Chapter Twenty

The center of the maze was a square, roughly, and where I stood on the outer face, we were raised up again over the middle.

There were four entrances into the square, then four sets of narrow, single step stairs leading down into a flat area, with a handful of small walls set up to shelter behind.

The center though?

Another banshee, as we’d guessed, a mass of arms and guns, firing in several directions at once, with specters running from cover to cover, and ghouls standing at the corners of the square using post mounted and welded on heavy machineguns.

Three were currently hammering into the walls that a half dozen of Liolet and Doul’s people crouched behind, even as Gessh basically ran in drug induced mad circles dodging fire.

As soon as we entered, we were spotted, and the guns swiveled, opening fire as we broke up. I sprinted to the edge of the stair and leapt, arms windmilling, bullets glancing off my armor—and one hitting high on my helm and snapping my head back with a jerk—before I hit the deck a good five meters lower that we’d entered on.

I rolled, then swore and rolled again as a slug from a shotgun hit the back of my leg, tearing through the thinner armor and spraying the ground with blood as it punched through my calf.

I jerked behind the cover of the small wall, hissing in pain but not having the time to deal with it, as I edged my rifle around the corner, triggering the link to it and seeing the world from the barrel, as I opened fire.

Blind luck struck again as I lined up almost perfectly on a ghoul that’d been chasing Gessh with a machinegun, the heavy fire tearing into the walls right behind her, catching up as she sprinted.

She was back to leaving bloody footprints as she ran, a dozen small wounds trickling blood down her gleaming metal legs, the sword either dead or deactivated, but still clutched in one hand as she dodged gunfire.

Luna opened fire from behind me, the cycling of her shotgun by now familiar enough that I picked it straight out as she went full-auto, blasting into the banshee from behind.

It screamed, spinning, several of its dozens of arms twisting around to fire at us, before the boom of Reign’s sniper rifle announced its arrival.

Almost before I heard the sound of the shot, I saw the banshee stagger, a repulsor exploding and sending it reeling sideways, as it drifted accidentally out of cover.

The others on the far side, at the twelve o clock and two o clock positions from us, had been hammering the enemy, and getting hammered in return, but our arrival at the back forced the specters to split their forces.

The specters all moved as one, the damage to the banshee overriding whatever else was going on as they all swung to fire on Reign.

She screamed, rolling to the side and frantically trying to get out of the line of sight as the doorway around her fractured and splintered under the barrage of heavy fire.

The opportunity granted by the distraction wasn’t left unused though, as someone on Doul’s side stood up and went full bore with the assault shotgun, the boom of each shot changing into a rolling sound almost like thunder as they took a good half dozen of the enemy down, ending with three shots directly into the back of the floating banshee.

It staggered, spinning and returned fire, literally shredding him, a good half dozen assault rifles all blasting the living shit out of the poor guy, before I cursed and screamed into the fight.

“EMP!” I bellowed, throwing the EMP grenade I had directly at the banshee.

It spun, seeing the grenade, and slapped it down, again proving the fuckers were intelligent. All the nearby specters dropped everything they were doing and dove on the grenade, as the banshee tried to put as much distance between it and the deadly blast as possible.

There was a moment of confusion, as they realized I’d thrown, but never primed the grenade, as I barked “NOW!” into the tac-net, and the others opened fire. Then the fucker realized it’d been had, as I went full auto on both my shotgun and assault rifle.

The pair lasted seconds, there was probably a joke in there somewhere over the speed of me ejecting the spent mags as well, the business done, as I dropped back to one knee behind the barrier.

It wasn’t important though, because the loss of the suppressing fire and the fucker being out in the open was enough. Four other assault rifles chattered over and over at the banshee as it spun and twisted, bullets sparking off armoring, guns coming up and firing back, before the ear-splitting, bone deep thrum of the grazer filled the air.

Reign left the banshee alone, rolling the sustained fire over the collection of specters and ghouls as they tried to stand and the fuckers collapsed into a mass of dissociated rotted meat and metal in seconds.

The weapon cut off then, the battery drained all in one go, as Gessh, weaving from side to side dodged the barriers, vaulting over the last one, and threw herself down, sliding on her back under the banshee as two rifles and a clawed hand tracked her, the floor being chewed up, and the hand leaving gouges and a trail of sparks literally inches from her head in the steel.

She didn’t miss though, as the plasma sword stuttered to life, extending upwards and carving through almost half of the fucker from below.

The banshee screamed, all electronics nearby freaking out as something interacted, the interference shield over and above us faltering and cutting off as the banshee crashed to the ground.

I was up and hobbling forwards both rifle and shotty discarded, handgun leaping into my right and vibro-blade filling the left as I raced forwards, seeing the banshee twisting, trying to bring a rifle around to point at Gessh.

I fired, two others doing the same, and the rifle spun loose, clattering on the floor, before Luna passed me, leaping on the banshee, her guns forgotten as she started to literally tear arms free, almost frothing at the mouth over the fury that this thing almost killed her sister.

My comms were going nuts, both local—with the teams, Liolet, Reign, and half the fuckers there—and with the one person who could get access to me in a fight now, Julius.

I accepted his comm—audio only—as I lined up the revolver and blew an arm free of the fucker, closing on it as Luna forced another arm back and snapped the rusted metal free, the banshee screaming in electronic pain and fury.

“DON’T!” Julius was screaming. “Fuck’s sake, Kabutt! Stop!”

“What?” I growled, my arm in auto as I lined up on another arm, one that was already damaged but shaking as it tried to lift. I fired, the shot punching into the connector and blasting the lower half free in a spray of brackish fluid.

“Fucking stop, you lunatic!” That got through, as I slid to a stop over the banshee, and dropped to one knee. Ramming the revolver against the curved plate of the fuckers skull.

“Everybody freeze!” I barked out, and wonder of wonders, they did, even the banshee, who stared up at me, three optics in its face glowing a malevolent red.

We stared at each other as I spoke in a low voice.

“Dead man’s trigger,” I said. “You’ll have something left as a last resort I’m sure, you do anything to me or them? This gun goes off regardless, and you die as well. So… stay very fucking still.”

The optics blinked and I looked at it, wondering why the hell it’d removed the middle section of the skull, but kept the curved dome, cheeks and mandibles, then filled the nose and eye sockets with individual optical pickups.

“Now… what the hell do you want, Julius?” I asked slowly, removing the blocks I’d put on the commlink, and seeing his avatar appear in one half of my vision.

“The drones are broadcasting the banshee images across the city,” he said. “We’ve got a bidding war going on from corpos and research centers that want that fucker for their R&D divisions, they’re going nuts, and I fucking mean nuts!”

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“The company that set this up?” I asked.

“Cored like a fucking apple.” He snorted. “ Somebody set a military grade AI on them looking for any possible terrorist connections…”

“Shame that.”

“Yeah well, rats and sinking ships come to mind, the entire company basically just bailed. Nobody there is in any position to try and claim anything right now. You’re there under my authority on a legal contract, which makes anything we find, as the company that hired us no longer exists… ours.

“The current bid is five million credits. I’m betting we can set a price of ten and get it. That’s a hell of a payday for the entire team and the guild. This could totally save our asses, so please, don’t kill the fucker. Take it alive. I’ll make goddamn sure the credits are good before anything else happens, and get medics incoming, we’ll be able to afford them now.”

“Fine,” I said after a few seconds, long ones in which I felt my trigger finger quivering, a single infinitesimal additional touch of pressure being laid on the metal, then another, before I finally forced myself to stop, and I cut the line.

“They want you for research,” I said, staring into its optics. “Personally I’d rather kill you, remove the threat now, but it’s not my call to make. I know you were captured, and were set up here for the ‘show’, it’s the only thing that makes sense. That means that at least some fucker out there has a way to capture and contain you. They were willing to waste your lives in the same way they throw ours aside, so I guess we’re the same in that.

“So, here’s the deal. You come along nicely, no fighting, no attempts to escape. Once we hand you over? That’s your business. You escape in an hour or a week, that’s fine. You try to escape now? I’ll kill you. I know you’re as much of a fucking victim in this as we are, but you fuck with me right now? I’ll kill you. This is the only warning you get.”

We looked at each other for a few seconds, then its lights pulsed in a pattern, before apparently giving up on me as too fucking dense.

A knock rang out on my keystone, and I froze as I accepted it, reading the message that unfurled before my eyes.

TERMS ACCEPTED.

“Motherfucker,” I whispered in shock, before clearing my throat and calling out to the rest of the survivors. “Medics are incoming, as is a transport for our friend here. Trust nothing. Patch yourselves up, reload, and be ready. They might decide to try and save the purchase price yet.”

Various responses, from low and virulent swearing to approval rang out, but I didn’t look away from the banshee, not until Reign stepped up and rested the barrel of her sniper rifle against the top of the dome of its skull, Todds starting to search and disarm it.

Then I finally lifted the handgun away, hissing as someone stabbed me in the leg at the same time with a medikit, and I glanced down, seeing the half-goblin Borrolet, smiling up at me in what she probably thought was an ingratiating way.

Considering her teeth looked like she was one step from dying of halitosis, and could give a shark a nightmare, it wasn’t reassuring.

I forced myself to nod and thank her, reaching for a medium medikit on my belt to replace the one she’d just used on me… only to find she’d actually used mine.

I collected the empty one and slid it back into a pouch, waving off her request to join our team on a more permanent basis, and directing her back to her own group as I checked Luna and Gessh over.

They both had a dozen minor wounds, and Gessh… well. She’d already triggered two medium medikits, and was sitting shaking and panting as they worked to heal her injuries, repair the insane level of damage she had to have done to her internals through no less than three fucking stims in half an hour, and purge the remaining chemicals from her system.

She looked like shit, but the grin on her face was beautiful.

As was the one on Luna’s when after hugging her sister she stood and pulled me to my feet.

I winced, the pain in my calf that I’m managed to ignore through the last minutes of the fight making damn sure I knew it was there.

Then she was hugging me, squeezing me tight enough that I felt ribs creaking under my armor, and I remembered the injuries from earlier, as she whispered into my ear.

“Thank you, Kabutt, for caring, and having the sheer brass balls to do what needed to be done.”

I hugged her back. “I hated it, but it was right.”

“Now… is Reign looking jealous yet, or do I need to get you to grab my ass?” she whispered, and I snorted, pushing her free.

I stepped around the banshee, seeing the rain running over it, hearing the spark and fizz as damaged electrical components shorted, even as Todds continued pulling weapons free and tossing them into a pile.

Most of them were empty, and almost all were the same make and mark as the rest of the specters had been carrying. A quick glance around the rain soaked plaza revealed a stack of boxes, clearly packing crates for the guns, and ammunition, making me shake my head in amazed disgust.

Whoever arranged this, really went all out. They must have been expecting serious credits from the pay-per-view. I joined the others, reloading, collecting my own discarded weapons, including the EMP, and winking when Liolet growled that he thought I’d fucked the entire day when I used that.

I showed him that I’d never even triggered it—it’d not, as he thought, failed to fire—and the look he gave me was one of sheer disbelief.

A few minutes passed before a transport tried to land to collect the banshee. Julius called us and grimly pointed out that this was NOT the client that’d paid us, it was some chancers trying to steal our payday, and thirty seconds later, my team was the owner of a lovely, if slightly battered, aircar.

Admittedly, there was a little blood here and there, but I’d had a bad enough day that I’d just confirmed it with Julius, stepped up, and had shot three of the occupants. The fourth had been more than happy to transfer his ownership of the vehicle to us as an apology, and had been directed to walk out of the maze through the left hand passage.

Ten seconds later there came a boom, a scream, and all was right with the world.

A minute or so after that, the actual client arrived for their property, as did a team of trauma docs.

That wasn’t cheap, but clearly Julius could afford it now. We did some minor last minute jobs, including swiping a few arms and a rather nice left hand that concealed claws, then realized none of us were actually licensed to fly an aircar.

I was trained to, but only outside the city and under army rules, which basically translated as ‘the shit has already hit the fan’.

Eventually a remote link was established to Dondo, the half orc that had done such a number on the sisters, and that worked for Oshbob. He took control and guided the aircar for us all the way back to the warehouse.

Unsurprisingly, when we landed he was there inside of thirty seconds, and in under a minute after that, both Luna and Gessh were in one of their rooms, apparently taking turns at the shower, and the muscular and well hung half-orc.

Reign told me to fuck right off when I made what I thought was a perfectly reasonable comment about joining her in the shower and I was forced to listen to the sound of Dondo apparently trying to drill for oil he was going that deep.

I couldn’t even take my damn armor off, not properly. Not with that gravitational goddamn mine on it, and I was forced to make do with a handful of sanitation wipes.

The only consolation was that as the sun was coming up, and I was staring at the cheerful bastard lighting the sky, I got a personal message from Reign.

Today we’re getting my chip out, and tonight I’m getting your dick in.

I smiled at the beautiful sunrise, and sipped my coffee, sending an agreement symbol back to her, as I admired the world. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a bad day after all.

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