You'd think that after all those years, I'd be used to how fast things could go to shit on Station 26. I was just honestly more used to them being my fault. This time I'd been doing everything I could to keep guns from coming out. Especially considering this was a human meeting and the Hammerhead wasn't exactly effective.

Collings' limp body hit the floor a second before anyone did anything, and the echoing hiss of the laser faded from the room.

"No!"

Tash's scream was the starter's pistol. The two men on Carr's side whipped out their guns, pointing them at the man who'd shot their hostage. Kaito, the masked giant, pointed his monstrosity of an assault rifle at Tash.

I snatched Tash's collar and kicked her leg out from under her at the same time, ripping her out of the chair before she'd stopped her initial scream. Lasterfire scorched the wall behind her, and four shots found wet meat on the other side of the room. Blood splattered against the wall. Faux wood panelling cracked from the rest of the volley.

Aiguo had staggered out of his chair covered in Collings' blood, pulling out the gun he'd smuggled in.

All three of the doors into the room slammed open, filled with gun barrels, including the one behind Tash and me.

Shit.

I rolled to the side, and they snapped their guns up to the man who'd shot Collings as he started falling to the floor. They registered that he was dead and moved to train the guns on us.

That was all the time it took for the hardlight to fire up.

I made a wild-one-handed swing at the woman's legs, and the harpoon smashed against shielding, sending sparks flying across our side of the room as it fried it. A cacophony of gunfire joined the flash as everything went to shit all at once.

Bang. Bang.

Two shots, one in the floor, one into Tash's shield.

I found her legs again with the harpoon, and this time it went clear through the first and into the second, erasing flesh and bone before getting stuck and adding her screams to the other death in the room. The man who'd been coming in behind her tried to push past her, but her collapse blocked his way as I kicked back up to my feet.

Two shots rang off the back of my shield from the other side of the room, blinding me as they erupted into brilliant flashes. His gun fired left of my ear as I tried to get into his face.

The falling woman snatched my legs, pushing past the pain to try and tear me back down onto the floor. Tash leapt on top of her, grabbing the harpoon I'd left on the floor for leverage. The burning smell of melting skin seeped washed over me.

I got my hands on the man's gun as he tried to fire it again, knocking it wide and then using it as a pivot point to shove him against the doorframe.

There were more people past him. We were good and well fucked.

Of course, we were. Just like old times.

I got my arm around the man's chest, spinning him so that his back was to me, and then I forced him between the guards and me outside the room as they started to fire. The first several shots smashed against his shields, and the next punched through him and scratched against mine. I dropped to the floor with him, letting the continued volley pour into the room and the rest of the firefight.

The floor was already slick with blood when I slammed into it, pushing the corpse away as Tash pinned the other woman to the floor with the harpoon.

Just like old times.

Except that I had to get back to Victoria.

I slid across the floor, using the bodies in the doorway as cover as I ended up under the table we'd been using as a meeting place less than thirty seconds ago. Colling's blood seeped through gaps in the wood. It was getting louder and louder as the rooms outside descended into a cacophony of gunfire.

The issue with everyone bringing someone to the deal was that it skyrocketed the guns in the room, especially because everyone had to bring more people than they'd talked about.

Except us, Tash and I were a woefully unarmed party in comparison.

My blood-covered fingers slipped on the zipper pull for the Nurse once before I found purchase, the sound of me opening the gun covered by others shooting theirs. I tore the two pieces out of the bag and started snapping the barrel into place.

From the door where I'd left Tash, three more of the people who'd been shooting at us pushed their guns into the room, half scanning it and half wildly shooting. I didn't bother giving them time to see me under the table.

The light in the room seemed to dim as the electric blue of the Nurse' brief charge overtook it, then crushed all other sounds in the room as plasma erupted from the barrel, expanding to seven times its width and almost filling the doorway with raw energy.

The stunned bodies of Carr's men that had been trying to push in through that door thumped against the floor.

For a brief second, the only sound was the echoes of previous gunfire as everyone was distracted by what had just happened.

Which was fair; I'd brought a fucking modified Nurse.

"Tash, come on!" I called, grabbing her off the woman she'd been stabbing with my harpoon and half dragging her to her feet in the doorway. Outside, the concussed men were still on the floor, but I knew more were in these hallways. Was it the best way to run?

"Fucking, fuck. Shoot h-" Aiguo started before he got cut off by the horrific sheering of breaking metal as the door Moldieki had used as an exit shot out of its housing and across the room, taking Aiguo with it and slamming into the door.

The massive foot of a rebel queen pulled back from her kick as she sped into the room, grabbing Kaito by the head with one of her six arms before he'd had time to turn his gun to her. He splattered against the wall on the second slam.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Tash ran. Staying wasn't an option. It was the right call.

"Ah fuc-" Aiguo's voice faded as Tash, and I ran into the hallway, leaving some of the violence in the room behind us. Tash stopped over the still-stunned victims of the Nurse with the glowing harpoon in her hands.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled, "Come on."

She stared down at them. They were limp and likely to wake up with a nasty concussion; Carr hadn't provided shields meant for military hardware.

"Tash, we need to go; just leave them."

I pulled again, but she didn't move.

"Natasha."

"Fuck," she swore before joining me as I took the first steps down the hallway; based on what I'd counted on the way in, we still had at least three more people between us and getting out to the street, and that was saying nothing about how many would be around the complex.

We came to the first turn in the hallway, and I heard footsteps pounding down it, and I pressed against the wall, motioning for Tash to do the same. "Let's try to stay alive," I offered as a solution. It wouldn't bring her brother back, but it was better than bleeding out beside him.

A crash echoed from the room behind us; I didn't need to turn to understand that we needed to be out of here before Sevita was done with Carr's people.

I closed my eyes. Two sets of footsteps came down the hallway, running but slowing down as they came to the corner. If they did a proper sweep, we'd be on the same footing as them, which meant that-

The Nurse hissed to life with blue light as I rounded the corner and snapped it to head height. The erupting sound of laser fire smothered shots as the Nurse cracked down the hallway blowing the guard to the right clear off their feet as the other one stumbled to the side. Steam and coolant vented out of the Nurse, and the trigger locked. I let it fall down to my side, catching on its strap.

The still-standing guard had their weapon up before I could, so I jumped back behind the corner as Tash swapped into my place with practiced timing, firing her handgun down the hallway and forcing them into cover. How many times had we done this before?

Tash joined me behind the cover and took a deep breath to steady herself before blowing a loose lock of hair away from her eyes.

I almost smiled. Back in the day, we would have been joking in the quiet moments between shots, cursing ourselves out for getting into a mess in the first place. But it seemed like Tash didn-

"Just like old times, huh?"

I dropped to my knees before sliding around the corner, with the Hammerhead pointed down the hallway at the ceiling. I shot at the same time I registered that the guard left standing had abandoned their ally in the hallway.

Ceiling splintered, metal panelling and support beams shattering from the Hammerhead's shots as the gun's venomous hiss faded. A water pipe burst, spraying across the hallway as debris from the upper floor crashed down. Shouts from upstairs followed. If they'd been trying to avoid this firefight, I'd just called them into it.

Hopefully, the Videsshai had enough people to keep them distracted.

I stood up and kept my Hammerhead trained down the hallway through the waterfall of spilling water. The jagged metal remains of the ceiling were spread along the floor, pooling water and dust. We were close from the window we'd seen earlier, which was probably our best way out of the place. We didn't know where the window went, but I didn't want to press my luck inside longer than I had to.

Tash fell in behind me as silence took over. The fight behind us was done, or at least have moved far enough that we couldn't hear it over the water through the tangled walls. The people upstairs were either making their way down or were keeping their heads low for now. We just needed to-

Three shots hit my shield before I dropped to the floor; the dregs of a fourth shot punched through my shield and burned my jacket, and a flare of pain sparked up from my hip before the burning fabric cut itself away from my skin. Red bolts poured down the hallway.

I tried moving my leg, and, aside from hurting like a bitch, everything was mobile. Luckily my shield had absorbed most of the shot before shorting out, or I'd be missing a leg.

The bolts stopped, they were either done firing at random or their gun had overheated, likely the latter based on how much firepower they'd sent at us. I had a second.

My vision swapped to thermal and I saw their outline as I pulled Nurse back up, pressing the trigger halfway down before I'd even gotten it on target.

Neon blue erased the waterfall of the burst pipe as the Nurse cracked down the hallway. I knew it hit before it did, and I jumped to my feet, using the screaming pain from my hip to pump adrenaline and press past the broken ceiling to the window we'd seen on the way in.

I wasn't about to jump through that thing in my condition. I shot the wall, then again.

There were more shouts down the hallway. I grabbed the hard light harpoon from Tash and used it to cut away the last jagged fragments of metal between us and freedom. I didn't give it back to her before pushing through the new hole in the wall.

I almost expected to hit fresh air when we stepped outside, but this was Station 26. There wasn't fresh air anywhere unless you had it personally pumped in.

"Which way to the meeting place?" I asked.

"I'm not going that way," Tash said, "that's gonna be close to too many of them."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going that fucking way, we just got out, and Collings is-" she cut herself off, "let's go."

"Natasha, Victoria is there. Which way is it?"

"My brother is dead, and you want me to risk our necks for a fucking Fot…" she trailed off, obviously reading that. Yes, that was what I was saying. "Fuck, that way," she pointed instead of leading. She was right. It was in the direction I was most likely to run into someone instead of disappearing into the Songlai night.

I nodded, then took the first step in that direction; Natasha didn't join.

"You sure Kingston we can come back around for her in the morning or som-"

I nodded to cut her off.

"Good luck."

Natasha left. That was the woman I knew.

I flexed my leg once to test the pain. It was a lot, and I'd need a graft sooner than later if I wanted to keep most of my skin there. Once I'd confirmed that I could still move, I pressed myself against the outside wall of the building, just beside the hole I'd blown in the wall, to catch my breath and prepare for whatever was next.

If I got a minute, I would have been ready for anything, but I only took thirty seconds to be ready for most. I wasn't keen on letting Victoria wait for longer than she needed to. If she heard the gunshots, she would call Jie, but I wasn't sure that made things better.

The shouting echoes bounced off the walls around me as I crept along them, ensuring that I was just low enough to avoid getting seen from a window within the building as I made my way back to the front. If I could stay unseen, I'd have the drop on the guards at the door, and I could wound one so I could get away scott-free.

It wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan.

I took a deep breath as I approached the corner. Two shots rang out, and then a loud slam before I could round it. They were already fighting, perfect. I snapped the Nurse to head height.

And found it chest height on the rebel queen as she dropped the corpse of the second door guard.

It took Sevita a moment to notice me. I held the trigger halfway down.

She never lunged. Instead, she put up two of her four hands and pulled the gigantic slab of metal she'd been swinging around with the other two.

I had a shot, but she hadn't done anything yet. I took a steadying breath and lowered the barrel of the Nurse. "Sevita, right?"

"Yes."

"'You a merc?"

“No, I work for Moldieki and the Viedesshai. You gonna pull that trigger?"

"Not if I don't have to."

"That's a good answer," she said, "you from Jie?"

"Merc."

Sevita put her upper hands down. "Well, I'm not being paid to kill you."

"Same."

"Got a name?"

"Kingston," I answered.

"Getting out of there was pretty slick. I could tell-"

"I'm hired, thanks," I explained.

"I respect that," she nodded to the gun, "thanks for not shooting me with that when you had the chance."

"Didn't have to."

"Appreciated either way. You trying to leave?"

"Yeah."

"And the girl that was with you?"

"She's gone."

"Ah shit. Moldieki's not gonna like that."

"I'd say sorry but-"

"Nah, you did your thing," she chittered, which was the Anteraxi equivalent of sighing, "alright, I gotta go. Get outta here before I don't have an excuse next time."

"Nice to meet you, Sevita."

"Same to you, Kingston. Stay safe."

I wouldn't.