In any other scenario, we would be toast. But Wren and I had already acted. I pulled the pin on one of my coin-size bombs and chucked it at Froy’s three minions. We dove for the exit just as gunfire raked the air where we’d been. Blest and Tager, likewise lucky, saved their heads from being shot off. We raced down the hallway, a motley misfit of four, me, lifting my weapon, blowing out the hanging bulbs. Wren bowled over a surprised guard at the door while we burst through the rusted exit and raced for the flatbed.
The seconds passed like hours in a nightmare. The first piff-paff of shells came spraying at us and I flung myself to my stomach, breathing tarmac. One of the goons came coughing out of the smoke, shooting blind. I pulled out the second flash bomb, and chucked it. Three of them disappeared in a cloud of smoke and blood splatter. Not before the first one had riddled our ride’s tires to useless shreds. No getting away on this rig or retrieving the cargo.
“Fuck!” I breathed. “Out of here.” I gave back covering fire while I pushed Wren and the other two toward the tangled thicket breasting the lot. “Move!”
We ran with fire flare eating at the foliage around us.
Blest’s sweat-laced face was wide-eyed with terror, a curse on his lips. “Screw you, Rusco! I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
“What did you sign up for then? Tiddlywinks? Get your ass moving.”
We struggled through the brambles, getting pricked like divers in a school of blowfish. The least of our concerns. More rebels must have buzzed out of the warehouse and swarmed after us while I felt the riffle of shots at my feet and a whizz over my ear. One grazed my thigh; not enough to damage me, but it hurt like hell. Bee stings soaked in vinegar.
“Fucking hot-headed rebels fueled up on rage, having their city sacked.” Seems as if they’d forgotten who their friends were.
Chapter 2
A hail of fire blizzarded over our heads. We broke out of the scorched thicket, hopped the next yard and raced down a gravel path with the intent to loop back toward the city closer to where my ship was hidden. Froy’s goons were somewhere behind us, shooting away. I caught muffled echoes of boot on gravel, stray shots, shouts.
Keep moving. That’s your middle name, Rusco. Another botch up. How many more there going to be? I should kill you myself, put you out of your misery. The shell shock of the last blast had spun my head sideways. I did a quick scan.
Wren was in good shape. Tager had taken a minor hit, his left forearm grazed. Blest was ruffled but seemed okay.
Me, some cuts and scrapes and bruises here and there, nothing I couldn’t handle, a wicked ache in my left thigh.
I shrugged, fingered my compact R4. Always liked the snug feel of the wooden stock in my hand and how it slipped so easily into killing mode. One of the older models. Trustworthy. The black, fast-action carbine sported an energy-pulse with good range and accuracy and unlimited shell action.
This wasn’t what I had planned. But is there anything that is?
We rounded a curve in the road in a direction I roughly estimated led to our parked craft. I studied the ruined city below. Ugly as a mummy’s crypt. I grimaced. I’d give Froy’s screwball rebels dibs for spunk. So far they’d survived this hell. I’d promised them arms at a decent price because I have a hard on for that bastard Mong—well, okay, I like the money and the smell of it and I too have to eat. Getting too old for this shit.
We hustled down the slope into what was once a main boulevard in that concrete jungle of shattered shapes, keeping our heads down, our guns aimed in front, and alternating rearguard. We crossed the main street, past broken, burned-out vehicles. The rank smell of soot and charred flesh filled our nostrils. Our boots crunched over rubble. We passed a small pile of blown-out stone in the center of the street, something that used to be a monument. I could see the toppled marble head with a crown or coronet, some heroic figure of the past, with the eyes bullet-holed out.
Maybe not such a good idea to play hide and seek here with my ship so far away now from the drop site. I’d landed it five miles at the edge of the city in case of treachery. Treachery we got, but now Bantam, my Alpha-Omega Beamer, wasn’t here to help us out of this madness.
The instant they’d wasted Klane, we were running on borrowed time.
The biggest problem was how to get back to Bantam without getting our heads blown off. Froy’s thugs seemed farther behind us than five minutes ago. With some luck, some more of these cross-alleys would help us lose them. But that tactic could backfire at any instant.
“Loop around past the old section,” I directed, “more shelter there and less chance of getting bottled up in a narrow alley.”
“Mines?” Tager croaked.
“We look for signs and watch our steps.” I shrugged. Wren cast me a fugitive glance which I ignored.
Why was everything so dark on this miserable world? Was this a solar eclipse? Only a creepy, leaden light from Ramus’s sun. No, there was Arkades poking through the clouds like a timid widow. This world was downright eerie. Another dumbass decision to risk a quick venture on a backward planet. I ran through the
