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Neither can I, Evan thought, and turned his attention downward. Every suit had an Achilles heel, literally. No one had
yet been able to convince the suit manufacturers that feet needed much in the way of armoring, and to the cognoscenti
of suit warfare, it was the preferred target, a great place to shoot people and give them something else to think about.
The problem was that Evan was still being grappled from behind, by someone in a suit with perhaps twice the crush
and tear ratings that his had. And the pressure was building up. Maybe I shouldn't have bragged so much about
tearing his ships up with my bare hands, Evan thought, as he did the only thing he could against the increasing
pressure. He flexed everything he had outward; arms, legs. Then all at once he stopped struggling
A foot kicked forward from behind him, in reaction. The man had too little zero-gee experience, didn't know how to
handle himself. Right, Evan thought, and pointed his left-hand slugfirer at that foot, narrowed the stream, and fired at
the foot full-speed. Slugs not exhausted uranium, but they would do tore down in a stream of almost-solid metal, at
about 500 kph. Someone might as well have grabbed Takawabara by the foot and pulled him oif Evan's back; at any
rate he let go, pushed hard down by the stream of slug fire, unable to react with jets just yet.
240 SPACE COPS
And this was the bad moment, for the minute he recovered himself at all, he would certainly fire. Evan turned hard,
grabbed whatever he could catch one arm hauled Takawabara up by it, and made it his business to keep that arm
pointed away from him. Damn it all, anyway, he thought, it's still impossible. He can't be firing that thing From the
wrist of the flailing arm, it went off in front of his nose, and his helm blacked; the wash of heat was palpable, and it
made Evan shudder with the strangeness of being able to feel any heat at all through his suit in space. Doesn't matter,
he thought, kicking Takawabara in the stomach to buy himself a moment, and some motion; he's firing it anyway
It went off again. Evan was getting annoyed, not so much by his own situation, of holding a tiger by the tail and not
daring to let go, but by the sheer impossibility of it all. He kicked Takawabara's other arm out of the way, hard enough
to break something inside the armor, he hoped. He kicked it again, and again, and set them both spinning. It's just not
fair, him and his fancy suit and all, and breaking the rules in ways that don't even make sense-Then he had the idea.
And at the same time, Takawabara's other flailing hand reached out and clamped onto the front pack that Evan was
wearing, and started to rip it off.
Oh, no, you don't! Evan thought, and grabbed at the other arm. Two-handed they grappled, and the situation was not
a good one for Evan. Slugs came tearing out of the arm that didn't have the braided laser, and rattled and howled
against Evan's breastplate and helm. He gasped for breath, unable to hear himself think, if thinking had made any
noise, and praying silently that the chest and helm wouldn't give at such close range. They weren't really designed for
such impacts. But they seemed to be holding for the moment.
Something kicked him in the shins. He ignored the pain
SPACE COPS 241
and concentrated on keeping the front pack on, forcing his hand between Takawabara's clutching fingers and the
woven fabric of the bag. It was Kevlon, theoretically un-tearable, but no one seemed to have told Takawabara's
suit-makers about this. The stuff was ripping. He must have a hint of what's in there; Evan thought, in a rush of angry
pleasure. And if he's reacting this way, then I must be right!
Abruptly he let go the man's hand, instead shoving his own into what remained of the bag and managing to grab two
of Joss's little black boxes. Now there was only one problem; to keep that damned laser off his case for a few seconds,
just a few-He was still hanging onto the other arm, the one with the laser. It fired another time or two into the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]