I knew the officer I had slugged would radio her security detail to head me off. And sure enough, I could see teams of warriors bustling out of the buildings at the base of the twin piers up ahead. More shouts behind me and a laser bolt crackling bright red lanced past my ear. A warning shot. They won’t try to kill me, I reasoned. They want me alive for questioning. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t gleefully burn my legs off.
I dodged behind one of the metal prefabricated buildings and started running off at a tangent to the beach. The piers were out, too well guarded. But if I could get to the water perhaps I could wait awhile, then swim back to the place where I had stashed my flight pack and weapons. If the Skorpis did not find them first.
As I bolted around the corner of another building, angling off toward the beach once more, a team of six Skorpis suddenly loomed ahead of me. All of them armed with rifles. I gave them no chance to aim at me. I dived into them with a rolling block, barreling into their legs, knocking several of them down. My senses were in overdrive, and I saw them tangling each other’s arms and legs, cursing and snarling as they tried to pull themselves loose and get at me. I grabbed the rifle out of the hands of one of them, clubbed him to his knees with its butt, then flipped it around and fired into them point-blank.
I had no time to see how much damage I had done. Leaving them writhing on the ground, I dashed off toward the beach once again. To my left I could see a squad of Skorpis running along the sand in my direction. I had to get to the water before they saw me.
Too late. They saw in the dark much better than I did, and they quickly fired several rifle blasts at my feet, puffing up gritty pebbles and sand. I skidded to a stop and they ceased shooting and came running toward me.
I fired from the hip, one-handed, and knocked the closest two of them down. Then I flung myself face-first on the ground as the rest of them dropped to their knees and shot back at me.
There was no time for a firefight. If they pinned me down here for more than a few moments, the whole Skorpis base would be upon me. I had no choice. I leaped to my feet, firing as I ran, and raced for the water as fast as my legs would carry me.
My firing made them duck their heads a bit, but before I had taken a dozen strides a laser bolt seared my hip. I spun around, staggered, then drove on toward the water. Clamping down on the blood vessels, shutting off the pain signals, I limped toward the sea, only a tantalizingly dozen or so meters away now.
Another bolt hit my leg and I flopped down, rolled, and used my rifle to haul myself up again. I hopped, hobbled, staggered for the water as the Skorpis warriors came running toward me.
“Alive!” I heard one of them yell. “Take him alive!”
That was my one hope. I shot two more of the warriors as I tottered for the water. More laser blasts hit me, in the legs, in the chest. They were no longer worried about preserving me for interrogation; I was hitting too many of them.
I splashed into the surf, still firing, still being hit. Despite my rigid self-control I felt as if my legs had been burned off. Another bolt burned my shoulder so badly that I dropped the rifle. It hissed as its hot barrel struck the water.
The world was spinning. The surf surging against my bloodied legs, knocking me over as more laser blasts lanced past my head. They were shooting to kill.
I crawled into the waves, letting the water surge over me, cool and stinging with salt. Like a crab I scrabbled along the sandy bottom as the water flowed over my head, covering me, protecting me from their merciless lasers. I tasted salt water in my mouth, felt it filling my nose. I was deep enough now to float up off the bottom and let the current carry me out farther from the land.