Borderlands: Gunsight Read Online Free PDF Page B

talk, that’s just what he’d do with you. He’s got people out there, see, agents everywhere . . . they’ll wait their chance, hit you with the gas, disarm you, truss you like a roasted skag, and bring you out here to Gunsight, and you’re Psycho dinner. Bottom line is, it doesn’t matter how good you are, when they come to get you—’cause they won’t fight fair.”
    So the only way to be sure you were safe from Jasper’s agents ,Mordecai figured, as he drove through the open gates, is to kill Jasper. A dead man can’t order a murder.
    But he had a pretty strong hunch, as he looked around at the fortress, that killing Jasper wouldn’t be easy.
    Just inside the gates of Jasper’s fortress was about an acre of open common area with tents, storage sheds, men stalking back and forth on errands, all of them heavily armed, some of them wearing the red and black masks, others with the masks pushed up on top of their heads. There was a kind of landing pad for the Buzzards, behind and above the common area, on a steel platform. Mordecai counted two Buzzards up there, with room for two more. He wasn’t sure he could fly one—but Daphne could. She could fly pretty much anything. And when he broke out of here, it would be with her.
    Under the landing pad platform, double doors opened into the fortress’s headquarters and stronghold. The stronghold was big enough, Mordecai reckoned, to include barracks for a lot of men. And somewhere in there would be a room, or a cell, maybe deep in the basement, with his woman locked up in it.
    His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he thought about it, till his knuckles were white. They’d better not have hurt Daphne  . . .
    He wasn’t sure whom he was madder at, though—Jasper or himself. If he hadn’t gotten drunk and gone out half-cocked, the scumbags Jasper had sent to kidnap Daphne probably wouldn’t have succeeded. He’d have spotted them coming. He’d have heard their vehicles coming, and anyway their home tower was set up with warning systems.
    But those systems didn’t do any good to people in outrunners, driving away from the building.
    My fault. All my damned fault . His belly burned with anguish like he’d swallowed a road flare.
    No use beating yourself up. All you can do is make up for it. Get her out of here . . .
    The stronghold was several stories higher than the walls; there were a couple of balconies on it, set up with machine guns. Hard to get a stolen Buzzard past those guys. He might have to kill them first. Above the balconies were a few barred windows, and up top were old-fashioned battlements. More muzzles projected up there. Jasper was a fanatic for security. But then, when people figured out it was his men who were methodically robbing nearly every settlement on the planet, this place would be under siege. Jasper had to have some kind of long-term game plan in mind.
    He pulled up in front of the stronghold, Bloodwing fluttering on his shoulder and cawing raspily in his ear.
    “Stay cool, girl,” he muttered to her. “Wait for orders.”
    “Leave your weapons in the vehicle,” Ripper said, climbing out.
    Unarmed, Mordecai climbed from the outrunner, Bloodwing fluttering irritably on his shoulder. Commander Ripper spoke brusquely to the two Marauders standing guard at the door. The men stood aside but kept a sharp watch on Mordecai as he followed Ripper into the stronghold of Boss Jasper.
    •  •  •
    He was waiting on the roof, near a cannon emplacement, smoking an enormous stogie and muttering to himself inaudibly as he gazed out over the city. Nearby stood a dozen armed men, including three hooded Nomads. They all stared at Mordecai as he and Commander Ripper strode from the elevator housing over to their boss.
    Jasper was a squat, muscular man in chain mail, skag leather, and a high-capacity fast-recharge Pangolin shield; his massive arms, sleeveless, were tattooed with ideograms and lettering from various planets, but