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feet apart and down low, so if there's another ambush they can't get you all.
When you reach the edge of the tarmac facing the shuttle hold up and watch for
us to advance. We'll give them just minimal targets and if I'm not mistaken,
those amateurs will rise up a bit and they should be right in your sights.
Kill them, but be damn careful; you'll be firing almost on an angle to
intersect the women if they panic and start running this way."
Steve didn't think Janie would panic; he wasn't so sure about himself.
His hands were still shaking and sweaty. He bit his lip and scuttled off
behind the man of their group, following a shallow defile in the terrain that
Melinda had spotted almost without thinking about it. Her infantry training
had been a while ago but it came back to her almost instinctively.
It worked almost as Melinda had planned it. Once she was certain that
Steve's group had had time to get into place, she signaled silently to the
rest of her group, then held her hand. She counted by the prearranged signal
with her fingers flicking out from her closed fist, _one, two three!_ And then
as befitted a leader, she was the first to expose herself enough to fire at
their foes. The others followed a second later.
It worked just as she had planned, except for one of her squad who got
too enthusiastic and made a target of himself. He was dead an instant later,
but his killer had only seconds to celebrate. Steve's laser bolt nearly took
his head off and his companions, the ones who weren't hit at first, soon gave
up and began running off toward another shuttle, way in the distance. Steve
followed one running figure and wasted two beams without hitting him. Several
others fell, but a few made it -- and he saw blue clad figures spilling out of
the big cargo airlock to meet them.
No one had to tell Janie and Sheila that this was their chance. Once
they saw their attackers running, both began running themselves, in almost the
opposite direction, toward the Steve's shuttle and safety.
Janie practically ran into Steve's arms. He saw her coming, still
carrying her laser; face looking as frightened as that of a young doe being
pursued by hounds. He popped up and gathered her in, shouting her name with a
joyful exuberance while he almost crushed her in his arms.
Janie dropped her weapon and returned the embrace, saying his name over
and over, _Stevie, Stevie, Stevie!_
"Time for huggies later, kids. Let's move while we have the chance.
Melinda pointed back the way they had come. Steve grabbed Janie's hand in a
death grip and they began running as if their lives depended on it -- which
they did.
The group of Plemmons pouring from the shuttle evidently had gotten
instructions from someone. It was a long way off, but they began firing at
them as they ran. Once on the tarmac they could make better time -- but became
better targets, too.
Just as they were nearing the shuttle, Steve felt, then saw Janie
stumble; a random bit of debris which had been blown onto the tarmac by the
shuttle blast which had wiped out the group of Plemmons Corpolice caught her
foot just right and she fell, twisting her ankle painfully enough to make her
cry out.
Steve almost fell too but Janie's hand slipped out of his grasp just
before he would have taken a nasty spill.
"My ankle!" Janie cried, trying to get back onto her feet and not
succeeding.
Steve wasted no time. He knelt down and urged Janie up and over his
shoulder in a fireman's carry, avoiding a laser beam that burned a path in the
air where his head had just been.
Melinda waved the others on and knelt to steady her aim as Steve
staggered past her in a clumsy run. She fired until the charge of her laser
gun was exhausted then turned and ran, hurrying to catch up. The others were
already entering the cargo airlock that had dilated for them and she saw Steve
stumble in after them, still carrying Janie. She made it back to the entrance
before being hit. She fell, then clambered back to her feet, clutching a badly
burned arm. The outer door of the lock squeezed shut just in time to take
another beam that would have surely killed her. It merely reddened the metal a
bit and did no damage. Melinda burned her hand closing the door but thought it
a wound worth suffering. Now if they could just get into orbit before
something else hit the fan.
* * * *
_If we can just get into orbit before something else hits the fan,_ Donald
thought. He had finally decided to shut down the communications console and
take off, trusting his father to know that there must be a reason for not
asking first. There was simply no way he was going to allow a sentient
computer into the circuits of the mother ship, not now when his father's plan
was so close to success -- whatever it was.
* * * *
Steve and Janie were not worrying in the least about further complications.
Steve had carried her into the first cabin he came to, not caring who it might
belong to and they were touching and feeling each other's bodies and kissing
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