“Er, Al…” Rack said quietly, tapping the sec chief on the arm with an index finger and using the same finger to point at the two monitors. “Al, are you certain about that? Maybe you didn’t…” He let his words dangle, unfinished, in the air.
“Shit,” Al muttered, seeing all too clearly that he was sending his people to their chilling.
While he watched, the front line of the attack rounded the corner of a building and entered a hail of fire from the Gate forces, the two men with rifles repeating fire from their Sharps and Lee Enfield .303 to cut down three men before the others following fell back, yelling into their microphones a cacophony of garbled confusion that came in red static through Al’s headset.
On the other side, Doc loosed a charge of shot that ripped into the chest of the first person to confront him, the woman’s uniform shredding like her flesh and the splintered bone beneath as she was thrown backward into the man behind. That saved him, as the ball shot was next, flying harmlessly over his head to shatter the visor and helmet of the third warrior in line, whose microphone cut off with a violent crackle as he gurgled a voiceless scream.
Simon leaned across and gripped Al by the arm. “We’re getting slaughtered out there. Let them come to us here, where we can really fuck them over.” Casting a glance back at the monitors and the carnage outside, he wasn’t sure if he really believed that, but he had to say something to jolt Jorgensen from his frozen and disbelieving stupor. Even as he looked, the Illuminated One who had been saved from Doc’s second shot by the falling body of the chilled soldier in front of him had managed to scramble to his feet, only to be taken out by a blast from the blaster carried by the swarthy man beside Doc.
Jorgensen shook his head, unable to believe that his tactics had gone so wrong. “This is a fuckin’ nightmare,” he whispered before craning forward over the monitors and yelling into the mouthpiece of his headset, trying to cut across all the noise from his confused, wounded and dying sec force.
“All units, all units, listen! Fall back. Just get the fuck out and regroup at base. Fall back now.”
“THEY’RE FALLING back, John,” Mildred yelled over the shrieks of the Amazons and the roar of blasters. She was standing in a combat shooting stance near the Armorer, both hands steadying her Czech-made ZKR as she took careful aim at the exposed Illuminated Ones.
“Yeah, but it may be a blind,” J.B. shouted back over the chattering sound of his Uzi. “I reckon we should keep firing until the last of the bastards have disappeared.”
“I’ll second that,” Dean yelled, training his Browning Hi-Power on an open door, “but I reckon Mildred’s right.”
It soon became apparent that Mildred was correct, and the firing from the Amazons and Ryan’s people soon slowed to nothing as it became apparent that the Illuminated Ones had withdrawn into the building.
Keeping their blasters ready, the Gate gathered in the center of the forum to hear their queen.
“Looks like we win this round,” she said, “but if we’re going to follow them in there, well, they’ve got the drop on us, then.”
“A suggestion,” Ryan put in. “Mebbe we establish a bulkhead just inside the building, secure it so that we aren’t in the open but we’ve also gained ground. Then mebbe we can get an idea of the layout before we go any farther.”
Gloria nodded. “Good. Tammy, get the wags out here, see how the men have fared.”
Then, turning as the auburn-haired warrior set off for the trailing caravan, the queen turned to her sister. “Get their blasters, Marg. Detail some to help. Then we gather the chilled.”
Jak and Dean helped Margia and two of the Amazons to gather the blasters. There were twenty-three dead Illuminated Ones around the five exits, and all the blasters had been left behind. In contrast, there were only three chilled Gate warriors.
Tammy arrived with the wags. Jon and Petor had, at her behest, gathered the blasters from the chilled Illuminated Ones that the menfolk had accounted for, giving the tribe another twelve laser blasters.