Though Jak was a man who usually communicated in terse, fractured English, it was no indication of his mental powers. The albino teenager had a keen native intelligence, a quick, decisive mind and an instinct for making the right move at the right time. Some people might dismiss this talent as a survival urge, something he shared with the lower beasts, even the insects, but it was much more complicated than mere reactive hardwiring. Jak had put together Gabhart’s last words with the problem he faced and the tools at hand, and come up with a viable solution. It was real time synthesis, under pressure of certain death.
He timed his loping stride so he arrived at the guard station a second before the sledge did.
“Whoa!” he said, holding out his hands, grabbing the front of the cart and stopping it.
“What do you want?” said one of the slaves doing the pushing. “Get out of the way, you white-haired runt!”
Jak walked around the trooper’s side of the sledge. He looked into the box and said, “Ore’s no good. Not rad hot enough.”
“What’s the holdup?” the trooper said, coming closer.
Jak reached into the cart and hefted out one of the big, rectangular blocks, bending his knees to take the weight, which was considerable. “This,” he said, turning and opening his arms.
A hundred pounds of nukeglass fell with a satisfying crash onto the soldier’s boots.
No EM pulse.
No deflection.
“Nuking hell!” the cart pushing slave exclaimed. He gawked at the block, which covered the black boots up to the shins.
Jak couldn’t see inside the trooper’s helmet, but his body language—all scrunched over, barely holding onto his laser rifle—said what had just happened didn’t feel good.
Before the soldier could move, Jak took another, smaller piece of glass and slammed all twenty-five pounds of it onto the top of his helmet. The pulse rifle clattered to the floor beside the block.
At this point, the cart-pushing slave and his partners silently backed away from their sledge and made themselves scarce, hightailing it toward the mine entrance.
The trooper bent and retrieved his rifle. Then he used it like a pry bar to lever the block off his boots.
By that time, Jak was running down the side tunnel, his shoulder length white hair flying.
The trooper didn’t hesitate. And he didn’t call for help from his pal in the other fork of the tunnel. As soon as he got free of the block, he charged after the albino teenager.
Jak actually had to slow down so the trooper could keep him in sight as he ducked into one of the crevices at the end of the tunnel fork. He didn’t want him to lose hope and give up. On the other hand, he didn’t want to give him a clear shot with the pulse rifle.
The passage ahead ran straight for maybe thirty yards, before splitting off into narrower corridors. Jak knew where each went, having out of habit already memorized various routes through the underground maze. His red eyes, which had limitations in bright sunlight, worked well in the green gloom of the shafts. He saw the other slaves coming long before they saw him. He saw their surprise when they blinked and found him running, bagless and full tilt, down the passage straight at them.
They were even more startled by the whistling shriek of a laser rifle in the enclosed space. A beam fifty times brighter than their badges sliced through the cavern’s pall. Diving to avoid the energy pulse, they dropped their ore bags and flattened themselves to the floor.
The shot was high and to the right, just past Jak’s shoulder.
The draftsman’s line of green light hit the wall in front of him.
And melted it.
Instantaneously.
Unlike plain old rock, there was no red glow of the heat-up stage, no incandescent center before it began to drip. At the laser’s impact point, the glass immediately liquefied. And the damage spread out around the initial hole, like ice melting around a blowtorch flame. There was no steam, but there was smoke. Harsh, throat-rasping smoke. The liquid glass poured down the wall and melded with the floor as it quickly cooled.