***
Jayson sent his ship careening into the person he had seen jump. The body splattered over his windshield as he banked around over the hilltop. Jayson was out for vengeance. He grimaced at the killing, and sweat beaded down his brow. The assassins wielding the crossbows shifted their aim from Zoe to his ship, and fired off two shots in quick succession.
‘What kind of damage do they think-’ Jayson muttered. He was answered when an explosion shoved him into his harness, the straps dug into his shoulders. ‘Explosive tipped arrows, clever boys,’ he said. ‘But bullets still beat arrows. Hey Zoe, watch your head.’
Jayson grabbed a joystick to his far right. His guns had finally cooled and he itched to fire them up again. With his left hand he stabilised his ship’s pitch to hover above the hill. He watched a moment, as Zoe kicked an assassin with a neat roundhouse and dived for the cliff edge. When she was clear, Jayson opened up with the two Gatling guns bolted under the wings. The high calibre rounds caught three of the assassins in quick succession, painting the shrubs on the hilltop with chunks of their torso. Jayson buzzed over the hill and heard another thump on the roof of the ship.
‘That was no explosion,’ he said. ‘Sounded like another body.’
‘Check my feed damn it!’ Zoe’s voice filtered into Jayson’s mind through the iPC. He glanced into his peripheral vision and saw Zoe hanging off the side of the ship’s hull.
‘Oh!’
‘Yeah,’ Zoe said. ‘Slow down, my fingers hurt.’
Jayson eased off the throttle and put the ship into a slow autopilot course that would take them out low over the open ocean. A flicker of movement caught his attention. It was coming from Zoe’s view. There was an assassin on the hull, bearing down on Zoe fast. She hadn’t noticed.
‘You’ve got company!’ he warned.
Zoe pulled on her leg in a sit-up position. ‘I’m stuck!’
Jayson swore under his breath, unbuckled himself and sped down to the landing ramp. He mashed the emergency open button on the wall, ran at the ramp’s fulcrum as it opened and swung himself around outside the hull.
‘Give me your hand!’
‘What’s the hurry?’ Zoe said, as she stretched out to grasp him around the wrist. Jayson tilted his head to the side so that Zoe could see what he saw through their iPC link. The small assassin was bearing down on Zoe with sword drawn, stomping across the hull parallel to the ocean, defying gravity with the help of the suit and, Jayson guessed, magnetic boots.
Zoe’s eyes went wide. ‘Pull me!’
Jayson pulled, pivoting around the ramp support with his other arm, and dropped back onto the loading ramp with Zoe behind him.
‘Get back to the cockpit and shake him off!’ Zoe shouted.
Jayson shook his head. ‘Mag boots. Where’s your gun?’
‘Gilda didn’t make it either,’ Zoe said, casting about for another weapon. A shimmery outline of a toe appeared at the corner of the ramp as the assassin clambered around the entrance.
Zoe dashed into the passage that led up to the crew quarters and grabbed a submachine gun from a rack on the wall. She came running back to the loading ramp and poured on the rounds in the assassin’s general direction. The shimmer dropped to the ground. Zoe lost sight of it and ceased firing.
Jayson saw the edge of the assassin’s sword tucked behind the camouflage. Sparks flew from a small pack fixed to the back of the assassin’s suit. The shimmer edged in closer, scurrying inside like a cockroach. The camouflage died. The assassin was smaller than the others, but clad in the same bulky black armour and helmet. Jayson launched himself at him without thinking. They tumbled over each other; the assassin’s antigravity caused them to bump off the cargo bay walls and ceiling.
Jayson twisted around and wedged his fingers under the back of the attacker’s helmet. He yanked it off and stared into the angry eyes of a young girl. She tried to angle her sword toward Jayson but he kept her arms pinned to her side.
‘Who the-?’ he began.
Zoe fired off a careful shot; the round flew between the two locked combatants as the girl snapped her head back. The bullet passed clean in front of her. Jayson recovered first and delivered a swift kick to her midsection, sending the girl careening down the ramp and over the side.
Jayson fell back to the floor without the assassin’s suit to help. He landed with a crunch and moaned.
‘Ohh I think I broke something…’
‘Are you okay?’ Zoe rushed up to him. ‘You saved my life out there!’
Jayson picked himself up, all ears for the compliment, and the prize. ‘You were amazing with that gun,’ he said. ‘I guess we both are.’ He cupped Zoe’s chin with his hands and slowly pulled her towards his mouth.
‘Hey now, I’m not one of your conquests mister -uh-’ She let out a sharp breath of air.
‘Mister… what? Zoe!’
A spurt of red hit Jayson in the face. He watched in horror as Zoe’s body fell away, leaving her head held lightly in his hands.
‘Argh!’ Jayson dropped the head to the deck with a sickening thud. His knees went weak at the sight of the gore on the floor.
The sword came away dripping with blood. The girl assassin was back. She grinned up at him as though this were all just a game. Jayson stared in shock. A small part of his mind recognised her. Nothing specific, but she looked like Joshua, the new guy that Sarah had recruited to the Academy.
‘I know your face,’ they both said together.
‘How the hell do you know me?’ Jayson demanded. He was in no position to make demands, he had no weapon, but he needed to keep her talking while he came up with a way out of this mess. He glanced at the headless corpse on the deck at his feet, thick blood pumping over the deck and trailing out the open ramp over the ocean.
Oh Zoe, I’m sorry. And Matt, what did they do to you and what did you tell them? He couldn’t feel sorry for himself now.
‘I saw you in DC,’ the girl said as if that explained everything. But Jayson knew. He’d been running from it for years. He’d been picked up a few years back for stealing a Confederacy patrol wagon. After a brief chase flying around the Caribbean in the tiny ship, they had taken him up the coast to Washington DC and deposited him in Memorial Park. He’d just been a skinny street urchin back then, fourteen years old. Every day for the next four years was spent in the desolate wasteland that had once been the centre of Washington DC. He’d drilled to become a fighting machine for the Confederacy during the day, while the propaganda machine filled his mind with pleasant thoughts at night. He’d almost given in. But the thought of that day of freedom in the Caribbean had filled his mind before the Confederacy could. How beautiful the world he had known until then was outside the bubble. Where the others he’d trained with had become slaves to the will of the Confederacy, Jayson decided to escape. He used the skills they’d drilled into him against them. They’d hunted him, but before they could catch up, Master Casey Jayne had found him piloting a larger Confederate ship, the Machaera, with surprising alacrity. He’d been impressed, and offered Jayson the use of the Academy’s resources if he would scout out suitable new recruits. Jayson didn’t care, as long as he could be near the ocean with a fast ship. So he’d accepted.
This girl facing him now, no more than fifteen years old, holding a sword dripping with his friend’s blood, laughed in his face.
‘If only you’d stuck it out in DC for a little while longer, you could be just like me,’ she said.
‘This is what they were training us for?’ Jayson said. ‘Turning us into killing machines?’
‘We’re the police. We’re the law. And we’re in control, not you.’ The girl glanced over her shoulder at the receding skyline of Hong Kong as if she expected company. Jayson took the opportunity to grab a wrench that was lodged into an alcove on the wall. But he didn’t attack. Could she be right? Is the Academy the real enemy?
‘I’m just a pilot, I’m not part of your war,’ he said.
?
??We’ll see soon enough.’
Jayson heard the loud whirr of rotor blades closing in on them. Outside the ramp behind the girl assassin, an Osprey aeroplane, flying backwards, jutted up against them, ramp-to-ramp. A man stood on the tilt-rotor aircraft’s boarding ramp and fired a line gun into Jayson’s ship. The girl snapped her arm out and caught the end of the line without moving a step.
No one can move that fast, Jayson thought, awestruck. ‘Who are you?’ he said.
The girl clamped her hand down on the thick rope. It compressed under her strength. Jayson’s eyes bulged in disbelief.
‘I’m your dream come true, if you’ll join us.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘You don’t like to lose,’ the girl said. ‘These kids that you fly around for the Academy can’t protect you, but we can. We’ll win. Think about it. Once you make the right decision meet us in Korinthos.’ The rope yanked her bodily out of Jayson’s ship. He ran down the ramp to watch her being reeled into the Osprey. The man waiting at the top waved to him. He had his helmet off and his wavy blonde hair caught the sunlight.
Jayson came out of his stupor and threw the wrench in vain. It spun over and over, the blonde man ducked and the wrench clanged into the back of their cargo hold. Missed. The man grinned back at him as he extended a hand down to the girl. He yanked her up into his arms and she paused there for a moment, her hand on his chest.
‘Oh he’s a real Prince Charming,’ Jayson said, and turned back to head for the cockpit and return to the Academy, alone.