BAE Chapter 105

Gunshots ring in Commissioner Jim Gordon’s ears as he signals for the wounded officer to stay where he is. The hallway is full of dust and gunpowder. He advances on the fallen man, who wears full tactical gear. With his gun in one hand, he draws a set of handcuffs and shakes them out. His gun is steady and he stays focused, not thinking about the fallen officers or the dead assailants. They hit this floor so fast that there was only time to react, not to understand.

The attacker moves suddenly. Jim has enough reflexes back to fire, but his bullet buries itself in the man’s vest as his legs are swept from underneath him. Jim crashes to the floor and the man’s on top of him with a knife. Jim catches his wrist and knees him, and his strength takes the attack off-guard. It’s enough for Jim to shove him off and give him a kick to the chest that buys him a little space.

Jim picks himself up, raising his fists; there’s no time to get to his gun. The man thrusts and Jim parries with an elbow, delivering a punch to the temple. The man falls as the elevator at the end of the corridor dings.

Jim looks up hopefully, but it isn’t backup.

A slim brunette in a black bodysuit, flanked by two more of these guys in tactical gear, emerges. She’s carrying a briefcase.

The woman flicks a single disdainful glance down the hazy hallway, then moves on, all elegance in her heeled boots.

Jim coughs, looking over his shoulder. His secretary has pressure on the wound of the officer unlucky enough to be delivering a report when the gunmen arrived up here. He bends and picks up his gun, changing magazines as he moves forward. He brings the gun up at the corner. The roof access door is open.

He’s not as young as he used to be, and he’s sore all over, but he puts both hands on the gun and pounds up the stairs, bursting into the cold Gotham night to find the red sky crowded with airships and helicopters. Searchlights sweep majestically as distant, muffled gunfire sounds from inside his headquarters.

Several dead cops are scattered across the helipads. GCPD’s special response chopper sits with its rotors spun up, ready for takeoff.

The woman and her two companions stride toward it, unhurried.

“That’s far enough, miss!” Jim roars, bringing the pistol to bear on the woman’s back.

She stops and her companions turn. They both have long guns. The woman has an old-fashioned pistol holstered at her hip. Jim knows he’s outgunned, but he’s always been stubborn. He’ll be damned if these people are going to walk out of here like they own the place.

The woman’s so fast that even in his prime, Jim wouldn’t have been able to keep up. She whirls, drawing her pistol and firing without hesitation. With a flap of fabric, a heavy weight hits him in a blur, smashing him to the rooftop. Dazed, he looked up to see red hair and a yellow bat.

Barbara drags him behind the Bat Signal as gunfire erupts from the bodyguards.

The Bat Signal shatters. Wires and sparks fly as bullets ricochet.

BAE

“You’re hit,” Jim groans, clutching his gun and sitting up.

Barbara looks down at the blood on her costume. It figures that Talia wouldn’t be firing hollow points; she doesn’t have the same soft spot for Barbara that she does for Bruce, and she knows all of their secrets. Bat costumes are armored, but not with steel plates.

Barbara grimaces and clamps her hand to her side, then flicks out a set of cuffs and snaps it around her father’s wrist.

“Barbara!” He tries to pull away, but it’s too late; Barbara cuffs him to the Bat Signal and launches herself into the open, Batarangs flying. Adhesive gel explodes over the guns in the hands of the bodyguards, but these are Al Ghul’s elite; they don’t need guns. They rush Barbara, who throws a smoke bomb and launches herself through it, tackling the first to the ground.

Talia looks on with interest as they grapple. One corner of her mouth turns up when her bodyguard punches Barbara in her wounded side, then knees her in the abdomen. Barbara seizes his leg and throws her weight, taking him to the ground. The other one pulls her off, and she stomps his foot, then sends him staggering with a roundhouse, wincing and stumbling from the pain. She catches a slash from the other assassin and disarms him.

Talia’s smile disappears when Barbara plunges the knife into the man’s leg, breaks his wrist, and sends him flying with a hip throw.

Bleeding and in considerable pain, Barbara drags herself upright, glaring at Talia.

“Dick,” she says. “Take out the chopper on the roof of GCPD.”

“That’s a police bird, Babs,” Dick replies in her earpiece.

“I know.”

Talia looks up to see the Batwing streak across the sky, beginning to come around for a pass. She snorts, lifting a remote detonator and pressing it before Barbara can react.

Barbara’s eyes widen in horror as orange explosions bloom from several of the circling airships. Talia was ready for this.

“Dick! She just took out all those airships. Those guys are too low to jump. They need you.”

“I see it!” He sounds stressed. That’s never a good sign with him; he doesn’t stress easily, but rescuing people from falling airships in the middle of downtown is a lot to ask, even of the Boy Wonder.

Barbara can hear Alfred working with Stephanie and Kate; all hell is breaking loose at ground level. Talia’s people are busting out of GCPD full-throttle in GCPD vehicles. Even the Batmobile can’t stop them all. There must be a component to this plan that Barbara doesn’t yet fully understand.

Her blood drips down her hip and leg, pooling on the roof. Barbara switches off her earpiece and clenches her fist.

“Go back to your father,” Talia says.

“I will. With you in handcuffs.”

“Hardly. My men left twenty kilograms of plastic explosives in your central evidence room. What will happen to your precious city when the single largest repository of evidence holding its monsters behind bars is reduced to ash?” Talia’s hair blows in the wind from the churning rotors. “You have a fighting spirit, Barbara Gordon. But you are not him. You’ll never be him.”

Barbara pulls a Batarang. Talia turns and fires, but the shot goes wild. Her expression turns to irritation as she sees the whip wrapped around her wrist.

“Bold of you,” she says, turning to Selina, who stands at the edge of the roof in full Catwoman costume. “Here for a second helping?”

“I just don’t like owing favors,” Selina snarls, giving the whip a jerk.

Talia drops the briefcase and pulls a knife, slicing free of the whip. She throws the knife and fires several shots, forcing Selina and Barbara to dive for cover.

Talia picks up the briefcase and climbs into the helicopter.

Selina helps Barbara up, seeing the blood. Barbara shakes her off before she can say anything, She has one grapple left, and she pulls it out as the rotors speed up and the chopper begins to rise.

Talia isn’t bluffing about the bomb. Kate’s in the Batmobile, but Stephanie might be able to get there.

Should Barbara go after the bomb and let Talia go?

Or send Stephanie after the bomb and go after Talia?