Justice Keepers Saga--Books 10-12, page 71
Gaping at him, Novol felt his eyes widening until it seemed like they might fall out. “Where did you get that?” he hissed. “I know Jack didn’t give it to you.”
“Saved it from the last mission.”
Corovin grabbed Novol’s arm and pulled him up the hallway to a safe distance. Maybe two seconds later, a massive explosion made Novol’s ears ring. He felt the heat on his back, smelled the smoke in the air.
He spun around to put himself in front of the other man, his face burning, sweat rolling over his forehead. “This wasn’t part of the plan!” Novol snarled.
Once again, Corovin shoved him aside.
Smoke billowed from the scorched doorway, and the crackle of flames was so loud that he could hear it over the alarms. Nevertheless, Corovin ran straight into that chaos. The damn fool was going to get himself killed.
Novol turned and sprinted up the corridor as fast as he could, his feet pounding the floor as he made his way toward the stairwell that led to the first floor. He was a soldier, and soldiers stuck to the plan.
When the alarms started screeching, Jack pushed a button on his multi-tool, activating both the hypersonic pulse and the nanobot earplugs that shielded him from its nauseating effects. Utter silence descended on him. He couldn’t hear anything, but he saw Catya on the other side of the desk.
She had her fingers digging into her temples, wincing as she tried to massage away a headache. The others weren’t doing much better. The blonde man was pressing a palm to his forehead while Chas tried to cover his ears.
Keli stood there with a look of focused concentration on her face, hitting all three of them with a telepathic whammy. That, in addition to the hypersonic pulse, ought to slow them down at least a little! But it might not be enough.
Jack threw open his trench-coat, revealing three disk-shaped drones clipped to his shirt. Each one was about half the size of a dinner plate. They detached themselves and rose into the air. “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!”
The drones started firing stun-rounds.
Catya thrust her hand out, a Bending snapping into place. Charged bullets curved off to the left and struck the wall. The other two were over the desk in no time. The blonde man came right for Jack, forcing him to retreat into the corner.
There was hatred in the man’s green eyes, the kind of hatred reserved for a traitor. Whatever happened here, this wasn’t going to go well. Jack could see Harry shrugging out of his cuffs and collar while Chas closed in on him.
Blondie threw a mean right-hook.
Raising his forearm up beside his head, Jack intercepted the punch. He followed that with an uppercut to the stomach, one that landed hard enough to lift his opponent off the floor. The other man wheezed.
Jack clocked him across the face.
He spun for a swift hook-kick, his foot wheeling around…and striking absolutely nothing. When he came around, he saw that Blondie had recoiled.
The man jumped and kicked out, driving a foot into Jack’s chest. The impact threw him back against the wall, the air exploding from his lungs. He had only half a second to recover before Blondie came at him with another punch.
Leaning sideways, Jack reached up to catch the man’s wrist with both hands. He slipped out of the way and then slammed Blondie face-first into the wall.
A drone floated over, releasing a single stun-round.
The other man spun around in a blur, raising a hand and erecting a Bending that made the air ripple. In a single, stretched-out moment, the bullet hit the patch of warped space-time and curved away from him, turning toward Jack.
Jack ducked.
He felt a slight whoosh as the shot went over his head and struck the wall behind him. The blonde man dismissed his Bending, wincing and clutching his head as if he had nails digging into his skull. Now or never.
Jack surged forward, seizing his enemy’s shirt with both hands. He lifted Blondie off the floor, whirled him around and threw him sideways…
…Right into the drone’s path.
Two charged bullets hit the man’s back, sending a jolt through his body. He fell to the floor, limbs trembling for a few seconds before he finally went still.
The blonde fellow went after Jack; the other man – Harry didn’t know him – leaped effortlessly over the desk and came right for him. He barely had a second to get the cuffs and collar off. His opponent was fuming.
He leaped with a high kick.
In desperation, Harry threw his hands up to shield himself, and a force-field appeared, refracted light expanding from his palm like ripples on the surface of a pond. He felt it when his enemy hit the other side.
With a thought, Harry hurled the other man away, back to the desk. The poor fellow collided with it, bounced off and then landed on his knees.
He caught a brief glimpse of Keli as the other woman closed in on her. Two drones kept her at bay, firing bullets that she deflected with Bendings. One of them streaked toward him but went wide by a few inches.
Harry rushed forward, dropped to a crouch and clamped his hand onto the fallen man’s cheek. The N’Jal dug in. He effortlessly fired pain receptors in the other man’s brain, producing a scream that he couldn’t hear.
With his free hand, Harry pulled a syringe from a holster on his hip. He tilted the man’s head back to expose the side of his neck. Then he plunged the needle into a vein, injecting the poor guy with a powerful tranquilizer.
Keli focused her thoughts, pummeling the female Keeper with her mind and running up against that fog that protected her from a telepathic assault. Her Nassai. If her efforts slowed the other woman at all, it was hard to tell. She suspected that the only real evidence was that she was still standing.
The Keeper back-flipped. Bullets struck the floor where she had been standing, and then she flipped upright, extending one hand to make air shimmer.
A charged round that should have hit her chest instead swerved away from her body. And came for Keli instead.
Another bullet hit it in mid-air, deflecting it.
Glancing over her shoulder, Keli saw Jack standing on the other side of the room with a pistol in his outstretched hand. He strode forward, firing another shot.
This one hit the other woman’s leg, and she spasmed, her arms flailing about as she collapsed. Her body fell to the floor. One of the drones floated over her and hit her with a second shot just to make sure that she was truly unconscious. Keepers recovered quickly. It wouldn’t do to have this one up and about in a few minutes time.
Suddenly, Keli could hear again. The hypersonic pulse was gone.
“Come on,” Jack said.
She nodded.
Jack knelt by the fallen woman’s body, taking her hand and scanning it with his multi-tool. She didn’t need the anguish on his face to know that this plan was eating him up inside. Whatever he might say to justify this, he hated the thought of turning against his fellow Keepers.
He stood up, nodding to Keli, then marched over to the desk.
With a heavy sigh, she joined him, and Jack gingerly took her hand with both of his. He pointed his multi-tool at her, spraying her palm with nanobots. This was the same program that Corovin had used in the ziarogat facility, one that would allow her to mimic another person’s biometrics.
Jack let out a shallow, ragged breath. “Think they’ll ever forgive me?”
“We can only hope.”
Guiding her to the door behind the desk, he gently pressed her palm to the scanner. The door slid open, granting them access to the cellblock. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”
Jack wasted no time once they entered the cellblock, going immediately to the second door on his left. His heart was pounding, and he could feel a growing trepidation. They were in it now. No turning back.
A part of him felt sick to his stomach at the thought of fighting other Keepers. He reminded himself for the seventeenth time that this was necessary. That it was right. But fun fact about justifications: the more you repeat them, the less convincing they become.
Keli walked up to the cell with a tight frown on her face. Maybe she was having doubts as well. She pressed her palm to the scanner.
The door slid open.
When Jack poked his head through the opening, he found Cassi sitting at the round table, tossing a red ball up and catching it. She was in a pair of track pants and a gray tank-top; her pink hair was a mess, and he could see brown roots. She had gone quite a while without dying it.
Cassi looked up, blinking when she saw him. “What?”
Scrunching up his face, Jack jerked his head toward the exit. “Come on,” he said. “We’re getting you out of here.”
She needed no further convincing. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and rushing out of her cell. For some reason, she took the ball with her.
Jack stopped her with a raised hand, then fished a small, cylindrical device out of his pocket. “Brought this for Harry’s collar,” he said. “But it should work just fine on yours.”
He inserted the key into a hole. The collar opened with a click, and he pulled it off of Cassi’s neck. She immediately rubbed her throat, glad to be rid of it.
“Think you’re up for a fight?”
“Just try and stop me.”
“Good.” He clipped a small tag to Cassi’s shirt so that the drones would recognize her as a friend. “Let’s move.”
Now for the most dangerous part of this plan. The nagging fear in the back of his mind urged him to stop. He had already learned the hard way that some people could not be trusted. If things went sideways, they would all regret his rash decision. It was a gut feeling that spurred him onward. He rushed across the cellblock to a door on the other side and motioned for Keli to follow.
The telepath studied him for a long moment, raising an eyebrow. At last, she stomped over and pressed her hand against the scanner. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered.
The door to the cell slid open, and Jack saw Arin sitting on his bed. The man stood up with a sigh but froze when he sensed that it was Jack who had come for him.
“You coming?” Jack asked. “Or do you want to rot here?”
Turning on his heel, Arin marched over to him and stopped about three feet away. The man lifted his chin to stare down his nose. “You are a fool.”
“Maybe,” Jack said, handing him a tag. He unlocked the man’s collar, tossing it aside. “But if you take my offer, it means you dedicate your life to helping other people. And if you go back on that promise, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Very well.”
Jack turned, walking out of the cellblock with his teeth bared. “Let’s do this.” Keli and Cassi fell in at his sides, and Arin brought up the rear.
Out in the lobby, they found Harry waiting. The man’s eyebrows went up when he saw Arin, but he said nothing. Good! Now was not the time for pointless squabbling. All they had to do was get to a window.
The drones were still hovering near the ceiling, flitting back and searching for a viable target. One pointed its scanner at Arin, read his tag and then zipped away. Jack had every intention of keeping them with him until they got through the SlipGate.
“Are we all right?” Harry asked.
Clapping a hand onto the other man’s shoulder, Jack flashed a smile. “We’ll be okay,” he said. “This is the easy part. Come on.”
The double doors slid apart to reveal an empty hallway with gray walls. There were several crossing corridors, and Jack heard heavy footsteps in the distance. Thankfully, no one was here. If they were quick, they might be able to avoid trouble.
Jack took point, walking at a brisk pace, his eyes locked dead ahead. He was flanked by Keli and Cassi. “First left,” he said. “Go to the end of the hallway and break open a window.”
Cassi was like a hunted rabbit, glancing this way and that as if she expected danger to leap out from around the corner. “Aren’t we going for the SlipGate?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Jack shook his head. “No good,” he said. “If the building is on lockdown, they’ll seal the Gate room, disable my access code. No, I’ve arranged another form of transportation.”
No sooner did he finish speaking than two Keepers stepped into view at the far end of the corridor. One was a tiny woman with a bob of brown hair. Jack recognized her as Akiri Tenabra, one of Melissa’s classmates. Another was a few years older, a man of average height with curly, black hair and one hell of a suntan. Shane Pasnar. Until last week, Jack had outranked him.
Both newcomers froze when they saw Jack striding through the hallway with a wanted fugitive and two people who should have been in holding cells. It took them less than two seconds to put the pieces together, and then they were charging through the corridor, itching for a fight.
“Go!” Jack barked. “All of you! I’ll handle this!”
“But-” Cassi stammered.
“Go!”
Choosing not to argue – thank God most people weren’t as defiant as he was – Harry, Keli and Cassi went around the nearest corner and took off for the north side of the building. Arin stayed behind, adopting a fighting stance. He answered Jack’s unasked question with a bloodthirsty grin. “You said that I should help people. I think that I will start with you.”
The drones rushed forward, spitting ammo at the two oncoming Keepers. Akiri skidded to a stop, raising her hand. Light refracted, and she became a smear of colour, the bullets curving away from her body. Jack laughed. “Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto, for doing the jobs nobody wants to. And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto, for helping me escape WHEN I NEED TO!”
Akiri jumped, twirling in the air like a figure skater doing a triple axel, Bendings rippling in front of her outstretched hands. Ammunition that should have stunned her instead looped around and pelted the robots.
“She’s good.”
Shane did a cartwheel, several rounds hitting the floor where he had been, then leaped and grabbed a drone that floated near the ceiling. He flung the thing into the wall with enough force to smash its circuitry.
Another bot took several hits that knocked it off course. It flew drunkenly toward Akiri, who reached up and caught it without even looking. She slammed it down on the floor, then stepped on it several times.
The third bot targeted Shane.
He ran through the hallway, then dropped to his knees, sliding along the tiles as several shots flew over his head. In an instant, he was back on his feet and leaping to punch the underside of a drone, sending it right into the ceiling. The mangled bot fell to the floor.
Jack spread his arms wide, pasting a big smile on his face. “Nicely done!” he exclaimed. “You guys sure you wanna fight?”
Two very pissed off Keepers came charging toward him.
Arin seemed to have chosen Shane as his adversary because he rushed forward to engage the other man. That left Jack with Akiri. She was coming for him, trying to herd him back to the detention area. Maybe she thought she could force him into a cell.
The tiny woman jumped, twirling in the air for a hook-kick.
Jack ducked, and her foot passed over his head. She landed right in front of him, then tried to kick him in the face.
Slapping her foot down with both hands, Jack backed away. He popped up just in time to see her striding forward with unbridled rage on her face. Geez, you might have thought he’d kicked her dog or something. Akiri threw a punch.
Leaning back, Jack batted her hand away. He snapped himself upright for a quick jab of his own.
She deflected it with ease, and then an open palm hit him right between the eyes, filling his vision with silver flecks. Dizziness washed over him. Akiri jumped and kicked him in the face. Then he was stumbling backward through the corridor.
She rushed forward with a high roundhouse kick.
Dropping low, Jack swept his foot along the tiles in a wide arc and took out her other leg. He stood up again in the very instant that she toppled over.
Akiri fell over backward, slapping her hands down on the floor, thrusting her feet into the air. She flipped upright a second later, but that brief moment of distraction was all he needed.
Jack surged in, punching her stomach with one fist then the other. He followed that with a hard right-hook to the cheek, a hit that landed with a hard smack. The poor girl was dazed.
Jack grabbed her shirt with both hands, then threw her sideways. Her shoulder bounced off the wall, and she grunted. “Walk away, kid,” he panted. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Pressing her back to the wall, Akiri gasped for breath. Her face was flushed, and her eyes tried to peel his skin off in strips. “You’re a traitor,” she hissed. “We should have seen it coming!
Akiri stepped forward with a punch.
Turning his shoulder toward her, Jack caught her arm with both hands. He forced her to bend double, then kicked her in the stomach. A sharp wheeze told him that she was winded.
With a quick shove, Jack sent her head-first into the opposite wall. She hit hard enough to warp the duroplastic, but it regained its natural shape when she fell to the floor. Guilt gnawed at him, but he squelched it. He had no time for that.
Arin watched his young opponent sizing him up. Granted, all Keepers looked like they were in their early twenties, but he was willing to bet that this one was only a few years out of training. Maybe less. It was all in the eyes. He could see the fear, smell the hesitation. So, he just waited for the young fool to make a move.
The Keeper tried to punch him.
Turning his side toward the other man, Arin watched a fist passing right in front of his nose. He delivered an open-handed chop to the stomach. A second chop to the throat stunned his enemy.
Arin kicked out to the side, driving a foot into the other man’s belly. That earned him a few seconds as the Keeper retreated up the corridor. Rounding on the miserable, little dolt, Arin strode forward.
He lashed out with a palm-strike.
The Keeper ducked.
A pair of fists hit Arin’s stomach, sending jolts of pain through this body. The other man laced his fingers and brought his hands up to strike the underside of Arin’s chin. Everything went dark as he staggered backward.
