The airbus landed, forcefields and invisibility screens up. Louis climbed out, followed by Scott and Marsha, who had taken a handful of one-inch steel ball bearings from her pocket and was holding them in her left hand. Scott took his stun ball from its pouch and activated it. As the airbus lifted off again, Louis charged the building. He crashed through the wall, shattering a large hole in the cinderblock. The others followed him in.
They found four men on the other side. Two had been knocked down by the flying debris, the other two were turning towards them, raising their rifles. Marsha tossed a ball bearing into the air. It hung for an instant, then vanished with a crack as she fired it magnetically at one of the men. The other collapsed, crushed under his own weight as Jay beamed a positive-gravity blast at him. The two on the floor climbed back to their feet, reaching for weapons.
“You don’t really want to do that,” Scott said, throwing his stun ball at one of them. It bounced off the man’s head and ricocheted off to hit the second one before bouncing back to Scott. He caught it in his insulated glove as the two men collapsed bonelessly to the ground. Jay zipped bindties around the wrists and ankles of all four men. Louis walked over to the door and jerked it off its hinges.
Marsha consulted a hand-held radio beacon locator. “Down this way.” Outside, they could hear heavy weapons fire mingled with the whine of autolasers and the snarling roar of Sasha’s particle-beamer.
A shout came from behind them, followed by a fusillade of gunfire. Scott ducked behind the wall. “Martha! Get Tracker and get back here. I’ll hold these guys off until the airbus can apply suppression fire.” He leaped from behind the wall, threw his stun ball down the corridor, then dove for the other side of the hole in the wall. He uncoiled from his dive and sprang to catch the returning stun ball. One of the men collapsed and the others scattered for cover.
“Come on, move it!” Marsha said, heading down the hall. Louis stood in the center of the corridor with his shoulders hunched. A moment later the muscles visible under his uniform looked like armor plates. He waited for Marsha and Jay to get ahead of him, then followed at a slower pace, shielding them with his body.
As they neared the end of the hallway, they could hear voices. Marsha glanced around the corner and down another corridor. At the far end, a group of armed men were clustered in front of a closed door, positioning a heavy cutting laser against it.
“Let’s get ‘em,” she whispered to the others. She tossed the rest of her ball bearings into the air and they vanished with a whipcrack. Several of the men were flung away from the door. She then stepped aside as Louis rounded the corner, breaking into a heavy run. The sound of his footsteps thundered down the corridor ahead of him.
With a shout of alarm, the men still standing turned and began firing. Slugs ricochetted off his chest. Twice he bellowed as laser fire penetrated the belt-powered forcefield. Jay beamed over Louis’s shoulder, slamming one of the men first into the ceiling, then to the floor. The cutting laser jerked, its beam going out as it moved on its own, smashing into one of the laser-gunners. Jay dropped another man, then Louis was among them, striking with fists like sledgehammers. In seconds, the fight was over. Louis turned towards the door.
“Through here?”
“Yes,” Marsha replied, glancing at the locator again. Brushing aside the fallen cutting laser, Louis braced himself, planting his shoulder against the door, and began to push. His muscles rippled as he applied more pressure. Slowly, the armored door began to give, buckling under the enormous force. Then it burst open and he staggered into the room beyond.
Louis sniffed. “Smells like someone’s been having a party,” he muttered. The floor was covered with broken glass and liquor. “Watch your step.”
Tracker sat behind a desk, motionless, muzzle and chest soaked with blood. In his arms lay Antoinette, naked and equally bloody. On the floor lay a thick-bodied man with a military haircut, his throat torn out. Louis took in the gory tableau. “Damn! We’re too late!”
