Her first bullet struck the nearest man in the head, while her second, imperfectly placed after the slide’s recoil, hit his neighbor in the side. The third struck him in the center of his chest as the first body hit the floor, and he too went down lifelessly. Thandi had dropped the third and fourth men in the group, but the fifth, apparently sober and very suspicious, had dropped to his belly at the sound of the first suppressed shot.
Kayla cursed as she adjusted her aim, but just as quickly the man shot to his feet and threw himself around the side of the building. She didn’t hesitate, barreling through the door and racing after him. Rounding the same corner, she watched with horror as the figure disappeared behind the stacks of shipping containers. For a lazy guard drinking on duty, his speed and dexterity were surprising. Adrenaline, apparently, really was a hell of a drug.
A klaxon rang out through the yard and Kayla’s blood ran cold. The alarm was easily loud enough to wake the dead, and would probably be heard throughout the entire starport, if not the city. She turned and raced back to the cabin.
“I guess we don’t need to whisper now,” Thandi said, as she tried to calm her panicking charges. “Don’t worry, we’ve planned for this,” she reassured them. “We are getting you out of here.”
“North side fence,” Kayla said. It ran between two walls of containers, and they would hopefully be able to cut through whilst hidden from the main gate.
She led the way out of the cabin and moved into the shadows. In the distance she could hear yelling and the pounding of feet. Not a good sign.
When they reached the edge of their new cage, she made eye contact with Thandi and mimed a sawing motion with her hand.
“Ten minutes?” Thandi suggested. She withdrew her knife and inspected the thick chain metal. There were two separate walls she would have to cut through as quickly as she could.
Kayla shook her head violently. Thandi ignored her, and grunted with effort as she sawed the diamond-coated teeth on the blade’s lower edge across the steel. It snapped quickly, but there was a lot of fence to cut. Kayla’s heartbeat accelerated to a hum as she heard the yelling drawing closer.
She patted Thandi on the back, then raced forward towards the secure facility’s main entrance. A jeep pulled up as she reached the cover of a container wall, and disgorged another group of men. They were carrying assault rifles and sub machine guns, and wore headsets over their ears.
While they cautiously began to spread out, Kayla grabbed a rock and flung it against the jeep. The men spun around, confused by the noise. With two shots, one fell dead, then another dropped with a scream, and Kayla ducked out of sight.
The guards dove into cover, spraying bullets into the yard while they yelled on their radios. Kayla jumped to grab the lip of a container wall above her head, and hauled herself up the stack as quickly as she could. Once on top, she leapt across the towers to get a better angle on the patrol below. The man she had wounded died first, followed quickly by another.
Huddled behind the vehicle, the lone survivor screamed into his radio. Kayla slipped her mag out and counted only a few bullets remaining. She exchanged it for another mag just as another jeep pulled up, and more headlights appeared in the distance. With only the three mags she had brought to fight so many guards, she would need to conserve ammo. Rocks would have to do from now on.
“They’re on top of the containers!” the survivor yelled to his would be rescuers, who immediately took cover by the entrance gatehouse.
Maybe the fear of imagination would keep them at bay. Kayla took a running jump over another stack, in full view of the men, who shot a burst at her. On the other side, she stepped off the tower to drop five stories and hit the ground with a parachute roll, wincing as her knees flared with pain. Another rock flew out of her hand, this time to strike a container’s steel wall. The guards span, spraying bullets into the shadows in an evident display of emotional escalation.
Kayla began to feel bolder. If she wanted to, she could run rings around these men all night. Or until their backup arrived. Huffing in oxygen and psyching herself up, she broke into a sprint and darted across the open center of the yard. Bullets passed through the air inches behind her, hisses and cracks inspiring delightful terror. Once back in the shadows, she tossed another rock in a high arc, which came down on top of the stacks with a satisfying bang.
“At least five guys in there,” a man yelled in the darkness. “Definitely professionals. Stay back in the gatehouse until the others get here!”
Kayla felt that the order deserved some encouragement, so she dipped out from behind a container and fired three rounds in the speaker’s general direction. Fiery sparks spat across metal as return fire sought her out.
Hopefully the performance had bought them some time. She raced back through the stacks to see Thandi, covered in sweat, tearing the cut section of fence out with her hands. Kayla motioned to her to hurry, and kept an eye on the distant gatehouse as her friend started to cut through the second fence. Instead of hacking out a whole circle, she pulled up the lip of metal she created, bending it back to reveal a gap large enough to crawl through.
Thandi belly crawled through like a snake, then beckoned to the girls. One ran over and began to squeeze herself beneath the fence, but the other, clad in a denim jacket, stopped, and turned a muted expression of rage on Kayla.
“Can I have a gun?” she demanded.
Kayla shook her head. “No time. Move—go!” She pushed the girl down towards their exit.
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They had barely made it into the labyrinthine walls of container stacks past the fence when they heard running feet approaching.
Kayla wanted to spit with anger. The arriving guards were on the outside of the secure facility.
“Yep, there’s the hole,” a nearby voice shouted. “Told you they would cut through here, didn’t I? They’re probably going for the rail line.”
The girls were now cut off from their line of escape, and Kayla once again cursed herself for being so stupid. If the guards controlled the only entrance to the cage, then of course their assailants would have another way out. It obviously hadn’t taken them long to figure out where that exit was likely to be.
“Staff car park,” she hissed to Thandi.
That would take them deeper into the starport, but they didn’t have a choice.
Thandi nodded and grabbed one of the girl’s hands, who in turn took that of her friends. They moved off through the containers, while Kayla dropped back to ambush her pursuers.
This time she stayed up high, leaping silently across container stacks to target the growing crowd of men, no doubt including cartel muscle, as they ventured hesitantly into the dark passages. She set up her angles of attack to keep herself hidden as she moved, and kept an eye out for Thandi’s progress as she and the girls raced toward the distant lot of vehicles.
More than once she drew a return shot that brushed her skin with heat. Even though she was able to slow the moving squads down, they pushed forward relentlessly, and she soon found herself counting every shot to save ammunition. Worse, she had no idea where they were supposed to go from the car park. Neither she nor Thandi had any idea how to bypass a vehicle’s ident lock.
She only had one advantage. The starport’s security force still didn’t understand how fast she could move. Holding onto the assumption that they were chasing several individuals, they spaced themselves out as though they expected to trap the escaping thieves inside the container area.
A quick pause for breath allowed Kayla to check on her friends’ progress. In the distance, Thandi and the girls reached the car park, and took cover behind a large truck. Kayla thought fast. Maybe with the delays and confusion she had caused, they would have enough time to carry the girls on their backs while they ran to the freight terminals. They were dark, and seemed to be devoid of any guards, who had probably all joined the hunt.
Kayla raced to the last container stack and dropped down. This time, the landing struck her with a lightning shock of agony, and she had to limp the distance to the truck.
Thandi jumped out in front of her, the barrel of her gun aimed squarely at Kayla’s head.
The gun wavered and dropped. “Are you okay?”
“All good,” Kayla said dismissively.
“I think we can carry them from here over to the freight terminals,” Thandi said. “If we move fast. From there we can get into the passenger area, and we’ll have a better chance.”
“You didn’t plan this very well, did you?” the girl with the jacket gasped as she struggled for breath.
“Everything is under control,” Kayla said automatically. Panic would help nobody.
She took the girls arm and was about to take her weight when Thandi’s head and weapon snapped around.
“Van at our six.”
The new vehicle screeched to a halt in the middle of the parking lot, while Kayla lifted her own weapon. The side door floor open and her jaw almost dropped in disbelief as she saw the marine from the bar clamber out. He stared at them for a split second, then beckoned hurriedly.
Just then, gunfire erupted from the containers, striking the truck the girls had hidden behind.
“Go!” Kayla yelled.
She lunged forward and threw the girl over her shoulder, then broke into the fastest run she could manage. Knee pain, fatigue, and the limitations of her muscles melted away beneath a storm of adrenaline. She covered the thirty yards in seconds, almost throwing the body of her passenger into the waiting van.
A quick glance confirmed Thandi was right behind her, while the alarmed looking marine looked on in disbelief. But now Kayla’s arms were free, her gun shot up under his chin.
“Driver,” she said, as her Thandi swept past her.
Thandi unholstered her own weapon as she clambered inside, moving behind the driver’s seat as she pressed the silencer to his head.
Another clatter of gunfire erupted in the distance, and bullets smacked into the van’s body.
“After you,” Kayla said, and shoved her unprotesting prisoner into the van.
She lifted her foot to climb inside, and her thigh exploded in pain.
“I think we’re even on the ‘injuries sustained’ score,” Thandi said reassuringly.
“I got it in the leg too,” said Kayla. “How about poetic justice? Shit, this hurts.”
“This is no time for blasphemy,” Thandi said and chuckled.
The driver had floored the accelerator and swerved through some hair-raising maneuvers until they found themselves on the freeway heading away from the starport. The marine had grabbed a bandage and was treating Kayla’s nasty bullet wound, while she cursed and gasped. Every so often she apologized for her language, but her gun never wavered from her rescuer.
So far, there were no signs of pursuit, and everyone had begun to calm down, until one of the girls vomited into a bag.
“Do you think you could put the gun down?” the marine asked gently. “Nobody is going to hurt anyone.”
“No, and false,” Kayla said evenly. “I will hurt whoever I please until I feel like trusting you.”
“Okay, well in the interest of building rapport, I’m Gaz, and that is Sal.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sal. Don’t move out of that spot, Gaz, or I’ll kill you.”
“Sure thing,” Gaz said with a charming smile.
Beside him, one of the girls began to cry as her hands shook violently. Her friend threw her jacket around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. “Don’t you think there’s been enough violence for one night?” she snapped.
“Nope. The god of war has a bottomless appetite,” Kayla said coldly.
“Heathen,” Thandi shot back.
“Who are you two, anyway?” the girl demanded. “What were you thinking, putting us through all that?” She wiped tears out of her eyes as she returned Kayla’s blank expression. “I mean, thank you for rescuing us and everything, but um… we could have all died!”
Kayla felt the adrenaline fade. She said nothing as the girl lost her control, and began to sob quietly.
“Hey,” Gaz said in a friendly tone. “Are either of you called Sachya?”
The shaking girl looked up. “Yes,” she whimpered.
“That’s great,” Gaz said with a warm smile. “I saw your parents last week, and they told me they were going to buy that white Arabian horse you wanted for your sixteenth birthday.”
The girl stared at him in confusion.
“I’m a private investigator,” he explained. “I was hired to come and find you.”
“But—” the girl glanced back at Kayla, then at the gun resting on her knee.
“Let’s just call this a happy coincidence,” Kayla said.
“I’m Daria,” the second girl said. “And if you tell me you saw my parents, I’ll know you’re lying.”
“Your teacher. Peron Alveda,” Gaz replied.
“Oh, shit,” the girl said softly, and broke into tears again.
“Kayla,” Thandi said as she removed her gun away from Sal’s head. “I’m pretty sure we’re okay now.”
Kayla eyed Gaz reluctantly, then moved her gun to the side. “Alright then. But don’t get any ideas, buddy.”
“Well, I was going carry you out when we stop, but maybe you’d prefer to hop?”
Kayla narrowed her eyes as she suppressed a smile.
Thandi shuffled over and inspected her leg. “We’ll just have to deal with them, remember?” she said with a wink. “It’ll be that easy.”
Kayla couldn’t help herself from laughing even as the girls they had rescued stared at them in appalled shock.