The gunfire from both sides slowed as the shooters checked their ammo levels.
“Check in!” I ordered.
“Here!” Reaver said.
“Alive,” Beatrix said.
“Bored!” Skrew whined.
“I’m here,” Yaltu confirmed.
Reaver poked her head from around a storage container and stared at me. She was waiting for orders, I knew. I gave her the hand signal to be watchful and wait for further orders. She nodded her understanding and waited, head and eyes keeping watch while I figured out our next move.
We’d come for vehicles, and we’d found them. Though I was hoping for something larger, the hoverbikes would be enough to get us out and away from danger.
They weren’t much larger than the street bikes back home. About eight feet long, each looked like they were designed for no more than two passengers. Reaver and I could each pilot one, but I wasn’t sure about the rest, and there wasn’t a lot of time to ask. If worse came to worst, I’d take an extra passenger on mine. We’d figure it out.
I waited for Reaver to look my direction again and sent her another signal. I held both my fists toward her and rotated the right one back a few times, attempting to tell her that I wanted her to see if one of the hoverbikes was operational. She nodded and disappeared from sight.
I poked my head over the edge of the box I was taking cover behind and ducked just before a red bolt of energy sizzled into a box behind me.
A moment later, Reaver returned and had several things to tell me using hand and arm signals. First, the hoverbike she tried would not start. It looked good, but it was missing something. A key, probably.
Second, there were still four guards. They’d taken cover about five yards ahead.
Beatrix peeked out from behind a box further back near Yaltu. I pointed in the direction I wanted her to move, and she nodded.
Reaver had seen the message, so I gave the order to move out. I poked my head out from cover, further to the right this time, and was greeted by another shot from an energy weapon. I noted where it came from and signaled Reaver so that she could take care of the shooter if he came into view. She nodded, gripped her pistol tighter, and snuck around the far side of her cover.
I poked my head around to the right to give the leftovers a new target, then immediately threw myself to the left, rolled across a three-foot-wide gap, and stopped behind the next box. The guy with the laser rifle had been ready for it and peppered the floor between the boxes with charged protons that melted and cracked the stone.
I thought about the box I was taking cover behind. It was strong enough to take quite a few blasts from energy weapons and lasers, but I hadn’t bothered to wonder what was inside. There weren’t any labels or descriptions anywhere. There wasn’t even a logo of the manufacturing or shipping company who’d delivered the goods. Then, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen boxes like that anywhere else. I wasn’t sure where they came from, but I guessed it wasn’t even the planet I was on. There were more planets, and they were probably close. The one I had landed on might be nothing more than a holding place for slaves.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop!
Reaver was standing on top of her crate, which was now open. She had a huge rifle down near her hip, with a strap running across her body to her opposite shoulder. From the muzzle, bright flashes of light erupted, turning tools and boxes near the end of the room into fountains of sparks.
“Get some!” she roared.
It was time to finish the job. I leaped on top of a box and caught sight of a guard, likely the guy with the laser rifle, rolling between a couple of boxes only 20 feet ahead of me.
I leaped, heard the box I’d been standing on crash to the ground, and landed on top of the container the sniper had rolled behind. I cut him in half with a single swing of Ebon, and his torso went spinning onto a nearby shelf while his legs toppled over in a fountain of blood.
Reaver was using her new rifle to destroy a mostly disassembled fighter vehicle in a far corner, surrounded by various parts and tools. Whoever was back there was wise not to move, but it wouldn’t take long for her to chew through the wreckage and start burning holes into their body. They were doomed.
The last guard who offered any kind of resistance held an energy pistol in each of his four hands. He reached around the box he was hiding behind and fired blindly. He didn’t present any targets, other than the pistols themselves. So, I shot one of the pistols that was aimed in my general direction. It exploded like a firecracker, and gray-skinned fingers flew outward as the bullets connected.
The vrak staggered back a half-step and offered me a clean shot at his skull as he gasped at his ruined stump. But I held my fire. Beatrix had hopped onto the top of the box and already had her glowing warhammer raised. I didn’t want to deny her the kill. She brought her weapon down hard enough to pulverize the vrak’s head in an explosion of bone and brain matter. The impact made my ears ring, brought a savage sparkle to her eye, and made her tentacles dance.
“Clear!” Reaver called as she examined the hoverbikes.
I checked my immediate area and confirmed.
“They are all dead,” Beatrix said from the top of her box.
“They is all dead?” Skrew said from around a box behind me. “They is killed dead?”
“Yes, they’re dead,” I said. “Come on and bring Yaltu. We need to find the keys for these hoverbikes. Any chance you know how to fly one?”
“No,” Skrew said. “No fly hoverbikes. Never did.”
