Preying for keeps

1

Buckled into the open cargo bay of the Fiat-Fokker Cloud Nine, Jack Skater felt the cool night air whip around him, carrying the wet taste of the approaching storm front. He trained his low-light binoculars on their prey. "How's it look, Wheeler? You got a positive lock?"

"Ninety-two percent probability of a hit," the dwarf rigger called from the cockpit where he was jacked into the controls of the amphibian plane. "Targeting computer says that's the best you're gonna get."

Peering through the binoculars. Skater saw the name Sapphire Seahawk emblazoned on the freighter's stern in English and Sperethiel and that she flew the flag of the elven nation of Tir Tairngire. Both would have been nearly invisible in the crawling dark of the storm, but the ship was running some lights, however minimal.

Pocketing the binox. Skater grabbed the lip of the cargo bay and hoisted himself back inside the plane. He unbuckled the safety harness and let it drop. At twenty-five, he was dark and slim, something under two meters, with high cheekbones, dusky skin, and thick, close-cropped black hair that showed the influence of Salish blood. He lived in Seattle now, and had since 2049, but he'd grown up in the Salish-Shidhe Council lands surrounding that outpost of the United Canadian and American States that was the Seattle sprawl.

Dressed in black and wearing combat gear that supported a shoulder-holstered Ares Predator II, a monofilament sword sheathed down his back, and a variety of other weapons. Skater looked more like he should be running the streets than riding the night skies over the Pacific.

"About a minute and we'll be within range."

Skater looked up at Elvis. "You done?"

The troll samurai had been connecting the Conner grapple gun to the firmpoint under the belly of the amphibian through the access port. Also wearing black, he was nearly two and a half meters of hard muscle and broad mien. The flat features showed a cruel history, reflected in a silver-crowned tusk and a twisted left horn. "You betcha," he rumbled in deep bass.

Sliding his hands over his gear in one final inventory, Skater glanced over at Wheeler. 'Ten seconds, then fire at will."

"You got it"

Skater turned next to Quint Duran. "Keep bloodshed to a minimum," he said, not softening his tone though the ork had a good ten years on him. "Those fragging elves hold a grudge as long as god."

Duran scowled, his face a map of past violence. Silver tainted his bushy dark hair, and gold hoop earrings dangled from his elongated ears. His synth leathered armor was as scarred and war-worn as his face, and he held a pump-action Franchi SPAS-22 combat shotgun in one gnarled fist. "I read you."

Skater nodded and walked back to the cargo bay to check on Wheeler. His brain cybernetically linked to the controls, the rigger had heeled the amphib over and was gliding down for the kill like a swooping hawk. Squat and broad, with an immense nose and slightly pointed ears, Wheeler Iron-Nerve worn his hair braided into a single length, its dirty chestnut color only slightly lighter than his full, bushy beard.

The uneven planes of the ocean rushed up at the Fiat-Fokker, which was now just meters above the water, racing along in the same northeasterly direction the Sapphire Seahawk was taking to Seattle. They'd planned the operation well, choosing to attack where the freighter was most vulnerable-here at this point about equidistant from both Seattle and its home in (he Tir. Certain aspects of the run were tricky, but once aboard the freighter, all they really had to do was lift some files from its computer system. And they had the magic, the muscle, and the decker to do it.

"How you holding up, Trey?" Skater asked.

The mage stood against the bulkhead on the other side of the cargo bay. All in black like the rest, he wore form-fitting body armor and a heavy Kevlar cape with high collar that was almost roguish on his slender, intense build. Thin beads of gleaming perspiration, ignited by stray strands of moonlight spilling through the amphibian's windows, dotted Cullen Trey's handsome face. "Making this bird invisible to either organic or technological detection isn't my idea of a slotting good time, chummer."

Skater unclipped the D-ring from his combat rigging while leaving the other end secured, and leaned out the cargo bay. Lowering himself outside the door, fighting the wind, he clung to the plane, tripped the light-enhancement circuitry in his eyes and watched as the grapple gun spun on its turret, locking on target. The charge of compressed air fired the grappling hook toward the Sapphire Seahawk, the wire spilling out behind it, whirring in a high-pitched scream.

Skater watched (he line go taut, managed by a computer-assisted tension governor built into the gun.

"Locked on," 'Wheeler crowed triumphantly.

Reaching out, Skater attached the D-ring and let go of the amphibian. The governor allowed just enough slack to send him sliding toward the Sapphire Seahawk three hundred meters away. Even with the Cloud Nine throttled down, it was rapidly overtaking the ship. Accessing his Commlink IV. Skater tripped the Crypto Circuit HD to scramble all transmissions along the two radio and two telephone channels provided. The rest of the team carried the matching circuits on their headware. All except Trey, who used an external setup. Cybertech was commonplace in the Awakened world of 2057, but new rules existed ever since the return of magic. One of the firmest was that a mage and cyberware didn't mix.

"Count off," Skater called out. He shot across the open expanse of water, shedding altitude as he dropped toward the freighter. The line could hold only three people per hundred meters without snapping, so the five members of the team had staggered their approach accordingly. By the time Skater reached the Sapphire Seahawk, the D-ring was smoking and glowing cherry-red from the friction.

"You're made, kid," came Duran's gruff warning.

Scarcely forty meters out from the freighter's starboard side, Skater saw the shadows pull free of the deck and advance toward him. If there'd been any way to return to the amphibian, he'd have done it.

The sailors were dressed in the ship's yellow and red, and these elves obviously had no compunction about shooting first and asking questions later. Bullets sliced through the air around him, some of them phosphorus tracers burning past in purple blurs.

Two of the elves raced for the grappling hook buried in the wooden coaming of the upper deck while others prepared to meet Skater and friends.

"Skater." Wheeler called out, "you're running out of wire."

Just as he reached the freighter's side, Skater kicked in his boosted reflexes and unclipped the D-ring. His momentum carried him over the heads of the elves as he fell to the deck.

He pushed himself to his feet as hands reached for him. Computer-augmented reflexes honed by a lifetime of fighting for his own took over. He grabbed an outstretched hand and twisted it viciously, snapping the elbow behind it with an audible crack. An agonized moan followed immediately. No bloodshed didn't mean no maiming.

Slipping past two awkward blows aimed at his face as the press of elves swarmed around him. Skater kicked another sailor in the groin with enough force to double the man over. Bullets chopped into the wooden wall behind him with thunderous explosions.

"I'm on," Elvis roared.

Skater saw some of the elves break from him, moving to take on the troll. Knowing others were closing on the grappling hook imbedded overhead, he took two quick steps and sprang off the elf he'd dropped, using the body as a footstool to leap up and grab the coaming above him. He arched his body and flipped, landing on his feet in a squatting position just as one of the sailors advanced on the grappling line with a sword.

Pushing himself up and forward Skater reached over his shoulder and ripped his monofilament sword free of its scabbard. The second elf shouted a warning in Sperethiel and then launched himself at Skater.

There wasn't much room to maneuver on the lip, but Skater managed to grab the leaping man's hair in his free hand while bringing his knee up into the elf's face. Bone crunched. He dropped his unconscious foe and lunged over him.

The first elf lashed his sword toward the cable with enough force to sever it easily, but not before Skater's sword sheared through the metal near the haft, leaving the elf with only a stub fronting the ornate basket hilt. The blade went spiraling loosely and clattered to the deck.

"You scrod-scarfing brainwipe," the elf snarled. He reached for the pistol at his hip.

Skater flicked his blade once, then stepped forward and gave the elf a mouthful of the sword's knuckle bow. Squalling in pain and anger, the elf went backward and over the lip of the deck, crashing down among the crowd attempting to stop Elvis. The troll was a rolling dreadnought of Amie-Awesome cyberware unleashed in full frenzy.

"I'm on." Quint Duran dropped into an easy standing position only a few steps from the sailors. Without hesitation, he waded into the thick of the battle, triggering the SPAS-22 in a wide circle. His years as a merc had made him one chill opponent in combat. Elves scattered in all directions.

Trey was next to drop from the grappling line to the freighter's deck, a shimmering wave spewing from his hands. Wherever it touched, elven sailors collapsed in crumpled heaps.

Not all of them went down, however, but Duran and Elvis were making short work of the survivors.

"I'm on." Shiva, flame-haired and also dressed in skintight black, was just hitting the deck. More than two meters tall and possessing skillsofts and vat muscle, she immediately began to wreak havoc with a collapsible fighting staff. Once a bounty hunter, Shiva was as devastating as Duran when the drek hit the fan.

Trey meanwhile had whipped out his polished wooden walking stick. Among other nasty little surprises, the cane also powered up as a stun baton. He parried a sword thrust, then brought the stick up into his opponent's crotch and triggered the stun charge. Visible electric current sizzled blue-white veins through the air. The elf went down like he'd been poleaxed. Trey moved on, gripping his cape in one hand. He hadn't been born to street-fighting, but he had a natural aptitude.

"Drek, the line ran out," Wheeler warned over the commlink.

Skater heard the deep-throated sproing of the cable separating as it hummed past his ear.

He turned, recognizing Archangel's voice. The elven decker was still almost three meters out, and the grappling wire had snapped. Dropping his sword, taking the sweep and roll of the freighter into account. Skater grabbed the line, his hands partially protected by fingerless gloves. He gripped and yanked with everything he had. "Gotcha."

Archangel came over the side and joined him on the second deck, miraculously keeping her balance with his help. She was as tall as Skater, but slender and small-breasted, almost childlike. Her hair, platinum and normally worn long, was now tucked up under a tight black skull cap that showed the outline of her very pointed elven ears. Almond in shape, her bronze eyes held orbiting gold flecks that were strangely hypnotic. The gleam of the datajack on her right temple was masked by the same cammo cosmetics that streaked her beautiful face. Her deck hung from a strap over her shoulder in a waterproof case, counter-balanced by an Ares Light Fire 70 in a crossdraw holster on her left hip.

She pushed herself out of his arms. Nothing personal, Skater knew, but the decker liked her space, didn't like being touched at all. Archangel wasn't her real name, but he'd never been given anything else to call her.

Skater took the lead. The storm was overtaking the freighter and rain was starting to fall, making the deck slippery. He raced to the stern, Archangel only steps behind him.

A trio of elven sailors met them at the companionway leading down into the private quarters of the Sapphire Seahawk.

Skater threw himself backward, flattening against the wall as bullets ripped long wooden splinters from the coaming. "Fraggit!" he swore. He sheathed the sword, drawing the Predator II and palming a flash grenade instead.

"Elvis," Skater called out over the commlink. "Fall back astern."

"You got it, chummer."

Skater peeled the pin from the flash grenade. Counting it down, he tossed it toward the companionway, then closed his eyes and told Archangel to do the same.

The instant the brunt of the explosion was over and the flare had died away. Skater ran toward the companionway. Looking over the side, he saw two elves beating embers from their clothing and coughing hard enough to hack up a lung. He leaped over the side and dropped on them. Swinging the Predator, he caught one man alongside the temple and put him down. Then he swung into a sleeper hold on the other elf, choking him into unconsciousness.

"Elvis," Skater cried out as he tried the door at the bottom of the companionway and found it locked. "The door."

"Step aside, stringbean." The troll came down the stairs, fitting tight with the armor and weapons on him.

Elvis drew back one enormous hobnailed boot, then drove it forward. The door was made of ceramic and steel and didn't give, but it was mounted in wooden framing that did, with a squealing shriek.

Skater dove through the door, the Predator gripped in his fist. The room was a private berth, filled with a bed, desk and chair, and a short sofa.

One of the four elves inside came at him, firing point-blank. The bullets smashed against Skater's armor like hammer blows, stealing his breath away. Skater grabbed one of the elves and drove him backward, firing as fast as he could over the man's shoulder.

He put three rounds into another guard's knees and cut his legs out from under him, tried to home in on a second man, but then the sailor he was holding brought his pistol up. Headbutting him in the face and braking his nose. Skater stripped the Ceska vz 120 from the elf's grip and threw it to the floor. He spun and caught the elf with a roundhouse kick that put him down.

An elven female dressed in street synthleather, looking as slender and unthreatening as Archangel, suddenly bared two sets of forearm snap-blades. Coolly and dispassionately, she rushed Elvis.

Setting himself with difficulty in the belowdecks room, the troll met her attack with a series of blocks and parries that were too quick for Skater to follow. Flesh slapped flesh, and three lines of blood appeared like magic over Elvis's left eye.

Another elf had been moving near the massive computer array against the wall, pulling the datajack out of hiding and toward his temple. Skater fired a round without warning, putting it through the elf's thigh while Elvis and his opponent fought. Keeping the elf covered. Skater glanced back and saw that the troll was bleeding from another cut on his cheek and two on his left arm. But a cruel smile raked his lips back. Without warning, Elvis popped out of a defensive posture and backhanded the woman with a paw the size of a two-liter bottle.

The razorgirl flew backward and struck the wall. She struggled briefly to get to her feet, then gave it up. Elvis moved in to secure her with pulse cuffs that would keep her cyberware inactive even if she woke before the team was done here.

"Down on the floor," Skater told the elf he'd shot. The sailor moved slowly, looking for an opening, but Skater didn't give it to him. By the time he and Elvis had cuffed the other elves, Archangel was jacked into her deck.

"Done," Elvis said, breathing hard. "Fraggin' dandelion-eater was slotting good." He touched his bloody forehead and gazed at the wet crimson.

Nodding, Skater moved over to. join Archangel. "Any chance we simply rip out the drive and beat feet?"

She shook her head. "It's boosted for self-destruct if anyone tries to move it. I tripped to the sensors already, but whoever hid them really knew what they were doing."

"Get what you can." Then Skater told Elvis to search their prisoners while he tossed the drawers and traveling packs. In less than two minutes he knew they weren't going to find anything more.

"Skater."

Looking up. Skater saw Quint Duran standing at the top of the companionway. The ork's armor had fresh scratches.

"We could be overrun any minute," Duran said. 'The elves are regrouping, getting ready to have another go. Trey's sleep spell didn't affect as many as we'd hoped."

"Stay with her," Skater instructed Elvis as he dropped a lockbar into place over the other door in the cabin. He went up the steps at a dead run and breathing hard. His ribs ached from the impacts of the bullets, promising bruises-if he lived long enough for them to show.

Shiva was nestled comfortably behind a Narcoject rifle, taking advantage of the cover provided at the side of the cabin. Trey was on the other side, his hands glowing, then flashing dimly.

"The sleep spell worked fine," Trey grumbled. "These guys came from belowdecks where I couldn't see them."

"Two minutes," Skater said. "Then we're outta here. Archangel's into their system."

"You don't have the two minutes," Wheeler said over the commlink. "We've got bogeys coming up from the east."

Skater spun, searching the wine-dark sky. Then he spotted them, a tight trio of helos aimed straight for the freighter.

They were on the Sapphire Seahawk in seconds as heavy machine gun fire began smashing into the decks.