his armored vest.
He’d been hit before and kept his wits, despite the pain and difficulty breathing.
“I’m hit,” he said.
He rolled over onto this stomach and fired as rapidly as he could pull the trigger at the three men behind them. They responded in kind. Blaster bolts put holes in the floor around him. Chunks of floor tile flew into the air. He could barely hear anything over the sound of blasterfire and the screams of the civvies.
A shot from the attack’s leader, the man who looked so familiar, caught Zeerid’s shoulder. Once more his armor spared him serious injury but the impact sent a jolt of pain down the length of his arm, left his hand numb, and sent his blaster skittering over the floor.
It stopped directly before a Zeltron female who lay flat on the floor. He met her wide-eyed gaze and saw the mindless fear. She made no move toward the blaster.
He rolled for cover away from the woman as more and more shots from the three men caged him in. Near him, a civilian moaned, presumably hit in the crossfire. A woman shrieked.
He had to get clear.
But before he could stand Aryn was over him, her blade a blur of motion that formed a cocoon of green light around them, deflecting blaster shots in all directions. She grabbed him under his armpit and helped him to his feet while still deflecting shots.
“Up,” she said. “Up.”
He still had not caught his breath enough to reply, but with her assistance he got to his feet. His right arm hung from his shoulder like a slab of meat. Reaching behind to the small of his back, he pulled the E-9 he kept there and took it in his left hand.
“The ship,” he said, still struggling for air.
Aryn gestured at a cargo tram near the three men shooting at them from behind. The six cars of the tram rushed toward the men, propelled by Aryn’s power. They scrambled aside, and Aryn and Zeerid dashed for Fatman.
The single man standing between them and the ship fired once, twice, and Aryn deflected both shots. Zeerid leveled the E-9 and fired. The shot hit the man in the brow and he fell backward, eyes wide open, blood pooling, dead.
As they pelted to the ship, more blaster shots rang out and Aryn’s blade hummed. The energy of the weapon caused Zeerid’s hair to stand on end.
They bounded over the dead man and through the transparisteel doors to the landing pad. The doors slid shut behind them, shutting off the screams of the civvies. Zeerid was grateful for it. Blaster shots thudded into the doors. The sound of speeders, swoops, and other nearby ships put a thrum in the air.
Shots rang out from above and to the right. A bolt clipped Aryn in the calf and knocked her legs out from under her.
An unmarked open-topped speeder flew in from the right, the pilot, a human male, firing over the side.
Zeerid crouched, one hand on Aryn, as he fired three shots with the E-9, trying to target one of the grav-thrusters on the speeder but hitting only the surrounding fuselage. The shots did no damage so he targeted the cockpit. Trying to avoid Zeerid’s fire, the pilot overcompensated and the speeder turned hard right. While the pilot scrambled to regain control, Zeerid grabbed Aryn with his good arm and pulled her to her feet.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Go, go.”
Sirens screamed in the distance, presaging the arrival of the port authorities.
Supporting each other arm in arm, they limped to the entry door and Zeerid punched in the code. Behind them, the doors to the landing pad slid open. Shots rang off the hull of Fatman. Zeerid fired a few blind bolts behind him. Aryn deflected another two shots into the bulkhead.
The ship’s door slid open too karking slow. Zeerid grabbed Aryn and climbed in before the door was all the way open. He hit the button to close it and the door stopped and reversed itself.
“I’ve got to get us out of here. You’re all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
The wound on her calf was ugly but looked like a graze. The pink, raw meat of her flesh was bordered by black lines of charred skin.
He pelted through Fatman’s corridors until he reached the cockpit, slammed himself into the pilot’s seat, and fired up the engines. His numb arm made it difficult, but he managed. He looked out of the cockpit for the speeder, saw it above him.
He’d