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A hail of bullets whizzed by. Nothing like an old-fashioned shoot-out to finish off the week that started with Zirkov kissing her and then basically accusing her of murder.
This routine check on Stenikov and his witness turned out to be anything but routine. After parking her car down the street from the safehouse, gunfire erupted. Maggie never expected to find the marshal and his witness trapped in an alley three streets away from their safehouse.
“They’re gonna kill us!” the witness said as she crouched behind the car and covered her ears.
“No, they won’t. Not if we stay calm.” Maggie fired off several rounds to keep the gunmen at bay. “How many attacked the safehouse?”
“I didn’t see anyone. Maarshuhl Stenikov grabbed me, and we fled out the back. A few houses from here, those men started firin’ at us! They trapped us here, shootin’ at us loik fish in a barrel, ye know?”
Stenikov had kept the witness alive but erred by entering the dead-end alley. He likely didn’t know the area well enough and had taken a wrong turn. New to Earth, the warrior probably didn’t realize how incongruous the layout of residential neighborhoods could be. Either way, Stenikov, his witness, and now Maggie were in trouble.
Eyes wide, the curvy redhead tucked her legs to her chest. “Can ye help us escape?”
“That’s the plan. Though I have to admit, I only stopped by to do a routine check on you and Stenikov. I didn’t expect to walk into a gunfight.”
“Bad timing, ye have, sorry. But good for us,” the redhead said with a shaky smile.
The metallic ping of bullets striking the car rang out, sending the woman into a tighter curled-up ball. Those men across the street really wanted this witness dead to be wasting so many bullets.
Post-invasion, all nations focused on building up planetary defense. That meant producing weapons systems that would defend against enemy forces on a planetary scale. No one bothered making firearms or ammo anymore, except for one small government agency, and they only supplied law enforcement and the military. Civilians had to scrounge for guns and ammo. Knives and even arrows became their primary weapons, except for some top men in the Brotherhood who always managed to have firepower.
“Give us the witness and we’ll let everyone else go free,” a man shouted from across the alley.
Maggie peered over the car they crouched behind. “Looks like the Brotherhood found you.”
“What would the Brotherhood be wantin’ with me?”
“They may still have ties to og’dal slavers. Once you testify on Dal, you won’t have to worry about them anymore. The slavers who use them to do their bidding won’t be alive to pay them, so they’ll move on to another illegal activity.” Maggie aimed at where she’d seen the last muzzle flash. “How’s Stenikov doing?”
“He’s still breathin’, he is. T’ree men jumped us when we left the safehouse. I’m not even sure why we left. It all happened vaery fast. One of them struck him in the head with a pipe, but he defeated them, all t’ree, and got me out of there safe, he did.”
“Do what you can to wake him.” They couldn’t stay in the alley much longer. Maggie had only one spare magazine on her.
When the witness didn’t respond, Maggie glanced over her shoulder. The younger woman looked pale.
“How old are you, Collins?”
Maggie hoped she could keep her from passing out while she ran through the layout of the area in her head. The nearest bus stop wasn’t far, but the Brotherhood would cover that escape route.
“Twenty-two. Call me Sorcha, if ye dunna mind.”
“Sure. Nice to meet you, Sorcha. I’m Marshal Maggie Walsh.”
“A wumman maarshuhl ? And Irish too!”
Another round of bullets thumped into the car making her screech in terror. Maggie squeezed her shoulder. “It’s a new world. Women can do anything they want.”
“Aye, if they have the connections or the body for it.”
A muzzle flashed. Maggie returned fire, pumping eight rounds to the right of a large boxwood at the corner of the house across the street. Glass exploded when her shots struck a window.
“I’m a federal marshal for Earth Intelligence,” Maggie shouted across the street. “Leave now, or the next shot will shatter more than glass.”
“I loik ye. Ye don’t give up.”
“Can’t afford to.” Maggie looked at the tall chain-linked fence at the end of the alley. She scooped up Stenikov’s blaster. One shot would create a nice hole in that fence. But she wasn’t sure she could carry the zyanthan and cover their retreat.
She fired the blaster, setting the boxwood on fire. It handled differently from her Glock. Not as much kickback, and with more of an arc to it.
