“Contact,” Logan yelled into his mike, and dove for cover at the side of the house as Desoto ran for the far side of the street. If putting a metre of dirt between them and the shooter wouldn’t protect them, nothing there would.
“Alice, visor down.”
The suit’s visor slammed down. The world outside the suit dimmed for a split second as the visor blocked out much of the sunlight, before Logan’s eyes adjusted.
Cool air thick with oxygen blasted into his face, giving him a sudden boost as it filled his lungs and spread through his body. He’d need it as the adrenaline flooded his body and his muscles tensed, ready to spring into action.
He glanced behind him. The green squares showing Bairamov and Gallo’s positions on the HUD moved around at the end of the street.
He switched his rifle to his left hand, and held it out around the corner, watching the sight display on his HUD as he swung it around to scan the front wall of the house.
The dark rod of a rifle barrel protruded from the broken window to the left of the door, and the shooter fired again as Desoto ran for cover beside a house on the far side of the street.
A round drew sparks from the right leg of Desoto’s suit as it grazed the metal and ricocheted into the wall of the house. The rest of the burst hit the wall as the rifle’s barrel rose, and threw a cloud of dirt into the air as the rounds ploughed into the dirt piled over it.
Desoto’s leg twisted beneath him as he ran for cover, and slumped down in the alley between the two houses.
“What’s happening?” Bairamov said.
“Shooter in the house beside me,” Logan said.
“I’m hit,” Desoto said.
The gun barrel still protruded from the broken window. Whoever it was, they weren’t a very good shot. If Logan had been firing from an ambush like that, Desoto would at least be out of the fight with a badly-damaged suit, if he wasn’t dead.
That kind of inaccuracy said insurgent, and not one with much experience. Nor very smart, if he’d decided to take on a section of Legionnaires by himself.
Logan could fire at whoever was in there, and probably hit them through the wall. The rounds would still hit hard enough to hurt them, even if they didn’t have enough velocity left to kill. But there could be a whole family in the house, and only one of them was shooting.
“Can you see what’s in the house?” he said. “Can you see who shot at you?”
“All I saw was this house I’m taking cover behind, while I was running for it as fast as I could go.”
Logan glanced toward Desoto. The status around Desoto’s position on his HUD showed suit damage, but nothing beyond that. The hit had damaged the suit’s leg, but not the man inside.
As Desoto glanced around the corner of the house, the rifle fired again. Two rounds punched through the corner of the dirt pile as Desoto ducked back, and a cloud of dirt flew out from the house alongside as its walls finally stopped them. The rest of the burst blew narrow craters in the dirt near Desoto.
“Do you have a positive ID on your targets?” Bairamov said.
“I don’t have crap,” Desoto said. “Just some asshole shooting at me from a house across the street.”
“Do not engage without a positive ID.”
Logan glanced toward the girl. He could barely see her past the steps, but she was pushing herself up and staring his way, holding her bag close to her chest as her body shook.
He pulled the grenade launcher from his shoulder, crouched at the corner of the house, and aimed at the window. It was just a narrow slit from that angle, but he wasn’t aiming to hit the shooter. The rifle fired again, and more dirt erupted from the house near Desoto.
Logan selected smoke. The launcher thumped, and and it hammered against his shoulder as he fired a three-shot burst.
The grenades flew toward the window, trailing the first hint of grey smoke behind them. A cloud of smoke burst from the window as they flew through it, bounced off the walls, and landed inside. A second later, one of the grenades flew back out, as the shooter grabbed it and tossed it through the window into the street.
But the other two were still billowing out smoke inside the house. Without a mask, the shooter wouldn’t last long in there.
Logan slung the launcher over his left shoulder, and grabbed his gaussrifle with his right. It wouldn’t be very accurate if he had to shoot from the hip, but it wouldn’t need to be at this range. He just needed a clear target in front of him, and the rate of fire would do the rest.
“Moving,” he yelled. Then slammed his foot onto the dirt, and pushed himself up from his knees.
The smoke cloud was spreading into the street through the smashed window as he rushed around the corner of the house, toward the metal door between the windows.
His heart pounded as he raised the suit’s power-assisted right foot and slammed it into the door.
The metal clanged as his foot smacked into it. Then the lock and hinges gave way under the force of his kick, and the door flew backwards into the house, scattering wooden chairs across the room as it slammed into the table behind it.
Logan swung the rifle as he leaned into the doorway.
Thick smoke filled the interior of the house. If he wasn’t wearing the suit with its air conditioning, he’d be coughing and spluttering by now. A red square appeared on his HUD. Alice’s sensors had spotted someone in the rear of the house, moving away from him.
“Runner,” Logan yelled, and crouched as he strode through the room, as fast as he could move without smacking his head or arms into the ceiling or walls.
If anyone else had been in there with the shooter, they’d have been running out of the door to get away from the smoke well before now. The wooden table crunched beneath his feet as he stomped down on it.
Something else crunched beneath the wood. The rifle. The shooter must have dropped it there as they ran.
Of course.
No-one got a clear view of his face while he was shooting. Without the rifle, he could just mingle among the villagers, and the Legion would never find him unless those villagers were willing to give him up.
Logan ignored the rifle, and charged onward. He had to catch the man before it was too late. Logan’s metal arms smashed against the frame of the doorway between the living room and the kitchen as he barged through it to get to the back of the house. The back door was open, out onto the brightly-lit dirt yard behind the house.
A man wearing a leather jacket and long brown pants above mud-smeared leather boots was hobbling away from the house, coughing. Logan pushed the kitchen table aside, scattering pots and pans across the floor in a cacophony of clangs and clatters, then charged out through back door. The shoulders of his suit hit the metal door frame, but it tore loose from the wooden frame of the house, and clattered to the ground behind him.
“Halt,” Logan yelled.
The man jogged toward the field of corn behind the house, still coughing from the smoke, and leaving a thin brown cloud behind him as his boots kicked up loose dirt from the surface of the yard. The chickens squawked and scattered as he stomped between them, and the pig stared out through the wooden fence around its pen, swinging its head from side to side to watch the action, and snorting at the men.
Without the rifle, there was no way to prove the man in the leather jacket was the one who’d been shooting at them.
But he’d been inside the house, or he wouldn’t be coughing from the smoke. And who else would start running away, when a Legionnaire told him to stop?
Maybe that didn’t count as a positive ID to the officers, but it seemed positive enough right now. Logan could argue the technicalities with Bairamov later. He took a long step toward the fields, following the man.
Then something exploded behind Logan.