Dark Dragons (21 page)

Just as Darren spotted the first SWAT officer storming
through the front glass, his head suddenly jerked hard to the right as if he
had been struck with a baseball bat, and he staggered back, his feet spinning
before he could finally steady himself.  His suit’s Incoming Fire Sensor
retraced the path of a single .308 round back to a sniper who had just got
Darren with a head shot from the roof of a gift shop across the street. 
Darren put the crosshairs on the brick ledge just under the sniper and returned
fire with a pair of laser bursts.  Shards of brick and mortar exploded,
and the sniper recoiled out of sight.

Then came an almost comical moment, a span of about four or
five seconds of God-like invincibility, when Darren, Jorge, Nate and Tony had
their backs to one another in a circled wagon formation and simply stood there
while a harmless rain of armor-piercing full metal jacket exploded across their
suits.  Bright showers of sparks and bits of copper and steel poured off
them, and it grew so thick that the carpet at their feet began to
smolder.  Darren could feel the bullet strikes through his armor, and he
let a slow grin cross his face.  It felt like Magic Fingers.

WHAP!
  Another sniper, this one across the
street at the Wuhan Gardens restaurant, played his head like a Jack-in-the-Box
again.  Annoyed, Darren aimed his rifle and EPG launcher and pumped a
single grenade programed with a direct-impact detonation.  The grenade struck
where Darren wanted, that being the driver’s side door of a silver Toyota Camry
parked in front of the restaurant.  The explosion flipped the fiery
vehicle up and off the street and slammed it topside into the front of the
Wuhan Gardens.

Three of the SWAT outside recoiled out of the way from the
windows, but the other two actually began to enter the bank with their MP5’s
blazing uselessly.  What they were attempting to do, Darren couldn’t tell,
because they surely had to realize by now that their weapons were no more than
squirt guns.

Enough of this.
  Darren sent a thought-command
to his rifle, powering down the intensity level to its lowest setting and went
for their legs, hoping his weapon wouldn’t still maim and tear.  A single
shot into the nearest cop’s thigh blew the Kevlar kneepad off and jerked his
entire leg backward off the floor.  The man screamed and fell, Darren
satisfied to see him still intact but with a likely second-degree burn and a
shattered bone or two. 
Just a few days in the hospital with a bullshit
story to tell his buddies.
  Jorge followed suit and put the other cop
down, his shot to the left shin. 
Oooo, that’s definitely broken.

Tony and Nate slowly ambled toward the teller counter with
their pulse rifles in “room broom” mode, sweeping low-powered vollies of laser
fire into the suspended ceiling panels above the SWAT officers’ heads. 
The five cops didn’t need further convincing, already halfway toward the
exit.  One of them actually performed a beautiful swan dive through the
shattered drive-thru window, and Darren heard Tony laud the accomplishment with
mad laughter

“Clear!” Nate said from the back door.

“Clear!” Jorge followed from the front, now guarding their
two agonized prisoners writhing on the floor.

Darren walked up to one of the officers and pointed his
weapon directly in the guy’s face.  The cop stopped moaning and
squirming.  Through the man’s goggles, Darren saw his eyes go wide.

“Take your weapon and crawl out,” Darren said through the
speaker under his visor.

The cop did as ordered.  So did his buddy.

“Nate,” Darren said. “Stay back there and cover the
rear.  Jorge cover the front.”  Despite his helmet’s temperature
exchanger, sweat continued to drip off his burning face.  He opened his
visor to let the bank’s air conditioning help but the shattered windows and
glass entry doors had let out the cool air.  The only thing Darren
received was the overpowering stench of blood and spent gunpowder.  In
fact there was gore everywhere.  What hadn’t been splattered with blood
had been thoroughly peppered with bullet holes and laser scorch marks. 
Desks overturned.  Computer monitors shattered.  Loan applications,
brochures, and withdraw envelopes scattered across the floor.  Smoke from
the flashbangs still lingered.  Darren immediately thought of
Apocalypse
Now
with the reverberating whump-whump of helicopters outside drowning out
all other sounds. 
I love the smell of laser-burned flesh in the
morning!

Darren bent down and yanked his helmet off just a split second
before he vomited all over the floor, eyes watering.  He spit out the last
of the puke from his mouth and took a swig of water from the fountain on the
wall to wash the stinging bile from his throat.

“Y’alright, man?” Tony asked.

Darren nodded.  His first experience of the terrors of
combat.  Well, it wasn’t all that terrifying, he admitted to himself,
since they had the technological edge and surprise on their side——and they had
used those two elements excellently.  But where they had succeeded on
those levels, they had clearly screwed up on others.  Lack of thorough
intelligence being the most obvious, and Darren’s unwillingness to charge
quickly into the situation.  His brain was scrambling too fast for him to
go down the list.  He’d do that later.

“So this is combat,” Tony murmured, looking around. 
Darren couldn’t tell if Tony was appalled or worshipful of the carnage they had
created.  Probably both.

“What do we do now?” Nate asked.

Darren was about to answer, but the phone was ringing
again.  The four of them all turned and faced the telephone sitting on the
only desk which hadn’t been destroyed.

“Do we talk?” Tony asked.

“Yes.”  Darren walked over and picked up the
receiver.  “Hello?”

“My name is Sergeant John Randal.  Who am I speaking
to?”  The guy’s voice was deep and full of authority but with just a touch
of solace.

Darren suddenly felt odd.  Shameful.  His stomach
was rumbling again, but he had nothing left to puke. 
I’m not the bad
guy, man.
  “Darren.”

At this, Tony made a grunt and rolled his eyes at him.
“Don’t tell ’em your name,” he rasped.

“Darren, this may seem like a weird question . . . but who
are you?”

“What do you mean?”  But Darren knew what he
meant.  He knew the cops realized they were now in a situation that
clearly wasn’t following the normal procedure of a bank robbery gone
sour.  However, the man’s question had another angle to it as well. 
Who are you?  Darren looked around him, swallowed some more spit to soothe
his stinging throat.

“Our spotters say that you opened fire on the suspects
before our officers entered the bank.  And that you . . . appeared . . .
to be avoiding direct fire on those officers.”

“That’s right.”

“So am I to hope that I’m dealing with a person who clearly
follows law and order?”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m glad to hear that.  Are the hostages okay?”

“They’re still locked in the vault.”

“How many?”

“Thirteen.  The bad guys killed one already.  He’s
behind the teller counter.”

“Okay.  So what are your intentions Darren?”

“That depends entirely on your intentions, sir.” 
Darren closed his eyes and took in a big breath.  He hoped what he was
about to say didn’t come out too clumsy.  “Listen very carefully to me,
Sergeant Randal.  As you’ve already guessed, we’re not the bank
robbers.  We . . . thought we could help.  But it didn’t turn out
exactly how we wanted.  Now here’s the important part.  Give us three
minutes to clear out of the bank.  You won’t see us going.  Just
trust me in saying that we will not open fire on anyone.  Just stay off
the bank for three minutes and then you can enter.  All of the robbers are
dead except for the guy knocked out by the front window wearing the flower
shirt.  He’s not a hostage.  If you try to enter before the three
minutes, we will open fire, and it won’t be leg shots.  I’m sure you’re
aware that our suits can block anything you fire at us including the .50-cal on
the LAV down the street, so please heed my warning.  We’ll be getting the
hostages out in just a minute.  The explosion you’re going to hear is just
us blowing the vault so don’t get itchy for action, alright, sergeant?”

“I understand.”

Darren hung up.

“Just leave the hostages where they are,” Nate said.
“Cops’ll get ’em out later anyway.”

“I want this guy’s trust,” Darren replied.  “Besides .
. . one of my RCS scouts is locked inside.”

“Nice one, Seymour,” Tony cracked.

Darren put his helmet back on and lowered the visor with a
thought-command.  All thirteen of the hostages were scattered around the
inside, sitting on the floor, leaning against the walls, some bored, some
apprehensive.  One guy, a distinguished looking Chinese-American in a
business suit, kept looking at his watch and was clearly pissed off by the
acidic look on his face and seemed to be missing a rather pressing
engagement.  Four of them were too close to the vault door for Darren to
blow it.  He looked down at the telephone and the list of extensions on
the left side, and without taking off his helmet, picked up the receiver and
pressed
VAULT
.

“Come on, somebody answer,” he said after about ten seconds
of ringing.  He could see that everyone was looking at one another, not
sure what to do.  Finally, Mr. I-Don’t-Have-Time-For-This-Shit made a move
for the red telephone on the wall next to the count room door.

“Hello?”

Through the speaker on his helmet, Darren said, “This is the
police.  We’re going to blow the vault door.  Get everyone into the
safe deposit box room and cover your ears.”

*

Darren made sure the last person had entered the far room
before he raised his left arm toward the vault door.  He placed the gauss
gun’s sights to his helmet visor and aimed for the gearbox containing the
locking bolts.  Darren wasn’t sure what acceleration rate to use.  He
had various rates programed for different armor-piercing applications but not
for a stainless steel bank vault.  Too slow, and the slug would just
disintegrate and leave a gouge.  Too fast, and the slug would zip clean
through like a pin through butter and not release its kinetic energy into the
door.  He selected a happy medium of five thousand feet per second. 
“Fire in the hole!”

The single recoilless blast blew the
entire
door!  The kinetic energy sent an explosion of heat and chunks of molten
stainless steel in every direction.  Darren had the sudden feeling of
spinning, and then realized he was upside-down and flying backward through the
air.  He landed on his back ten feet from where he had been
standing.  The end of the teller counter was gone, the suspended ceiling
panels blown away revealing the bank’s steel rafters, and the day gate had
twisted like a pretzel and embedded itself into the wall on the other side of
the vault.

Tony, worshiper in the Church of Chaos and the Unexpected,
shouted, “Hammer of the gods!”

Resisting the urge to tell Tony to STFU, Darren got up and
waved his arms through the dust and entered the vault.  Everyone appeared
to be okay, several people wiggling fingers in their ears trying to undent
their eardrums.

“Sweet freedom, people.  Everybody out!”

The moment he spoke, everyone stopped to stare.  Darren
shared an awkward moment with them for about five silent seconds before he
finally squeezed a laser pulse into the floor.

“Elbows and assholes!”

Thirteen ex-hostages suddenly exploded for the lobby. 
The last three guys did a perfect “Moe, Larry and Curly-jam up” at the door
before they popped out and scrambled into the lobby where Nate motioned them
toward the exit.  Two SWAT officers in the street outside the bank relayed
them to a point out of sight somewhere down the block.

Darren checked the position of their Dragonstars.  They
were still holding stationary positions seventy thousand feet above the
city.  He sent a thought-command to his fighter to activate its cloak and
retrace its flight path back to the bank’s parking lot.

“Let’s get the hell out of here and head for space. 
Jupiter’s calling.”

A rich, galactic ocean of stars filled Darren’s canopy:
yellow ones, blue ones, some red and white, all so sharp and clear.  This
wasn’t like lying out in the middle of a darkened field under a soupy
atmosphere which made the stars twinkle.  Here, the atmosphere ceased to
exist, every star and galaxy in sharp focus.

Darren let the wonderment of the universe soak into him,
appreciating his accomplishment of conquering outer space for the first time,
and then cast it aside to face the daunting task ahead.  They were at war,
not on a field trip.

He cut-out the anti-graviton drive and activated the faster
sub-light engines for space flight.  The Dragonstar emitted a slight hum
and shuddered when the sub-lights fired and Darren felt a momentary
thrust.  He screamed away from Earth at 110 miles per second, the slowest
speed that the sub-lights operated.

Last semester, Darren had written a ten-page typed report on
Jupiter for Mr. Ichikawa and had received an “A” for his heavily researched
paper.  Now he would see Jupiter up close, one of four humans to do so
with their own eyes for the first time in history, content he actually knew
something about their destination.

From the various Jupiter plots on the space positioning
graph, Darren selected Io, a moon constantly tortured by its mother
planet.  Jupiter’s strong gravitation forces had been pulling and pushing
on Io for millions of years, turning the moon into the most pliable, volcanic
body in the solar system.  Io was made up of a lot of silicates and molten
and solidified sulfur compounds along with a thin atmosphere of sulfur dioxide
and sodium.