Free Borderlands: Gunsight by John Shirley Page B

his gloved hands, pushed his rifle quietly through, and slithered in after it, replacing the tool in his pack.
    He listened, heard the footsteps passing close overhead. They were unhurried—no one suspected him yet. He could hear two men bitching to one another as they passed in opposite directions.
    “Cold as polar roadkill out here.”
    “At least you go off duty pretty soon, Rotty. I’m out here two damn hours more. I got extra duty from Gromster. Never got clear on why.”
    “He’s a dick, all right.”
    “Don’t let him hear you say that.”
    “That’s the nicest thing you could say about him . . .”
    The other one laughed and the two sets of footsteps moved away from one another. Mordecai looked out from under the scaffolding toward the upslope of Tumessa. He couldn’t see much of the high, oblong hill from here, just a gravel road going past, between the guard posts and the escarpment of the fortification’s next level.
    There were lights at the top of that escarpment, shining on the road that wove its way up this side of Tumessa. Above the lights was a row of buildings made of tin, steel, synthetics, and other scrap; some were block shaped, some igloolike humps of concrete; typical thrown-together Pandora housing.
    There were guard towers up there, on that next level, and some light that looked like pink and blue neon—a bar maybe. He could just make out the shapes of sentries in those guard towers; their lights were shining on that open road between him and the escarpment. They might see him and raise thealarm. Pretty easy to pitch them outside the fence once he’d taken them out. There was a ladder up the side of the scaffold, not far away.
    He listened, waiting till the footsteps were close together again, the men passing one another on their patrol, muttering something. Then he drew the silenced machine pistol, stepped out into the road, sighting on the two men who were almost lined up—one of them saw him. “Sorry, Rotty,” Mordecai muttered, and squeezed the trigger four times, his weapon hissing four rounds through the two men. He hit the nearer one up angle, striking under the man’s jaw, blowing his brains out the top of his head; the other one, turning startled toward Mordecai, caught the rounds in the roof of his open mouth. Lost his brains the same way. Do it right and a man goes down silently.
    Both guards collapsed like mannequins cut off at the ankles.
    Mordecai holstered the pistol, put his sniper rifle’s strap over his right shoulder, and quickly climbed the ladder. He got off the rungs and into the dimness of the scaffolding as fast as he could.
    Wasting no time on stripping bodies of valuables—as he might have, out in the wilderness—he simply rolled them both off the scaffolding so they fell outside the fence. He looked both ways—saw no other sentries yet. But there’d be more, farther along.
    He remembered the drone. It occurred to him that it might read the heat signature off the sentries’ bodies, or spot them through remote camera if it was equipped to supply security monitoring direct to the fortress. Besides, the thing could change course—it could spot him . . . they often had infrared spotters. His suit didn’t do anything about his heat signature.
    But it was a risk to take the drone down. If that were noticed, someone might raise an alarm. There was a way, though.
    He gave a scree ing whistle through his front teeth, high-pitched and distinct. Bloodwing heard it and soon flapped down to him. “Good girl. Listen—that drone—that thing up there—” He pointed to the drone’s flight path. She knew what he meant—she was alert to everything in the sky. “See if you can take it down. Make it look like an irritable rakk did it maybe . . . Claw open the maintenance panel on the top . . .”
    She gave a soft squawk and leapt into the air, flapped upward.
    He mused again on how well she understood him. Had to be partly telepathic.
    He stepped over