"You're made, kid," came Duran's gruff warning.

Scarcely forty meters out from the freighter's starboard side, Skater saw the shadows pull free of the deck and advance toward him. If there'd been any way to return to the amphibian, he'd have done it.

The sailors were dressed in the ship's yellow and red, and these elves obviously had no compunction about shooting first and asking questions later. Bullets sliced through the air around him, some of them phosphorus tracers burning past in purple blurs.

Two of the elves raced for the grappling hook buried in the wooden coaming of the upper deck while others prepared to meet Skater and friends.

"Skater." Wheeler called out, "you're running out of wire."

Just as he reached the freighter's side, Skater kicked in his boosted reflexes and unclipped the D-ring. His momentum carried him over the heads of the elves as he fell to the deck.

He pushed himself to his feet as hands reached for him. Computer-augmented reflexes honed by a lifetime of fighting for his own took over. He grabbed an outstretched hand and twisted it viciously, snapping the elbow behind it with an audible crack. An agonized moan followed immediately. No bloodshed didn't mean no maiming.

Slipping past two awkward blows aimed at his face as the press of elves swarmed around him. Skater kicked another sailor in the groin with enough force to double the man over. Bullets chopped into the wooden wall behind him with thunderous explosions.

"I'm on," Elvis roared.

Skater saw some of the elves break from him, moving to take on the troll. Knowing others were closing on the grappling hook imbedded overhead, he took two quick steps and sprang off the elf he'd dropped, using the body as a footstool to leap up and grab the coaming above him. He arched his body and flipped, landing on his feet in a squatting position just as one of the sailors advanced on the grappling line with a sword.