Unfortunately, the sled Rechs had chosen for cover was already being used by one of the pros for the same purpose. And he had the drop on the bounty hunter. Had him solidly in his sights, so much so that the guy pulled down his black mask just so Rechs could watch him smile as he pulled the trigger.
But before he could fire, a dog came leaping out of the dust to clamp onto the Soshie pro’s gun arm. The blaster fired wide as the dog dragged the man to the ground, mauling him and tearing the blaster away.
Sharing cover with the savior dog and the freshly mauled and incapacitated Soshie pro, Rechs chanced a glance away from the unexpected save and looked over the vehicle toward the lead sled. A four-man team of highly squared-away operators in their red-and-black Soshie cover costumes were coming out in turtle formation with high-powered blasters. They were moving in his direction.
The bounty hunter ran through his options and decided to drop the leej, stand up and fight, clear the threat, and only then resume progress toward the Crow.
Then he remembered the armor’s shield.
He keyed it, hoping the device would want to make amends for its failures back inside the tyrannasquid.
No joy. The enigmatic device had chosen not to work. He’d have to throw down without it.
The approaching pros weren’t firing. Smart. Just moving straight at him in tactical turtle. They knew that locking him down where he covered was better than standing and sending in fire. And the tighter they could bottle him up, the better their odds of success, because he had to go through them. There was no other way to the ship. Operators like this would cut him, the marine, and the legionnaire on his back down if he attempted to get around them in the open. He hazarded another look and saw them as shadows moving through the dust.
He heard the whine of the marine’s blaster fire. Nailing more sniper teams.
Good for her.
Rechs was just about to drop the leej and shoot it out with the approaching team, if only just to see who walked away. But that was when the dog streaked out of the dust once more and slammed into the team’s point man, dragging him to the ground.
A sudden torrent of blaster fire from off to the right followed immediately after. It eviscerated the three remaining operators. And emerging from the clearing dust, following the blaster fire, was a legionnaire in full armor, holding his trigger down and shooting at the corpses on the ground for good measure.
Time to move.
Rechs hefted the wounded legionnaire and ran for the shadow of the Crow.
The dust cleared further thanks to the continued repulsor wash of a SLIC hanging out overhead. Bright blaster fire ran down across the vehicles and pavement, slamming into everything around him. He still had twenty meters to go, and he’d never make it with fire ranging in and finding him.
Then Rechs looked up and realized that the fire wasn’t coming from the Soshie teams poised in the buildings above him, but from the SLIC gunship itself. The damn thing’s crew gunner must’ve had orders to terminate him on sight.
It was a thing Rechs had gotten used to, but this time it looked as though the combination of SLIC fire, advancing pros, and general chaos might be more than he could handle.
And then… suddenly… it stopped.
* * *
Kirk Walters—Hunter Oh-Two—stood over the prone body of the Legion captain. Unsure if the killing machine that was every legionnaire, regardless of whether they were a jerk or not, was going to get up and kill him or stay down and remain unconscious.
He held the fire extinguisher he’d taken from near the N-50, prepared to use it again if the jerk did dare stand. Frankly he was amazed he’d swung it hard enough to put the man out even while wearing a helmet. The extinguisher itself sported a sizeable new dent.
When Kirk had looked back from the pilot’s seat to see his crew chief dangling taut—dead or unconscious, heels of his boots dragging on the cargo deck—he realized why Hess had been ignoring his calls that he’d spotted Amanda. And it took all of another two seconds to realize that the captain was now firing the big N-50 at whoever was carrying the wounded legionnaire, his blaster bolts coming danger close to the leej, and Amanda as well.
Kirk didn’t even really think about it as he left his pilot’s seat, grabbed a fire extinguisher and swung it at Captain Hess’s head, landing a bell ringer at the base of the neck where it met the cranium. He just moved. Reacted.
Now Oh-Two, standing above an unconscious Legion captain who looked like he wasn’t getting up any time soon, guessed his military career was over.
Oh well, he said to himself as he went back to the flight deck, intending to put down and go after Amanda himself. He’d fly freight out on the edge when he got out of the chicken farm someday. That was good enough for him.
65
The legionnaire with the SAB ran up to Rechs.
“Don’t know who you are, but if you’re helpin’ Shaker then we’re on the same side! C’mon!” The leej motioned to the waiting ship, shouting to be heard above its whining engines and the sounds of battle. “That your ship?”
“It is,” Rechs replied.
“I’ll cover. My dog will go get your marine!”
Rechs didn’t argue. Instead he moved off, hunched by the dead weight of Lopez, for the belly of the Obsidian Crow. Behind him he could hear the legionnaire laying down suppressive fire to cover his path.
He made the boarding ramp and ran up it, legs burning as he reached the top and threaded the interior of the ship for the medical bay. He was pretty sure the man on his back had stopped breathing.
He placed Lopez on
