Begin Part VII

 Ratislav moved through the shadows of the balcony, with gun drawn,
creeping through the driving rain moving with agonizing slowness. He moved
so slowly because ahead in the false color of his view screen he could see a
man with a rifle standing ready at the door to the shuttle. Zimmerman and
Pickering both gave him steady reports on the status of both the shuttle on
the rooftop and the personnel on the ground in front of the building.
 When he was sure of the shot, O'Muirdagh pulled out his pistol and
screwed a silencer into the barrel, and took aim. Breathing slowly, he
sighted for the man's chest and pulled the trigger twice in quick
succession. Both shots hit their target and the man dropped first into the
side of the shuttle door and then onto the ground beside the shuttle.
Running up to use the surprise to his advantage, he jumped up into the
shuttle and found there was no one left in the vehicle. Confused because of
the unexpected turn he emptied his clip into the controls of the shuttle and
turned to jump out when the stock of a rifle landed in his midsection.
 Time slowed to a crawl as all of Ratislav inertia went in the direction
he was trying to go and his body just folded and rotated in the air. His
armor absorbed most of the blow but it still hurt when he landed on his
back. The man who stepped over him seemed familiar but Ratislav couldn't
focus his eyes well enough to make out who it was.
 "Mister O'Muirdagh, what an unpleasant surprise. You seem much better
prepared to deal this time with the sort of threats that I make but once
again you fail." The voice made something in Ratislav's head connect and he
realized it was Clark from the asteroid. The little bastard some how made
it off the damn thing alive before it had gone up. "Blowing up that
asteroid, was rather bad form, it set back so many of my plans for months.
You know you actually ruined an entire scenario I had been working on for
months which might have wiped out most of the Exo-Fleet."
 Ratislav chuckled painfully:
 "Did the aliens forget to remove somebody's anal prove." Ratislav smiled
as Clark froze, and swung his foot up into the air. Clark stepped back to
get out of its path, but when the leg was at about a ninety degree angle,
Ratislav dropped it again this time hitting Clark in the stomach. Clark was
thrown out of the shuttle door and landed on the balcony itself. Ratislav
rolled up onto his feet and was nearly out the door when a gun butt came
flying out of the storm and slammed into the side of his helmet. The force
of the blow threw him against the door and the rolled him down the steps.
 Ratislav saw Clark take off down through the door downstairs and the
pirate step over him with his gun ready to bring it down again. He rolled
as the pirate brought the gun down and swung out a foot to bring this new
opponent down. The kick was perfect, the pirate was just starting to bring
the gun back up and all of his weight was still on the balls of his feet.
He was nearly standing when the gun caught him again, this time in the side
of his torso, but most of the force was lost because the pirates aim was
off.
 He managed to grab the gun and pulled it out of the pirates hand, however
it was so wet that it just flew out of his hands over the edge of the
building. Ratislav got his first good look at the man, he saw the light
hair, the bloodshot eyes, and what lousy shape his clothes were in. His
observations were ruined when he had to jump out of the way of a foot the
pirate sent in his direction. Landing on his right foot, Ratislav swung out
his left and connected with the pirate's jaw and made a sickening crunch.
The pirates head snapped around so fast Ratislav never saw the fist that
followed it and landed on his arm. Iron grip that it was, the pirate
rotated Ratislav's arm just right and he couldn't help but go into a roll.
 He came out of the roll just in time to see a foot a second before it
flashed down into his stomach and squeezed his armor hard enough to knock
the wind out of him. The pirate stood and pulled him upright, dragging him
along away from the edge of the building. Ratislav was again just getting
himself together when the pirate took two quick steps and launched him
through one of the huge windows head first. Lucky enough to go into a roll,
Ratislav just missed getting a horrible wound from falling glass.
 Ratislav turned over and got onto one knee as the pirate came into the
room where he had landed. The room was some kind of kitchen, with stoves
and such along one wall, shelves and walk in freezers on the other side, and
tables down the middle. Plans flashed through his head as he took in his
surroundings, and as the pirate moved towards him, he jumped back and
grabbed an empty pot off of the stove and swung with all of his might. The
pot caught with a weak shot to the shoulder, but it gave Ratislav the time
to slide across the island table and go for the first thing he could reach
which just happened to be a large knife.
 The sudden light in his eyes gave the pirate a moment of pause, but then
Ratislav lunged forward and took a swipe at the pirates midsection. The
pirate was doing much better that Ratislav at this point and easily side
stepped the blow, a quick chop to the forearm disarmed Ratislav and left him
wide open for the counter.
 It might have been the end of Ratislav O'Muirdagh right then and there if
it had not been for a large black frying pan that hit the backside of the
pirate's head. His eyes held for a second but then lost focus and the body
collapsed on the floor beside the table. O'Muirdagh leaned back against the
wall and looked at the smiling frame of Kristin O'Connor, hands on hip
lighting swing the pan back and forth, head tilted to one side.
 "You really out to be more careful around the kitchen. I mean some
people know better than to step into a stranger's kitchen."
 "You're very funny, Kristin, have you ever thought of doing a stand up
show." Ratislav stopped shaking his head when Kristin put a hand to his
forehead where he had a cut, probably from the window.
 "So what happened to you?"
 "I was thrown through a window, the charge was disturbing the peace. You
should have seen what they did to the other guy."
 "Disturbing the peace? What's the charge for getting thrown out of a
moving car? Jaywalking? Are you sure you can't find some job that agrees
with you more." Ratislav smiled and put all of his weight on his feet again
to see how he was doing. "Don't even think about going anywhere either,
you're beat right to shit. Just sit down and wait for the cavalry."
 "Kristin, I am the cavalry, that's the whole bloody point." He shook out
his arms and legs and headed to go back out the window. He was just outside
the window, back in the storm when he looked back a Kristin for a moment.
"So how did you know where to find me? I didn't exactly leave any signs up
for you to follow."
 "I knew you had to be heading for the roof because that was the only
place where anything might be going on. After that I saw that pirate toss
you through the window and got myself a weapon to get in on the action."
 "Get in on the action, yuck. And people think I'm weird, they should
really meet the people like you. Help me out with this thing will you."
Ratislav said as he hauled a package out of the bushes at the same end of
the building where the squad had originally landed. Moving quickly the two
unfolded it to reveal a spare rocket pack but this one was lighter than the
standard models the troopers had used. Ratislav slung it over his shoulders
and checked all of the gauges to make sure it's systems were in order.
 "What's with all this hurry? I mean we got everybody didn't we?"
 "Nope," replied Ratislav. "I know one got away and he's got a very
special place waiting for him if I can nail him. Thanks for your help but I
got to go now."
 "Thanks, all I get is thanks. You can be a real pain in the ass
sometimes you know that."
 "With an attitude like that, maybe thanks is all you should get,
Lieutenant." Kristin pouted in response and put her hands on her hips,
Ratislav replied in turn with a smirk. "Of course that isn't really fair
since you did manage to probably save my life."
 "Probably? I most definitely think I did you ungrateful waste of
officer." Kristin hit O'Muirdagh softly on the shoulder but he grabbed her
arm and held.
 "You should never call a superior officer a pain in the ass." Ratislav
pulled Kristin in and kissed her full on the lips before letting her go and
stepping on to the edge of the balcony. "See you around," he said and then
jumped off the building.
 The wind screamed through Ratislav's ears as he blew by windows, it was
not even until half of the way down that he first fired the jump pack. They
fired up so fast that he was thrown against the restraints, but still
managed to hit the ground hard enough jounce him around. Throwing the pack
off he took off at a run for the squad's armored car as he saw Clark
creeping along the shadows of the compound wall. A running jump put him
over a low barrier at just the same time that Clark thumped a soldier beside
a army car in the skull and stole the vehicle.
 Another soldier tried to stop Ratislav with a raised hand but the
combination of his momentum and a good elbow blew the poor soldier out of
the way. One quick jump put him on the hood of a police car and the second
put him on the roof so he could see the army car go screaming down the
street. Jumping from car to car over the heads of soldiers, cops, and
civilians alike, Ratislav made the last jump through a crowd and hit the
side of the armored car to come to a stop. Ripping open the door, he dove
through the partition and dropped into the driver's seat.
 The crowd parted like the Red Sea when the lights of the APC came on and
the rear turret locked itself in the overhead position. Tire's screamed as
the back end slid until the tires heated up and the whole vehicle leapt
forward like someone had light a fire under a cross country runner's ass.
For some reason city traffic seems to disappear in front of a vehicle with
tires six feet tall and a turret capable of opening up a engine block from
three blocks away. Within two minutes Ratislav could see the car that Clark
had stolen, unfortunately Clark had spotted the APC in his rear view mirror
as well.
 O'Muirdagh was cruising through traffic almost totally focused on the
road ahead, and so he nearly had a coronary when Koffler tapped him on the
shoulder. "Hi, Lieutenant, can you use any help?"
 "By the punctured balls of Saint Sebastian, Koffler if you ever do that
when my hands are free I am liable to kill you. Son, never ever clap your
commanding officer on the shoulder while he is involved in a high speed
pursuit. And of course you can help, why don't you have a see in the
gunner's chair and see if you can get a clear sight with the main turret."
 Koffler looked over at Ratislav in shock at the idea. "Sir, you want me
to use the main gun in a civilian area? What about collateral damage? I
mean civilians could die, sir?"
 "Koffler, it's time for the first lesson of being in the fleet. That
lesson is bad things happen in times of war, people get hurt, things get
blown up. You deal with it and move on, okay. Collateral damage is a old
politicians trick to keep a hold on the military, because they could never
stomach the idea of losing a few potential voters."
 "Aye, aye, sir." Koffler fired up the main targeting program and watched
the scope light up to reveal a slightly bouncy image of the city street he
could see in the windows. Dropping the crosshairs on to the army car they
were following, he breathed and thought of every he could to go through with
this ridiculous plan. Trouble was he couldn't think of one way to get
around O'Muirdagh's orders, he was obviously still of sound mind, and he
definitely was still in control of his faculties.
 "Son, you fire that gun off today, I would like to run this terrorist
down before he can apply for social security." Koffler just grunted an
acknowledgement and squeezed the dual triggers of the joystick. Because the
stick was not directly connected to the gun he couldn't feel the recoil of
the blasts that ripped up the street in front of them. Once in a while a
shot would pass through the jeep but Koffler wasn't able to do any major
damage.
 At one corner Ratislav had to swerve to dodge around a car pulling out
but he still clipped the front end and sent the car spinning off to the
other side of the road. He winced as he saw the front end leave the road
and glass go flying from the shock of the hit. Gunning the engines,
Ratislav blew through the rest of the intersection and realized he was
nearly on top of Clark and it looked suspiciously like he was heading for
the spaceport.
 People leapt off the street when the saw the army car racing down the
street followed by what looked like a tank with a gun turret blazing.
Koffler was good, but the constant bumping of the APC moving through traffic
did cause a few problems. At first he tried to use the laser's built into
the nose of the APC but those couldn't seem to lock onto the small heat
signature of Clark's car. Finally he switched to the solid slug turret gun
and got much better results although there was some collateral damage as
slugs went off target. Most seemed to just hit the street but a few managed 
to damage some cars and one poor man jumped out of his car just before three
slugs passed through the fuel tank. Ratislav turned to dodge the explosion
and out of the corner of his eye saw a man fly through a plate glass window.
 "Koffler, if you could please refrain from blowing up the local's cars.
We are trying to keep a decent reputation after this job."
 "Sorry, sir. It's just hard to keep the crosshairs on the target when
the APC keeps jumping around from the potholes in the road, sir." 
 "Well then just try to hold your fire until you have a good shot. If
that doesn't work then just stick with small bursts that wont do things like
ignite small vehicles."
 "Yes, sir."
 Ratislav would have said more except that Clark chose at that moment to
swerve into a drive for the airport, and he pulled the stick to follow. The
APC actually tail whipped because of the speed it was moving and all of the
water on the road from the rain. Pulling the stick back over to correct,
Ratislav jammed the accelerator forward and the APC leapt over the remains
of the fence onto the spaceport proper.
 Driving up onto the runway, Ratislav and Koffler both noticed the glare
from an incoming drop ship coming down at high speed. Ratislav focused on 
Clark, so he didn't even noticed until Koffler yelled a warning that a
spread of missiles was coming down. He swore and just flattened the
accelerator hoping to rush through the spread even though he knew it was
already to late. The explosion was amazing, and some freak piece of
architecture meant that the shock wave picked up the back end of the APC and
threw it without hitting the front end.
 Of course, Ratislav and Koffler were still thrown around the inside of
the APC, still the harnesses did stop a little of the damage. When the APC
stopped, Ratislav wiped the blood from a cut on his forehead away from his
eyes. Koffler was still breathing, but things didn't look to good for him
if he didn't get some attention quick. That shouldn't be to much of a
problem, unfortunately Ratislav knew the Clark would be taking advantage of
this. Moving slowly because of the pain in his ribs and the damage to his
head, Ratislav got out of the driver's seat and grabbed the gun he left
beneath. 
 Ratislav paused in his sliding along the wall of the APC to check his gun
and discovered the clip was empty and he didn't have a spare. Checking his
hip, he pulled out the pistol and pushed the door open to see what was
outside. He was rewarded with a burst of gunfire, probably he figured,
coming from a single automatic weapon. Seeing a piece of concrete thrown up
near the side of the APC, Ratislav dove head first to get behind it and
maybe get a better angle on Clark.

End Part VII