Ryan was surprised that his hand made contact without being deflected by the armor’s EM shield. It made good contact, too. The helmet didn’t give at all under the punch, and the blow hurt his knuckles. If it stunned the trooper, he didn’t show it. Before Ryan could block, a gauntleted hand was wrapped around the front of his throat.
Ryan tried to counter by swinging the ax into the man’s side, aiming for his kidney, but the point hit something solid long before it hit the target. A very strange something. Power in, power out. With the same force he had applied to the blow, the handle was ripped from his grasp. The ax bounced away on the glass. And his arm went numb all the way to his armpit.
J.B. paused in his own self defense long enough to side kick the trooper’s weight bearing leg, right behind the knee. Nothing happened. J.B.’s boot hit it square, but the armor kept the leg from buckling.
Then J.B. had all he could handle. A rifle butt caught him in the ribs, and he twisted away to avoid a second blow.
In this kind of free for all brawl, it was impossible to keep track of anything except what was right in front of you. The troopers had the same problems, too. Everybody was juking, swinging, ducking. Either hitting or being hit.
Ryan half turned to the left and stepped around the trooper’s right hip. The instant he got his weight shifted, he had the guy. He body slammed the soldier to the ground, driving his shoulder into him. Ryan knew he’d made an impression on the guy because the hand around his throat let go. The trooper didn’t move for a couple of seconds. In those seconds, Ryan tried to get his helmet off so he could do some more serious damage. He hit the release button, but before he could twist the helmet off, another trooper came to the rescue, clubbing him with the stock of his laser rifle.
Ryan snap kicked the trooper in the middle of the chest, shoving him back a good yard and putting his gun butt out of range. The armor didn’t dent or buckle around the kick, even though he had put a good deal of heel into it. Mebbe Mildred was right, he thought, and there was nothing they could do about the battlesuits.
“Dad! Dad, they’ve got Krysty!”
At Dean’s cry, Ryan whirled. Battlesuited troopers had separated Krysty from the companions fighting square. They had her surrounded and were battering her with their gauntleted fists.
Ryan threw himself at the nearest trooper, grabbing his arm from behind as he raised it to hit Krysty. He jerked the man off his feet and sent him spinning away.
J.B. tried to break through, as well, and for his trouble got a rifle butt in the side of the head that dropped him like a rock.
Ryan lunged forward, through the gap he had created. Krysty was already slumping to the ground, unable to fight off the rain of blows from all sides. Before Ryan could reach her, he took a gun butt from behind that made him see stars and put him on his knees.
The follow up blow to the base of his skull knocked him out, but only for a second.
As he heaved himself up from the glass, the troopers had Krysty by the arms and were dragging her away. Her head drooped like a broken doll’s. Her eyes looked dazed, and there was blood on her mouth and cheek.
Ryan growled a curse and charged after them.
When they saw him coming, the troopers leveled their pulse rifles at him, muzzle first and waist high.
“Stop where you are or we’ll fire, Shadow Man,” one of the troopers warned him.
Ryan stopped. He had no choice. There were too many weapons in too many hands. He could see he couldn’t get any closer without being sawed in half. “Let her go, you bastards!” he shouted.
“Don’t worry,” the trooper told him, “we’re only going to borrow your red-haired friend for a little while. We’ll bring her right back when we’re done.”