“Ace ’em!” Ryan ordered, reining in his mount and turning to shoot.
The barrage of rounds from the companions hit the cats everywhere, blood covering their muscular bodies. But the lead seemed to have no effect, and the cats leaped to turn in the air and charge at the mounted people, snarling with blood lust.
Trying to find the left shoulder, Ryan swung his rifle and both cats dodged. Fireblast, they were fast! Choosing a different target, the one-eyed man pumped a 7.62 mm round directly into the left eye of the male cougar. The animal jerked at the impact and shook its head to snap a bite to the left. But now their horses refused to advance and were backing away from the gate.
J.B. put a spray of 9 mm Parabellum rounds into the female and she turned toward them with eyes of green fury, her mouth scissoring the flapping piece of face.
Struggling with the heavy H&H rifle, Krysty fired just as her horse bucked, the heavy slug smashing into a burning adobe house and blowing a gaping hole in the mud bricks. Then Mildred fired four fast shots directly in front of the cougars, the lead glancing off the cobblestones, the noise and sparks making the pair retreat slightly.
Yanking on the bolt, Ryan yanked out the clip and stuffed in his last loaded spare. The big cats were too heavily muscled for anything but the .475 round to penetrate from a distance. The short Parabellum nines and the blackpowder rounds just couldn’t get in deep enough to reach any organs. The shoulder was the only really vulnerable spot. The muscle was thin there and a well placed shot could reach the bone, blowing out a halo of bone splinters like shrapnel directly in the heart. But it was a bastard tricky shot, especially on an animal that could move faster than most wags could drive. Their speed was incredible!
Using both handcannons, Doc fired and missed.
Switching to the shotgun, J.B. hit the female and wounded her in the side, but nothing fatal. Krysty fired again, but it was only a graze. Dean banged away steadily with his Browning, making the male turn, and Ryan paused before firing again, hitting the cougar smack in the left shoulder.
The beast froze from the pain, galvanized for a half a heartbeat, and then it slumped to the ground. Puzzled, the female made a noise at its mate, then turned its attention to Ryan and worked its rear legs, hunching up for a charge when the sec men appeared at the mouth of the side street. The cat whipped around, startled by the intrusion of more people.
“We’re wasting time and ammo!” Ryan shouted, as a shot hummed by his head. “Use a gren!”
Already with a sphere in hand, J.B. pulled the pin on the implo gren and threw.
Landing between the sec men and the cougar, the device activated on impact, generating its killing gravity field, compacting men, animal, street and buildings in a microsecond pulse of total destruction. As the dust cleared, only a mangled pile of twitching flesh remained at the bottom of a mirror smooth crater, none of the ooze could easily be identified as either man or cat.
“Good thing that worked,” J.B. said with a sigh, easing his grip on another gren. “Only one of these babies left to use on the gate.”
“Nuke that,” Ryan said, studying the width of the steaming crater. “Use it on the wall right here.”
“Here?” the Armorer repeated, looking at the imposing barrier. “If the grav field doesn’t go all the way through, we’re trapped for good.”
“Better chance here than of us reaching the front gate alive,” Ryan countered, the alarm bells starting to ring once more. “Those are for us, and I’m betting that they know where we’re headed.”
Nodding in agreement, J.B. galloped to the end of the street, set the timer and heaved the gren. His aim was good, and it landed on top of the twenty-foot wall with a clatter.
He was already riding back to join the others when a sec man appeared on the parapet of the wall holding the gren and raising it high to throw back down.