“Margia’s got some, and she reckons they could be okay,” the small blond warrior said to him. She had short, sparse hair framing large eyes that were questioning even as she spoke. Jak had trained with her and knew she would accept his word.
“No, Cat, not in real firelight. Seen it, can’t trust it. Better with what know right now, with what reliable.” He patted the Colt Python that he still held.
“Fair point. I dunno about you, but I don’t want to get this far, then fuck up because of some stupid blaster,” she said, dropping it to the floor and offering a cue to the other Amazons, who had been eying the laser blasters with interest.
“Okay.” Jak grinned. “One thing sure. Know we here now. Keep frosty, stay together.” He stopped and raised his head like a wolf on the hunt as the sounds of another firefight caught his ears. He located it, then turned to this party. “More trouble— mebbe need our help. C’mon…”
THE WAR PARTY LED by Krysty and Tammy was now out in the open and making rapid progress. It had been a simple matter for them to outblast a sec defense party that was slow and unimaginative. A simple two-pronged pincer movement on the sec force when the soldiers were too slow to position themselves defensively meant that the Amazons were in among them before they had a chance to position themselves for a blast at the attackers. Swinging wildly in several directions, and with no one to lead, the sec force managed to chill one of the Amazons by accident, catching her in the side with a laser blast that seared through and fried her intestines. But in the process they also chilled two of their own number by the same expedient.
For in-close fighting, where the laser blasters became unwieldy by their size, it was a simple matter for the Amazons to use their blades to carve up the sec men, preserving ammo and using the sharpened pangas and machetes to slice through material, flesh and bone with ease, leaving the soldiers to perish in a river of blood, agony and cries of pain.
Krysty joined them, using the blade she had been given by Margia. She swung the cutting edge through the air in short, jagged arcs that cut quickly and painfully, causing incapacity rather than instant chilling, but softening up the opposition so that it was easy to chill them without the risk of injury being returned.
Finally the Amazons stood in pools of blood and mangled flesh and bone.
“One group down, bring on the next,” Tammy breathed heavily, her eyes glittering with the light of battle.
“That’s okay,” Krysty said carefully, “but we should still go triple red.”
The auburn-curled Amazon looked askance at Krysty. She could see the woman’s Titian hair was curled close to her head, and knew what that meant.
“Hey, is that just because we’re in combat, or is there something serious just around the corner?” Tammy asked in a softer tone.
Krysty licked her upper lip, listening to the rhythms and feelings inside her before answering. “Mebbe a bit of both, but more because we’re going to run into some trouble soon. An ambush, mebbe.”
“Sound advice. I’ll listen to you any day, girl,” Tammy said, trusting Krysty’s mutie sense. “Guess the best thing to do is search it out before it finds us, take the fuckers by storm. So which way does your feelie sense say it’s lurking for us?”
Krysty allowed herself a smile. “It tells me that it’s around that corner,” she said, indicating the junction at the farthest end of the corridor from where they now stood.
“Well, I guess it’d make more sense to head the other direction, but hellfire and damnation, we’ve got to get rid of these fuckers if they’re gonna be hanging around trying to chill us. So better now than later, right?”
Without pausing, she whistled a series of commands to the warriors with her. Krysty looked puzzled for a second, then figured that it was better for Tammy to do it this way, in case they could be overheard by whoever was waiting.