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Across the wide, empty expanse of dark platform was another set of stairs. Briggs sighed, feeling entirely
put out with the circumstances, with the idiot botanist and the obstinate Lara and with whatever internal
leak had led to the immensely inconvenient attack on Bunda's station.
"You mean anothercompany did this?" Vincent asked, his attempt at outrage coming out in a squeak.
Nirasawa had stopped, his head cocked as if listen-ing for something. Briggs glanced back at Vincent,
wondering what he could possibly say that would make him be quiet. Nothing, he imagined, some people
were just
"Sir trouble," Nirasawa said, and stepped forward with his arms raised, reaching out as if to grab a
shadow. Briggs frowned, peering into the darkness
and suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant appeared. He was dressed in some kind of armor with long,
beaded hair surrounding a full face mask. He towered over Nirasawa by half a meter, and the guard was
by no means a small man.
A cloaking device!
"Wh what is it?" Vincent stammered.
"Synthetic," Briggs said, unable to keep the awe out of his voice as Nirasawa grabbed the giant's arms,
straining to hold him in place. Nirasawa was state, his vat-grown muscles fibered with steel thread, the
com-bination of electrical stim and pumped microhydraulics providing him with exceptional power;
Briggs had wanted two of them, but there simply weren't enough of his model to meet the demand. That
the assailant seemed to be holding his own was simply amazing, and with aninvisibility device . . . this
was big, he'd have to get a team on it as soon as possible.
"I'll hold him, Mr. Briggs," Nirasawa said, barely able to restrain the monster synth. "I would
recom-mend you get to your Sun Jumper "
The attacker slipped one hand free and slashed at Nirasawa's face, divots of layered flesh flying. The
guard managed to restrain him again, but Briggs real-ized that he was right; the 949 log wouldn't do him
any good if he were killed in a station explosion or mur-dered by one of these cloaked soldiers.
Back to the ship, wait for Nirasawa, and then have him fetch Keene and the others, we can conclude
our business on the way back to Earth , . .
"Vincent, take point, I don't know the layout," Briggs said, reluctant to tear his gaze from the struggle.
Truly astounding. There was a clattering sound coming from the strangely dressed synth, perhaps some
mal-function. If Nirasawa could incapacitate it, carry it back to
"But Mr. Briggs, isn't that your ship?"
That got his attention. Briggs's head whipped around, his gaze following Vincent's pointing finger. For a
second, he couldn't believe what he was seeing, unable to comprehend that Irwin woulddare but the
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elite Jumper was speeding away from the station, its sleek form unmistakable against the starry sky.
Damn her, when I get back to Earth, I'll
When he got back. Of course hewould, but sud-denly, he wasn't so sure that he should be worrying
about what he would do to Irwin at some future date. There were more immediate concerns and for
the first time since he'd landed on this forsaken hole, for the first time inyears, he had no idea what the
next step should be.
20
T.
I he force of the explosion pushed Jess underneath the shuttle, lucky for him; as it was, Lara had to slap
out a patch of burning fabric on his leg before dragging him away from the growing fire.
She wasn't sure what had happened, she'd heard Ellis shout and then there was the explosion, the
shut-tle rocking violently. She'd run out and seen Ellis fran-tically pulling the hose away from the ship,
huge sections of the deck covered with burning fuel. She'd seen a flailing shape engulfed in flames only a
few me-ters away, and for one terrible second, she'd been sure that it was Jess. If she hadn't heard him
groaning from beneath the transport . . .
, Ellis joined them behind the shuttle, helping Lara pull Jess to the far railing, but Lara knew that they
wouldn't be safe if the tanks caught fire. Jess started to come out of his daze, looking up into Ellis's
stricken face as he rubbed at his jaw, obviously in pain.
"Ever heard of overkill, kid?" he asked.
Lara laughed weakly. Jess was okay, that was the important thing but the realization that they weren't
going to be flying anywhere was sinking in, making her feel very, very tired.
God, is this ever going to end?
"What happened?" Lara asked.
"I think I killed us," Ellis said, so softly that Lara barely heard it. "There was this thing, it attacked Jess
. . ."
He trailed off miserably, the dancing light of the de-veloping fire on his face making him look incredibly
old. Lara put the rest together quickly enough; he'd sprayed the assailant with fuel and somehow,
some-thing had caught fire.
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