Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [19]
The woman had reached into her bag, and was removing a small reel of white tape. Expertly, she unwound about half of it, attaching it to the side of the carriage in a rough square.
‘This is laserwire, so stand clear and look the other way’
she warned him, taking a couple of steps back. She had a control box in her hand, some kind of remote control Adric glanced up at the sky.
A pale blue slab was hovering just above the canopy. It was about six metres long, and three metres wide. Along its underside ran a word in large white letters: JUSTICE.
Adric instinctively shoved the woman aside. They both lost their footing in the ice, and tumbled over.
It saved their lives. An energy bolt sliced through the canopy above their heads, before punching a chunk out of the edge of the platform. A second bolt did the same, only closer. Shards of transparent plastic began clattering and plinking to the ground.
They half rolled, half scrambled to their feet. A third bolt smashed into the floor where they had been.
The woman’s pistol had fallen from her coat. It was a chunky thing, with an oddly shaped grip. It appeared to be made from red plastic.
Adric grabbed it and aimed it at her.
The woman steeped back defensively, shaking her head, her eyes flashing with concern. Not for herself, but for him. Without knowing why, Adric dropped the gun.
An energy blast hit the side of the carriage. Whatever metal the train was built from absorbed the energy, but the sound was enough to shake Adric back to his senses.
A hatch opened on the side of the hovering object – an antigravity vehicle of some kind, Adric realized. Three armoured adjudicators jumped from it into thin air. They were wearing jetpacks,.the retros firing orange against the night sky. Ignoring gravity, they drifted through the hole in the canopy, landing as one on the platform, not even losing their foothold on the ice. They carried drawn blasters, and fanned out in a well-rehearsed move. Before their feet touched the ground, the air was full of light and pulsing chirps: blaster fire exploding on the platform and along the side of the train.
Behind Adric, the woman had scooped up her pistol and dived into the gap between two of the carriages. Three energy bolts tried to follow her through, but couldn’t, and they impacted on the side. The three Adjudicators hurled past Adric, ignoring him. One skidded to a halt, and knelt to check the Adjudicator that the woman had stunned. The others continued after his attacker. The two Adjudicators reached the gap between the carriages. They hesitated before moving to either side of the gap. One raised his gun to his shoulder, the other moved into a firing stance.
The woman appeared from behind the carriage, grabbed the nearest Adjudicator’s wrist and kicked his feet from under him. He fell backwards onto the track. His jetpack fired, and in less than a second he had been propelled down the runway.
The other Adjudicator watched his colleague vanish, so he didn’t notice the woman knocking him out with a swift chop to the back of his neck, right at the base of his helmet.
Adric viewed all this with his mouth open.
The third Adjudicator, having made his colleague comfortable, was on his feet now. The woman leapt for him, and a high kick to his breastplate knocked him back down. He didn’t rise. Now she had beaten all three of the Adjudicators, but there were sirens