Keep it up, little guy, thought Rechs.
The bounty hunter continued to listen from the shadows within the building, avoiding the panicked pros as they tried to evacuate. Watching.
He needed to know the route they’d assigned to get the legionnaire and the marine out. Then he could ascertain how best to take them once the pros decided to execute the transfer. Everything was happening fast. On the fly. And really there was no margin for error.
For them. Or for him.
The whole situation had all the makings of something that could go horribly wrong at any moment and get a bunch of people killed. But it was the only chance the legionnaire and the marine had. So Rechs decided to take it.
“Extraction convoy inbound for link-up,” noted one of the pros over the comm. The voice and matter-of-fact demeanor almost the opposite of the rest of the channel. “ETA three minutes.”
Rechs calculated. They weren’t going for the quick escape via the lone vehicle in the garage. They wanted a whole convoy to protect the precious props that were their prisoners. Now was the time to deny them. All he needed was a route to the link-up.
He waited. A veteran like no other of operations such as this, Rechs knew the route, or some hint of the route, would come next. A last-minute decision made amid the chaos.
“We’re going for the east stairwell. Moving them now.”
It was the voice he’d identified as possibly Loth’s. Terse. Hard. In charge. Demanding everyone not fail. All of that in between the words. Rechs knew the type.
The bounty hunter studied the building map in his HUD. He found the east stairwell relative to his position and scanned for an intercept point.
Then he heard the next transmission and felt a chill right down to his bones.
“Set the charges to blow the building for ten. That means we got two minutes to clear once the convoy arrives. No room for error, people,” demanded the cruel-voiced man. “They’ll think the mech fired on the building. Damn thing’s doing our job for us better than we can do it ourselves. Investigations will prove otherwise, but that’ll take weeks and by then it won’t matter. I’m telling you all this so you understand how close we are. Every one of you who survives will be retired and living on the interest.”
They were going to kill everyone in the building and blame it on the HK-PP. Rechs didn’t think it was a half-bad improvised plan, and it reminded him not to underestimate Loth. Not that he would have anyway. Not that he ever did with anyone he faced. Pros were as deadly as Sontherian pit vipers, and even amateurs got lucky.
“On it,” said someone. One of the pros. “Heading for Maintenance Five to arm the device.”
Rechs scrubbed the intercept point. He had to shut down the bomb first.
52
Moving fast, Puncher and Baldur took the back streets of Detron’s Heights district, avoiding the crowds and closing in on the last known location of Shaker and the marine.
Trouble, thought Baldur, the dog keeping pace with the huffing leej.
“Yeah,” gasped Puncher out of his armor. The SAB was killing him. He too could see the massive mech rising above the buildings down the street. From this angle it looked like it was headed straight for the same location he was. Except they were closer. Just a block away.
Trouble… warned the dog again.
Closing, they slowed to a walk, returning to the guise of wandering homeless. The armor tagged all the hostiles in the intersection and wide plaza surrounding the possible location of Shaker and the marine.
Puncher had been in his fair share of uneven fights. Had even walked away the winner in a couple. But there were simply too many this time. There was no easy way to do this. And most likely, he would get himself and the dog killed.
Good thing I brought the SAB, he thought.
Because if it came right down to it, he’d blast his way in, if only for the reason that he wouldn’t have to die alone that way.
If only for that.
Every leej has a last fight. And as far as he could give an account of himself… he hadn’t forgot nothin’.
53
Rechs raced for Maintenance Five. It was two flights up a central stairwell and down a long hall. There was no way he was letting a hundred or so people die in an explosion the marines would get blamed for. It would cost him his intercept, but maybe he could still hit them on the street and possibly take over the vehicle they were in. Then drop a new rendezvous location to link up with Lyra and the Crow.
Bad plan going to worse… but it was all he had now. Adapt and overcome. Everything was in motion and would be until it was finished.
Win, lose, or die.
He pounded down the hallway, Jackknife deployed into subcompact mode in one hand as he pulled for all he was worth to reach the bomb. If they armed the device before he got there, then he’d have to hope he could hack it. And hope he had time.
Which didn’t seem likely.
Three silhouettes of armed men appeared at the end of the hall and stopped suddenly, seeing the running armored bounty hunter headed straight at them. Blaster fire came at Rechs in an instant.
The access door to Maintenance Five lay between both parties. And now they would fight to reach it first. Winner take all.
Rechs smashed through a flimsy makeshift door that entered a vacant apartment halfway down the hallway’s length. He crashed through just in time to avoid getting hit by the incoming blaster fire.
As he heard them trying to run for the access door to Maintenance Five, he held the blaster out the door and pulled the trigger on full-auto. The Jackknife was a ridiculously efficient pray-and-spray weapon. Within five seconds, it had spat out a hundred tiny needle-sized blasts and
