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  “Gee whiz, Mr. White, ya think?” Danny scanned the ship in his HUD as it yawed forward on approach. Dart, Nightwing class. Danny snorted, unsurprised. Darts were a favorite among local smugglers because of their sharp frames and maneuverability in nasty weather. This one must’ve been fairly tricked out with stealth tech, too. That took money, a lot of it, and to the best of Danny’s knowledge, only one man in the system held that kind of punch. Frickin’ Mangum.

  “Forward weapons are coming online!” Reegan shouted.

  Danny threw up his right gauntlet and sent a barrage of railgun fire streaking toward the vessel.

  It rolled to evade then banked upward to safety.

  “How’d they get the drop on us, Mr. White?” Shotz searched for the Dart in the clouds.

  “No clue,” Reegan said. “Best guess, they were lying dark somewhere near your position, waiting for your move.”

  “How’d they even know we were here?” Doc asked.

  “No clue on that either.”

  Danny huffed. “You tend to know a lot of things when you’re the most well-financed and connected gangster in the region.”

  All eyes turned to Danny, who didn’t leave them hanging.

  “It’s Enrick Mangum.”

  “Slaring Mangum!” Shotz shook his fist at the sky. “That buck-toothed little worm doesn’t have the shells between his legs to take on the empire himself, but gods know he’ll sit back and let us do it for him! Slaring coward!”

  Reegan cut back in. “Top, you want us in there?”

  “Negative, Mr. White. You’ll blow our departure if you show yourself now. Just stay put where you’re at, and we’ll come to you. Black out.”

  Doc jumped in behind the steering wheel while Shotz took the gunnery nest. Its previous occupant hit the snow like a sack of potatoes.

  “You guys go.” Danny slammed the driver’s side door. “Take the loot, and get to Faridon’s Ravine. I’ll meet you there.”

  Something blipped in his HUD. The Dart. Danny watched it loop back along the horizon and drop three smaller objects from its underbelly.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Doc leaned forward in his seat.

  Enhance, zoom factor nine. Three high-speed hover bikes appeared in Danny’s central vision, all armed and carrying a single rider. “Ice runners.”

  “Oh, fantastic.” Shotz pointed to the haulercraft’s treads. “You’ve got to know we’re not outrunning anybody in this thing. We got a plan for that?”

  Danny muttered a curse. “You worry about staying clear of that Dart, and leave the three amigos on bikes to me. I’ll handle them.”

  Doc’s gaze tightened on Danny. “Are you certain that’s wise? You’ve already had one incident today.”

  “What do you suggest, Doc?” Danny threw up his hands. “You want me to dismount right here and fight the good fight with a rifle from the passenger seat?”

  The fabric over the old man’s lips creased to a line. “Try to stretch your current dose. If you need a boost, key to twenty percent. No more. That should give you a few extra minutes of bridge time without the migraine.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Danny tapped the door with his fist. “Now, get moving. The faster you get to that ravine, the faster you’ll cease being a target from on high.”

  “Here, here.” Shotz yanked back on the turret slide, which let out a thick, metallic ka-chunk.

  Once the hauler had chugged on its way, Danny returned his focus to the four craft on approach.

  “Targets incoming,” Mr. Black said via HUD alert.

  Okay, Mangum. You want to fly down here like a punk-ass and swindle me and mine out of what’s ours? Fine. Let’s see you try. Danny checked his bridge integrity.

  “Sixty-eight percent,” another alert said.

  Hang with me, Mr. Black. Danny walked toward his targets. Accelerate. He broke out into a trot. Faster. A surge of power flooded his system, and Danny launched into a full-on sprint toward his attackers.

  Ahead, the three Ice Runners tightened into a spearhead, V formation while the Dart rendered support from on high about a half klick back.

  Danny painted every one of them in his fire display. Come get some, little man.

  “Collision imminent.”

  Danny paid the HUD no mind. He was too wrapped up in adulation of the experience, the sheer power of it. For all of the armor’s interface quirks and problems, not to mention the toll it took on his body, Danny couldn’t deny the thrill it gave him to don the Mr. Black persona. It was the closest thing to invincibility he’d ever known, and given everything he’d been through in the last year—everything he’d lost—he’d be damned before he gave that up.

  “Collision imminent.”

  For a split second, Danny thought of cutting loose on the runners with the XL. That would end them fast and clean, but it would also give the Dart an open lane to the haulercraft. He couldn’t have that. Not if he wanted his guys to reach the ravine.

  Gotta make this count. Danny returned to his arsenal. Key XL, full spread, continuous. He keyed the bayonet in his left gauntlet as well, but he didn’t deploy it. Not yet.

  “Contact in five…four…three…two…”

  The lead runner opened up with its under-barrels, but Danny ignored them, knowing Mr. Black could take the beating. Instead, he turned the full brunt of the XL’s might on the Dart and let fly. Fire.

  A stream of white ripped through the frozen night air, projectiles crackling like fireworks, and slammed into the Dart’s forward hull. It reeled hard then peeled off.

  “Yeah!” Danny kicked out into a baseball slide as all three runners sliced past his helmet, his HUD washing with color from the heat of their engines. Key Excalibur.

  An audible shing rang out, followed by a loud, sheering thwack. A moment later, the second runner tail spun to his doom without his right wing, which was destroyed by a nearby rock face.

  “One down!” Danny leapt to his feet as the two remaining runners circled back to regroup. “Oh, come on, ladies. Don’t leave now!” He tried to sight in on them but was forced back by the Dart’s forward battery. The air around him swelled white.

  “Armor integrity at eighty-one percent,” Mr. Black said.

  “Cheap-shotting bastard!” Danny ducked to evade then threw up a four-second spray of retaliation.

  The Dart rolled hard to port then looped back to obscurity in the clouds.

  Yeah, that’s right. Run. Danny chinned his comm. “Mr. Blue, what’s your status?”

  “About twelve kilometers out,” Doc said. “And that of the Dart?”

  Danny checked his HUD. A large green shape loomed about fifty kilometers up and was circling. “Still in the stratosphere, but I think she’s done playing games with me. Expect her shortly.”

  “Copy that,” Shotz said over the thunder of engines and open road.

  Danny’s HUD blipped twice—the Ice Runners, inbound. Time for round two.

  Danny scanned the surrounding topography for ideas. Even at Mr. Black’s top foot speed—thirty KPH or so—there was no way he could hang with two ice runners in an open terrain. His scan stopped at a dense cluster of dunes just southwest of his position. Enhance, zoom factor six. There were a lot of them, maybe thirty or so, all tightly packed inside a two-square-kilometer space. It was like an oasis of raised ice and rock on an otherwise flat landscape. That just might work.

  Danny threw up a burst of XL fire, causing both runners to dip that way.

  That’s right, boys. Step into my parlor. Danny took off for the dunes. Accelerate. Another surge of power shot through his legs, though this time with a mild lag. It’s okay; it’s fine. Danny charged ahead, pushing and kicking as fast as his mind could process, until he arrived at the cluster’s north passage.

  “Targets approaching,” Mr. Black alerted.

  The crash of turret fire bristled through the comm, causing Danny to wince. The Dart had engaged the haulercraft.

  Gotta make this fast. Danny rac
ed into the cluster and vaulted to the nearest dune in only two strides, the next in three, all the while mapping the layout below as he advanced. Come on, gimme something to work with. Were he dealing with ordinary speeders, he probably could’ve picked them off from on high. Not so with Ice Runners. In addition to their primary propulsion systems, which were outstanding, their bodies were built of a feather-light polymer and lined down each side with small push thrusters that gave them enhanced maneuverability. Couple that with state-of-the-art fire controls and a nav system so intuitive that it made most psychics jealous, and these things were wicked agile.

  Can’t see through walls, though. Not like me. Danny spotted a clearing ahead and bounded toward it, the high-pitched whine of engines screaming through the night like mechanized banshees behind him.

  “Fifteen seconds to contact,” Mr. Black said.

  Danny slid down the last dune and sprinted to cover across the clearing. There he held still as two rainbow-colored objects zigzagged their way through passages toward him.

  Key party poppers. Remy had just installed those the week before, and Danny had been dying to test them out.

  Two cylindrical tubes deployed from his back—grenade launchers—and periscoped on hinges over his shoulders. Ready.

  The runners drew closer, slicing from passage to passage before eventually nearing a fork that could’ve led them in either direction.

  Danny made the choice for them. Two rounds, impact detonation. Release.

  A muffled funk sounded, and two red blots catapulted in high arcs over the wall into the fork’s left passage. A crash rocked the scene, smoke billowing skyward, and both runners scampered for what they thought was safety in the right corridor.

  They were wrong.

  Fire. The XL’s barrel went full white when both runners hit the clearing. The first reacted well, knifing right, and barely averted a head-on collision with a boulder.

  The second never stood a chance. Ice became fire, and the runner was gone.

  “Hell yeah!”

  Mr. Black yelped a red-lettered protest when fresh taps pelted his back.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Danny wheeled right and scrambled for a lock as the last runner broke for the chamber exit. Fire. The volley went wide. Fire. Wide again. Fire. Into a wall this time. “Damn it!”

  The runner shot like a bullet through the stalactite-filled opening.

  Danny vaulted atop the dune he’d used for cover, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process.

  “Bridge integrity at the eighteen percent,” Mr. Black warned.

  Wait, eighteen what? Danny’s attention snapped back to the ground when his crosshairs went red on the last runner. He straightened his arm. See ya.

  “Jam!” Shotz screamed. “Turret’s jammed!”

  Danny whirled to the open west and saw the Dart bearing down on his team. Shit. “Hold on, Garbage Team—I’m coming to you!”

  Danny leapt off the dune and struck the ground with a thud, bones jarring in their sockets as he rolled through the snow. His agility was shot, and apparently, so were his pain meds, but the last thing Danny had was fifteen free seconds to stop, drop, and redose. He had to go, and now.

  Danny pushed off with his hands and got to his feet then took off across the open ground as fast as Mr. Black’s legs would carry him. Faster. The armor shuddered but complied. Faster. It shuddered harder but with more speed. Faster!

  “Bridge integrity at six percent.”

  Danny’s joints were on fire, his limbs becoming weights, but he had to keep moving. Faster!

  “Mr. Black, where are you?” It was Shotz again.

  Faster!

  “Bridge integrity at four percent.”

  Faster!

  A low moan reverberated through Mr. Black’s operator cocoon, and Danny suddenly felt as if he were sprinting through concrete. “Oh no, no, not now! I’m supposed to have at least eight more minutes!”

  In his last gasp of strength, Danny threw up his right arm, sighted the Dart as best he could, and hoped like crazy for the best. XL, full spread. Fi—

  Danny toppled under his own heft and face-planted into the snow, his view flickering dark save for a small battery icon. Activate.

  No response.

  Activate.

  Nothing.

  Come on, Mr. Black—get your ass up!

  Still nothing.

  Danny accessed his battery, which had barely enough power for an emergency redose, and used it to key his faceplate. It opened, and the cold that flooded in could’ve frozen the soul.

  Danny gritted his teeth then dared a squint. His eyes opened wide when the Dart, now primed for the kill shot, descended on his team. “Doc, Shotz, get out of—”

  The Dart’s starboard nacelle exploded as if struck by Zeus himself.

  What the hell?

  Shards of flaming debris flew from the smashed engine housing as the ship coughed and sputtered amid plumes of black smoke. Somehow, though, it managed to right itself, and once that happened, it wasted little time getting out of there.

  “Who in the worlds is that?” Befuddlement was thick in Shotz’s voice.

  Danny managed just enough strength to crane his head upward as the underbelly of a second ship flew overhead. Short and frumpy looking with a thick boxy frame and small, stubby wings, the freighter bore a striking resemblance to an oversized UPS truck. Or at least, that was how Danny had always described it in the past.

  “Is that a…” Doc broke off. “A Newbern-class freighter?”

  Danny held his response, eyes fixed on the sky, as a deluge of mixed emotion poured over him. “Yes, Mr. Blue. Yes it is.”

  “Who in the worlds still flies one of those old beaters?” Shotz marveled. “And where’d they get the weapons package?”

  Key juice release, ten percent. Danny waited while Mr. Black’s systems came back online. Then he climbed to his feet. “Not important right now, Mr. Red. Just get to the ravine, and prep to move out for Lynder. I’m right behind you.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 3: Rendezvous

  Not quite an hour later, Danny and the others entered the west side of Faridon’s Ravine, where they transferred their loot from the hold of the stolen haulercraft to that of the mobile trash roller they’d arrived in.

  “Don’t forget the nav data,” Danny said to Shotz. “If there’s something in their shipment plan worth knowing, I want it.”

  “On it.” The big man jogged back to the driver’s cab and fished a data card from his vest, which he plugged into the dash. It flashed green. “Uplink complete.”

  “Thank you,” Danny said.

  Shotz ejected the card and put the haulercraft into gear for its final drive to the eight-hundred-meter gorge ahead.

  “Doc, you’re with me.” Danny pointed to the bloated trash bags next to the roller. “Shotz, you’re on cover duty.”

  “Aw, come on, Top!” Shotz protested. “I got stuck procuring this crap, remember? I’ve done my dirt shift for this job.”

  “Sorry, but you know the drill,” Danny said. “I need Doc for this part, and Reeg and Remy aren’t here. That leaves you. Now get to it.”

  Shotz kicked a mound of snow then reached into the trash roller’s cab and grabbed a set of neon-yellow coveralls, marked “Sanitations” on the back. Grumbling, he put them on and started for the bags.

  Danny turned to Doc, who held a blanket. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The old man nodded then leaned down and ran his fingers under the back right wheel well, feeling for the button-release to Mr. Black’s hidden VIP seat. He straightened after finding it then stepped aside as the long, rectangular drawer slid out from beneath the vehicle’s undercarriage.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Doc said as he waited beside it.

  Danny climbed on and assumed a supine position, mindful to line up his limbs with the locking mechanisms that would secure the suit during transit back to their ship. Initiate separation sequence.
r />   A low hum decelerated through the armor as Mr. Black’s primary systems powered down. Silence followed, only to be replaced by the familiar sting of protesting nerve clusters as forty-nine hypodermic needles—the suit’s biomech interface—extracted themselves from ports in Danny’s head and spine. He countered the effects with the breathing exercises he’d been working on.

  Slow and easy, Danny. He took a few breaths in and out.

  “Separation Complete.” Mr. Black’s green-lettered messages went dark after that.

  A hiss sounded through the black—the chest cavity opening—and Danny all but lost his breath when the cold struck his skin.

  “Come, quickly.” Doc tossed the blanket over Danny’s bare upper body and whisked him to the roller’s passenger cab.

  The warmth inside was paradise, in spite of the foulness wafting in from the back. Danny dove into it with reckless abandon.

  “Here, put these on.” Doc slammed the door and grabbed a second set of coveralls from under the seat.

  Danny shimmied into them, his body rejoicing under the insulated fabric.

  Doc pulled off his ski mask to reveal his thin, lined face and deep-green eyes marked with crow’s feet. “Okay, so how bad was this one?”

  “Huh?” Danny’s head was still swimming.

  “The migraine, the second one. On a scale of one to ten, how bad was the pain?”

  Danny rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Hell, Doc, I don’t know. A seven, maybe an eight? To be honest with you, though, that’s kinda the least of my worries right now.”

  Doc faced him, waiting.

  “What I want to know is why Mr. Black flatlined so soon.” Danny sat back on the bench. “I normally get a good thirty-three minutes out of a dose in high use—forty if I watch it. I wasn’t even twenty minutes into my run today when the first lag hit. That can’t happen again.”

  Doc sighed and ran a wrinkled hand through his Santa-white widow’s peak. “I’m sorry, Danny, I really am. I’ll know more when I can get back to the ship and run the data. Until then, we’ll stick with the P32. I know it’s short acting, but it’s still the most stable formula we have, and its effects on your body are minimal.”