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They veered down the aisle they needed. I dashed faster. I was just coming up on that same aisle, preparing to start flinging pebbles at them if need be to shake them out of their intense focus on the unit ahead and judging the distance to where they were now halfway down the aisle, when a horrible screeching sound shattered my own attention.
Locker doors were flying open at the opening to the aisle—and at the far end, where we’d expected to find the symbol. At least two dozen men charged out, all of them with guns in their hands, surrounding the Chaos Crew in an instant.
In the same instant, my mind blanked with panic. I couldn’t do anything but muffle a rising scream as the attackers fired. The guys threw themselves toward the nearest locked doors, ducking to the ground and rolling into the small indents of the entrances to avoid being hit. Then my instincts kicked in and launched me into action.
No one had noticed me still—my friends or their attackers. I snatched up the gun I’d brought in a concealed holster under my arm and took aim at the larger group closing in on the crew from the only direction they could make their escape.
As I fired my first shots, dropping one and then another man in quick succession with bullets to the head, someone in the crew tossed a small round object into the middle of the aisle. I braced for an explosion, but instead, smoke billowed out of it with a quavering hiss. In a matter of seconds, most of the aisle was clouded with a thick gray fog. Even from above, I could only make out the slightest impressions of the figures within it.
The men were flattening themselves into the alcoves of the locker doorways, which provided only a tiny bit more cover on top of the smoke. I couldn’t tell whether they’d noticed my shooting amid what was coming from their attackers.
The attackers had halted on either edge of the expanding cloud. Several of them glanced my way and took aim, and I leapt behind a low protrusion on the roof. Bullets battered its metal surface.
More shots rang out below. Some must have been from the crew and some from their attackers aiming at them, but any sense of their direction was lost in the general blare of sound.
I scooted out from behind the protrusion with my own pistol at the ready. From that awkward angle, it was hard to aim well, but I managed to pick off a few more of the enemy before they disappeared into the edges of the fog. Apparently they’d decided it was better to tackle the crew in the midst of that than risk losing them altogether, although where they thought the men might escape to, I had no clue.
Since I could barely see them, I knew they couldn’t make me out either. I eased out and scuttled over to the edge of the roof, still keeping low just in case. I had a vague sense of where the crew had been holding their ground before, but I wasn’t totally sure they hadn’t moved. The smoke had thickened around the spot where the bomb had burst to the point that I couldn’t make them out at all.
I did catch glimpses of other forms at the edges of the fray. Whenever I got a clear enough view to be confident it wasn’t one of my men, I took the shots I could. When I ran out of bullets, I swapped cartridges with a flick of my wrist. Gunfire continued to blare on the ground below me.
A gust of wind washed over me and cast some of the smoke even farther, thinning it on the ground. The smoke bomb must have finished spewing out the stuff, because no more rose up to thicken the cover in its place.
Now I could just make out the crew near their original positions. Garrison and Talon stood on one side, shooting relentlessly at the crowd pressing in on them. Julius crouched nearby, still pressed against the wall as he shot into the other side of the fray, and Blaze aimed his own bullets over the other man’s shoulder.
They couldn’t keep up their fire constantly. As I watched, Julius paused to reload, and Blaze increased his fire to stop any attackers who’d drawn too close. But then they both had to dodge back against the locker door when a hail of bullets careened toward them.
Squinting through the fog, I pointed my pistol at each attacker who got close enough to the crew to target them. I took shot after shot, counting down my bullets as I made the rest of that clip count, only taking the shots when the men got close enough to the guys. We’d only held them off this long because of the smoke, and I only had one clip left. We were still way too outnumbered.
I reloaded once more and then lost a few bullets when someone aimed their shots at me again. My own went wild as I flung myself down on the roof. I picked off that bastard, but I only managed to take down a couple more and partly injure one or two others before I was totally out. Gritting my teeth, I shoved the temporarily useless gun back into its holster.
A few of the attackers had pushed close enough to the crew to tackle them hand to hand. Talon engaged first, swinging his knife, as Garrison continued firing at the more distant people to keep them at bay. Talon wove between the two attackers unlike anyone else, but they were good, and they managed to land a few minor blows through his defenses.
It said a lot about their training, but Talon didn’t even flinch. He dispatched one and then the other with well-placed stabs, taking a third man on when he charged in.
Julius gave a shout as several more attackers converged on him and Blaze. He shot one and punched another. Talon and Garrison swung around, both preparing to defend their comrades, and I spotted one last man from the group who’d come from the far end of the aisle slinking toward Talon’s back through the lingering smoke.
He was already raising his knife. The boom of several more gunshots drowned out any noise his footfalls might have made.
“Talon!” I hollered, but my voice was lost in the cacophony too. The man sprinted forward with a final burst of speed, and I did the only thing I could: I lunged off the roof straight at the prick.
No one was going to get away with hurting my men.
I soared through the hazy air and smacked right into the guy, my momentum and my well-positioned tackle knocking him to the ground. I moved on instinct, relying on my years of training to guide my hands as I deflected his defensive blows and yanked the blade from his grasp.
He caught my wrists, holding the blade at bay for a long moment with shaking limbs. The flex of his arms, twice as broad as mine, nearly forced the knife into my own chest. But I put my body weight into my thrust, forcing the blade down inch-by-inch until it plunged into his throat.
He gasped and gurgled, his body going slack beneath me. I hunched down, scanning the smoke-laced air around me for more attackers. In the midst of my own struggle, the gunfire had faded away.
A few more shots rang out as the crew took on the final attackers. Those men collapsed, and for a second, relief rushed through me.
It was over. We’d taken them all down.
Then I noticed that Blaze had dropped down onto his belly. He still had his gun braced in his hands, his eyes intent on the men he’d just helped stop, but a crimson pool was spreading from beneath his stomach.
A cry of dismay broke from my mouth. As I dashed over, his head lolled to the side, and he sagged against the pavement.
