As she had thought, the rider had to veer away at the last moment, and Tammy followed the line of the turn as her blaster came up. At the point of the turn, where the rider was still for the merest fraction of a second, Tammy’s blaster was at the optimum height.
The auburn-haired Amazon snapped off a shot that caught the blonde on the right temple, boring a small hole just above her hairline. The exit wound on the other side of her head was larger and messier, spreading bone, blood and brain across the corridor. As her grip loosened on the throttle, the engine of the bike stalled, and a sudden silence hit the air, broken only by the clatter of machine and rider as they tumbled sideways and bit the concrete floor.
Krysty and the rest of the attack party were already in the corridor, checking the direction in which the rider had originally come. It was empty.
“She must have been a lone scout,” Tammy said, joining them and breathing slowly and deeply to calm her racing pulse. “A brave warrior. I hope her chilling was quick.”
“Seems so,” Krysty replied. She glanced up and down the corridor, and could feel her hair relax around her nape. “Guess that’s the immediate danger dealt with.”
“Good,” Tammy said decisively. “We need to get on, try to link up with the others. If they’re doing as we are, then the objective should be in sight.”
“Let’s hope so,” Krysty said, experience lending her a note of caution.
It wasn’t over until it was over.
MILDRED’S PARTY HAD MADE its way down the service stairs and out into the corridor beyond. Tapping in the sec code to open the door, Mildred was uneasy at how quiet the descent had been. Leaving cover to survey and take up defensive positions in the corridor beyond, her unease had grown to a kind of jumpiness.
“What the hell are they doing?” one of her companions whispered. “They must know we’re here.”
“Playing the waiting game,” Mildred said simply. “They lay right off us, drawing us farther and farther into the open and into their territory. We get more and more tense until the point where we make mistakes and then we become easy meat.”
“Shit, but we can’t just stay here.”
Mildred smiled, a grimace with no humor. “That’s why it’s such a good plan, girl.”
The party began to advance, their light footfalls sounding hollow in the empty space of the concrete tunnel. The walls were painted white, and the harsh fluorescent lighting up above seemed to do nothing more than starkly highlight them against the emptiness of the space.
Mildred hoped that something would happen soon.
Her nerves were stretched taut, and the adrenaline coursing through her veins made her guts churn with the need for release.
There was a T-junction a few hundred feet ahead. An Amazon looked back at Mildred and gestured with her blaster at each side of the junction, indicating her belief that any ambush would lay beyond.
It seemed reasonable. Mildred moved forward until she was beside the woman.
“We need to see if there’s anyone there, and on which side, to draw their fire,” Mildred whispered. “No way can we recce without losing whoever’s fool enough to volunteer.”
The Amazon, a small black woman with plaited hair like Mildred’s, nodded her affirmation. “Question is, how do we draw that fire?”
Mildred didn’t answer at first, but rummaged around in the pockets of her jacket. Despite its apparent clumsiness in a firefight, she had opted to keep it with her because it contained—besides her spare ammo—some of the medical supplies she carried with her and a few things J.B. had given her.
“Now, this may just do the trick.” She smiled, producing a small canister that she held out, cradled in the palm of her hand.
“What the fuck is that?” the woman asked.
“It’s a distress flare. It came from one of the redoubts we were in a long time back. It’s not as big as the usual outdoor distress flares, and what the hell use it is if you’re stuck somewhere I don’t know, but that’s not why it’s going to be useful right now, is it?”