MoonRush (43 page)

“Ah, Jarod, Jarod. Humor. The last resort of a pathetic loser.”

Jarod looked at Gil. He looked at Gil’s smug expression. He looked at Gil’s bad comb-over. And then something just snapped. Jarod began moving toward Gil at a slow but even pace. The weapon in Gil’s hand didn’t even concern him.

“You are going to have to shoot me, Gil.”

Gil started, refocusing his aim on Jarod’s face. Jarod continued his implacable march forward, getting closer and closer with every step. Gil’s gun shook.

“I am not going to run. I am not going to get thrown in jail. I’m not going to be taken captive.”

With each sentence, Jarod’s anger grew. He was now standing face
-
to face
-
with Gil
—
the gun the only thing between them. Jarod put all of the disappointment, all of the betrayal, all of the helpless rage that he had suffered at Gil’s hand into his voice.

“There
are
no cops to save you this time, Gil. You better fire now.”

“You really don’t understand what survival of the fittest means, do you?” Gil backed up a step and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire. Jarod moved forward and knocked the weapon out of Gil’s hands.

“Perhaps if just
once
you did your homework, you would know that
no one can
  ignite the firing pin without oxygen.” Jarod threw himself at Gil, knock
ed
him to the ground, and began pummel
ing
him with his fists. Gil squirmed underneath him
.
T
hen, using the lower gravity,
he
flipped Jarod up and over his head. Jarod landed on his feet, but his forward motion threw him down onto his knees. He sprang back up and turned around to find Gil coming to his feet.

The two faced off once more, this time more wary of each other. As they circled one another, Jarod noticed that their fight was drawing a crowd. The crazed
’
49ers were forming a loose circle around the two opponents. And off in the middle distance, Jarod saw what looked to be the
B
lack
O
ps team approaching.

Using Jarod’s brief distraction, Gil fell to the ground and swept Jarod’s legs out from under him. Jarod landed hard, and then found Gil bearing down on him, his hands gripped together into an impromptu hammer. Jarod lifted his arm and turned to the side to avoid the fists connecting with his helmet, where Gil had clearly been aiming. He took the blow to the upper arm. Gil must have connected with a nerve, because Jarod felt
his
entire arm go dead. His left arm hung useless at his side.

Jarod backed off for a moment, kicking off his gravity boots. Gil sneered at him, pointing at his bare feet.

“Planning on doing an interpretive dance?”

Jarod just started circling again, his neoprene
-
covered feet gripping the terrain much more securely than the boots did.

Gil charged Jarod, his head down like a bull. Jarod leapt straight up, taking a page out of Mia’s book. When he reached head-level, Jarod lashed out with his feet, striking Gil square in the throat, just below the seam that attached Gil’s helmet to his suit. Gil lurched backward, clutching at his neck. Jarod flew even farther away than Gil, but with much more grace and control. He came down to the ground lightly, launching himself back into the fight. Jarod spun and kicked and slashed like some sort of moon-suited whirling dervish.

And Gil clearly had no idea what to make of it. He would punch at Jarod, only to find nothing there. His kicks did nothing but put him off balance so that Jarod could strike at an exposed limb. He was taking hit after hit, none of them lethal on
their
own, but the cumulative damage was evident in his heavy movements, his slower reaction times
,
and his heaving breaths.

Jarod was having a fantastic time. He was punching for every time Gil had fixed things in his own favor, cutting Jarod off at the kneecaps. He was kicking for every humiliation he had suffered while watching Gil’s slimy smile. This fight was his. Jarod’s only real handicap was his left arm, which was still all pins and needles and not really wanting to respond to any direction
s
from Jarod’s brain.

Jarod spun to the side and slapped his open palm against Gil’s helmet, watching the lowlife reel away in confusion, falling to his knees. Jarod started to do the same thing on the other side when Gil stopped and ducked, coming up with a shard of moon rock, catching Jarod on the left arm, just where he had been struck before. Jarod felt the shard cut through his suit and into his arm. The limb burst into fiery pain, causing Jarod to clutch at the arm in agony.

Gil continued to pound at the arm with the sharp rock, each blow compounding the injury and Jarod’s confusion. The tears in were releasing oxygen, and Jarod could feel the dangerous plummet in pressure from the suit.

Grabbing Jarod’s arm and wrenching it up and to the side, Gil then began pushing straight down on the contorted limb, causing Jarod to fall to his knees. Jarod could feel the victory slipping away from him as fast as his failing strength.

Gil lowered his head to Jarod’s level, smiling as he taunted his adversary.

“Admit it, Jarod. I am the fittest.”

Jarod glared into Gil’s eyes, spot
s
swimming across his vision. Jarod was moments away from passing out from the pain and lack of oxygen. He was beaten. He had nothing left to lose.

And, just like that, he found the way out. It was so far away from anything rational that Jarod knew it had to be the right choice.
His
right choice. Jarod reared his head back and smashed his helmet into Gil’s, cracking both their faceplates.

“Just try and say that without oxygen, asswipe.”

Gil staggered back into his men
,
who had finally arrived on the scene. He gaped at Jarod.

“You are insane.” He then turned and screamed for his men to help him.

Jarod didn’t wait around to see anything more. Feeling a burst of adrenaline from the abrupt ceasing of pain in his arm, he darted up the hill, his faceplate cracking in a spider web pattern. He glanced down at his wrist monitor. The oxygen monitor had dipped down to near-fatal levels. This was not good.

He crested the final ridge, and in spite of his predicament, stood stock still for a long moment in shock.

“This
is
a reoccurring nightmare.”

His helmet cracking even further broke him out of his daze. He sprinted toward the open hold of the ship, his vision darkening to a narrow tunnel. As he neared the door, his faceplate split completely. Jarod gulped in a quick breath of non-air and fell to the ground, landing just feet away from the open airlock. This was it. He had gotten so close.

As the splintering of the glass in his helmet increased, the actual sound of it in Jarod’s ears grew faint. He was passing out. Jarod clutched at his fading consciousness, marshaling all his resources for one more push to get inside the ship.

And then his vision faded to black.

* * *

The last half hour had been less than pleasant for Gil. The altercation with that lunatic Jarod had not gone quite as planned. That the idiot was willing to risk his own life and limb just to get to Gil was, he supposed, not that surprising. It had taken him off guard, however.

Ruthlessness in his opponents was something that Gil appreciated,
and
even admired.

But what Jarod had done was pure recklessness. There was nothing admirable in that. Recklessness was a gamble. Recklessness was not something the fittest had to engage in.

Gil rubbed at his left arm, which was wrapped up in an improvised splint. As Gil had stumbled back into the group of his men after the head-butting incident, he had tripped and sprained his arm, which was now giving him a twinge. With each sharp pain, Gil cursed Jarod and his stupidity a little bit more.

The trip back to the
Eclipse
had been an exercise in humiliation. To have lost, however unfairly, in front of his men was unacceptable. Then to have to explain his injury to the insufferable Dr. Weigner and the stick-up-his-rectum Captain Stavros? Excruciating.

Those two had relegated Gil to the status of a glorified observer in this whole struggle. That had been unconscionable. So Gil had decided not to conscion it. He was the supreme predator here, and it was time those lower down on the food chain understood what it meant to hunt.

Gil was nothing if not well financed…the haul from the
San Rafael
had insured that…and with his collection of the finest that technology had to offer
,
there were few avenues of information he couldn’t access. Working together, Gil and Talon unraveled the labyrinth of shell and dummy corporations masking the current owners of the Moon’s security force.

Stripping away the last of the cobweb of secrecy, Gil felt a feral grin spread over his face. This he could work with.

During his college years, Gil had made many friendships outside his own major, specifically focusing on those in business. His methods were simple. Find people as ruthless as he himself was, then work closely with them. The more ruthless they were, the closer Gil got.

Their methods assured that they would almost certainly be either wildly successful or end up in prison. But even those who managed to land their success coin face-side-up still would get there with more than a few skeletons in the closet. And Gil knew where they all were.

The strings of the new security force on the Moon were held by one of Gil’s “best friends
,
” a man so ruthless he had tricked a dying Mexican grandmother out of her recipes in order to start his chain of Taisti Tacos stands. That franchise had grown and branched
out
into one of the largest conglomerates that existed on planet Earth.

And Gil just happened to have the man on speed dial. His current role as
a
glorified observer was going to last just as long as his next phone call.

* * *

Jarod felt himself revive as hands grabbed him under his arms and hauled him bodily into the ship. It was Buton. Wow. For a scientis
t,
Buton had some pretty awesome upper body strength. He pulled Jarod farther in as Rob slammed the lock closed behind him. Jarod ripped his helmet off and grasped at the canister of oxygen Rob held out to him. He gulped air into his starving lungs, trying not to hyperventilate. It would suck to pass out again now that he was safe inside.

“Remind me to never do that again.” He looked at Buton, who was shaking his head in disbelief.

“I know. Inappropriate use of safety gear.” Jarod looked around the ship. “I can’t believe it. It’s the
Eureka
.”

Mia entered from the common room, confusion evident in her tone. “How does everyone know the name of my ship?”

“We rode this piece of crap here!” Jarod pulled his shattered helmet off his head.