“Hey, the wee one’s going for the big one,” the Gate queen yelled at the men with her. “Our Tammy’s going forward. Let’s get in line and get after her.”
“I still can’t see too well,” Dean said urgently. “How the hell can I aim?”
“I can’t see too well, either,” Jon answered, “but we just need to keep firing in the right direction. Try and keep it low. We need to put that fucking big bastard blaster out of action, and there’s no way we’ll do it any damage unless we can knock out the tires. If it can’t move, or if we can get it to pitch over, then it won’t be of much use to them.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Dean said, following Gloria and Jon as they progressed. They had no idea that Ryan was trying to open the sec door, but figured that one of the other party had to be trying, as there would be no sense otherwise in a forward push.
Back at the sec door, Ryan had pulled himself upright, and was painfully aware of how vulnerable he was. He stood by the keypad that accessed the door code, squinting to try to read the numbers that were scratched on the metal plate in which the keypad was housed. The fact that human nature didn’t change, and that worried sec foot soldiers still found it a fail-safe to scratch the access codes on the interior plate of every door, was something that the one-eyed man felt thankful for as his eye began to return to its normal vision, and he was able to read the numbers as he keyed them in.
The sec door began to open, groaning into action, and he leaned heavily against the concrete pillar that framed the door. His heart was still pounding, but he could feel strength begin to flow back through his limbs as he began to breathe more normally, the oxygen reaching muscles filled with lactic acid that could now disperse, the shock of the flight and impact beginning to lessen as his resilience took over.
Blowing hard, he turned to watch the light flood the immediate outside area. The question was, how long would it be before the remote was activated and the door began to close again? For he was sure that it would, and it was playing percentages to see if it would rise enough for the oncoming attacks to gain access before the remote kicked in.
The door, seeming to rise with an infinite slowness in his impatience, reached the height of Ryan’s head. Let it rise a foot or two more, and that would be all that was needed.
His attention was distracted by the furor occurring farther down the redoubt tunnel. The onrush of the six people dressed in Illuminated uniforms had taken the actual Illuminated Ones by surprise. Their vision and reactions hadn’t recovered as quickly as those of their opponents, and they had been completely caught out by the sudden barrage of laser fire. To this was added conventional blasterfire, as Gloria and Tammy clutched their laser rifles in one hand, and used their free hands to take pot shots at anything they could see.
The Illuminated soldiers were unable to compete with this sudden onslaught, and were thrown into confusion by the attack. Unable to return fire, other than the desultory blast as they pulled back, the Illuminated Ones were driven farther into their own lair. Jon and Dean, keeping their blasts low, were able to blow the tires on the cannon’s wag, and as the first tire went the wag tilted, throwing off the cannon crew. They didn’t bother to try to remount, scrambling backward to escape the oncoming war party.
Three Illuminated soldiers went down, injured or chilled, as laser fire cut through their flesh and bone. There was little blood, as the heat of the beams cauterized the flesh as it cut through. The others pulled back to the next sec door, taking up defensive positions as the companions advanced. Once they were safely behind the sec door, it began to descend.
There was no way that the advancing party would reach the door before it closed, and no way that they could open it from their side…and if they did manage to get beyond, they would be at the mercy of whatever reinforcements were being sent along, having to defend their position while reopening the sec door for the Gate and Crossroads warriors who would follow.