquisition in clear violation of the law. Even worse, Francis Mirovar, a senior force leader of the Order of Thoth had hidden a katana beneath the judge’s table.
The violation of trust was more than he could bear. He screamed in inarticulate rage. He stood in a pocket of space devoid of violence, except for the righteous fury burning within his soul.
“Criminals!” he shouted, pointing at Francis. His face flushed, pointing at Anton and Peter, he screamed, “Criminals! Traitors! Spies!”
He spun around.
A Red Empire assassin blurred into the doorway. A straggler, the only member of the troop to enter the house via the back door. Their eyes locked on each other. The assassin rushed forward, his swords flat edges of shining metal at chest height.
As an Order traveler, Deon’s training emphasized unarmed combat against armed opponents. All the better to arrest a spy or traitor alive so that they could be interrogated.
He had an unassailable belief he could survive this encounter. With exquisite timing he pivoted to the side, taking control of the assassin’s right arm, he flipped him forward, face-first onto the floor. A sharp crack resounded through the room as the man’s face caved in on the polished hardwood.
Deon stepped back, the assassin’s limp body lying in perfect stillness at his feet.
The man’s death was a deserved death. The Red Empire had split from the Order twenty-three centuries ago. A rebellion that could end in only one way - destruction and death. He thrilled with the knowledge he’d assisted, even if in only a small way, with the destruction of the Red Empire.
Someone was shouting at him, the words lost in the wild noise of battle.
He exulted, turned and shouted, “Victory is -”
A pair of blades, their points soaked with his blood, appeared in front of his chest. The blows picked him up, carrying him forward to the front wall. The points of the blades drove into the drywall, pinning him like a bug on a cork board.
The swords dragged down and out, shaving through half a dozen ribs on either side of his spine. The world turned, he slumped backward, crashing to the floor.
Deon looked up, for the briefest of moments, his assailant loomed above him.
He flailed feebly with one hand, once, twice.
The world grayed out, and darkness swept in.
* * *
The Blue Dragon flashed through the air, sparks flew. The chains binding Li’s wrists dropped to the floor.
Li’s eyes flicked between Peter, Anton and the chaos swirling through the room, she snapped, “I can’t Ramp.”
“It’s the Truther,” Peter explained.
Anton shouted, “We’ve got to get her out of here.”
“Where?” Peter asked. “There’s helicopters everywhere.”
“Damn it.”
The Red Empire were all over the room. Only half the Order in the room were armed. Francis wielded the White Dragon, Jay, Yvette and Chiara had managed to capture blades from their opponents, but Lamar, Kain, Luther, Juliette and Li were unarmed or unable to fight.
A battle boiled mere yards from where Anton stood as the four elite Order guards held off the core of the Red Empire troop. Lamar slammed an assassin face first into the floor. The man’s head caving in on contact with the polished hardwood.
The largest of the Red Empire assassins, hanging back from the fight with the Order guards, peeled away to his left. He headed straight for Lamar.
Anton shouted, “Behind you.”
Too late - the big assassin plunged his swords through Lamar’s back. Blurring forward, he lifted Lamar off the floor and pinned him against the front wall. Dragging his blades out with a downward draw cut to maximize damage, he stepped back to get out of the way of the falling body.
The assassin turned around and faced Anton. Their eyes met - it was Marcus Drake.
“What the fuck?!” Anton swore.
A sick feeling surged through his guts. His breathing stuttered. His father’s words, ‘I will make you pay,’ slammed like a freight train through his soul. The edges of his world whited out - there was only Marcus Drake and the memories of April the 28th.
Drake strode forward. His booted feet reverberating across the floorboards. His dripping swords snapping up into an attack-defense position, the forward one low, the rear one high.
Anton stalked forward, the Blue Dragon in his right hand, the Green Dragon in his left. For a brief moment, they stood ten feet apart, staring at each other in silence as individual battles raged throughout the room and helicopter gunships rumbled like fire-breathing dragons overhead.
“Where’s my father?” Anton demanded through clenched teeth, his voice low with tightly-held hatred.
Drakes’ eyes tightened and he snarled, “Beyond your reach.”
“You know where he is?”
“Of course,” Drake declared, grinning.
“Tell me,” Anton demanded.
Drake’s face froze with hatred and he shouted, “Never!”
A red mist descended. Something snapped within Anton. Anguish surged up through his chest. His face paled, his hands stilled to stone-like immobility. Energy coruscated from the base of his spine, flooding muscles, nerves, and bone.
Silence rushed through him, swirling around a pillar of agony transfixed in the middle of his soul.
He ramped instantaneously.
Drake blurred, his swords arcing forward like the scythes of the angel of death.
Anton snapped his blades diagonally up and down, catching Drakes’ strikes. The Red Empire metal ground against the genius-forged meteoric iron of the Dragon swords. Splintering in silvery shards, they shattered into thousands of burning pieces. Blooming into twin clouds of glittering metal.
Drake kept coming. Closing to grapple where his overwhelming strength would be a decisive advantage.
Anton’s right foot lashed out. All the explosive power of his Ramp flowing through a simple front kick performed with perfect timing. Drake folded around it. All of his forward momentum arrested and reversed. He flew backward, smashing a hole in the wall and disappearing into the front yard of the safe house.
Anton followed him through the gap and into the night.
* * *
Justin leaped straight up the front of the safe house.
Streams of minigun fire ripped through the spot he’d been standing in. The two Harley-Davidson’s parked in front of the safe house were torn in half, falling away in crumpled heaps of burning metal.
“Now that hurts,” he remarked, landing on the roof in a crouch. He pointed the Milkor MGL he’d taken from his motorcycle’s saddlebags at the blackwidow and pulled the trigger. The launcher chuffed, a bloom of gray smoke trailing the grenade arching toward the helicopter.
The blackwidow’s sensors detected the incoming threat, incandescent flares streamed from the underside of the helicopter, lighting up the yard. Chaff bloomed to the left and right in glittering, silvery clouds.
The blackwidow’s technically advanced defenses were optimized to deal with smart weapons with sophisticated seeker warheads. The 40mm grenade heading toward it was a ‘dumb’ weapon that relied on the skills of the person firing the launcher to aim it accurately.
The grenade sailed through the flares, ignored the chaff and slammed into the lower left side of the helicopter. Its warhead exploded, sending a molten copper whip slashing through the armor and into the body of the machine.
Blurring to his left, Justin leaped from the roof to the top of a steel water tank next to the house. Mini-gun fire immediately cut through the tank, water sluicing around him. He dropped down to the yard, blurring forward with his right hand holding the MGL outstretched toward the helicopter. He pumped the trigger, the barrels rotating as he ran. Grenades looping toward the blackwidow.
The Helicopter turned on the spot. The mini-gun on the near side and the main cannon chasing him, 7.62mm and 20mm rounds stitching their way across the yard. A stray tracer round nicked the side of a diesel bowser next to the farm’s working barn.
It blew up, fire and black smoke fountaining into the air. The blast wave struck Justin from behind and blew him over, the MGL rolling from his fingers. He turned over onto his back. The Helicopter was about fifty yards above him, rocking to the side as the same blast hit it, brilliant flares and glittering chaff steaming from its sides. The first grenade scored a great slash across the nose, the second slammed into the middle of the near engine which promptly started sparking and giving off great puffs of black smoke. The third grenade missed it entirely, looping harmlessly away.
“Fall, you bastard, fall,” Justin growled.
The helicopter stuttered. Vents on the second engine opened, the far-side turbine suddenly roaring at full power - all pretense at stealth dropping away. The blackwidow righted, backed and pivoted, turning nose down toward him. Its main armament - the 20mm cannon lining up on him.
Justin scrambled back to his feet, diving back into silence, the Ramp flowering within.
A big, Red Empire Assassin smashed through the front wall of the house. Taking out the rail around the porch, he landed on his back in the front yard. The MGL was three feet back from his right shoulder, within reach if he saw it.
The assassin shook his head once. Blurring upright, staring fixedly toward the house. He pulled a pair of sais from his belt and flourished them, poised to attack or defend.
Anton blurred out, the Green and Blue Dragons in his hands.
Justin rushed forward, scooping up the MGL.
The gunship’s cannons remained silent, smoke and a dark fluid leaking from a rent in the armor just above them. The pilot grimaced, the blackwidow sliding to the left. The near side minigun pivoting around toward Justin cued to the gunner’s helmet - it pointed where he looked. The crew on the helicopter were fully focused on him. They ignored the others brawling in front of the house, it was the man with the MGL that was the immediate threat.
Justin blurred again, firing another round at the middle of the blackwidow’s cabin.
The gunner in the helicopter stared at the incoming grenade. The mini-gun on the same side swiveled around and up. Fire burst from its spinning barrels. A golden stream of tracers lit up the night sky, intersecting with the grenade, which promptly exploded twenty yards short of the target.
“Shit,” Justin hissed between clenched teeth.
He had one grenade left.
Justin blurred through the space where Anton and the big assassin fought. Dodging past them, he fired his last grenade vertically up through the floor of the blackwidow. The grenade disappeared through the armor into the middle of the cabin.
A bright flash lit the interior of the blackwidow. The inside of the canopy was painted a dark crimson.
The second engine died, the helicopter dropped like a stone.
Justin, Anton, and the assassin scattered.
The shadows of the night lurched forward as the blackwidow crashed into the yard before fleeing as the helicopter erupted into a huge fireball.
* * *
Marcus Drake and Justin had disappeared.
The flaming wreckage of the blackwidow gunship burned in the middle of the yard. Unspent ammunition randomly exploding. A Hellfire missile cooked off, the front half of the helicopter evaporating in a blinding glare.
The edge of the blast knocked Anton flying into the wall of the training barn. He fell forward onto the ground. Sparks were falling all around him. Several sizzled through his shirt, burning his chest and shoulders.
He jumped to his feet, patting himself off. The barn was on fire, flames leaping through it. It was already half gone. The hay bales lining the walls burning like dry kindling. The air was thick with smoke.
Two more blackwidows flew concentric circles around the safe house. They were bearing in on the yard at the same time from opposite directions. Mini-gun fire opened up from the left and right, golden streams leaping along the ground toward where he stood.
Anton blurred backward into the barn and hit the deck.
The heat in the barn hit him like a sledgehammer. The smoke enveloping him and stinging his eyes, he could barely see. Bullets ripped through the side of the barn, whizzing over his head. He hugged the ground. He held his breath. He had to do something about the helicopters - no one was getting out of this alive while they were still flying.
Scrambling to his feet, he blurred to the armory door. It was shut, waves of heat washing through the air above it. Anton ripped off his shirt. Wrapped it around his hands. Grabbing the door handles, he ramped and dragged the armory door open. It fell to the side with a reverberating clang.
Smoke immediately curled down the first step.
Anton dashed down the stairs into the darkness.
* * *
The room was a riot of colors. The Truther coursing through Li’s veins was in full effect.
Without being able to Ramp it was almost impossible to follow what was happening around her.
She was desperate to tell someone the truth. Anyone would do, but no one was asking any questions. It was a horribly uncomfortable sensation.
Li shook her head. Anton had run off after some assassin. What was he thinking? She didn’t need Truther to tell him precisely what she thought of his priorities. Thankfully Peter was steadfast, staying close - no one had even tried to come near them.
A spray of blood jetted across her face.
One of the Order guards fell to the floor, blood gushing from his headless neck.
A second guard stumbled to the side, three blades converging through his body. They were gone again in a flash. He fell to the ground, his eyes catching Li’s for a brief moment before they glazed over.
The line of guards was breaking.
Luther blurred from the side. Scooping up one of the fallen katanas, he leaped into the fray.
The two assassins who had been probing Francis’ defenses without success backed away, turned and rushed toward Peter and Li. Francis repositioned to best protect Juliette. His sword held defensively in front of him, ready to gut the first assassin to come near.
“About bloody time,” Peter declared grimly, his axes flashing through the air. In moments, he was a whirl of silvery metal as he clashed against the assassins.
