Page 183 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Lemon fucking squeezy,’ Luca mutters from Kade’s left.

Kade takes a slow, deep breath.

His mind goes quiet.

Muscles taut, gun in hand, his focus simplifies.

‘Prep for incoming explosives,’ he warns Juno, who grabs a ballistic blanket from the supplies she’s laid out and then tosses one to Seth.

‘Heard.’

‘Kade, there’s over a hundred.’

Fucking hell.

‘Sorrenko,’ he says, staring ahead. ‘Any clever tricks?’

‘None you would like, my friend.’

‘I’m not your friend.’

‘We shall see.’

Kade nails the first one to come around the corner between the eyes. Easy shot. He drops instantly.

But after that, it’s chaos.

They come in great, clumsy bursts. No careful aim, no cunning moves, no attempt to use the bodies falling ahead of them as a warning. Thirty or so Resets throw themselves into the space with zero regard for their own safety, flooding through the breach faster than Iron Star can put them down. The ones at the front are taken apart in seconds, collapsing beneath the feet of those behind, but the next wave simply climbs over them. Some make it deep enough to start throwing flashbangs.

Juno and Seth catch the first two beneath the blast blankets, smothering the worst of the fragmentation and concussion, but the weighted fabric still kicks hard against the floor when they detonate.

Kade shoots three who run at him, each one dropping only for another to fill the space, and then a man launches himself bodily across the distance. He hits Kade hard enough to take them both off their feet. The gun is knocked from Kade’s hand as they strike the floor and skids away beneath the fighting. Before Kade can recover, the Reset climbs over him and starts hammering a fist into his face. He has a weapon but doesn’t even reach for it. He isn’t trying to shoot Kade; he’s beating him half to death with his bare hands, gaze flat.

There’s an ear-splitting crack.

Something yanks the Reset sharply off Kade, like a hooked fish reeled to the surface. Kade rolls quickly onto all fours. Vasily Sorrenko is holding a greeny-gold whip, the tail of which is wrapped around the neck of Kade’s attacker. The whip then lights up, and the air sizzles.

The man drops instantly.

Kade grabs his own gun, shoots three more incoming.

‘Is that… your fucking belt?’

Vasily helps him up, beaming. ‘Lapsha. My noodle.’ Someone charges at Vasily, who ducks to the side and lets Kade shoot him. ‘Nice.’

‘OK, well. Thanks, Lapsha,’ Kade mutters, taking a gun from the body of the Reset, fully prepared to use it when he clocks that it isn’t one of the typical sidearms they carry into Iron Star’s tunnels. ‘The hell?’

He’s never seen a handgun like it.

The upper assembly is oddly square. The grip is suspiciously bloated, swollen beneath the backstrap and webbed with copper. There’s no safety, just a narrow black window above the trigger, pulsing a slow, watchful red.

Vasily shakes his head. ‘Do not use.’

‘Why?’

‘Goes bang in hand.’

‘Fuck.’ Kade drops it and twists towards the others, yelling, ‘DON’T USE THEIR WEAPONS!’