It gave the albino an advantage, and one that he had to exploit fully. Testing their tactics, he moved lightly to one side. The sec man on the left sent a ray of light from the laser blaster that scored the earth beside him, leaving a smoking trench two feet in length.
Jak nimbly skipped aside, his lips drawing back over his sharp teeth in a humorless grin. As always, their tactics were predictable. Even though they shielded their faces—their eyes—from view, the thoughts that ran through their minds were always visible.
He focused on the center figure, the one who held the syringe, as well as the knife. He was their key man. Take him out of the hunt, and they couldn’t fulfill their task. Then they would have to take Jak alive. That was his priority, to stay alive long enough to awaken from the mat-trans jump.
The albino fought to clear his head. He couldn’t allow such thoughts to take him over, as they could so easily distract him from the task. He needed all his wits and reactions about him to carry out his next move.
As the line drew closer—hesitant as they could not work out why he seemed to be static—they arced even wider, so that they formed a semicircle around him. The sec team directly in front of him was now no more than a few yards away.
Time to move.
Jak crouched low, almost squatting and drawing as much power as he could from his whipcord calves and thighs. He had no run to gain momentum, and nothing to give him advantage in terms of height or drop, but he had no other option. This had to be as good as it got.
With a sudden yell that broke the unnatural stillness, causing a ripple of alarm in the sec ranks and unleashing the power of his strength and skill, Jak straightened in a leap that carried him over the gap between the advancing line and his position.
The sec soldier with the syringe and the knife saw Jak come toward him, the white hair flailing in the air, his eyes red like the blood he would spill, but could do nothing. For that all important fraction of a second, the soldier was frozen in fear and confusion.
It was only that fraction of a second that Jak needed. He cannoned into the man and took him into a forward roll. Unlike Jak, just minutes earlier when Gloria had taken him in this fashion, the sec man wasn’t ready for the assault. He fell heavily, making a muffled sound behind the visor of his helmet as the breath was driven from his body. Jak also heard the crack of bone as one of his adversary’s arms hit the ground, the elbow shattering. A muffled scream, strangled by lack of air, also escaped Jak’s prey.
Following through the roll and coming upright, Jak swiveled to face his opponent and took the arm that still grasped the syringe—the shattered elbow was on his knife arm. The albino stamped heavily on the forearm, the pain deadened tissue causing the fingers to open. The syringe fell limply to the earth, and Jak stamped again, shattering the plastic vial and spilling its contents into the earth.
Whatever happened now in reality, in this nightmare he had forced them to take him alive.
This was the last thought to cross his mind before the butt of a laser blaster thudded against his skull, knocking him into unconsciousness. How the sec man had reached him without his noticing he didn’t know, but then again, it didn’t matter now.
JAK AWOKE with a pounding in the front of his skull, and a succession of bright flashing lights that whirled around his head. He tried to open his eyes and raise his head, see where he was, but that only made things worse, so he let his head fall back, closing his eyes until things began to settle.
“Oh, no, you’re awake now,” a harsh, guttural voice screamed. At least, that was how it seemed through the pain and the lights. Jak felt his head jerked forward by a hand that grasped his hair and pulled hard. He opened his eyes, ignoring the spinning and swirling lights that obscured a clear view of the bearded man clad in white who stood over him. The man held Jak’s head in one hand, and in the other he grasped a syringe.