Bengal, Jacopo, Jagger, and I raced after. Firing. I caught a glimpse of Mina splayed out on the floor a meter inside the room she had entered. After we passed, my brain registered what I’d seen. She was alive, but her armor had begun med-procedures, pneumatic compression on both legs. She was holding a weapon pointed at the door. She looked pissed. She also looked ready to fire.
The cats and the Maarsies had disappeared.
The two enemy warriors reappeared, firing, this time hidden behind the pile of bodies.
Right-handed, I drew a new forty-four that Mateo had just gifted me and returned fire. Jagger, Jacopo, and I advanced on the enemy warriors. Bengal covered our six and fired down the hall. But we had to duck back into the rooms to the sides. We’d all taken hits. We couldn’t keep this up.
I said, “To all backup teams currently making way to the nest doors, be advised that we are under attack from armored warriors. What is your ETA?”
“Team Gamma on the stairs at the far end of the hallway from your current twenty,” Wingding said. “Attention warbot. Mixed teams entering the engagement arena. Don’t shoot what’s left of us.” A moment later she added, “Warbot and Mixed Gamma Beta are engaging the enemy. Hot damn!”
Gunshots sounded. Full automatic weapons fire.
“Team Beta Two is coming down the stairs nearest the nest.”
Jacopo caught a second lucky shot and took down another armored enemy. Then a third.
Okay. Skill. Not luck.
“Good shootin’, kid,” Bengal said. “Outta my way. I’m going in.”
Bengal engaged his recoil-anti-recoil and leaped over the pile of bodies.
His suit jerked in midair. A piece blew past me. Blood, bone, and shrapnel smacked my right side.
Jagger caught Bengal’s body as he fell. He pressed the armor buttons to compress the stump where Bengal’s arm had been. Handed him to a made-man with Sabbath patches. Jagger shouted, “Take Bengal and Mina to a med-bay.”
Fury whipped into me. They had hurt Bengal. I picked up the weapon he had taken from a dead man and leaped over the pile of bodies. Firing. Controlled bursts. Smoke and debris and body parts were everywhere from Mateo’s rocket.
A twisted length of steel had ricocheted. Dropped from overhead to a stop in the nest. The last of the blast dust peppered down.
Jagger entered the nest on my six and took a position to my side and back ten feet.
Down the hall, near the twisted steel, I caught a flash of motion. My flesh buzzed with reaction before I even processed what I was seeing.
Clarisse Warhammer.
Armored. With a curved combat blast shield in one hand.
I glared into her weird orange eyes. “You killed Harlan,” I said. “You killed my friend.”
Her teeth bared. She raced at me. Screaming. “I will take you. You aremine.”
Ifelther attack in my bones.
Standing in a doorway, I fired, full auto, the weapon heating up. The mag emptied. Faster than any human, I dropped the gun on its strap and threw a frag. Caught the gun, replaced the mag, and fired full auto again.
My overheated gun jammed.
Clarisse ducked into a side room.
I turned the weapon off and worked the manual lever, trying to clear it, but I didn’t know the specs of the bloody thing. I banged it against the door jamb. I paused long enough to initiate my suit’scleanfunction, removing blood and other crap from my face shield.
I maneuvered so I could see Warhammer’s previous position through a crack in the door. Her angle of fire was too sharp to do me much damage. I had a sec or two.
Figuring it was useless to me now anyway, I banged the gun again. The shrapnel from the frags was still settling.
As I worked, hands and fingers flying, Warhammer stepped back into the hallway. Shouted through her amplified suit speakers. “I will own you!”
