The metal clatter of Kazimir Volkov’s cut wired arm echoed through the silent cave as the heavy silver-steel limb hit the metal overhead frame floor, spraying drops of man-made high-pressure fluid across the grating.
Vesper stood over the fallen director, her razor-thin claws retracted, her soft white velvet paw pressing firmly into Volkov’s chest. She held the two-hundred-pound man pinned flat on his back. Her notched ear was cocked forward, her amber eyes filled with cold, high-born disdain as Volkov clutched the smoking, cut stump of his left shoulder.
Ten paces away, Pip perched on the overhead frame railing, his beak still smoking from the micro-burst of solar star-fire that had melted the radio antenna of Volkov’s handheld detonator into a blob of worthless melted rock waste.
Arthur climbed the metal stairs of the overhead frame with slow, measured strides, his boots clicking sharply on the diamond-tread steel. In his right hand, Arthur carried his ARC-7 Mag-Carbine, its safety selector flipped to battery. At his side, Grimm trotted in complete silence, his single intact ear swiveled toward the groaning figure of Chancellor Reginald Vance huddled beneath the twisted I-beam twenty feet away.
Arthur stopped at the edge of the overhead frame, looking down at Volkov.
