“KTF, losers!”
Someone in the smoke and drifting dust opened fire with a heavy blaster. A SAB from the sound of it. Or so Loth guessed as a bolt tore off the head of his lieutenant.
63
Something was going down. In the seconds before the ship came in and the building fell, as the shooting started in the lobby across the street, Baldur began to whine.
Puncher knew this was the spot. That was clearly an extraction convoy on the street. Players and shooters in abundance. If he was going to have any chance of getting his hands on his brother Shaker, and whoever else had survived, this was the moment.
She here, thought the dog.
Puncher charged the SAB, shucked needless gear, and made ready to assault across open ground. “Good boy.”
Then a junky old light freighter came down out of the sky, flaring and venting, gears deploying, and the pros on the ground didn’t seem to have anticipated that.
“New player,” he muttered.
Friends? thought the dog, being optimistic. Helpers.
“Maybe.”
Baldur barked an affirmative.
“Be ready, boy,” ordered Puncher. “Find her, we find Shaker. I’ll follow.”
The dog whined and began to pace back and forth. Opening his mouth in large snaps. Tasting the air.
“Got her?”
Baldur barked that he had. He had the scent of the marine, and that meant the legionnaire.
“Hold on,” ordered Puncher. There was firing coming from the building and the dog was whining.
Ready to go.
“Hold on, Baldur buddy!”
Puncher tapped the cybernetic assist on his armor for the heavy SAB he was carrying, disguised the entire time by the homeless camo. His HUD identified armed targets coming out of the convoy. And now there was a marine gunship on station above, and Baldur was telegraphing that he wasn’t crazy about that either.
And then, as if everything happening at once wasn’t already too much, the building exploded.
Puncher swore.
Two figures, one carrying Shaker, emerged from the collapsing building, engaging targets on the curb and running for the convoy as the building came down behind them.
A tidal wave of dust and debris chased them. Puncher had just enough time to cover Baldur’s eyes and ears as the wave of gray destruction swept past them and covered the entire street.
Then maybe thirty seconds of stunned silence as things settled. Distant alarms crying mayhem and shouting for attention.
Puncher’s armor was identifying mounted heavy blasters supporting the pro teams on the street now sheltering on the near side of the convoy.
And he could make out the two figures who had come out shooting. The big one was carrying what looked like his brother leej, hunkering on the opposite side of one vehicle from a team of very armed operators looking to do them harm.
Once eyes were cleared and bearings were reacquired, that was.
A short and very deadly firefight with not-good odds for anyone was about to break out in the next few seconds as the dust began to clear.
And as if all this wasn’t improbable and surreal enough, Puncher saw a small Nubarian gunnery bot rolling through the dust, headed for the freighter’s lowering boarding ramp.
Puncher cleared a field of fire for the powerful squad automatic blaster, shouted “KTF, losers!” and opened fire.
* * *
Rechs and the marine had barely made the side of the convoy as the building collapsed, the bounty hunter shooting down men as they surged across the sidewalk, blazing heavy caliber at the pros as he ran, the marine behind him and to the right, working the Jackknife over one of the sleds deploying a heavy blaster right at them.
For all intents and purposes they’d walked right into an ambush. And there was little chance they were going to survive once it fully opened up. Their only chance was to shoot first and fast.
Then the building fell behind them, pushing dust and debris all over everyone. Rechs lost sight of the marine, and the EMP effect blast sent his armor offline.
The legionnaire on his back coughed, but Rechs could do little to help him. The guy needed real medical attention fast. Anything else was a death sentence.
“Hang in there, Leej,” Rechs said. “You’ll make it.”
The Crow was out there somewhere in that sea of dust, and Rechs impatiently waited for his reboot so his armor could find the thing.
Someone yelled, “KTF, losers!” before squad automatic blaster fire in high cycle came from somewhere ahead.
Rechs figured legionnaires had arrived to finish the fight.
The dust was just beginning to clear when incoming blaster fire erupted across the street from all quarters. It was hard to tell who was shooting at whom.
Rechs yelled to the marine, not sure where she was in all of this. “Sergeant Almond, c’mon! We’re leaving!”
Then he ran for the next vehicle, shifting positions and withholding firing to avoid drawing attention.
The heavy squad automatic blaster fire was shrieking across the plaza. Rechs could hear the Crow’s engines, but he couldn’t isolate a direction until his helmet worked again. It was taking longer to reboot than it normally did. Maybe just being tricky, or maybe as a result of the pounding the armor had taken already.
Blaster fire rained down from above.
Through the clearing dust, the sniper teams in the surrounding buildings were shooting at him… and at the legionnaire on his back.
* * *
Amanda could hear them all about her. Red-and-black Soshie pros. Taking cover on the far sides of all the vehicles along the street. If they rushed her, there was little she or the armored man carrying Lopez could do.
Dust swirled through the air. Her ears were still ringing from the blast. Still ringing from the flashbang. Still ringing from the drubbing she’d taken at the hands of Mean Eyes. But she could hear the high-cycle whine of automatic blaster fire somewhere out there. Sounded like a SAB. And the huge roar of a ship’s engines.
She looked to her left through squinted eyes, the dust clumping on her lashes, and saw the armored man with Lopez shifting to another vehicle, massive sidearm out but not engaging. He was
