moment it stalled the rush of the gunrunners. I was at a right angle to their advance, which created a nice cross- fire situation. If I conserved my ammo we might pull this out of the crapper.
Then something occurred to me and it jolted me so hard that I took my finger off the trigger.
“Christ! These aren’t gunrunners,” I said aloud. I turned to Tennet. “Does your com-link work?”
He lowered his camera and tapped his throat mic. “No…it’s malfunctioning.”
“Fuck. We have to get word to the fleet. This is a clusterfuck. These aren’t gunrunners. Look at ‘em. They’re machinists, factory workers. That’s why they called me a pirate. They think we’re the bad guys. Shit.”
Tennet picked up a length of steel pipe and held it defensively, then abruptly pointed past me. “Sergeant! Behind you!”
I whirled around. There was nothing. I heard a voice behind me say, “I’m sorry.”
It was Tennet, and it was an odd thing to say.
It was even odder when he slammed the pipe into my head.
I could hear the bones crack in my head. I felt myself fall. The taste of blood in my mouth was salty sweet. Sparks burst from the wiring in the machines and fireworks ignited in my vision. I fell in a pirouette, spinning with surreal slowness away from the point of impact. As I turned I could see the gunrunners renewing their advance on my remaining men. I could hear the chatter of gunfire from the other end of the room. Was it Zulu Team? Had they broken through? Or was it the gunrunners with Zulu’s guns?
As I hit the deck I wondered why the gunrunners didn’t have their own guns. It seemed strange. Almost funny. Gunrunners without guns.
And why had they called us ‘pirates’?
I sprawled on the ground, trying to sort it out. Trying to think. I felt blood in the back of my nose. I tasted it in my mouth.
I wanted to cough, but I couldn’t.
A shadow passed above me. Raising my eyes took incredible effort. I couldn’t manage it. But the shadow moved and came around to bend over me.
Tennet.
His eyes were still wide and excited…but he was smiling. Not an adrenaline grin. I’ve seen those. This was different. Almost sad. A little mean. A little something else, but I couldn’t put a word to it. My head hurt so much. Thinking was hard. He dropped the pipe.
He bent close. The noise around us was huge but it also seemed distant, muffled. My left eye suddenly went blind.
Tennet was speaking. But not to me. His camera was pointed past me.
“…as the shootout rages on, the brave men of Jigsaw team are clearly overmatched by the determined resistance of the gunrunners.”
He clicked off the camera and looked down at me.
“Thanks,” he said.
I shaped the words ‘for what’?
“Ratings, Sergeant. This is sweeps week. This story will get me back in the big chair. I’ll be an anchor again before your bodies are cold.”
“The…tip-off…” I managed.
He nodded. “Good PR for everyone. Your bosses will leverage this for increased funding. The militia will get more money for security. And I get an anchor’s chair. Everyone’s a winner.”
I was sinking into the big black. I could feel myself moving away from the moment, sliding out of who I was. “You mother…fucker…” I gasped with what little voice I had.
“Hey,” he said, “you told me at least twenty times that you never get to pull a trigger, that good soldiering doesn’t require heroes. That’s a sad epitaph for a career Free-Ops agent.” He bent even closer. “I just made you a hero, Sergeant. I just made you a
I wanted to grab him by the neck and tear his head off. I wanted to stuff his camera down his throat. I wanted to destroy the hard drive and all its images of my men fighting and dying.
But I didn’t have anything left.
So, with the gunfire like thunder around me, and the screams of good men dying on both sides, I closed my eyes. I knew that he’d turn his camera back on, that he’d film my last breaths. That he’d use my death — and the deaths of my men — to get exactly what he wanted.
But what the fuck. That’s show business.
Shit.
