dead. If that means losing her, too, that's just the way it is.”
* * *
Alfred swore as the man standing beside the chaise lounge tumbled backward. The Descorso's dart had struck just above his upper lip and hydrostratic shock blasted a cloud of bone splinters, finely separated brain matter, and blood from the ruined back of his skull. But he'd been shouting into a com when Alfred fired, and Alfred's heart turned to ice as he heard someone else shouting from the wind-tossed woods to the north.
His only real chance had been to get in, find Allison, get her back out again, and reach the waiting taxi before the Manpower killers realized what had happened. Only he hadn't, and he had few illusions about the kind of men he faced.
He almost turned to make a break for the woods, but a burst of pulser fire ripped over his head in the long, rippling crack of the darts' supersonic passage. He snarled another curse and took the only option he had, sprinting not for the woods but to the south, circling to put the power receptor's shed between him and that rifleman to the north.It covered him for a few, precious moments; then another burst shrieked past him. He jinked and swerved as he ran, then flung himself down into the ravine.
A third burst ripped into the inside of the ravine's southern wall, pulverising grass, dirt, and leaves, but the shooter could no longer see them. He had to be shooting blind, not that it was going to matter much in the end. They knew where he'd gone into the ravine, and that bastard to the north was closer to its western end than he was. They'd post that one to watch that end, send someone else to watch the eastern end, and then they'd systematically close in on him.
He slid Allison off his left shoulder as gently as he could and snatched the captured pulse rifle off his right shoulder. At least the man he'd taken it from had been carrying three spare magazines. That meant he was unlikely to run out of ammunition before they closed in and killed both of them.
He elbow-crawled up to the brink of the ravine and raised his head cautiously. The dry water course was almost two meters deep at this point, which was good, and he had wide fields of fire in all directions. Unfortunately, he could only cover one of them at a time, and yet another fusilade of pulser darts screamed overhead. These had come from a different direction, farther east than the other fire, and his eye caught a flicker of movement as the man who'd fired darted towards another of the lodge's outbuildings, closer to the ravine.
The pulse rifle was at his shoulder, like an old, familiar companion, and his right forefinger squeezed.
The running man seemed to trip in mid-air, then went down in the bone-breaking slide of eighty kilos of dead meat, and the monster snarled inside him. That was five of them. At least they'd by God know they'd been in a fight!
The thought flashed through him, and it was poison bitter on his tongue as he darted a glance over his shoulder at Allison before he turned back towards the enemy. It didn't matter how many of them he killed before they killed him, for he'd failed, and she was going to die anyway.
Stop that! Maybe you have, but she's not dead yet, and neither are you! Keep it that way, you stupid bastard! And—
“Alfred?”
His eyes widened as Allison called his name weakly.
“Yes, Allison. It's me.” He was astounded by how gently his voice came out, but he dared not look back at her.
“You . . . came for me,” she said.
“Of course I did.” He considered lying to her, telling her everything was going to be fine, but he knew she would read the lie the instant he said it, and so he shook his head. “It's not looking too good just now, though.”
She astonished him with a ghost of a laugh, but the laugh ended in a sob. A sob of hurt, he knew, but also of inner pain. The pain of knowing he was going to die, as well.
“Here!” He pulled the uni-link from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Screen the cops and tell them to home on your signal. Maybe they'll get here in time.”
He knew there was no hope in hell of that, but he was astounded by the