Toys

Chapter 56

Proving that I still had “it,” I slammed into two of the muscular commandos, a boot planted squarely in each man’s chest. The force of our impact caved in the hull section, folding it in the middle. It blew out through the hatch and we went with it, twisting into the air outside with gut-wrenching speed.

I grabbed hold of the nearest commando’s throat, then gave my jetpack a hard blast.

The two of us broke free from the others and rocketed away, punching and kneeing each other viciously as we struggled for control of his rifle.

His buddies were quick to follow, moving faster than I could with my unwilling passenger in tow. Flashing bursts of laser fire started hissing past us.

I managed to spin the commando around and into a headlock with the rifle pinned across his throat. As best I could, I was using him as a shield.

His “buddies” didn’t hesitate for a second. They continued to fire mercilessly. The tough skin of the Deathwish Suits kept the blasts from traveling all the way through, but I suffered the shock of successive shots hitting his body. I felt him convulse-then go limp in my arms.

Hanging on to the rifle, I curled myself up tightly and shoved the dead body into their path. Then I jetted away in a series of sharp, erratic somersaults. That bought me a few seconds, long enough to turn around and start shooting back.

That was when another Deathwish-Suited figure came spinning into sight.

Lucy in the sky-no diamonds!

She was zooming in behind the pair of commandos, so they didn’t see her-not until she crashed piggyback onto one Elite’s shoulders. She locked the poor guy’s neck between her thighs in a scissor hold. Then her hands snapped his neck, tearing off his helmet with such fury that I was surprised when his head wasn’t still inside it.

As she rode that flopping body past the other commando, the sight distracted him for the instant I needed to fire off several shots. The lasers slammed his back; his hands jerked up and tossed his rifle into the icy wind rushing around us.

Lucy released her grip on the dead man she was straddling, and he sailed away, out to join his brethren in a long, final plunge to oblivion in the wild waters of the Bering Sea.

Lucy turned, grinned rather insanely, and gave me a double thumbs-up.

For my part, I grinned insanely back at her, wondering what I’d gotten myself into with this crazy, but obviously brave and impressive, human woman.