Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

For a single, impossibly long heartbeat it didn't register. Then, with a rush of adrenaline, Poirot finally understood what was happening. "Alert!" he shouted as loudly as he could, grabbing for his holstered paral-dart pistol.

The two Security men standing behind Reger's chair were already in motion. It didn't do them a bit of good. The blackcollar had a pair of throwing stars cupped in his hand, and even as the guards tried to bring their own guns to bear he flipped the weapons into their throats. Both men toppled backward, one of them sending a cluster of darts harmlessly into the ceiling as he died.

"Don't," the blackcollar warned. He had his arm cocked over his shoulder, another throwing star in hand, aimed at Poirot and Bailey. "Hands away from your guns, please."

Poirot focused on the two dead guards. "Hands away," he ordered Bailey through clenched teeth as he lifted his own hands. "But you're too late," he added to the blackcollar. "My men have already been alerted."

The other shrugged slightly. "We'll see."

Skyler had brought the car to a halt at the mansion's ornate front entryway, and the two men waiting at the door were striding toward the car when both of them abruptly twitched and went for their guns. "It's blown," Skyler snapped. Wrenching open his door, he dived out onto the ground.

He was just in time. Even as he hit the ground a cloud of paral-darts scattered off the car's roof with a nails-on-slate screech. Rolling back to his knees, he sent a pair of shuriken toward the nearest attacker.

The man ducked, but not quite far enough. One of the stars skimmed past his head, as the second buried itself in his right shoulder. He staggered with the impact, his next shot going wild. Skyler grabbed out one of his knives before the other could regain his balance and with a hard underhand throw sent it to bounce hilt first off the man's forehead. He went down, his gun flying from his hand, and lay still.

There was a flicker of movement from the mansion itself, and Skyler was slammed backward as a flechette slammed into his chest, turning his flexarmor momentarily rigid as it blocked the shot and distributed the impact over his entire body. He dived away from the car as the flexarmor relaxed, dodging in a roll-leap evasive maneuver, wishing he'd had time to put on his battle-hood as he searched the windows for the sniper. There was a second flicker from one of the first-floor windows, and he caught a glimpse of a figure standing there as a patch of pavement beside him erupted into splinters.

Dodging again to the side, he grabbed another shuriken and hurled it toward the window, knowing the sniper was well out of range but hoping to brush him back until O'Hara could get to cover and get out his slingshot.

There was another flicker from the window; but this time the shot buried itself in a tree trunk five meters to Skyler's left. He pulled out another shuriken, wondering if the man could really have reacted that strongly to his first throw.

And even as his brain caught up with the fact that that there had been two men at the window, the tingler on his wrist came to life: sniper down; house secure.

Skyler huffed a sigh of relief. But there was no time to pause for congratulations. The two men who'd followed the car in from the gate were sprinting toward them now, one rapid-firing paral-dart bursts, the other laying down scattergun blasts as fast as he could work the pump.

They were still coming when the paral-dart gunner abruptly folded over his stomach and flopped onto the ground. His partner had just enough time to work the scattergun pump one last time, and then his head jerked hard and he, too, crumpled into a heap.

"You okay?" O'Hara called as he rose from the partial cover of the car, a third stone ready in his slingshot as he surveyed his work.

"I'm fine," Skyler assured him, looking up at the stars overhead. Paral-dart guns meant Security, and Security meant high-flying spotters. He wondered how much of the brief battle they'd seen. "Let's get inside."

Kanai was waiting inside the front door, and together they went back to the house's well-stocked library.

Reger was seated in a large chair near the center, with a couple of bodies on the floor behind him and two uniformed Security officers posed stiffly against one wall. Standing watch over the whole thing was Hawking. "Any problems?" Skyler asked as they joined him.

Hawking shook his head. "Most of them were conveniently grouped in the dining room, standing guard over the house men. The roamers were a little more trouble, but not much."

"Good." Skyler turned to Reger. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Reger."

"The pleasure's all yours," Reger countered sourly. "Skyler, isn't it?"

"Yes," Skyler confirmed. He nodded toward the Security men. "Who are your friends?"

"Nobody in this room qualifies as a friend," Reger retorted. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

"Making trouble," Skyler said, looking at the Security men. "And you are ...?"

"General Avral Poirot, Denver Chief of Security," the older man identified himself, his voice as stiff as his posture but calm and professional for all that. "This is Assistant Chief Colonel Pytor Bailey. I see tonight's drop was personnel, not equipment. My mistake."

"Mistakes happen," Skyler said. So even with their new nonchuted drop pod's faster descent, Security had still spotted it. That was useful to know. He hoped Lathe's zip line insertion on Khala had worked out better. "So was this just a social visit?"

Poirot snorted. "Please, Commando. The very fact that you're in this room proves our suspicions of Reger and his Resistance connections were right."

Reger swore under his breath. "Oh, that's wonderful," he ground out. "Just wonderful. Thank you, Skyler, thank you so very much."

"A temporary problem only," Skyler assured him. "The general and colonel are about to graduate from the third type of person to the fourth."

"What?" Reger asked, frowning.

"Never mind," Skyler said. "Private joke. Would you be so kind as to show Hawking where you keep your Whiplash supply?"

Reger shook his head. "I don't have any."

"None?" Skyler asked. "I would have thought you'd be—"

"You thought wrong," Reger cut him off. "Phoenix has it all."

Skyler looked at Kanai, noting the hard set of the other's mouth. Part of the argument he was having with the organization? "Then I guess we'll have to go get it from them," he said, turning back to Poirot.

"What are your spotters' orders, General?"

Poirot looked at the others, perhaps wondering if cooperation would violate his loyalty-conditioning.

"They're to stay at high altitude and watch," he said. "Though of course they'll have heard my warning.

They're probably trying to contact us right now, preparatory to calling in reinforcements." He raised his eyebrows. "If you'd like, I could get on the comm and send them away."

Skyler smiled cynically. "Of course you could."

"Really," Poirot assured him. "What's Whiplash?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with just now," Skyler said, walking over to them. "Pleasant dreams." His hand snapped out to slam a punch behind Bailey's right ear and then backfist Poirot behind his left.

Both men dropped without even a gasp, Skyler catching Poirot beneath his arms as he fell. "Well, don't just stand there," he said, turning back to the others. "We'll take the Security cars—might as well listen in on what they're up to while we drive."

"Are we taking both men?" Kanai asked.

Skyler looked down at Bailey's crumpled form. He had no problem with giving Whiplash to both men, certainly, but blatantly kidnapping two senior Security officers might stir up more trouble than he really wanted just now. Besides, if Phoenix had been doing its job, they would have built up personality and operational profiles on all of Denver's Security officers, and it would be better to leave one of them here than to have the Ryqril bring in a complete unknown from Dallas or San Francisco to take over. "No, just the general," he told Kanai. "Get out there and see if you're going to have any trouble starting the cars."