He lunged up at me between phlegmy drools, spitting out blood. “Is that cropped he-bitch woman of yours alive too?” he gasped. “Should’ve plowed her while I had the chance.”
“Would have thought this little exchange had given you more humility.”
“Fuck off, dogshit asshole. I hope you and that broad get wasted—”
I finished him off with a single shot. He lay still, with a gaping, smoking hole in his forehead. Good riddance. Couldn’t stand the man.
A death was a death, and this was no less gruesome, though more like putting a rabid hound out of its misery. But the cost of taking a life always stirred the hairs on the back of my neck.
I caught up with Wren. She and the others were hustling toward the east wall, the workers frightened out of their wits at the echoes of gunfire blasting away and the hint of white steam floating ever closer toward them. “Out the side door!” I grunted. “This area’ll be gassed out in minutes.”
A group of fifty of them looked at me with dilated eyes of terror. “Who are you?” they cried.
“Pazarol’s nemesis. Get moving! This is your lucky day. I’ve a ship waiting.” Blinking in astonishment, they stumbled on trembling legs and I bunted them toward the side exit. Wren sighed with relief at the sight of me, alive and whole.
Some of them were too frightened to take action and stood immobile. Others gaped like fish, cowering behind the rows of khaki wear they had toiled so hard to produce. I gave a croak of frustration. “Do you want to stay here enslaved, victims of these scumlords?” A lean, hollow-cheeked woman with dark circles under her eyes visibly trembled. She wrapped her bruised arms around her chest, gave a choked sob and a call of action to the others. Then took to her heels after Wren. Some I had to leave behind, blinking in the dim emergency light as the alarms rang. So be it. I joined in the mad scramble, prodding the others from behind down the main corridor, blaster in hand. When more rats with foul teeth came out to play, I stayed back as their rounds clipped out toward us, and rolled under equipment tables, using the gathering smoke as a screen through which I shot at will. Tools and instruments skidded off tables; khaki fatigues lined up on hangers shredded around us to the rat-tat-tat of gunfire. Wren was somewhere ahead of us, gesticulating with her R4, herding the mob forward through the double doors, three and four abreast so undernourished they were.
It was a wild rush. Desperate figures burst out into the damp air onto the weed-ridden tarmac, the grey light of dusk hitting us, and the smell of chemicals in our noses. Down the service yard, past rusty forklifts. Again I had to drop back as five others came out of the emergency exit we’d booby-trapped, staggering like strawmen in a gale. I fired shots back at them.
I hit the detonator switch. All disappeared in a cloud of white flames as their charred limbs flew, severed from torsos.
More stumbled out of the side door closer to the back. This time caustic smoke billowed out at their heels like sidewinders’ tails. I jammed down the detonator. It didn’t fire. “Fucking hell!” The canister was a dud. I threw the useless thing away.
They chased after us. Gunmen rained fire like cannons. Two women fell, shot in the back. I cried out in dismay. A tousle-haired boy tripped and crashed to his knees, sobbing. I winced and hauled the featherweight up on his feet, urging him to run like he’d never before. Like panicked sheep, they all ran after Wren through the weeds and cracked tarmac toward the distant fenced yard. I thought some would expire from sheer exhaustion and terror before they made it to the hold. They kept apace each other, some women gripping boys’ hands.
I stayed back, kneeling, pegging off those who came within range. Blaster fire kicked up. One caught me in the left foot and I cursed, felt a zinging burning sensation in my toe. Shit, this was not progressing well.
“Move your asses!” Wren cried, swatting at them with the flat of her gun. She crowded them forth, through the fence toward the ship, herding them in the direction of the hold like cattle at a roundup.
When the last worker was in the ship, I came hobbling, sucking in lungfuls of air. I closed the hatch. All were secured and Wren already had Bantam circling in the air. I raced to the bridge, used the remote to fire her front cannons, bright lasers which licked at the snipers retreating in haste back to the compound. I grimaced in triumph as bodies fell.
I scanned the ground. Some survivors piled into the dormant X-R Rover craft sitting out in Pazarol’s dilapidated yard. The V-winged tri-fighter whisked up at us, fareon beams pouring out, catching our shields, but Wren was pounding them with our own pulse beams. We were already well ahead, engaged, and I maxed Bantam’s impulse out to the twin moons, past the atmosphere and out into space. The go indicator flashed yellow and free of Tarsus’s gravity, the Varwol engaged. The universe slipped sideways. Stars, light flashes, multicolored beams sheared on impossible angles that bent in wrong places and made no sense to any waking eye.
We were off to the stars, and I could only breathe a gasp of relief.
* * *
I came down into the hold, limping with Wren at my side. There they all crouched in a miserable huddle, murmuring and sniffling like lost orphans, some in shock. The women held each other like
