Losan and Reylo flung their respective side doors open while Unta went out by the driver’s seat. Losan fired his rifle before Vanaka could join him, and as she did she saw a man flop down over by a small table and an accompanying set of chairs. There was gunfire from the other side of the car, and bright, sparky hits over by rows of shipping boxes. Losan moved smoothly into cover by the car, while Vanaka made for a closer row of boxes. Kiris joined her and they crouched down.

Boxes of plain metals, plastics or ceramics were never going to actually stop plasma fire; Vanaka’s adrenaline-tweaked brain remained perfectly aware of that. The point was to obscure one’s location. But that row of boxes about fifty metres away was only so big, and now Unta, Reylo, Losan and Kiris poured fire through them. Vanaka’s stunner was useless at that kind of range, and now when the moment had arrived she wondered if she’d been an utter fool.

She tried to contribute by gazing about from where she crouched, getting a feel for their surroundings. They were in a long open space, but the interior was sectioned off to some degree by walls, and the rows of dusty shipping boxes were scattered about with no sign of organisation. The place had an overall look of disuse and abandonment; just the right location for a vile underworld operation. There was a closed door to the left, and that was the extent of what she was able to take in before Unta shouted “He’s down!”

Vanaka dared to poke her head out. There were supposedly a minimum of six people here at all times, and she’d only just finished that thought when she heard the sound of an engine firing up, followed by the screech of tires.

A car came into view from further inside the storage. It was smaller but even more robust than Unta’s, covered with custom-fitted plates, and accelerated shockingly fast. Vanaka couldn’t tell if it was an attack or a desperate escape attempt, but some of the others opened fire and she thought it was Unta who hit one of the front wheels.

The car went into an uncontrollable skid, knocking aside crates as it went and coming straight for Vanaka and Kiris. The Chanei broke into a run, but Vanaka wasn’t sure the woman would make it. So she launched herself out of the car’s way with all of her strength and speed and tackled Kiris as she went. She sent both of them well clear and even managed to twist and cushion the landing to a fair degree.

The car smashed through where they’d been a moment earlier, but had now lost enough momentum that the next mess of crates it hit brought the vehicle to a shuddering stop. Reylo came at a run, firing both pistols in a rapid flurry aimed at the driver’s side. His shots ate through the metal and the opaque windows, and as he came within spitting distance the former pirate finally took careful aim through the destroyed driver’s side window and fired one final shot.

One of the passenger doors popped open, and a woman with a compact gun in her hand let herself flop out and down on the floor. She’d escaped the shower of plasma that had killed the driver, but Kiris had now disentangled herself from Vanaka and gotten up on one knee. The Chanei aimed her pistol, a fraction of a second before the slaver noticed her, and fired as the woman tried to bring her own weapon to bear.

Kiris didn’t need a second shot, but Reylo came around the destroyed car and fired into the body all the same. There would be time to be horrified later. For now, Vanaka sprang up on her feet, although she did try to keep her profile low. She was just close enough to the door to hear the handle being turned, and just wired enough to act immediately.

Vanaka rammed the door with all her strength before it had opened more than a crack, and it struck the man behind it like a giant metal fist. On his way down he hit a second man and knocked him off-balance. The third man had been standing clear. They were dressed for bed, but the guns in their hands kept the sight from being silly.

She fired her stunner into the third man and he fell. The second one recovered enough to raise his gun and Vanaka bounded sideways even as she fired a second time. Her crackling arc went wide and his lethally scorching plasma hit the corner of yet another stack of crates before she made it behind them. She heard a shot come from outside the door and risked a peek out of cover, leading with her stunner.

The half-dressed slaver shifted his gun her way in an instant and she ducked into cover again. His shot went straight through the crate at her chest level and met her armoured chestpiece. She felt a flash of heat, as if she’d spilled tea on her shirt. She let herself fall backwards, landing with a loud thump. She scooted frantically to the side until she spotted him again, and this time she was first to react.

Her arc shot out, but his own search for cover had taken him behind some kind of wire meshing, and of course it stopped her miniature lightning dead. He in turn fired right through it as she rolled back out of sight, and his shot went through the boxes again and into the floor. Another shot came through the door, and another, and Vanaka heard her foe’s bare feet loudly patting on the floor.

She put her foot against a solitary shipping crate, her free arm against the floor, and then kicked out hard. The box slid across the floor like a puck and broke the mesh from its frame. She peeked out again and saw that she had hit the man, at least some. And before he could recover Losan came into the doorway and shot him. The man who’d taken the door to the face stirred, and so Losan shot him as well.

“Wait!” Unta said before Losan could shoot the one she’d stunned. The ex-cop entered and acted out his old profession as he seized the man and flipped him over onto his stomach.

“Might be useful,” he said, as he fastened the slaver’s wrists with what looked like store-bought strips.

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Everyone else filed in. Kiris spared Vanaka a glance, and then went back to being on alert.

“That’s seven,” Reylo commented, and started the rather awkward process of reloading two handguns. “How many more?”

He stepped up to the captured slaver, who had recovered just enough for Unta to force him on his feet.

“Hm? How many more?”

Reylo jabbed his knee into the man’s groin, just hard enough for him to feel it. The slaver snarled something at him in the local tongue, and Reylo jabbed him much harder.

“Never mind,” Unta said as he had to help the slaver stand. “We’re going for that container, and he’s taking the lead.”

The Kapadian turned to Vanaka, Losan and Kiris.

“You three clear out this area. Let’s not get shot in the back.”

He used one of his giant meat slab hands to hold the slaver by the hair on the back of his head, and used the other to push a gun into his back. Then he forced the man out the doorway. Reylo followed.

Vanaka looked around. They were in some sort of mechanical space, characterised by pipes and shafts and cables. It was a good deal longer than it was wide, and away from the entrance it was poorly lit. Losan took the lead without any debate. Vanaka hated having her ansoti in danger, and in spite of herself she tried to concoct some excuse for being in the lead; some logical reasoning why they would all be safer. But they wouldn’t be, and so she kept silent and let the professional do what he’d often stressed was his primary duty.

There seemed to be two routes through the room and all its machinery, and Vanaka followed her bodyguard down one while Kiris went down the other. Signs of neglect and abandonment were everywhere. Even the ceiling looked in a rather bad way. It was a row of prefab metal sheets held up by thin beams held up by thin poles, and had the general look of being a later addition.

The earpiece she’d gotten on the car ride stayed silent. If Unta and Reylo had found trouble they were too busy dealing with it to call in. Or it had proven too much for them.

After the three of them had crossed most of the distance Vanaka could see a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. They looked like everything else here, and faced away.

There was a sound above, a minor shifting of something on top of crummy metal, and a second after they’d all frozen in their tracks the gunfire started. Shots of plasma came down through the ceiling, fired wildly in a blind search for targets. Vanaka tried to go for cover, but there was no protection to be had from up above. Losan and Kiris fired back just as blindly, and horrible, searing death flew both ways, burning holes in everything in its path.

There were at least two shooters. Vanaka could hear the sheets groan as their weight shifted around. The shooting became less wild, hitting closer to Kiris and Losan, as the slavers started aiming for the incoming shots. Her two companions tried to stay mobile themselves, but there was precious little space to move in. Kiris flinched and let out a choked yelp. Vanaka didn’t know if she was hit or not, but this couldn’t continue.

She vaulted over some abandoned machinery and stepped to the nearest metal pole. It was about as thick as her thigh and getting a good grip on it was an awkward process that ate up two precious seconds as the deadly rain continued. Then she firmly dug her feet in and yanked.

The bolts that held the pole to the floor gave way with a loud bang, and the beam up above lost its only real support. The sheets through which the shots had been coming dropped, and Vanaka again vaulted to the side as if she was doing one of her dance routines.

The end of the sheet came down with another great bang, and with it came one of their enemies. He tumbled helplessly down the slope he suddenly found himself on, followed by a bedroll and a drinks container. He bounced off some pipes and rolled onto the floor close to Kiris. The Chanei stepped over to him and fired a single shot.

Vanaka thought she caught a glimpse of the other one up above as he narrowly fell back from the brink. She hopped up onto some piping and then launched herself off of it. She soared up over the fallen sheet and onto the edge of the one after it. The slaver barely had time to register surprise, and none at all to shift his gun her way.

She grabbed the weapon with one hand and threw a boxer’s punch into his chest with the other. He crumpled up as his ribs gave way and all the air left him instantly. She threw his rifle wide, before taking hold of his shirt collar and flinging him down the slope. Her strength sent him down harder than his comrade, and he came to a hard stop as a wheezing, broken mess.

Vanaka looked every which way, expecting to be shot, but there was nothing up there big enough to hide behind. Just bedrolls, travelling cases and a small cooking unit.

“It’s...” She stopped to gain control of her voice. “It’s clear!”

Vanaka stepped up to the edge she’d created.

“I think he-”

She glanced down just in time to see Kiris fire a blast into the unmoving man’s head. Losan looked up at her long enough to assure himself that his mistress was unhurt, then went back scanning his surroundings. Vanaka hesitated where she stood, feeling oddly at a loss. This was all so horrible, and she feared that once the adrenaline wore off the death and violence would hit her hard, like a hangover.

Her upbringing was also telling her to hop down and grab Kiris for a silencing bite. Just a quick one. No harm done, no lasting attachments. Just to make the woman forget about what Vanaka had just done. But memory gaps could be overlooked in nightclubs, darkened parks and during quick, passionate trysts; not life-threatening situations.

She almost panicked at the wrongness of it, but she stepped away from the edge and hurried over to the stairs. She hopped over the railing and landed softly on the floor below. Just then there was a bleep in her earpiece, and clearly Kiris and Losan heard it as well.

“Status?” Unta asked.

“We killed two more,” Kiris told him, and she sounded perfectly at ease with all of this. “That seems to be it.”

“We’re by the container,” he said back, to all of them. “You have a clear route, but there is an issue.”

“An issue?” Vanaka said, for the sake of participating.

“A hostage issue.”