The air was filled with the piercing screams and cries of the Gate warriors as they either flattened to the concrete or raised their blasters on the run and let off the opening volley of shots. The cries served a dual purpose. Part of the self-trancing process by which the women psyched themselves up for battle and moved into a berserker mode; they also struck terror into any opponents by their sheer primal savagery.
Ryan, on the concrete with the Steyr snug in his shoulder, picking off sec men, noticed that there was a male note in among the screams. Jak, caught in his bond with Gloria and the closeness with the Amazons that he had developed while training with them, was also screaming as he moved across the concrete, snapping off shots from his Colt Python as he moved. Gloria was beside him, her eyes cold and hard, glittering with the dark fire of battle as she used her Vortak to pick off her targets, sinuously moving to avoid the erratic beams of laser fire that emanated from those Illuminated Ones who were still able to fire.
Even those brave sec men were handicapped by yet another problem not foreseen by Jorgensen. The blasters were erratic in combat when away from the confines of a target shoot. And so the sec men who were able to put up a fight found themselves let down by blasters that either jammed and cut out, or shot laser fire that moved erratically away from their aim.
At the fringes of the fan formed by the Gate, things were also happening. To the left of the main thrust, Tammy had led her phalanx of warriors until they had covered the entirety of the building’s length and spread around one of the diagonal sides. Those women who had achieved that were then able to use the oblique angle of the side of the building to shelter themselves from the emerging Illuminated Ones and pick their shots at them. The auburn-curled Gate warrior—no longer a girl but now a full-blooded Amazon—led her troops with a series of blood curdling shrieks as she circled the area in front of the doors, taking her time to pick her shots and standing upright and unafraid, her berserker instinct now to the fore. The adrenaline coursed through her veins, and if she was capable of rational thought at that moment, then she truly believed that she was invulnerable.
On the right-hand side, the Gate women led into battle by J.B. were faring as well, if a little differently in approach. The Armorer led from the front, teeth ground tight together in concentration as he leveled the Uzi, switched to continuous fire and let fly with a stream of lead at the emerging sec forces. Regardless of the ammo that was wasted in the process, he sprayed along the front of the building so that some slugs flew harmlessly into the stonework, ricocheting off and throwing out small slivers of sharpened stone and little clouds of dust. It was worth these wasted slugs for the time it saved him in aiming, firing small controlled bursts, then switching direction to aim and fire at the other doorway. The fractions of seconds saved in each sweep may have wasted ammo, but made it easier for J.B. to keep momentum in his attack, and prevent as many as possible of the sec force from emerging.
Some were chilled. They fell as they reached beyond the doorways—not enough to block them, but enough to make it harder for the next soldier out to negotiate the exit with ease while raising and aiming their laser blasters. Often it was easier for the man to stay back in the safety of the doorway and attempt to take a blast with the laser from inside, even though it narrowed the area of fire, even though it was still a clearer shot than if a fellow soldier had been in front, as some of the chilled sec men had found to their cost when they had blocked their own covering fire.
J.B.’s firing pattern had prevented a swarm of the sec force from emerging out of the doorways to his side, and enabled the Amazons to gain good positions for firing at their enemy.