Now there were so many missiles in the air, Adam could barely see the air. His Bloodhawk was getting hard to navigate as well. Missiles slammed into the Bloodhawk from all sides. A moment later, it was engulfed in flames. ​He'd be able to stay in the air for, maybe, thirty seconds longer, then...

     Whop! He bounced off the top of one of Goldbody's jets. He skimmed along the top of it like a stone in the water. Now he had absolutely no control over his jet whatsoever.

     Also, though, he was headed right for Goldbody's fortress.

     Within moments, he'd smack right into it.

     He grabbed a weapon in each hand. He'd need them if he lived through the next thirty seconds. Then,

     WHAM! 

​     He got hit by a missile that just about tore his Bloodhawk in half. Smoke filled his cockpit. Adam heard this high, keening whine that made his ears hurt. He bounced off yet another jet, then...

     There it was.

     It filled his vision.

     Goldboby's fortress. He came right at it. Adam got a single, quick glance.

     Then,

     WHAM! 

     He smashed right into the fortress itself. 

​     Hard. 

​     Crashed right through it. Right into the hanger where most of Goldbody's jets had started out, then through some walls beyond the hanger into some laboratories beyond. The Bloodhawk came up against a second set of walls, and that's where it finally stopped. 

​     Smoke everywhere.

​     Smoke and flames and broken stone everywhere. There were moans from those associates who'd been unfortunate enough to be in the Bloodhawk's path as it smacked into the fortress and lived, broken and bleeding, to tell the tale. For several seconds, the Bloodhawk just rested there, its technological parts crackling and sparking. Fifty of Goldbody's associates surrounded it slowly, cautiously, weapons drawn. They were afraid it might explode into hundreds of thousands of pieces at any moment. Dozens of associates spoke into their mouthpieces all at once, creating a din of human voices.

​     Had Adam Forwarder been killed in the impact? He should have been, the Bloodhawk was hardly more than rubble, but it was so damned hard to tell. Adam was such a slippery bastard that...and what if he was just knocked out? He could regain consciousness and wreck havoc on the entire...

​     All those four dozen associates, they all just continued to stare at the wreckage of what was left of the Blackhawk. 

​     Really, they didn't know what to do. 

     And then the decision was taken out of their hands.

     WHAM!  

     The top of the now smashed beyond repair Bloodhawk flew abruptly away from the rest of the jet.

     And out popped Adam Forwarder.

     A sub-machine gun in one hand and a grenade launcher in the other.

     He had a cut over his right eye. He had a gash on his left shoulder from which a minute trickle of blood seeped. Besides that, he looked filthy but unharmed.

     He started with the sub-machine gun.

​     He fanned everyone who stood in front of him with it, some two dozen people. He fired down at them from where he stood on top of his jet so that the bullets mainly caught them in the head and shoulders. Everyone, for the moment, was too much in shock to react. Adam mowed them right down. Then he launched a volley of grenades. They packed a wallop. The hanger suddenly filled with the booming roar of a half dozen grenades exploding all at once. Then Adam sent a second volley of grenades to hit those associates farther away from  him, then dropped the launcher back into his jet. Still holding the submachine gun, Adam then rolled off his jet to land on his feet amongst the dying or at least bleeding now scrambling to get away from him. Adam knew that wouldn't last. Sooner or later, one of those associates was going to recover enough to want to start shooting back. He looked around for a way out and saw an exit two hundred paces to his left. He pulled out the hand cannon he had jammed down the front of his pants and fired at the skulls of everyone he passed. He especially took out anyone who looked like they had any chance whatsoever of retaliating.  

CONTINUE