It wasn’t a perfect society, but there was something for everyone. If you wanted a family, you could leave and start a new life on a world where the pace suited raising one—a tech-3 world. Did you prefer living free of corporation rules and regulations? Migrate to a tech-1 world. Every world had something for everyone. But that—
Swish, Swish, Swish. It sounded like footsteps and they were getting closer. Lee slowed his breathing and tried to still his racing heart. His neck muscles stiffened.
Don’t turn around.
He couldn’t fight it anymore, his eyes darted to the side and he craned his head ever so slightly, glimpsing three long shadows, stretching towards them. The shadows shifted.
They know I’ve seen them!
He pushed Alvarez aside and pulled. “Get down!”
They tumbled together to the pavement as several objects cut the air nearby. Projectile weapons! It made sense since laser weapons would alert security forces sooner. Good thing he brought one of his own. He whipped it from his waist as he rolled over the XO. He didn’t have to hit his mark, just cover their retreat. He squeezed off eight rounds before surging to his feet.
Alvarez was on his knees now, but he hadn’t drawn his weapon yet. “They shot at us!”
Lee yanked the motionless operations officer to his feet and pulled him around a building. Several puffs hit the structure. An inch closer and Lee would be breathing from his cheeks.
“I told you . . . damnit. I’m taking operational command of this deployment until the Commander gets here. Otherwise he’ll arrive in time to bury us!”
Alvarez didn’t protest. “Well, Lieutenant, which way?” he said, finally drawing his sidearm.
“There’re four of them, could be a fifth, not sure, but he’s hanging way back for some reason. I’ll bet one of them has gone around somewhere to cut us off.” He glanced around the building, up the street and pulled back a fraction of a second before more projectiles whizzed by his ear.
He flipped out his personnel device and switched to the layout of the city, with their position marked on it. “They probably expect us to run.”
Alvarez was breathing hard. “Isn’t that what we’re going to do?”
Lee grinned. “Oh we’re gonna run alright. Right at those punks.”
“What if that isn’t what they expect us to do?”
“I’m sure a mutual friend of ours would agree, you make the decision, you stick with it and you go all in—not half way. Or something like that anyway.”
“Indeed he would. Evidently the Commander has been a great influence on you,” Alvarez said.
Lee ignored him and instead handed him the equipment bag. “On my signal, I want you to return fire up the street, there’s no one behind them. Just shoot. I’ll move across and proceed to engage them further.”
“I won’t be able to hit them from here, you know that!”
“Of course I know you’re a lousy shot and two days training on the range with an unfamiliar weapon isn’t going to change that, but it’ll give me what I need.”
“What’s that?”
He chuckled. “A different target for them to shoot at.”
Not waiting for his terrified friend’s response, Lee darted out of cover. “Now, Vee!”
Lee sprung from cover. Alvarez’s weapon fire rattled his ears. Their assailants covered themselves for a brief moment but recovered and sent a hail of projectiles towards the XO. They had to reload at some point.
Lee crouched behind a ground car and took a deep breath, gripped his sidearm and dashed forward firing. Wump! Wump! Wump! The sidearm recoiled with each shot. He kept firing, emptying his own magazine and sliding another one in while on the move and continued shooting. Multiple puffs of dust and sparks landed around his target area and that meant Alvarez must be continuing to fire as well and more importantly—the XO was still standing.
When the first attacker looked up from cover behind a ground car, Lee was still a bit far. The man raised his sidearm.
Lee jumped, feet out towards his target. He saw straight down his target’s barrel. Wham! Both boot heels landed square in the assailant’s chest, hopefully crushing a lung. He would be down a few seconds.
The second man kneeling half a meter away, stared wide-eyed and raised his sidearm. Lee, having landed on his back after the jump-kick, pivoted his waist over to his right and with his arms steadying him, he launched a sweeping left kick, knocking the gun from goon number two’s grip. It scraped away along the pavement further up the street in the direction of Alvarez.
Lee then pivoted his waist to the left, the momentum helped his right foot sweep kick the punk square across the jaw, but the goon deflected some of the blow.
The fight was on.
Lee twisted to his feet, bent his knees, raised his arms, and lowered his chin. Clenched fists protected his chin and thick arms protected his ribs. His opponent’s arms waved over each other.
Lee unleashed a flurry of quick jabs followed by a sweeping right fist and pivoted backwards. As he expected the man counter attacked with a punch of his own, not a total amateur yet not quite up to Lee’s level of expertise.
Lee sidestepped, grabbed the arm in toward him, and gripped the goons elbow—bending it in a way elbows weren’t meant to bend. Crack! The man howled.
Lee heard a shuffle from behind. The other goon likely regaining his feet.
He chopped the throat of the goon he was holding—a satisfying crunch, then a hard left cross dispatched contender number one towards the pavement. He swung the flailing unconscious goon over at the other one now regaining his feet. He pounced on contender number two and several cracking strikes later goon number two lay flat out.
Another shuffle from behind, he twisted and poised to unleash fury.
“Wo! Lee, it’s me!” Alvarez was breathing hard.
“You need to get in shape, Avery.”
“I got one, he doubled back, but I got him, no sign of the rest.” His chest heaved as he lowered his head to his knees.
“So I was wrong then,” Lee said. “He didn’t try to out flank us.”
“You were wrong and right,” Alvarez said. “Go hard or go home right? That’s why we’re a team and a crew. It’s not a one-man show. Let’s see if these guys have anything on them.”
Lee bent and rustled through the goons’ dark, tight jump suits worn underneath equally dark trench coats. Neither looked a day over thirty, both appeared clean-shaven with perfect distinguished features. They carried nothing, apart from replacement magazines for their sidearms, not even a personnel device. That made sense in this business, nothing to trace back to anywhere, except maybe the weapons. But they were only generic projectile sidearms. Anyone with a basic fabricator could make them. They were ideal for use anywhere utilizing energy dampeners. Projectile weapons were crude but effective.
Alvarez grunted and Lee looked up at him. Vee’s brow creased. He always had that look when he was processing something. “What is it?” Lee asked.
“These look like Imperial citizens,” he said.
Lee reached and picked up his sidearm. “How can you tell?”
“I can’t be sure of course. This is what Intel says they look like. Perfect-cropped hair, smooth face and flawless features. Seems these guys will go under a laser the first sign of sagging skin.”
“I’m going to take a sample from each. See what we can learn otherwise,” Lee said. He yanked out several hair follicles from each and placed them in a jacket pocket then took still images of their faces with his personnel device.