The revolver thundered in the shadows. Its muzzle flare illuminated Chloe Delgado's face, twisted with rage as she fired. Her first shot blew a hole in the chair beside the AmpCore operative, missing him by inches.
The second flew true.
But it didn't hit him.
She'd fired a third and forth shot before she realised. Without the bulky body armour of the corporate troopers the man should have been blown open by the heavy calibre rounds, but he pivoted toward her with the speed of a cobra, his wand flaring.
One shell simply vaporised maybe foot from him. The next two met similar fates, dissolving into sprays of orange sparks that showered the man harmlessly. In the light she got a better look at his face, his deeply tanned skin smooth like a sheet of bronze, grey eyes so bright they were almost silver. His expression was one of mild amusement.
Then he flicked his wrist.
She hurled herself aside in the nick of time, and a bolt of boiling, orange white death gored a hole clean through the pillar she'd been hiding behind. Bullets crackled all around her as the guards opened fire. One hit her in the thigh; another went clean through her shoulder while a third nicked the left side of her face, just grazing her temple.
Delgado rolled, screaming in pain. She managed to swing into a sitting position long enough to let off two more shots, aiming for the guards instead of the agent. Another corporate agent went down, his head whipping back as one of her bullets blew through the faceplate of his helmet.
Then she was shoving herself backward on uninjured leg, swearing and shooting in alternate motions, just thinking of the window she knew was only a few meters behind.
Section of the floor beside her suddenly buckled and cratered, almost tipping her in. With a howl of effort she heaved her body away from it. Some invisible force yanked at her ankles, and it took a moment for her to realise who was responsible.
Two more shots from her revolver were enough to break the operative's concentration, as he paused long enough to deflect the bullets away.
Long enough for her to stand and turn.
Long enough to shoot the glass out of the window.
With pain thundering through every piece of her, Chloe jumped awkwardly off of one leg, flinging her battered body through the narrow opening. Broken glass cut her arms and side as she tumbled through, before she slammed to the street outside.
Coughing up a mouthful of blood, she spat it out onto the street and took off, limping awkwardly towards the nearest alleyway. She coiled around unsteadily, long enough to empty the rest of the clip back the way she'd come to force a corporate trooper who'd reached the window to duck back inside.
Delgado lurched behind a car, just as a spray of bullets snapped at her heels. Glass shattered; the vehicle alarm blared. She heard the startled cries of civilians nearby, people brave or foolish enough to have poked their noses out into the night to see what all the noise was about.
She loosed off a wild shot, aiming blindly over the top of the car, before launching herself into a stumbling run into the narrow alley beyond. Warm liquid soaked her leg; she could feel jolts of agony with every step, but she forced herself on. Hadrian would have to work a little harder to finish her off.
Growling in pain, she blundered through the narrow space between the adjacent buildings and crashed out onto a main road. Even at the late hour there was plenty of traffic and footfall here, and startled people recoiled from her as through she was radioactive.
Booted footsteps echoed down the alley after her.
Delgado turned, and sank to one knee, revolver held shakily in one hand. Two corporate troopers led the way, rifles raised for the kill, but confined by the narrow alley, they were easy targets for an experienced marksman, even in her current state.
She emptied the rest of the clip. The trooper out in front fired a split second later, but one of her shots smacked into his shoulder guard. The impact whipped him sideways, dragging the trajectory of his shooting in a wild arc that tore through two innocent bystanders behind Delgado.
All hell broke loose.
Vehicles swerved and crashed as bullets spattered into the street. People started running in all directions as panic took hold. Delgado stuffed the empty revolver awkwardly back into its holster and shambled her way into the crush, slithering over the bonnet of a parked car and almost collapsing.
The loading yard was just behind the next line of buildings. If she could get there, she just might have a chance.
Keep going, Chloe, she urged herself. No freebees for the fucking corps.
The longer she kept them busy, the longer Kirk and Arden had to get away; to use what they'd found so far.
The next narrow alleyway swallowed her up. She slipped; almost fell. Blood was running into her boot. Dimly, she wondered how much blood she'd already lost.
A wrenching, scream of breaking metal jolted her ears and she looked back. A pair of cars flipped simultaneously to the left and right, flying end over end before smashing back down onto the road. Through the gap stalked the AmpCore agent, his face set with sheer fury. His wand snapped out and she felt her legs yanked from under her, slamming front first down onto the pavement with a gasp of shock.
"Fucking freak!" someone screamed.
"CORPS OUT, CORPS OUT!"
A fresh hail of bullets crackled through the street.
The operative's face flickered with frustration and she saw the tiny flares of orange where shots melted against whatever shield the bastard had. More gunfire swelled; she saw ragged-robed figures firing on the corporate thug squad, spilling out of a rickety looking converted half track.
Dock gangers, maybe? Hard to tell from this distance, but they seemed better equipped than your average citizen of Hadrian. She could make out rifles and shotguns alongside an eclectic array of smaller sidearms.
The corporate guards returned fire – better armoured and better armed. Their bullets carved through the newcomers and more bodies fell on the street.
Delgado didn't waste the chance. She didn't know, and frankly didn't care who had been stupid enough to engage the corps in a full on gun battle. It simply meant that she had a lifeline. Struggling upright, she hobbled towards the clang and clatter of the loading yard, the stink of gasoline and hot metal filling her nostrils as she drew closer.
She emerged from the alley into a narrow street, and on the other side of it was a rusting chain fence that ringed the local loading yard. Big dark shapes of cargo haulers idled in the gloom beneath the swinging arms of massive cranes. Cargo crates the size of buses flew like airborne whales, brought in from the barges on the docks and transferred here to be freighted north.
It took a few precious seconds for Delgado to locate her target, but eventually she spotted it – the logo – an orange globe and red set against a spherical fiery background.
Prometheus Haulage. She recognised the great tracked behemoth. It was a heavy freight auto-liner, easily fifteen carriages long with each one rising twenty feet high, wrapped in brass metal.
Growling in pain with every step, Delgado stumbled to the fence. With a screech of pain and effort that left her throat raw, she hauled herself up and over the barrier, slamming to the ground on the other side. Agony pulsed through her leg and shoulder; she could taste more blood and felt light-headed.
Just a little longer, just a little longer.
Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment to get a grip on the pain, she slowly levered herself up right once more, finally taking a moment to glance down at her leg. The bullet had punched through her outer right thigh – hopefully that meant it had missed anything too vital. Feeling around, gingerly, she found an exit wound, slick with blood.
At least the bullet wasn't still in her. Corps were a victim of their own hardware sometimes.
"Some fucking luck," she chuckled hoarsely, shaking her head in amazement at her own bar for 'good news'. Sucking deep breaths through gritted teeth, she shuffled on towards the open hatch in the flank of the hauler's rear compartment, where creaking crane arms were still shovelling cargo inside. The disinterested operators of the loading station wouldn't be paying much attention – she was will to bet her life on that.
Clutching her side and feeling blood leaking between her fingers, she struggled on. The gunfire behind her died out, and she knew that meant she only had moments.
Ducking low, and moving as stealthily as someone in her condition could really manage, she crunched her way across the gravelly concourse of the loading yard, keeping to the shadows until she reached the vast bulk of the hauler.
Chancing a backward glance, she saw the AmpCore agent come storming out of the alley, without so much as a scratch to show for the altercation. He didn't even break stride, flicking his wand at the fence. It peeled open like paper and he stepped through, guards fanning out behind him.
Narrowly avoiding being crushed by the last of the titanic cargo crates, Delgado made an undignified sight as she squirmed and wriggled her way up into the open loading bay, rolling inside and leaving a trail of crimson in her wake.
A deep boom echoed through the compartment as the final crate slammed into place several meters above her head. On the bottom level, she half-crawled, half-rolled until she could prop herself into a sitting position against one of the metal hulks.
"All personnel," a toneless woman's voice blared. "Please stand clear. Loading complete – outer doors will seal in five..."
The countdown began, and only when the automated announcement rang through the yard did the AmpCore agent finally spot her, twisting towards the hauler, eyes wide with outrage. Just before the loading door boomed shut, she mustered the energy to raise her middle finger to him. Then the door closed and darkness enveloped her.
As the huge machine's engine thundered into life, Chloe closed her eyes, and promptly passed out.
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