False Horizon - Alex Archer [72]
She paused outside of the room and checked her position. Inside an animated conversation continued.
Wish I knew what they were saying, Annja thought.
She gripped her sword and looked into the blade. Her own reflection stared back at her and she smiled in spite of herself. Here we go again, she thought.
She took several deep breaths, flushing her system with an abundance of oxygen. Adrenaline dripped into her veins and Annja’s heart thundered again, ticking into overdrive in preparation for battle.
There was movement in the room. Some part of Annja’s gut told her that, in a few short seconds, the hallway was going to become very crowded.
It was time.
She gripped the sword.
Took a final breath.
She burst into the room, her blade already starting to spin and cut and slash as if under its own control.
Annja was merely along for the ride.
27
As Annja entered the room, she took in everything at once.
One soldier on the right, hands off his weapon.
Two soldiers at ten o’clock chatting with each other in low voices.
Guge talking with a woman draped in black who must be Hsu Xiao.
One other soldier sitting at a computer terminal.
A door on the far side of the room, closest to Hsu Xiao.
At Annja’s sudden appearance, the room stopped moving. The soldier on her right managed to react first. He gripped his AK-47 and started to thumb the safety off.
Annja’s sword cleaved the barrel of the assault rifle and she backhanded the blade up and into the soldier himself. He screeched as the blade tore into his upper torso, slicing deep into his thorax, dumping blood on the room’s stone floor. The soldier twisted in agony and then dropped.
Annja kept moving, making a beeline for the pair of soldiers. The one farthest away brought his gun up and then Annja heard the terrible sound of fully automatic gunfire. The AK-47 selector switch went from safety to full auto and the soldier seemed content to spray the room full of lead.
Annja twisted and leaped through the air, arcing high and then coming straight down at the soldier who was attempting to jerk the barrel of the gun around toward her even as he still unleashed the hail of lead.
Annja sliced down, landed and then cut back up under the gun, driving the sword into the young soldier’s lower torso, severing entrails and disemboweling him. Blood sprayed everywhere and the soldier died on his feet.
A bullet ricocheted off the wall nearby as the second soldier abandoned his rifle and went for his pistol instead. Annja flicked her hands up, catching the soldier’s gripping hand just beneath the wrist. The soldier screamed as he looked down at the bloody stump of where his hand had been seconds before.
Annja spun and cut the man across the throat. He dropped to the floor and lay still.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw the door open and close quickly. Her consciousness registered that Hsu Xiao had fled the room.
Annja wondered why, but she couldn’t afford to get distracted.
As Guge backed up against the wall and attempted to get out of the door, only to find it locked from the other side, the soldier seated behind the computer terminal stood and rushed Annja headlong.
He caught her around the waist and they went down in a tangled heap. Annja lost the sword and then felt the impact of a punch in her face that seemed like it had jarred a few teeth loose. The soldier brought his head down hard against the cheekbone and Annja grunted from the impact.
She pushed him off and tried to get the better position, but his legs came up instinctively, using them against her hips so she couldn’t get any purchase.
Another punch caught her in the chest and she gasped as the wind burst out of her lungs. Annja heaved and dropped an elbow onto the soldier’s sternum again and again. She drove the elbow hard against the xyphoid process and heard the small bone break. She let her full weight come down and then she felt the soldier stiffen before going slack as Annja drove the fragmented bone into his