“Will you hurry it up!” Ana-Zhi said.
“I’m going as fast as I can.” Her outburst had caused me to miscount the number of drops I was applying. Now I had to start over.
I heard the whir of a judder knife and looked over to see Ana-Zhi cutting out a section of the statue as if it was a wedge of cheese.
“What are you doing? I haven’t finished testing it.”
“We need to get out of here.”
“What—?”
“I saw something. C’mon.”
She tucked the stone fragment into her satchel, pulled me to my feet, and motioned me back out of the alley.
“What did you see?”
“Not sure. Maybe a drone.”
I loosened my RB from its holster and double-checked that it was charged. Ana-Zhi did the same. All of a sudden the alley became very quiet, and I became aware of my own heart beating wildly beneath my exosuit.
“Stay close!” Ana-Zhi hissed. She was moving quickly, but hugging the walls that lined the alley.
We didn’t get more than twenty meters before a volley of blaster fire exploded into the wall above our heads, showering us in sparks and bits of ancient stone.
“Get down!”
Ana-Zhi didn’t need to tell me twice. We both dove to the ground—in opposite directions—as the air burned with blaster bolts.
This couldn’t be the Obaswoon. It must be the Mayir. But where were they?
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ana-Zhi squeeze herself into a gap between two half-toppled pillars, trying to get out of the line of fire.
I stayed down, but looked around frantically to try to identify the source of the blaster fire—which was still pinning us down. I could tell that Ana-Zhi was doing the same—without much luck.
Finally, I spotted a flash of crimson armor—like the armor I was wearing—near the top of a thin stone tower overlooking the alley. The shooter!
I caught Ana-Zhi’s attention and pointed up. “He’s there!”
She nodded, but I almost got a face full of blaster bolts for my trouble. Just in time, I managed to duck back down behind the toppled archway which was providing some cover.
Ana-Zhi returned fire, but her Kinesis HT4 didn’t have the range of our attacker’s impulse rifle.
“I’ll lure him out!” I said.
“Jannigan, no!”
But I ignored her and keyed the repulsors on my suit. Then during a gap in the blaster fire I launched myself out of my hiding place towards the cover of a big stone pillar. A moment after I tucked down in back of the pillar, a bolt exploded into the stone, so close I could smell the vaporized air even through my mask.
“Asshole!” Ana-Zhi shouted at me.
But I was moving again—racing to the base of the tower. Blaster bolts kicked up the ground behind me, but I made it to the tower in one piece. And I was safe for now. The angle was such that there was no way the armored rifleman could get me in his line of sight. Or hers. It could be a rifle-woman up there in the tower. Or a rifle-person.
The tower was no more than a dozen meters tall, with a balcony like a minaret where the shooter was holed up. An open doorway revealed a spiral staircase that led up to their location, but I knew it would be suicide to try a direct assault.
The rifle-person had the advantage of a superior position—and they weren’t about to give that up. But they also knew that they could be trapped in that tower. I had to provide a little incentive for them to leave. My incentive was a rascal grenade.
I programmed a simple fly-over into the rascal, then leaned into the doorway and tossed the grenade into the tower. I didn’t think it would actually take out the shooter, but it should get their attention.
Then I scattered a few electro-caltrops into the dust around the perimeter of the structure, circled around the tower, and waited.
There wasn’t any explosion from within. I actually didn’t expect there to be. Any sniper worth his or her salt would have a small perimeter ward set up to watch their back and knock out drones or rascals sneaking up on them.
But a few seconds later I was rewarded by the sound of impulse rifle bolts cutting through the air at the bottom of the staircase, clearing a path.
So far, so good. The enemy was getting jumpy and wanted to clear out of there.
I could see Ana-Zhi getting in position, a few meters away. Ready to hit the enemy as they came out of the tower.
The next few seconds were a blur. When the crimson-armored soldier emerged, I could see that they were enveloped in a power mantle. The portable shield rippled with energy as it absorbed Ana-Zhi’s blaster fire. It was a nice piece of kit, but useless once the sniper moved into the area covered by the caltrops. When the sniper stepped on the caltrops, they detonated into a miasma of lightning bolts which sent the enemy flying.
Ana-Zhi didn’t waste any time. She charged forward, plugging the soldier at point blank range. I backed up against the tower and covered her.
It was all over in less than ten seconds.
“Don’t you ever try a stunt like that again!” Ana-Zhi growled as she snatched up the sniper’s impulse rifle.
“What are you complaining about? It worked.”
“Sheer dumb luck. You just mind your training.”
What Ana-Zhi didn’t know was that I had been extensively trained in advanced guerrilla tactics, including a scenario very similar to this. But I wasn’t about to rub her nose in it.
We exited the alley and found ourselves in an Obaswoon marketplace. Luckily, the traders and shoppers mostly ignored us.
“We need to get back to the ship,” Ana-Zhi said. “This is bad. Really bad.”
I didn’t argue. It was bad. The
