Sardar stared at him for a long beat and then said, “…OK.”

He handed over his wrench. It was nice. More than two feet long, and made from 15.4 pounds of stamped steel.

“This is perfect,” Roland told Sardar.

“Perfect for what?” Sardar asked.

“Wounding,” Roland replied.

And with that, he was off. Roland could break thirty miles an hour at a dead sprint, but with all the painkillers and weed he’d just taken that didn’t sound super fun. So he strolled along at a brisk eighteen miles per hour, darted by Will and zig-zagged his way past a few hundred errant rounds the armored Martyrs fired to suppress Bigsby’s squad.

THOOM. THOOM.

Two of the big recoilless rifles fired their giant, explosive-tipped munitions. Roland reached Nadine and Azime’s position. The former was down, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Her lover fired from cover. Roland felt as one of the explosive rounds arced toward their position. The other was headed toward Bigsby. Roland’s hindbrain guessed that Bigsby would survive the hit. Nadine and Azime wouldn’t.

He jumped forward and grabbed them both while still airborne. In the instant before missile met masonry, he threw them back out of the blast radius. He knew the landing would hurt, but both women were chromed enough to survive.

After he tossed them, Roland slid to a stop on top of the pile of ruined bricks they’d hidden behind. The rocket-propelled munition hit about three feet below him. The 75mm round contained half a kilogram of hexogen, enough explosive power to tear a hole in the side of a small tank. It detonated and turned the pile of bricks into a shrapnel volcano.

Roland hopped again. His hindbrain made it clear that he wouldn’t avoid all, or even most of the shrapnel. Metal and brick tore through his biceps, his gut, his legs, and his pectorals. Most of the shrapnel stopped at the sub-dermal carapace that protected his vital organs. A few pieces went further. They tore one kidney in half and pierced one of his hearts. But Roland had multiple redundant back-ups for every important organ. His medical nanites had already started to purge the foreign matter and repair the damage when he hit the ground.

The battle high rolled in and Roland’s synapses flooded with endorphins, serotonin, and enough morphine to kill a middle-weight elephant. The chemical elation of imminent combat filled his senses. Roland wasn’t just high on war, he was tripping balls.

Sweet shitting fucks, I’ve missed this.

Roland flipped a jaunty salute to Bigsby as he sprinted forward, past the man. This time he let his legs pump as fast as they could and rushed toward the five advancing armored Martyrs. In the quarter-second before contact, Roland had his first solid look at The Enemy.