The annoyance Ilise felt changed over to anger, then exasperation, then back to annoyance. It seemed to get more powerful at a specific rate and then Ilise heard the clatter. She slipped to the mouth of the alleyway just in time to see Alice jump over a railing two floors up and land into a roll on the same level as Ilise.
“You!” They both screamed and pointed at one another.
Then there was the heavy impact of mechas, their wide metal feet slamming on the ground as multiple of Alice’s pursuers decided to take the direct route and jumped down after her.
“You!!” Alice shouted again, this time looking over Ilise’s shoulder.
Ilise tried to fight her urge to turn, but she turned anyway to look at Boil standing behind her. The man’s face was surprised as well and then he grabbed Ilise and pulled her down. She wanted to growl until she saw the melted metal of a plasma blast that would have hit them both if Boil had not acted so quick.
“Run!” Alice shouted even as she kicked one of the plasma guns out of her attacker’s hands and then did so herself.
Ilise wasn’t sure if Alice used her mental abilities or not, because she was running before the word even registered, Boil hot on her heels and Alice right behind them.
“Just shoot her! Them! All of them!” The call behind them had all three of them swiveling out of the way just as another plasma shot flew by. The screen in front of Ilise’s eye flickered and then turned red a moment before the station alarm went off. The few aliens that were on the same street had already scattered, clearing the path but also making them easier targets for their pursuers. A common occurrence on the street, and no one wanted to be the first bounty capture today.
“This way,” Alice hissed out and she jumped, kicking off the wall to make a sharp turn into an alley. Ilise had more room to turn without losing her momentum but Boil hit the wall hard with a shoulder before following them.
The other end of the alley was the crowded main street and though the alarm had gone off, none of the inhabitants seemed to care.
Alice swiped a headwrap from a Kitatius that could have been Mishupeshu’s third cousin. She slowed her step and threw it over her own head and shoulders. A moment later, Ilise had a hat to cover her bright hair and Boil had slipped out of his jacket down to a plain white sleeveless shirt.
“Tony, can you connect me to Boil?” Ilise asked even though she saw the average human slipping through the crowd smoothly to walk down the other side of the crowded street. Ilise then projected her thoughts, trying to find Alice who had already blended into the crowd. She got no response and tried to recall if Alice still had the mental blocking collar on.
“Why is the Cadoon Black Ops trying to kill you?” Boil asked in her ear as soon as Tony made the connection.
“I have a bounty on my head. Though I swear, it said alive,” Ilise answered and turned into an open stall on the street, joining the others looking through the merchandise just as one of their pursuers passed her.
She put down the gaudy cuff link she had randomly picked up and instead swiped her wrist on the stall’s table just as she picked up a garish and horribly-patterned scarf. Raspberries and blackberries decorated it and stained it, it had a sour smell too. It didn’t stop her from putting a scarf over her nose to try and hide from all the cameras. Tony would be making sure they couldn’t track them.
“Well,” Alice said, “Mine said dead or alive. Lucky me. What’s he doing here?”
Ilise startled at Alice walking so close to her. She hadn’t seen the other approach her at all. A moment later, Boil was standing behind them both.
The Tony avatar turned red, and Ilise dived to the side, pushing the others too, just in time to avoid a charging mecha. It screeched on the floor to a stop, leaving fresh burnt tread marks with some already existing previous ones. This was a common bounty trapping area.
“Oh no.” Boil said. “Move.”
He shoved both her and Alice like he wasn’t handling two women that could turn him into a whimpering mess on the floor in seconds.
Ilise caught her balance on Alice and then the three were moving along with the crowd that had finally realized that the alarm wasn’t just some sort of drill. A shove had the three separating again, but a moment later, Alice was back beside her, hooking an arm through Ilise’s elbow and using it to guide her through the crowd.
It started thinning out the closer they got to the docks and Boil finally joined them. Alice let Ilise go just as a large Shicor stood in front of them. Without breaking stride, Alice kicked him between the legs, then kneed up into his face when he hunched over, and finally flipped over his back, taking his gun with her even as he collapsed on the ground. Even her kind was not immune to a groin shot, the universes weakness it seemed.
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Ilise stepped over him, vindictively stepping on one of his hands but not grinding down into it like she wanted. Boil kicked the man when he stepped over him as well.
A turn right, a long walk, the cloud parting, and Ilise could see the sleek shape of the Darkstorm waiting for them in the specific dock. There was a flash of fur and a long tail curling up near one of the doors, revealing what was most likely Mishupeshu making it back on board.
The closer they got, the more the crowd cleared, and the easier it would be for their pursuers to single them out. Ilise chanced a glance back and noticed a group of the same mercs she had seen in her feed gathered and half of them looking her way. At least they had lowered the guns, even if the mechas were already striding heavily toward them.
“Go, go, go,” Ilise urged the other two, no point in hiding anymore. They took off at a sprint and then they were right there, the Darkstorm’s sleek lines shadowing them.
Polo was still outside and just like at the prison yard looking like the normal beacon target he was. Ilise quickly undid her scarf and tossed him at it. “Put that on! Scooball, what can I help with?”
Scooball’s voice was under the ship, dressed up in his gear trying to fix the docking mechanism for the cable Charyd had destroyed at the prison.
The charge of a beam cannon made Scooball slide out and rise to his feet. He saw Alice and his face immediately brightened, until Alice said, “We have to take off. Now!”
And then Alice jumped through the open door and into the ship, throwing her stolen gun at Ilise. She was most likely running for the dock to get the ship ready. Ilise checked the gun, made sure it was not DNA-locked, and then aimed at the slowly approaching group of mercenaries. The rest of the docks were almost completely cleared but if Ilise moved out of the way, that hit from the beam cannon would damage the Darkstorm beyond repair.
“Alice is our bounty!” Ilise called loudly and aimed at the one figure that walked ahead of the others without any mecha. It could have been their leader.
“What are you doing?!” Boil hissed into her ear.
“Either get a gun and help me, or get on the ship,” Ilise hissed right back.
Boil, ever the loyal soldier, followed her command without another prompt. He jumped through the same opening Alice had gone through earlier. It would have been nicer to have him on her side, but, oh well.
“There is also a bounty out on you!” one of the men from the group of mercs called out and made a motion with his hand. The entire group stopped moving. Ilise adjusted her aim to focus on him. In response, the beam cannon and multiple other guns focused on her.
“Deserter,” one of the men spat the word out like an insult.
Ilise tried not the flinch at the accusation, she really wished Tony could aim some of his big guns back. But that would kill too many criminal civilians who deserved a court sentence first. Plus she blocked the Darkstorm’s main cannon. The ship, didn’t like its captain being threatened, and began to light up the beam cannon. For show, no way anyone on Darkstorm would shoot her. She noticed, from the corner of her eye as Polo, hidden by the Darkstorm’s wing and with his shining head by the scarf, and Scooball, both shifted around. She wasn’t sure what they were doing, but they better be finishing off the final touches to get the ship moving. Fortunately, the Darkstorm hid them from view and Ilise had all guns trained on her.
Fortunately.
“Charyd is coming,” Tony said in her ear and Ilise would have rolled her eyes if she didn’t notice the group slowly start to split apart, blocking any escape route for her other than to go back on the ship.
The problem was that beam cannon. She could save herself but then Tony would be damaged beyond repair. A panel under the ship’s wing hissed open. Tony helpfully switched the feed so she wouldn’t have to look away from the mercs and she saw Scooball slide into the panel and then help Polo through. They were on the ship.
“Can you give me two minutes?” Alice sounded in her comm.
Ilise growled in reply.
“Minute and thirty. Tops. Then we can fly out of here.”
“Tony,” Ilise said his name without moving her lips. She was in the middle of a battle, ready to be blown apart and hoping that the pirates and one discharged officer kept her alive and waited for her. Alice said two minutes, hurry up Alice.
Then she heard Tony relay the message she had intended to send to Alice, “They have a beam cannon and two plasma blasters. If the cannon hits the ship, nobody will be going anywhere.”
Alice swore colourfully in the comms and just as Ilise was trying to think of a way to get them out of this situation, she heard a familiar thread and voice.
“Well, well, well,” Charyd sounded as dramatic as the best-paid actors when he sauntered out of the ship. His fire-agate eyes as bright as his grin. “If it isn’t Cadoon’s dogs, looking for scraps to help them get back in the fight.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ilise asked him when he stopped beside her, sans weapon, to goad the group that all swiveled their guns to him and his hips. That was a saunter of a man ready for bed, not battle.
“Or is it rats? You look more like rats to me.”
“I’ll be fucked,” one of the men from the group laughed out. “Charyd? You are calling me a rat? The one who ran away instead of deal with the consequences of his very stupid actions?”
“Hey, hey. No need for name-calling now.”
“You started it.”
“No,” Charyd’s voice suddenly took on a more serious tone. “Actually, you did. When you decided to call Captain Posey a deserter.” Then he pulled out a gun from his side, aimed, and fired. The shot was a surprise to everyone, Ilise included, but the man in the mecha suit holding the beam cannon suddenly went limp and the weapon’s charge dropped in his mechanical claws. Sparks spewing out from the discounted wires. Before a bit of smoke even started to rise in the air, ceiling and wall sprinklers sprayed everyone, as if they were on an extreme sensitive setting. Tony had taken extra per-cautions since the prison. No smoke bombs were going off anywhere near him ever again. Screams irrupted more from the sudden spray of water than the cannon fire from the streets.
“Go, go, go!” Charyd shoved at Ilise even as he fired off again, forcing the others to duck into cover behind the mecha suits. Ilise stumbled into the ship before Charyd could win the wet, white beater contest right behind her, and then the two were plastered from hip to nose as the Darkstorm violently disengaged from the docks and rushed the air-shield to leave the station and into space.