Edward (12 page)

By
the time they had suited up and made it to the roof, a news repuslar craft was
on final descent.  The pilots looked more than a little nervous as the
Shukrae covered them with weapons as they landed.

Edward
rapped on the cockpit glass and barked at the pilot, “Are you rigged to open
the back at 10 to 15km up?”

“No,
we only have emergency oxygen and the cabins don’t depressurize separately.”

“Then
we’ll ride on your landing gear.”

Edward
and Alex parked themselves on the landing gear and clipped safety harness
around the supports. “Move it!” Edward barked over the intercom.

Reluctantly
the craft lifted off and timidly accelerated across the vast cityscape.

“Faster people! 
Time means lives!” barked Alex.  “Takru gave you the jump point, get there
as fast as this thing can move.  If there are speed limits over the city,
tell them to take ‘em up with the Shukurae!”

The
craft finally started picking up serious speed and altitude.  The sun was
finally gone below the horizon.  Good.  They liked the
dark.  

“Has
the target stabilized?” asked Edward over a secure channel.

“Affirmative, second to top story on the new construction
of the Nedej Mercantile Bank project. 
Sending you a live feed.”

Suddenly
Edward and Alex had a little red blip in their goggles that was Ethan’s
location.  Alongside it was a distance and speed vector as well as
altitude.  Superimposed along with it was the layout of the building under
construction.

“They
are too far in to come in from the front quickly, and they are pretty far back
from the elevator shaft.  You planning on smashing the roof?” asked Alex.

“Unfortunately
that looks like the way to go.  Will hurt like crazy and I doubt I could
jump him out the front,” replied Edward.

“I’m
going to have to follow your crater.  I don’t think I’m in any condition
to smash a reinforced roof.”

“Understood. 
I’ll hit first and roll forward.  You follow and cover me while I grab
Ethan and fast rope out the front.”

“Too high to make it all the way down.  That and the rest of the motorcycle gang will
probably be down there.”

“I
know.  We’ll figure out the rest when we get there,” murmured Edward.

“Gunship
is still twelve minutes out from contact,” came
Takru’s voice.

“We
get clearance yet?” asked Alex with a bit of a laugh.

“I
stopped asking.  It is in their ‘inbox.’  Not my fault if they don’t
keep up,” replied Takru.  “Stand by!”

Edward
glanced at Alex, “I wonder what’s up?”

“Don’t
know, don’t care,” laughed Alex.

“We
have contact with the kidnappers,” said Takru.  “I will keep you in the
feed.  You are ninety seconds from jump?”     

“Eighty,”
confirmed Alex.

Edward
and Alex both checked their equipment again.  There were doing over 400
km/h at 12km up.  The air was thin and cold and they were in their
element.  Two Highlanders on a mission.

“Stand
by to jump,” noted Alex.

“Last
chance to abort,” called Edward to Takru.

 “You’d
just go anyway,” came Takru’s cruel laugh.

And
with that Alex and Edward disconnected their harnesses and dropped clear of the
repulsar craft.  It took a few seconds to get clear of the turbulence but
soon they were in freefall.  They reoriented themselves, squarely focusing
on the little red blip that was the tracking device on Ethan as they spread
their arms and opened the small wings on their suits.  They fell like
flying squirrels, gliding at a steep angle toward their target in total
darkness guided only by the display on their helmets.  Having jumped so
far away and using the webbed wings to glide in, they were invisible in the
dark sky.  No hint of light to give them away.

Unlike
flying squirrels they quickly started to pick up speed as they both invoked
their Live Steel armor.  Their weight skyrocketed and they fell more like
guided bombs than like flying squirrels.

“We
have the boy, and if you ever want to see him alive again, you will do exactly
as we say,” came the chatter over the comlink. 
Edward and Alex flexed their armor again and the last attempts of drag fell
away as he used his Live steel armor to shred the
glide wings and they fluttered away in the night sky.

Edward
mentally strained as he pushed his armor as hard as he could.  More
mass.  More mass.  Fall faster.  Hit harder.  Punch the
floor.  He soon was falling noticeably faster than Alex.  Edward
could now clearly see the building come screaming up at him without the
goggles, and he let the last bit of his armor shred those too.  They had
served their purpose.

Takru’s
voice came online, talking to the kidnappers, “I have a counter proposal. 
You all lie down right now and surrender, and you will live.”

Edward
would have smiled, but he did something far more fun instead: he smashed into
the roof of the building.  Several hundred kilograms at a large fraction
of the speed of sound made short work of the concrete and reinforced
steel.  It hurt.  It hurt a lot and it hurt all over and he had one
more floor to go, but Edward didn’t care.  A split second later the second
floor gave way too and he mentally shifted trying to throw back the mass and
momentum of the armor.  If he had just done a simple fall, then it would
have been no big deal, but punching through the two reinforced floors was
taking its toll on him.  He came to stop, just as planned, and quickly
rolled forward to clear a path for Alex.

The
chaos in the room was complete.  Dust and debris filled the room as Edward
scanned the room.  He quickly made out the bound and gagged form of Ethan
and with a simple burst of Live Steel cut both his binders and the gag
clear.  A split second latter Alex slammed to the ground behind
them.  The Highlanders had arrived.

Edward
relished the confusion; he needed it, he hurt.  He quickly pulled a
fastweld connector attached to a rope from his backpack and stuck it to an
exposed steel girder as he reached for the terrified form of Ethan. 
Recognition flashed across Ethan’s face as he made eye contact, and the boy
quickly ran to him.  Edward scooped up the teenager as best as he could
and ran for the front of the room while Alex made short work of those in his
path.  With a quick jump out the unfinished front of the building Edward
found himself once again in freefall.

This
time the freefall was slowed by the rope in his backpack as it unspooled and
flexed under their weight.  The pair swung back toward the building only
now four stories lower.  Edward carefully played with the tension of the
rope to ensure they landed through an opening rather than an unforgiving
support beam.  That being said, their landing was still rough as they hit
the floor and rolled.

“Ethan!”
screamed Edward, “are you okay?”

“Shin
hurts like crazy, but I can bloody well run if that is your next question!”

“Good
lad!”  Edward quickly helped him to his feet and the pair raced down the
hall.  Edward slammed his comlink, “We have Ethan.  Backup would be
nice.”

“En route.  Tenth through fifteenth floors look the most defensible.”

“D-tack,”
replied Edward as they approached the elevators.  One was in motion and he
pressed its call button.

“Are
you sure you want to do that?” asked Ethan.  “They have guns.”

“Eh. 
Just stand clear.  Why the heck doesn’t this building have proper
security?”

“They
pay the gangs and things don’t get stolen.”

“You
are kidding me, right?”

“No, sir.”

Edward
rolled his eyes, “Oops!  Stand clear of the elevator!”  He raised his
armor and invoked a pair of long swords in a cascade of blue sparks.

Alex
smiled at Edward as the door opened, “Sorry, but I didn’t take the scenic
route.”

“Awesome, Alex. 
Ethan!”

Ethan
quickly made his way to the elevator and then struggled not to vomit as the
doors closed.

“Sorry,
kid,” grimaced Alex.  “I did make a mess in
here.”

Suddenly
there was a thump on the roof.

“Grenade,”
said Edward and Alex in calm unison.

Ethan
would have screamed but he was quickly engulfed by Edward’s Live Steel armor
and the muted sound of the detonation overhead came across instead as
comical.  Ethan’s eyes shone brightly as Edward relaxed the armor and
looked at the damage overhead.

“Where
do these people keep coming up with grenades?” asked Edward flatly.

“Keep?”
asked Alex.  “Oh yeah.  There was that guy
that threw one at you on the motorcycle the other day.”  Alex cocked his
head and looked at Ethan, “Is it standard equipment or something?  Get a
motorcycle and they toss in a few grenades for fun?”

Ethan
shuddered, “You two are way too calm.  There are like a hundred and fifty
of them!”

“Kadu
took out ten,” began Edward.

“You
landed on one,” replied Alex.

“Eww!”

“Yeah…then
there were five in the back of the room and either two or three in the elevator
car.  That leaves…”

“Well,
he was being a little dramatic with the one hundred and fifty,” observed
Edward.

“True,
true… Floor fifteen?”

“Yes,
please.”

“Very well.” 
Alex hit the emergency stop button sending the car lurching to a stop. 
With a long trailing arc of blue sparks, Alex winked a pole ax into being and
effortlessly sliced through the elevator doors.  With two more quick
slashes the entire section fell away revealing the lobby below.  “Mind the
drop,” he called as he hopped out and scanned the lobby.

A
quick nod later and Ethan and Edward followed.  Ethan landed hard and
grimaced furiously but didn’t cry out.

“Your
shin again?” asked a fatherly Edward.

“Yes, sir.”

“Lean
on me if you need to, just stop calling me
‘sir.’  Fair enough?” he asked with a smile.

Their
comlinks suddenly chirped.  Edward activated his, “Silverglade Sightseeing
Tours, how might I help you?”

“Shukurae
Airways is pleased to announce its new service arriving on the north side of
your building in five minutes,” came Trevor’s voice

“Pleasure to fly with you.  What happened to Takru?”

“He’s
flying the second gunship.”

Alex
and Edward both laughed. 

“Thanks
for the update, out.”

“Out.”

“They
are on the stairs,” noted Alex quietly.

“Then
let’s go get them!”

With
that Edward and Alex ran across the lobby toward the emergency fire stairs
while Ethan limped behind them.  “Stay close, kid!”

Alex
raised his Live Steel armor and poked his head into the stair landing and then
quickly withdrew under a hail of gunfire.  “Whee!  They are mad!”

There
was suddenly another clinking sound.

“Grenade,”
repeated Alex and Edward in calm unison again as Edward raised his armor around
Ethan.  The subsequent explosion shredded the door and most of the
landing.

“Those
are starting to hurt,” observed Alex.

“Maybe
you should start dodging,” suggested Edward. 

The
pair stood there bickering like brothers as a gun toting mob descended down the
stairs.  Once they were finally in range, Alex and Edward winked long
swords into their hands in a shower of blue sparks and rushed the crowd
mercilessly easily cutting them down.  Edward kept repositioning himself
to make certain stray bullets didn’t find their way toward Ethan,
and in a red splash of fury, it was all over and Alex and Edward retreated back
to the landing.

 
“They’ll think twice, before…  Oh… ,” began
Alex.  His words were cut short as they both noticed a large black metal
device fall down the damaged stairwell.

“Breaching
charge!” screamed Alex and Edward in unison as they grabbed Ethan and ran as
fast as they could toward the corner of the lobby.  They barely reached
the corner when the device activated.  A dispersal charge filled the lobby
with the detonable mixture and a split second later it ignited.

Edward all but smothered Ethan in spite of engulfing him in
his armor.  “Oh…I mean, just
really!” screamed Edward as parts of the ceiling started to crumble.  “Outer wall!   Now!  Before
they do that again!”

Ethan
needed little reminding, anything that got Alex and Edward motivated had him
doubly motivated.  Limp or no, he was easily keeping up with Alex and
Edward as they ran down the halls of the unfinished building.

“Turn!” 
barked Alex.  “We need to zig zag!”

“Keep
us going north-ish,” yelled Edward back.

“Heavy
on the ‘ish’, heavy on getting the heck away from… oh…”  Alex did his best
to expand Ethan’s vocabulary as they all suddenly noticed another set of fire
stairs.

“Do
you think they got here yet?” asked Edward.

“I’m
pretty sure I don’t want to know!” screamed Alex as they took off running
again, back the other way.  Nothing exploded.  Yet. 
So they kept running until they hit the north end of the building.

Edward
slapped his comlink, “Now would be a very good time, people.”

“Two
hundred meters out,” came the reply. 

“That
will do nicely,” nodded Alex as he and Edward looked out the window to the
reassuring lights of the Shukurae gunship.  It was hovering there in space
as its search lights suddenly lit up the entire end of the
building.   The whine of four pulse rifle gatling
guns filled the air as the ship bathed the floors above them in a relentless
barrage of fire.  These were followed by 90mm rockets, and their
thermobaric warheads soon shredded what was left.

“Don’t
drop the ceiling down on top of us!” yelled Edward over the comlink. 
Well, actually he was far more colorful and descriptive than that.