As the door closed near-silently behind the Kestrel, he double-checked the time, and then turned to the Raven. Blue and black, not colours the Spectrans would have seen before, and short enough for it to be obvious that here was someone new. But would the Spectrans see him as a soft target to take out first, or as no threat to be left until they'd dealt with the Eagle?
"Give me a rundown of what you're armed with."
Dylan indicated the cablegun at his hip - Mark had seen him practice with it, though more as a tool than an offensive weapon - and also held out a handful of shuriken. Those Mark hadn't seen him, or any of them, use - shuriken weren't on the training list for this week, and they'd had plenty to worry about with what was.
"And how good are you with them?"
The flush said it all, really.
"Stick with the cablegun, then, if you need something beyond hand-to-hand. You know what this is?" He put his hand to his right hip, and it fell naturally onto the boomerang holstered there. He'd not so much as seen it since he'd left it in the locker for Jason to find, the day he'd walked out on them. He pulled it out, flicked the blades open. Like riding a bicycle, it felt as if he'd never been without it.
Dylan nodded. "Sonics. I thought our helmets shielded us from it?"
"From the worst. It's still unpleasant. Chances are I'll not use it, the corridors are too narrow. But if I do, keep out of the way. It's more dangerous than just the sonics." Not to mention that I haven't thrown it in ten months, and never in zero gravity.
Dylan put out an uncertain hand, and Mark passed the weapon across. Dylan took it with a degree of awe, turning it over in his hands and admiring the razor edges on the blades.
"I always wanted to carry one of these."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "So why the cablegun?"
"I found out it's not as easy as it looks. I need a whole lot more practice." He handed it back with a rueful expression.
Mark holstered it, and checked the time again. Still a minute or so to wait - the last thing he wanted was to have the attention he planned to attract run into the Osprey's group on its way here. Time for a few last words of advice.
"Now, I want you to hang back. I figure they'll be so scared to see the Eagle again, they won't think straight. That should give us the edge. But the most important thing is that nobody gets away. If they figure out I'm not the threat I used to be..."
"I'll do my best." Dylan drew a ragged breath. "Is it time to go yet?"
"Close enough. Turn the lights on and we'll let them know we're here."
As Dylan did that, Mark took a not entirely steady breath of his own and hit the comms switch. "This is the Eagle here. You guys need any help clearing up the scum?"
Dylan's jaw dropped visibly, and Mark swung the door to their quarters open, left it that way, and headed out in the opposite direction to the way he'd sent the other three. They, he was relieved to see, were nowhere in sight.
He was unsurprised, though gratified, to get to the first door in the corridor without a Spectran in sight. The goons hadn't speeded up any, then. He stopped and waited, taking the chance to glance down in full light. Birdstyle moulded itself to the wearer - and, in his case, that meant he was displaying an almost complete lack of leg muscle to the world. He only hoped that said world would be far too busy taking in the red, white and blue of the Eagle, out in public for the first time in nearly a year, to notice.
"What now?" Dylan muttered as he caught himself neatly on one of the handles on the wall and swung to a halt.
"We wait to be seen. Then, we go through, round the corner into the side passage, and stop."
"Turn and fight!" Dylan's face cleared.
"Exactly."
He heard the pursuers coming before he saw them; saw Dylan stiffen and knew he'd heard them too.
"Three," Dylan whispered.
He nodded, braced against the wall and ready to move.
"...Twenty-two, the call came from," one of them was saying as he came into sight. "Hey, the door's open, and...whoa! There they are!"
"Move!" Mark muttered, and flung himself round the corner, adrenaline racing through his system while his subconscious registered that they were speaking English. Steady, he reminded himself. No implant speed. Keep it clean and simple. The kid'll manage one. Take the first one out with one hit, and it's a straight fight with the second.
Dylan swung silently to a halt alongside him, six feet round the corner just as he'd said. Mark spared him a single glance, just long enough to determine that he was ready rather than paralysed with fear. That was all the time he had.
Three goons piled round the corner, almost one on top of the other in their haste to pursue, and found themselves nose to nose with a pair of figures, one blue and white, the other blue and black.
Mark didn't dare pull his punches. He felt the first goon's neck crack at the first blow, caught the second a little more awkwardly, but still managed to swing him hard against the wall. There was a yelp and the man went limp, cradling a smashed left arm. One slamming left hook later and he was floating unconscious.
He swung round ready to help Dylan, only to find the kid wide-eyed, a third floating body next to him.
"What...what do we do with them?"
"We leave them here to scare their friends."
"What if they wake up?"
Mark smiled grimly. "Then you didn't hit them hard enough. Let's move."
He'd sent the other three on a vaguely circular route round the outer ring of the station. Making distraction diametrically opposite to them might be a bit too obvious, even for your average Spectran captain. Instead, he headed in towards the centre. He'd have set changes if he'd dared, to create more noise, smoke and confusion, but he had no real idea what the station's structure could withstand. As a last resort, he'd have to do it anyway - but he'd prefer not to sacrifice everyone on the station if there was any way to avoid it. Given that all the intruder alarms had been disabled, he had no faith that the safety systems would be any more functional. He wished now he'd reminded the others of the incomplete third ring; airlocks leading to corridors filled with nothing but vacuum.
In lieu of explosions, he had Dylan opening doors, flicking lights on or off, generally leaving some trace of their passage. And it wasn't long before another patrol caught up with them. This one contained only two people, and was dispatched even more rapidly than the previous group.
There was nothing from the others, and Mark hoped desperately that this was a good sign. He was reluctant to call them for fear of giving their position away. Even if the signal couldn't be traced, he wasn't sure whether the Spectrans would know it was present. If they did, he'd be giving away the fact that there were two groups out there. No. they'd stay silent, and rely on someone being quick enough to get a Bird Scramble off if they were discovered. Oh, for a real, fully trained team. Thinking about the personnel he had to work with made his blood run cold.
Corridor. Corner. Check in all directions. Pick another corridor and repeat. The third one had another patrol of three, but they weren't a challenge. Dylan was coping better than Mark had ever thought he would. There were still no alarms - even leaving major intersection doors open wasn't triggering the screaming audio alerts that it should have done. He did it anyway. If he needed to blow the station, he wanted to take as much of it out as possible.
Oh, to have the Phoenix sitting outside, someone on it with the time and facilities to figure out what the Spectrans' target was and how long he had before they reached it. Then again, had the Phoenix been outside, they'd have taken the opposition down by now. Easily. No need to skulk about, taking on two and three at a time. Back when he'd been fit, he and Jason would have gone in, not exactly all guns blazing, but they'd have made directly for the control room, knowing full well that in these narrow corridors there was no way for the enemy to get enough people close enough to overpower them.
The only warning he had was just a whisper of movement, from the side away from Dylan. Raw instinct threw him to one side, and the blow deflected off his helmet. His ears rang, and for one sickening moment he froze, no idea where the enemy was or how to react.
One glimpse was enough. A black cape, a black helmet and the vicious downward-pointing curve of a dark, mirrored visor. They were in a lot of trouble.
The Blackbird whirled, coming in for a second attack, and this one Mark did see coming. He blocked it, turning the momentum into a slam against the nearest wall.
"That all you have?" The man caught himself deftly, and with an ease which Mark envied, turned and came back at him, leg outstretched. The obvious counter was a flying scissor-kick. He had no hope of doing that. Instead, he ducked out of the way and then dived after, hoping for a grapple.
Mistake. Horrible mistake. The Blackbird slipped past him easily, and stared, just out of reach. As if in slow motion, Mark saw the other looking him up and down, assessing what he'd just seen. A pair of hands-only attacks, in situations which called for anything but. Had this been a cartoon, he'd have seen the lightbulb come on over the man's head.
No leg-based attacks. No leg-based speed. A silhouette which had to look like a bad, bandy-legged caricature of how he had been. The Blackbird knew. No question. Knew, understood the significance, and whirled to escape with the news. Mark couldn't get close to him. The corridor was too narrow for a boomerang strike, and in moments the man would be away and his secret out. The Eagle was crippled and defenceless.
A flash of blue from his left side, the scissor kick he'd so obviously been unable to perform himself. The Blackbird floated limply, and the Raven gave a single whoop of triumph.
"Nicely done," Mark said as calmly as he could manage, checking all around them. Blackbirds didn't travel singly - there would be four or five more here. If just this one had stopped to take Dylan out first...well, that would have been the end.
"He was good," Dylan said nervously. "Man, I never realised how good. Way better than me."
"Yes." There was no point in sugar-coating it. "Keep sharp. He'll have friends."
"More than one?"
"Probably." Mark was checking the Blackbird as he spoke, hoping to find some clue as to what the Spectrans were doing here. Instead, he found blond curls escaping from the man's helmet and, on peeling back the eyelid, eyes almost as blue as his own; a colour no Spectran ever had.
"Something wrong?"
"Human." Mark sighed, trying to figure out what this might mean. "The goons, too, from the accents."
"Maybe they planned to replace the station personnel."
"Could be." But why? The supply shuttle was no prize capture, and the launch pad no secure facility either, with little more than a couple of giant hangers, a support structure for the shuttle's vertical takeoff, and a scatter of hastily erected prefabricated buildings for its terminal.
Not enough information, and no time to waste on speculation. Mark removed the Blackbird's helmet with the same sharp twist which worked on his own, and bowled it down the corridor towards the control centre, being sure that it bounced off the wall, round the corner and out of sight.
"Now what?" Dylan asked.
"Now we stop trying to be seen."
It was inconvenient, but no real surprise, that Dylan wasn't carrying explosives. For Mark, they still came with the birdstyle. Small, star-pointed spheres which would blow a hole in the station wall with no problem whatsoever. That, he knew, would get ISO's attention as the station tumbled out of alignment. The number of open internal doors he'd left behind him would mean a significant venting of atmosphere. It was still his last resort. He didn't have to do it yet.
If Dylan had figured out that his plan B involved blowing them both to hell, he didn't say. Just stood watch as Mark carefully dismantled two of his explosive charges, pouring half the powder from one into the other and then sealing both up again. Being very sure he had them the right way round, he tucked the supercharged one back into his belt pouch and the weakened one into his left glove.
"Now for a good target..." he mused out loud, heading down the spoke towards the outer ring. They were on level five now.
"Escape hatch, inside an airlock?" Dylan suggested.
"Because they'd never figure out that we could achieve the exact same thing by just disconnecting the safeties and opening the outer door?"
Dylan flushed. "Power conduits?"
"Too likely to do real damage. I'm not ready to risk the crew yet." He was setting up for his chosen target as he spoke. One of the myriad of blank panels which might one day be replaced with the junction to a new section of corridor or the door to an accommodation pod. A pointless non-target, chosen solely because he was sure it could stand the explosive force.
Dylan went back on guard as he extracted his weakened explosive charge and attached it securely, and Mark could see the confusion in his eyes. He considered that a good thing. His experience lay in confusing Spectrans, and what they had here was a squad of humans. But if Dylan hadn't figured out what he was doing, hopefully neither would your average human Blackbird.
He'd given them two minutes to get clear, and right on time there was a dull crump. Still no sirens. Mark's appreciation for the technical knowhow of whoever had arranged the takeover was going up by the minute - they'd got this station locked down tight.
"Now what?" Dylan asked.
"We do it again." Mark found himself another blank panel to mine and set to work in a hurry. Every nerve he had was on edge. He knew they were being hunted and that he had to keep it that way. That hadn't changed - but he hadn't bargained on it being Blackbirds. He only hoped that, somewhere over on the other side of the station, the Crane was getting the message out.
Another identical corridor. Another randomly placed explosive. Mark had hoped he could goad the Spectrans into using the comm system to blast abuse at him, maybe make a mistake and transmit in a way which would also go down to ISO. It hadn't happened, and so he had no idea what their state of mind was, except to be sure that they were still being pursued. He'd caught a glimpse of black wings a few corridors back. Half an hour earlier he'd have stopped and set up an ambush. Now he was tiring badly, and doubted his ability to add anything useful, combat-wise. While Dylan was acquitting himself well, in one-on-one with a Blackbird he'd be mincemeat.
How long would it take the Phoenix to get up here, from first alert? It was entirely possible that it could take them a couple of hours if Jason was at the track, Princess and Keyop at their off-base homes at Jill's, Tiny at his waterside apartment. Rick still lived on-site, as far as he knew, but no matter how skilled the Kite was these days, he was only one man. Could he even be sure that G-Force was on Earth at all? If they'd been called away and were the far side of the galaxy, he didn't like to think how long it would take for help to get up here.
How long would it take Paula to get a message out? Could he even be sure that it was going to happen? He desperately hoped that things were in motion already. He knew he and Dylan couldn't stay free indefinitely, and yet under no circumstances could he allow himself to be captured until he was sure that help was on its way.