... and in the next instant Max moved forward, in a blur, disarming all three before they could start squeezing a trigger, much less fire a shot; and she tossed their weapons into the woods with twig-breaking thuds.
Simultaneously, Joshua had blurred forward himself, moving right behind her, cracking two side-by-side skulls together, knocking the guards out, while Max dispatched the third with a kick to the head that didn’t quite kill the man, though when he awoke from this sleep, he’d likely have the worst hangover a man who hadn’t been drinking ever had.
And the two transgenics pressed on.
On the other side of the island, Mole and Alec faced a similar challenge.
Mole had spotted the three guards early on, and signaled to Alec that they should get around the trio and come up behind them. His plan worked beautifully and the three guards were dispatched almost before they knew they were attacked.
The best part, Mole thought, was the fact that he and Alec now each carried an HK53 submachine gun. They would stay silent as long as possible, but at some point Mole expected there would be more serious trouble.
Still, he kept up his cigar-chewing bravado. Careful to keep his voice low, Mole growled, “And Max was worried about these punks?”
Alec shrugged. “She’s a girl. She’s a worrier.”
They edged forward through the woods and had managed another two hundred yards when five more guards surrounded them.
“Thought you had our back,” Mole said.
“Thought I did,” Alec replied.
Stepping forward, one of the guards said, “Put the weapons down... softly... carefully.”
So much for having machine guns.
They both set their HK53s down, bending at the knees to do so; then the transgenics exploded into action...
Sidestepping the one who had given the order, Mole went for the guard to his left, launching himself and hitting the guard in the stomach with his shoulder. The guard let out a whoomp, as all the air in his lungs abandoned ship. Both guards toppled to the grass, Mole rolling away and jumping up just as the leader’s gun barked twice. Mole dodged right and felt a bullet graze his left side, the other bullet striking the guard he’d knocked down in the forehead, as the man tried to rise.
That would leave a mark.
Spinning back the other way, Mole unleashed a vicious side kick that knocked the machine gun out of the leader’s hand. From the corner of his eye, Mole saw Alec leap, kicking out in opposite directions, each foot connecting with the face of a guard.
Three down, two to go.
The leader stepped in and delivered a quick left jab, followed by an overhand right, rocking Mole. As the lizard man staggered back, the leader kicked him in the solar plexus, driving the air out of him, knocking him off a tree, and leaving him dazed in a pile on the ground at the base of the trunk.
Struggling to stay conscious, Mole got to his knees, expecting the leader to be on him at any second...
... but no attack came.
His vision cleared and he looked up to see that Alec — who had dispatched the fourth guard — now had the leader in a full nelson. Before Mole could get to his feet, though, the leader dropped to his knees, pulling Alec over the top and rolling toward Mole, who grunted as Alec struck him and knocked them both to the ground.
The transgenics rose as one and saw the leader scrambling for the machine gun Mole had knocked away. Both of them took off as if fired from cannons, coming up behind the leader, each grabbing an arm and using the man’s own momentum against him as they sprinted toward a huge oak.
They passed on either side of the tree, the leader meeting the trunk face first with a sickening crunch, his arms slipping from their hands as his momentum abruptly stopped.
The leader stood facing the tree for a moment, as if it were a door that had been slammed in his face; then, with no more consciousness than the tree, he flopped back on the ground, his face a mask of blood, his mouth hanging open, several of his teeth broken. Guy probably wasn’t dead, Mole thought, but definitely out of the game.
Alec asked, “You all right?”
Mole looked down at his left side, stained dark in the half-light of dawn. “Never better,” he said, not wanting to tell his friend that it hurt like hell.
“Like Max says,” Alec said, “let’s blaze.”
And they were running.
A pang of worry shook Max when she heard the shots from the other side of the island.
She hoped the others were safe, but — soldier that she was — she couldn’t afford to fret about it long. Off to their right she saw a five-man patrol just as they saw her. The guards were only about thirty yards away and their guns came up instantly.
“Guns!” she shouted. “Run!”
She’d already taken off.
Zigzagging, she could hear Joshua crashing through the woods behind her as bullets whizzed past, snapping branches, thunking into trees, the five automatic weapons sounding more like a hundred.
Max and Joshua sprinted on, running for all they were worth, ducking, weaving, dodging, the guards giving chase now but keeping up the barrage. Only the transgenics’ special gifts kept them from being gunned down, and Max wondered how long their luck and skill would hold.
Then, suddenly, Joshua went down!
Max heard it and sensed it and turned to see, but she’d lost sight of him as she skirted the bullets still flying at her. Rolling to her right, she popped up to see Joshua throw one of the guards like a football, the man splatting into a tree and sagging to the earth.
Springing to her feet, Max rushed one who was so stunned he didn’t even fire as she ran toward him, leaped and kicked, her boot connecting solidly with his face. Blood spewed from his broken nose as he went down, unconscious.
She got a glimpse of Joshua throwing another one into a tree, and that made three down...
Another one shot at her, but the bullets went wide right, as she instinctively dodged left. Jumping high, she somersaulted and came down at the feet of guard number four, who flinched just before she decked him with a right cross that knocked him cold.
She looked around for Joshua, found him, then her heart lurched as she realized the last guard had avoided hand-to-hand combat as he tracked his shot and the man now had Joshua zeroed in...
Max yelled a warning, but it came too late: the guard squeezed the trigger and fired a single round. Joshua’s eyes met hers for the briefest fraction of an instant, still long enough to share love, surprise, forgiveness, thankfulness, everything in that one bit of a second...
... then the bullet thwacked into the gentle giant’s chest, and Joshua hurtled backward, his arms flying out, his eyes going wide, his mouth dropping open, but no sound came out and he disappeared into the brush.
In the next instant the shooter was turning toward where he’d heard Max yell.
She dove for cover, rolled, and — possessed by a burning rage... no soldier ever forgave another soldier for doing his duty — she blasted forward, blurring into a zigzagging ghost, the shooter always just missing her as he fired off the whole clip. When he went empty, she swept his legs and dumped him on his ass. As he tried to kick his way back to his feet, Max caught him with a straight right that slowed the guard, but didn’t hurt him.
A Familiar.
“Good,” Max said, and smiled a terrible smile. “Time we found out just where your pain threshold begins...”
He was a good six inches taller than her, and a good fifty pounds heavier, and if the muscles bulging through the fatigues were any indication, he was probably a good deal stronger than her, too.
The man growled, but it got cut off by the boot she planted in his chest. He backed up, then came forward trying to get in close, where his size would give him an advantage. Max sidestepped him, back-elbowed him in the head as he went by, then — as he turned — she leapt and broke his nose with her boot.