FSE

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Jacoby watched the two exits, waiting for them. He'd moved the hover from its hiding place in the alley to a spot on the other side of the building where he could see the main entrance as well as one of the emergency exits on the side of the building. From what they were planning those were the two way he expected them to leave once they were done.

Jacoby wished he had a few cameras he could have set up at the other exits, just in case, but they had no reasons to try to avoid him when they left. He was sure Tech expected him to just pack up and go, but Jacoby wasn't giving up. He was going to talk sense into that Samalian.

When the first body hit the ground, splashing blood to the middle of the street and the building's wall Jacoby looked up, instead of down, catching the fall of the second one. The reflection in the glass surface was uninterrupted all the way to the roof, which meant that was where they'd both come from.

It could have been two jumpers, corporate lackeys who had had enough of the life they lived, it wasn't unheard of, even in the plushy corporate environment, but they wore gray and dirty blue body armor.

He started the hover. It could be someone else fighting on the roof. Alex didn't have the monopoly on them, but with the two of them in the building, he was willing to bet they were both up there.

"Alright, baby," he told the hover, as he piloted it toward the wall. "They depend on us, so don't let me down."

Hovers were designed to fly above surfaces, usually at fixed distances. What qualified as a surface wasn't always hardwired. It was why he'd been able to fly it over the forest's canopy. The treetops were dense enough to qualify as a surface.

He stopped next to it and charged up the capacitor. What very few people, what end Jacoby hadn't known until that day on Flagur, was that it took very little for something to qualify as a surface.

He discharged a thirst of the capacitor in the repulsors and the hover shot straight up. He set them to recharge and readied another third. When the hover slowed he discharged them in the repulsor. Nothing happened, air was too thin to do anything, other than compress slightly. He immediately discharged the rest and the hover bounced up again.

They'd been hired to stop an insurrection against the company's mining interest. It hadn't gone well, the locals had been better equipped than they'd been led to believe and a drive to push them off a cliff had been turned around and before he knew it, his hover was over the edge.

He'd been certain he would die, but he hadn't been raised to give up even when the universe had set its mind. So he'd set about trying to slow the hover by discharged all the power in the repulsors. Damage to the hover had caused the power to stutter instead of going all at ones and the hover had felt like it was hitting bumps, and it slowed.

Not enough to keep him out of the hospital, he'd gotten more broken bones out of that then he'd had in his entire career, but he had survived it. Once he'd gotten out he'd experimented until he was able to make a hover fly up much higher then they'd been designed for. The next time he'd been thrown off a cliff, because in the Life that wasn't the rare occurrence one might hope, he had survived it with barely a dent on the hover.

The biggest problem was how long it took to recharge the capacitors. He lost a few percents each time, which when trying to survive a fall wants that big of a deal, but when trying to reach the roof of a more than eighty-floor building, that was another thing entirely. He was happy for the time he'd spend upgrading both the repulsors and the capacitors, as he kept his eyes going from the board to he approaching roof line.

He was down to fifty percent on each charge when he crossed it. In the distance a shuttle was flying off. On the roof itself a fight was going on. A mass of people against one. He bounced the hover one more time.

"Sorry about this." After accomplishing this feat, he was entitled to put a few dents on it. He pushed the hover toward the crowd, making sure to miss the lone combatant as he let it drop. He didn't even bother softening the crash. He grabbed the rifle at his side and was up, opening the hatch before the hover was done skidding over the crushed bodies.

He fired at anyone who wasn't Alex, trying to locate Tech in the process.

Alex was fighting with knives, and while Jacoby had seen him fight before, he'd never seen him fight like this. Mercs, in their mishmashed armor, and corporate guards, in their black ones, were falling dead around him, lines of blood flying over the next victim.

Jacoby had no idea how Alex was still alive, but the two of them made short work of those who were left.

"Where's T--Tristan?" Jacoby called. He didn't want an argument right now. Alex looked around before locking eyes with him. He was covered in cuts, blaster shots and blood. "Are you okay?"

Instead of answering, Alex stormed past him and into the hover. By the time Jacoby was in, Alex was powering it up.

"Alex, what happened?"

No answers.

"Fine, be that way." Jacoby entered a quick command and the hover died.

Alex was on his feet, knife in hand. "Start it up."

"Not until you tell me what happened. Where is Tech? Who are those mercs?"

"Power up the hover, Jacoby, or I am going to gut you."

Jacoby grinned. "Who's going to power it up then? Just tell me what happened."

"They took him," Alex spat.

"Who?"

"Those mercs, who else? I have to go after them."

"Okay, I can help with that." He undid the override and lights came back on. Jacoby put himself in Alex's way. "But I want to be sure we understand each other. I'm taking tech back home. You can come with us or you can--"

His vision exploded with lights, the side of his face hurt. His vision came back in time to feel himself thrown in the air and land over a lumpy surface. He rolled off the body to watch the hover take off and fly off the roof.

Alex was going to kill himself. There was no way the hover could survive a drop from this height, and he was sure he didn't know the trick to soften the landing. The man was insane, that was the only answer. Driven insane by Tech's kidnapping.

He touched his face and pain erupted, but only a little blood stained his fingers. He'd been lucky. Considering how adept Alex was with those knives, he could easily have cut him to pieces, instead of hitting him with the pommel.

He got to his feet and walked to the edge of the roof. He might as well see the result of Alex's uncontrolled fall.

Instead of a shattered hover on the ground, what he saw was the hover flying over a roof, about half the height of this building, three street over. Jacoby laughed. The clever bastard. He'd given himself enough momentum to cross the street to a slightly shorter building, using them as steps to reach the ground.

He shook his head. Of course, now he didn't have any way to find Tech. He sighed. What was he going to tell the others back home? He couldn't tell them he'd just left, Tech was family, it would break their heart.

A door slamming open forced him to focus on his situation. He turned to see guards in black armor pour out of the door and form a line, rifles pointed at him.

He was unarmed, he'd dropped his rifle when Alex had punched him. He might be able to throw himself to the ground and grab one of the guns littering it. But he doubted the light armor he was wearing would stop many of those rifle blasts.

He looked over the edge. That was always an option, if he was the kind of man who gave up. He faced the guards and placed his hands over his head, as one of them detached himself from the others. He looked familiar, in the way that guards all dressed the same did, although there was something about his face.

"Well, I told my boss I wouldn't rest until I found you," the guard said, hefting his rifle and turning it so the stock was in front. "I've got to say I never thought you'd make it this easy for me."

Jacoby didn't move as the butt of the rifle came at his face.

His only thought was an internal curse that he wouldn't be able to go home for a good long while now.