“Yeah. Blood and bone, or whatever it is you all say.”
Fallon grinned at her. “Blood and bone.”
She lifted the hatch and moved it aside, then palmed her second stinger. With her other hand she slid a knife from her belt. She nodded to Wren and dropped to the floor of crisis ops.
She hit one with her stinger center mass during her drop. No help there. They were wearing dissipators. Damn. That would make this job harder.
She threw the stinger at one and the knife at another. The blade stuck right into the throat of the closest BlackOp. At least the stinger distracted the other for a moment.
In the seconds it took for them to advance on her, she grabbed two more knives and launched them into two more throats. They landed true, and she was down to six opponents. Plus Colb, but she was barely aware of him while she tracked her bigger threats.
Two came into range of her within two seconds of her landing, with two more only steps away. The last two remained with Colb.
No more room for knife throwing. It would be close combat from here on out. On the plus side, they couldn’t use ranged weapons either. No one had tried using a stinger so they either recognized her dissipator or just assumed she wore one.
Her first priority was to reverse positions with them. She needed them facing away from the hatch to give Wren a chance. She launched herself into the air. She tucked her knees in sideways to her body, executing a head-over-heels flip that had her landing on a voicecom terminal.
She dodged a punch from the man on her left and delivered a kick to his throat. Her stance on the console gave her a vantage point. He went down choking for breath. Unfortunately that left her open to the second person, who landed a solid punch to Fallon’s chest, knocking her off the terminal. At least it pushed her closer to the far wall, drawing the others toward her and away from Wren.
She landed awkwardly on one foot, which required her to adjust to balance. It also caused her to take another hard hit, in the same spot as the last one. Her chest felt like it had caved in.
But now on level ground, she mounted her own offensive. She threw the most vicious combo she had in her arsenal. Kick, jab, cross, feint, and a left hook to the temple. The woman stumbled back, giving Fallon the advantage. Before she could follow it up, the one she’d kicked in the throat came at her back. She sensed him more than she heard or saw him. She bent at the waist, reaching for the floor. Using momentum and her increased reach, she kicked her right foot up, catching him in the chin and sending him falling backward.
And here came the one she’d hit with the stinger. Dammit. They were too many, too fast. Wren had dropped and begun working at a science station, and Fallon hoped she could work fast. She estimated they had less than half a minute.
She backed up, making as much noise as she could to keep their attention on her and not on what was going on behind them. She threw punches and dodged theirs, but she was only marking time. She was the bait, and she knew she’d get eaten eventually. They converged on her, and she knew she didn’t have much time now. If only they would politely come at her one by one or in pairs, like in the holo-vids.
Another hit to the chest made her wonder how many broken ribs she had. A punch to the head muffled the sounds around her and made her vision dim. Yeah, that was bad. But she couldn’t pull herself together enough to block the hits she saw coming her way. She felt the impacts as they came, but less and less as things grew blurrier. Huh. So this was how it felt to lose a fight. All she could do now was remain on her feet as long as possible.
Dimly she was aware of a pause in the hits, like a missed beat in a drum cadence. She shook her head, trying to process what was happening around her. The door had opened. Hawk flew in first and destroyed the two that came at him, like a chef tenderizing meat. Peregrine bolted past him to yank one of Fallon’s assailants away and tackle her. Somewhere in the background Krazinski jumped in with Hawk while Ross took on the one she’d tried to shoot with the stinger. She watched it all, dumb and confused, as if it were a hazy dream.
Raptor took on the last of Colb’s flunkies, the one Fallon had thought would end up killing her.
She staggered back against the wall, wiping her hand over her right eye. It came away with blood on it.
She closed both eyes for a moment, struggling to center herself in real time.
Finally remembering to look for Colb, she stepped away from the bulkhead. As soon as she focused on him, time slowed to a crawl. She saw his hand, holding a stinger pointed toward Wren. She couldn’t see Wren, but her exact position was burned into Fallon’s awareness.
She needed answers only Colb had. Needed them for herself and the entire PAC. But she’d watch everything burn before she’d let Wren die.
Her harpoon gun had appeared in her hand, and she didn’t pause a microsecond before pulling the trigger. It flew across the brief space and landed in Colb’s chest, the force of it causing him to fall backward. His stinger came alive as he fell, snaking a bright arc of energy in Wren’s direction. He hit the ground and the stinger’s blast cut off abruptly as the weapon tumbled out of his hand.
As much as she wanted to go to Wren, she had to finish the job. Her vision and mind clear now, she bolted to Colb, her gun still
