“Our ride?”
Little Guy nodded, scuttled crablike to a spot a few meters away, where he set and adjusted a black disk about the size of a hockey puck.
“What is it?”
He didn’t look up. “Multiphase UV beacon: can’t see it without special goggles, set to see the right frequencies at the right intervals.”
Meyerson burst out of the doorway, somewhat crouched, but ready to stand. Caine reached up, grabbed the front of his web-gear, tugged him down.
“Son of a—”
Little Guy interrupted. “Meyerson.”
Meyerson looked away. “Okay. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
“You’ll get dead if you do it standing up. Stay low.”
The VTOL roared closer, looming larger and on what seemed like a collision course.
“Hey—” began Caine.
“No worries,” commented Little Guy. “Standard operating procedure for a hot extraction. They’ll keep pouring on the speed until the last second, then they’ll swivel into vertical hard and fast: can shake your teeth loose, but minimizes the amount of time that you’re a sitting duck for hostiles.”
Caine tried hard to believe Little Guy’s explanation as the twelve-meter attack sled cleared the far end of the roof—and then, like a bristly mechanical wasp, came to a sudden, shuddering midair halt, vertical thrusters slamming forward with a high-RPM scream.
Meyerson was coiled to go, Caine—for once—ready to follow his lead, when Little Guy’s hand came down on his left bicep. “No, we wait for the signal.”
“Which is?”
But Little Guy was watching the vertibird through narrowed eyes. The craft seemed to roll lazily toward the left side of the roof, turning slightly as it did so. A ready door gunner rotated into view; the chin-mounted autocannon swiveled in the opposite direction.
Meyerson fidgeted. “What’s taking—?”
Little Guy made a harsh noise. “Something’s wrong.”
The VTOL stopped for a second, then danced quickly to the right, thrusters swiveling sharply into lateral flight mode. It started picking up speed, swinging back out over the street—
From somewhere off to the left, a sharp, growling cough gave birth to another sound—that of a severed pressure hose, which up-dopplered sharply. A flash of motion from behind them—and then the object was past, the sound down-dopplering. Caine identified it as a missile just before it hit the VTOL a meter behind the cockpit.
The explosion was ferocious: the sudden blast of flame and heat whited out his goggles’ thermal imaging circuits, blinding Caine just as the shockwave knocked him back several feet. Something heavy and hot—he couldn’t tell what—went crashing past him.
The goggles faded back in: burning wreckage, a madman’s arabesque of twisted metal.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted Meyerson.
“Stow that, or I’ll kick your ass when—if—we get back to the shack.” Little Guy scanned to the left, took off his goggles, stared intently, then put them back on and signaled to Meyerson.
“What’s up, Petty?”
“Target, adjoining rooftop. Wearing a cold suit—probably running a chill can, so no IR signature: that’s why the bird didn’t see him at first. He won’t be alone.”
“I’m on it.” Meyerson went past, running a jack from his goggles into the scope of his gun.
Caine felt himself being tugged in the other direction: Little Guy was moving low and fast to the center of the roof, into a cluster of fan cowlings, ventilators, and elevator access sheds. The master key appeared in his hand as they drew abreast of a waist-high tool and materials locker. He opened it, raised the lid. “In you go.”
“In there?”
“Now. No time for arguments.”
“Wait a minute; I can help you wi—”
The stunning blow—a palm heel strike to Caine’s chin—was so fast and unexpected that he didn’t even see Little Guy unleash it. Didn’t even feel himself fall into the locker backwards. Caine was dimly aware of Little Guy’s voice. “You’re a stand-up guy, but you’re a newb—and you’re the package we’re here to protect.”
As Caine started swimming up out of his unsteady fog, he heard Meyerson’s rifle stutter off into the night. The lid of the locker banged shut over him and the key turned in the lock. Damn it . . .
Meyerson’s fire went on—a sustained raucous ripping sound that lasted three or four seconds: he had emptied his magazine in one long blast of fire. A moment of silence, another—and then, even through the metal sides of the locker, Caine heard a roaring response that sounded like a horrible mix between a calliope and an immense, high-speed chainsaw. A rotary machine gun of some kind: good Christ. After a brief pause, it roared again—but was swiftly counterpointed by a whispering rush that ended in a sharp blast. The rotary gun abruptly fell silent, did not speak again.