Free Borderlands: Gunsight by John Shirley Page A

Jasper. And now here she was.
    Mordecai hadn’t meant to leave her. Not really. She knew that. He wasn’t going to leave her this time. He was sure to come back for her, get her away from Jasper.
    He had to. Unless, of course . . .
    •  •  •
    The steppes weren’t as flat as they looked from the air. There were shallow ravines, draws here and there. Mordecai had parked the outrunner in one of the shallow ravines, withina quarter klick of the nearest outside corner of Tumessa. He performed a ritual that went back thousands of years—he used charcoal to darken his face, smearing it evenly, so it wouldn’t stand out against the dark, shadowy backdrop. Hopefully the auto-camouflage would take care of the rest.
    “Time to move in, girl,” he told Bloodwing. “Keep as quiet as you know how to be . . .”
    She made an errr sound, low, close to his ear, to show she understood. He climbed out of the outrunner, stepped around to the back, and selected the Dahl Terror sniper rifle, which he’d had specially outfitted to his preferences, a belt of grenades, including two smoke grenades. He had a silenced Thanatos machine pistol on his right hip. In his backpack was extra ammo, some Dr. Zed med hypos, two food bars, and an electronic telescope. On his belt was a brace of throwing knives. He regretted he couldn’t bring along the rocket launcher and the Eridian rifle, in case things went sideways—Brick would’ve brought them, but for Mordecai it was just too cumbersome.
    He set out on the first leg of the mission, Bloodwing hunched low on his shoulder.
    The moon had broken through the clouds. But he had his auto-camo on. The suit adapted to his background, nano-digitally altering, split second by split second, faster than a chameleon, so that even in moonlight he was almost invisible as he climbed from the ravine and trotted across the plain toward Tumessa.
    He covered the distance quickly, barely breathing hard as he reached his first goal: a low, ice-coated boulder that rose from the plain within about fifteen meters of the outer ramparts of Tumessa, some distance from the main gate. TheBruisers were around the main gate—with luck he wouldn’t have to deal with them if he approached from the flank.
    He threw himself flat behind the boulder—Bloodwing skillfully hopping off him as he did this—and crept up the boulder, on his belly, to scope out the rest of the approach. He could make out the silhouettes of sentries along a scaffoldlike structure just inside the razor wire. Was there really razor wire all around this thing? And acid moats, farther up the hill? This was paranoia as architecture.
    No one seemed to have spotted him. He heard a machine-created humming sound, though, overhead. Nestling close, Bloodwing made that errr sound again. “Just a drone,” Mordecai whispered. He turned on his back—he could see the delta-shaped drone, about as big as a large rakk, silhouetted against the moonlight-silvered clouds. It didn’t seem to have spotted him—it moved on, without circling back, probably on a set course around and around Tumessa. He waited till it moved on, then said, “Bloodwing—fly on up to the top of that big fence pole there. If anyone takes a shot at you, then duck for cover, act like you’re wild.”
    Bloodwing leapt into the air, flapped up, higher and higher, quickly moving away from him so she wouldn’t call attention to him if she were spotted.
    Mordecai watched the sentries’ movements—and chose his moment, when they were turned away from him. He leapt up and sprinted to the wire, sniper rifle in his right hand, his left hand reaching over his shoulder, plucking the cutting tool from its loops on his pack.
    He got to the fence—the sentries were tramping on wooden scaffolding, above the razor wire. Where he stood, it would be hard for them to see him—especially with theauto-camo. He used the cutting tool, snipped the wire as quickly as he could, moved the wire aside with