“Too damn close,” she replied, trying the MAC-11. The hissing autofire hosed a full clip down the tunnel with no results.
High up on the frame, a shiny square edged past the door, and Ryan shattered the mirror, a finger dropping to the ground. A stream of curses sounded and again several revolvers popped into view, firing wildly.
Ryan shot a blaster out of its owner’s grip, the weapon spinning away over the sandbags. Then Krysty gave a spray from the noisy Skorpion. Lacking a suppressor, its bullets hit harder, blowing chunks of wood from the frame, leaving clusters of splinters sticking out.
Shifting the med kit on her back, Krysty mentally wished she hadn’t thrown away the dead gren. It would have bought them seconds of shock when they were forced to rush the doorway. Caught between an unknown number of armed sec men behind, and only a few ahead of them, a frontal charge was the logical way out. At least the ville guards were on foot. None of their wags had gotten past the burning APC. Yet.
Easing a fresh clip into the Steyr, Ryan fired randomly at the barrier, but only two holes showed daylight and nobody shouted in pain.
Just then, shots boomed from down the tunnel, and a miniball impacted on the ground between them.
“Shit, they can see our silhouettes,” Krysty spit, crouching lower and firing back. This time, she got a hit, but it was only a single voice.
“And they have our range. This is it. We got to chance a charge,” Ryan said, rising and drawing his SIG-Sauer. “You ready?”
Standing, Krysty worked the bolts on both of her weapons. “See you in hell, lover.”
For a precious second, the man and woman exchanged private glances, then started to creep forward, but froze motionless when a long sharp whistle sounded from outside, closely followed by two more.
Separating to the opposite sides of the tunnel, Krysty crossed her arms at the wrists and aimed her blasters in both directions as Ryan chanced an answering whistle. A guttural voice on the other side of the barrier asked a question to somebody in the negative just as the wooden slats furiously shook from a barrage of machine-gun fire and the telltale discharge of the predark LeMat. Men screamed, handblasters discharging from their death convulsions. Bodies fell into view. The Uzi chattered once more, followed by another thundering round from the LeMat, then silence.
Whistling again, Ryan got an answer. Exiting the tunnel, the companions relaxed a notch as J.B. and Doc walked from the idling Hummer parked near a curb. But the smiles on the two men quickly faded when they saw the serious expressions on the man and woman.
“You folks okay?” J.B. asked in concern, cradling the Uzi.
“Gaia, no,” Krysty replied, scrambling over the sandbag wall. “We have an army on our tail.”
“Then we must leave, posthaste!” Doc said, waving away the tendrils of smoke from the muzzle of his black-powder hog-leg.
Shouldering his rifle, Ryan snarled, “Fuck that. Got any grens, or plas-ex?”
“Not a thing. Used it all killing the muties,” J.B. said. “Even our one LAW is gone.”
“How about spare fuel?”
Seeing where the man was going, J.B. got the idea. “No, but we have two alcohol lanterns we took from some sec men. That should do the job.”
“Get them. You two, block the doorway,” Ryan ordered, going for the Hummer.
Moving fast, Krysty and Doc holstered their weapons and started tossing sandbags from the wall in front of the open doorway until the stack was chest high. J.B. and Ryan returned at a run, lit the wicks on the lanterns and threw them onto the barrier. The lanterns crashed high on the wooden half circle of the tunnel’s mouth, the flaming alcohol flowing down the planks and spreading until the entire front was crackling and smoking.
“That won’t hold the baron’s men for very long,” J.B. stated.
“Not supposed to,” Ryan said, blinking in the pale daylight. Rumbling with thunder, the dirty clouds were low in the sky and a lot darker in color. Lightning flashed, and the winds increased slightly. The storm that had been threatening to break ever since they first arrived was now only hours away. Acid rain or a sandstorm, either could be an advantage if handled correctly.