Cobra Strike

Chapter 19

The bus pulled finally to a stop beside a darkened building and Moff motioned toward the door with his pistol. "Out," the old man added u

The building was a shock of d‚j… vu, and it took Justin only a second to realize what it reminded him of. "Looks like a stunted version of the Sollas airfield tower," he remarked as Moff led him toward a guard-flanked door. "Oddly out of place here in the middle of a city."

Moff didn't answer. Two separate doors at least, Justin noted, sca

Almo-hit these guys and let's see what's in there.

But no flashes of laser light interrupted them as they walked to the building door. There Moff stopped and turned, leveling his gun at Justin's chest. "You will put your hands behind your back now," the old man said from behind the ring of Qasamans.

Justin complied, and cold metal bands clamped around his wrists. Almo, where are you? he thought fiercely, flicking glances at the surrounding buildings.

Moff led them between the guards and into the building. The high-security building where the Qasamans felt it safe to bring an unknown danger.

The sweat was begi

The wrist rings were dauntingly thick... but it was a short chain, not a solid bar, that co

Though not if the targeting lock wanted to hit the mojos first.... Shivering at what could have been a nasty mistake, he canceled the lock. Take it easy,

Justin-you're letting yourself get flustered.

Moff led them down a hallway to an elevator. A car was waiting for them. "Where are we going?" Justin asked, just to break the silence.

But no one answered. Three of the guards herded Justin into the car; Moff and the old man joined them. Steady, kid, steady. Justin bit down on his rising fear. Just see where they're taking you, then knock 'em against the walls and out a window.

Moff pushed the bottom of a long row of buttons... and the elevator started down.

Down. Into the ground-deep into the ground, if the buttons were each a full floor-where there were no doors or windows to escape through. And for perhaps the first time in his life Justin realized he was terrified. The universe, which had always seemed to protect him, was a long way up, far above his little elevator car. He was surrounded by the armed guards and hairtrigger killer birds of a frightened and angry society... and it dawned on him with a sharpness like the smell of ozone that the men he would soon be facing intended him to die in this deep hole. They didn't know he was a Moreau, didn't care that he was a

Cobra, and when they were through with him they would kill him.

And Justin panicked.

All thoughts of finding out what this place was, all considerations of not revealing his Cobra equipment, all thoughts even of mercy-all of it simply fled his mind before the bubbling wave of panic that welled suffocatingly up into his throat. The men, guns, and mojos surrounding him were a claustrophobic pillow across his face... and without making a conscious decision to do so, he exploded into action.

His fingertip lasers and sonic fired first, the former at the chain binding his wrists, the latter in a stu

But the brief sonic blast and flash of light had alerted the Qasamans. Even as

Justin's arms came loose they were grabbed by hard hands. Grabbed tightly-and the servos beneath the skin and muscle twisted the arms up and forward, slamming the two men head to head. Their grips slipped and he pulled free-and then there was no time for anything but terror as the five mojos screamed to the attack.

Justin's mind blanked completely then, and the only memory he had of what happened next was the sounds of the birds and the horrible thunderstorm dazzle of a hundred laser flashes....

The stench brought him back to reality a few seconds later; the stench of burned meat and of his own vomit. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and looked around at the carnage. The mojos-all of them-were dead. The five Qasamans... Justin couldn't tell. Two of them definitely were, with prominent laser burns over vital spots, but the others-Moff included-were less certain. But whether burn shock, the sonic, or his flailing arms had put them out of action wasn't important. They could not hurt him, and he had no desire to inquire further.

The elevator was still going down. The whole thing had clearly taken less time than it'd seemed to, and it penetrated dimly into Justin's rattled consciousness that unless the elevator contained monitors the Qasamans waiting below for him would be unaware of what had just happened. He might still be able to escape.

He jabbed at his best guess for the ground floor button... and then at a second and a third before he realized that, unlike those on Aventine, this elevator design didn't allow for cancellation. The car would keep going down until it reached the floor Moff had signaled. Where more Qasamans would be waiting for him.

He had flipped over on his back on the unmoving bodies and his antiarmor laser was already tracing an off-center square in the ceiling before he recognized on a conscious level that he would not, could not, face whatever awaited him at the bottom of the elevator shaft. The false ceiling and relatively thin metal behind it were no match for the laser, and as the charred square fell practically into his lap Justin scrambled to his feet. He took a bare second to gain his balance and jumped.

Never before, not even in training, had he pushed his leg servos to their limit, and he actually gasped in shock as he shot through the opening like a misshapen missile. All around him, only dimly visible even with the aid of his enhancers, were cables and guy lines. A flicker of light from a door crack washed over him-then another, and another-he was slowing down-stopping in midair-

Instinctively, he grabbed; and a second later he was again moving downward, his arms wrapped solidly around the main elevator cable.

So he was out of the car, and out of the direct line of fire from the Qasamans below... but he was still deep within their stronghold and had left a trail a child could follow. He had to figure out a way to escape, and he had to do so fast.

Oddly enough, though-or so it seemed to him-the suffocating panic had dissipated far enough for him to be able to think again. His incredible jump had been a sledge-hammer reminder both of the power his Cobra equipment gave him and of the fact that his father, too, had once been imprisoned like this and had survived.

A sheet of light swept by: one of the landing doors he'd jumped past seconds ago. On a hunch, he shoved off the cable toward it, fingers and feet finding holds on framework and opening-mechanism bars. He found a narrow ledge to stand on and regained his balance as, a meter away, the cable continued its way down.