“Yeah, that’s her!” a sec man cried. “Ryan’s bitch!”
“Get her!” the leader roared, charging forward. The sec man raised his blaster, but another slapped it down.
“Alive, you fool!” he barked. “You want to go to the baron’s private room?”
The officer paled and lowered his blaster while vigorously shaking his head.
Alive, eh? Good. Krysty went into a crouch and snapped off four fast shots. Three of the men dropped, clutching their bellies, but instead of scattering, the rest kept coming. Their terror of Overton overwhelmed any fear of death.
Baring her teeth in rage, the redhead turned and sprinted down the street, firing wildly over her shoulder and reloading as she ran, searching for a fast escape. She couldn’t head toward Ryan and the others, as that might give away the attack on Overton. Krysty had to play for time and hope for the best.
Taking a corner, the woman emptied the AK-47 at the mob of sec men coming up the road. A dozen of the men collapsed to the ground, and one threw a brick. She ducked and ran, her heart pounding in her chest. If that had hit her head, she would have gone down for the count. And after seeing Overton’s torture room, Krysty would rather chill herself than be taken alive by the madman.
Ducking into an alleyway, the red-haired beauty was blinded by the rising sun but ran for her life, dropping the spent magazine of her weapon as she reloaded for the last time. Thirty rounds, and she would be down to her wheelgun, useless against that many men.
Krysty slammed into a wall, losing her AK-47. The sec men shouted in victory behind her, their voices coming closer. Desperately, she clawed the surface of the barrier, searching for a door or some way over the wall. But the new wooden planks were solid and without purchase.
Voices filled the darkness of the alley, and Krysty moved to the corner where the wall met the barrier, expecting to find a rain barrel, but the area was bare. Impossible! There were always barrels to catch rainwater or snow, and buckets for garbage. That was what an alley was for!
Suddenly, the barrier shook and Krysty moved away just in time to avoid being crushed as the door swung downward, laying flat on the cobblestones. Brilliant electric lights washed over the alleyway, and she could dimly see a dozen more sec men clustered around a predark LAV 25 war wag.
“Mother Gaia, save me,” she whispered, leveling her blaster and firing steadily. It was Overton’s private garage for his war wags.
A powerful tingle started to flow into her body as the woman summoned her mutie strength. Masculine hands grabbed her from every direction, and Krysty fired her weapon directly into faces, the features of the men flashing into view for one split second before exploding from the deadly impact of the .38 hollowpoint rounds. When the blaster clicked empty, she dropped it and grabbed a sec man by the throat, crushing his neck. Somebody punched her in the stomach with no effect. Feeling as if she were in a dream, Krysty slapped him to the wall, broken teeth flying.
Another sec man grabbed her legs, and she kicked him away to fly across the alley and hit the brick wall with a sickening crunch. But then something hard rammed her head, and her vision blurred from a concussion. Drawing her belt knife, she slashed wildly, blood spraying across her body from severed arms and throats. A rifle barrel jabbed into her side, and Krysty wrestled the blaster away from its owner and reversed the deadly autofire on her attackers.
But as she pulled the trigger, it only clicked on an empty magazine. Tricked! Smashing the rifle over a sec man’s head, Krysty dashed for the LAV, planning to lock herself inside. Scrambling up the sloped side, she lifted the heavy hatch and a rifle stock slammed directly into her face. There was a moment of pain, then the world went completely black.
LONGBLASTER AT HIS SIDE, a sec man wearing a blue shirt stood at the top of a flight of stairs inside the fortress. A tremendous stained-glass window dominated the end of the hall, the morning sun filling the passage with a rainbow of hues. Listening for any sign of the baron or his officers, the guard decided to risk lighting a cigar. Gratefully, he drew in a deep lungful of the smoke and exhaled with great satisfaction. Then he felt something like a bee sting him in the chest, and a purple spot appeared on his shirt. The stain spread fast and wide as a numbing cold filled his body and he finally slumped to the floor, crushing the cigar underneath his cheek, the glowing tip hissing as it was extinguished on his bare skin.