I was right. Even as I dropped the last of the first wave and spun around again, I found the two of them charging full tilt toward me. An extremely vulnerable position, and one which a trained fighter like me could take full and devastating advantage of.
Except that there were two of them, and I was down to a single snoozer.
The thudwumper half of my magazine still had fifteen rounds in it. But killing or maiming would be to take the fight to a new level, and I wasn’t ready yet to push things that far.
But while my attackers were Shonkla-raa, they were also normal sentient beings, with all of a sentient being’s reactions. Flipping the selector to the thudwumper side of my magazine, I aimed at the floor ahead and just to the side of the leftmost Filly and squeezed the trigger.
Thudwumper rounds weren’t nearly as loud as those from larger and heavier-caliber handguns. But the flat crack of the shot, the dull thud of the impact, and the scream of a near-miss ricochet were just as intimidating. I gave the Fillies a quarter of a second to realize I was no longer firing snoozers, then lifted the gun to point squarely at the one whose foot I’d just missed.
His reaction was exactly what one would expect from anyone not in a suicidal frame of mind, and exactly what I’d hoped for. Reflexively, he skidded to a confused halt, leaving his companion to continue their charge alone.
The first Filly came at me like a Quadrail engine, all speed and power and no finesse whatsoever, and I had the brief impression that he hadn’t yet realized that his partner had temporarily opted for the better part of valor. Once again, I did a quick sidestep out of his path. But this time, instead of spending a snoozer on him, I did a quick sweep with my leg and knocked his own legs out from under him.
He hit the ground with a grunt and bounded up again, his body armor cushioning his fall enough to keep from having the wind knocked out of him. But if he was expecting me to stick around for another round, he was severely disappointed. Even before his final bounce along the ground I was on my way again toward Bayta’s building, keeping my Beretta trained warningly on the other Filly as I sprinted past him. I reached the building, yanked open the door, and went in.
I’d expected to find a state of chaos, and I was right. The receptionist, who was leaning forward talking urgently into her comm, straightened up so fast she slammed herself and her chair into the wall behind her. I strode past her into the main corridor, Beretta held ready as I watched doctors and techs scrambling desperately out of my way or ducking out of sight into offices, labs, and patient rooms. One of the doctors held his ground, apparently with the idea of standing up to me, changing his mind only when I put another thudwumper into the equipment tray beside him. Amid the spray of shattered plastic and glass he joined his fellows in disappearing through the nearest doorway. I continued on, glancing into each room as I passed it, and finally arrived at Terese’s room.
There, just as the Modhri had said, I found Bayta.
She was in Terese’s old bed, her arms and legs strapped to the sides, her eyes closed, her face pale and drawn. Dr. Aronobal was standing beside her, a hypo in her hand clearly on its way toward Bayta’s arm. Flipping my Beretta’s selector again, I put my last snoozer into the center of her blaze.
And barely got the gun turned back around as a movement to my left caught the corner of my eye. “Hold it,” I bit out, flicking back to thudwumpers.
I’d rather expected Wandek personally to be handling this one. But instead, the lone figure standing silently by the equipment table was my old friend Blue One. “Well, hello there, Isantra Kordiss,” I greeted him coolly as I took a hasty step backward. “I’d stay right there if I were you.”
“And if I don’t?” he challenged, matching my move with a more leisurely step forward.
“No, Frank, don’t,” Bayta said weakly.
Keeping my eyes on Kordiss, I backed across the room. Kordiss stayed put, his eyes on me the whole way. “You all right?” I asked Bayta as I reached her bedside.
“I’m fine,” she assured me. “All they’ve done is taken some blood and checked my brainwaves. Nothing that will tell them anything.”
“Lucky for them,” I said, risking a quick sideways look at her. Her eyes were open now, half lidded with probably drug-induced fatigue, but they were bright and aware and defiant despite that. “Otherwise, I’d have to kill all of them.”
“No, don’t,” Bayta said earnestly. “Please. I think that’s exactly what they want you to do.”
“So that they can haul me up on major felony charges and have the patrollers lock me up and leave you defenseless,” I said, switching the Beretta to my left hand and starting to undo the strap around her left arm. “Yes, I know. They’ve already tried that with Chinzro Hchchu.” I raised my eyebrows at Kordiss. “Whom Usantra Wandek murdered in cold blood while I watched.”
“Of which claim you have no proof,” Kordiss scoffed. “The patrollers are hardly going to take the word of a Human over that of a Filiaelian usantra.”
“That’s the second time you’ve tried that argument,” I reminded him. The strap was turning out to be trickier than it had looked, especially given that I was trying to unfasten it by touch alone. But there was something in Kordiss’s expression that warned me not to take my eyes off him. “It didn’t hold much water then, either,” I continued. “So how come I’m off the patrollers’ bad-guys list? Usantra Wandek afraid the techs would run their blood tests and conclude Chinzro Hchchu died five minutes after the patrollers started packing up his body?”
“Do you really think you can escape Kuzyatru Station?” Kordiss asked, almost conversationally. “Because you’ll have to kill me to stop me.” He cocked his head slightly as if listening. “Along with many others. Do you hear that?”
I heard it, all right: multiple footsteps out in the corridor, heading determinedly this way at a fast walk. “I hear them,” I acknowledged. With a final effort, I ripped the restraint free. “But as it happens, I’m not going to have to kill you or them.”
And as the first of the approaching Shonkla-raa appeared in the doorway I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the kwi I’d taken from Hchchu’s desk drawer, and pressed it into Bayta’s newly freed hand.
The Filly in the doorway was the first to go, collapsing without a sound as Bayta fired the kwi at him. The second Shonkla-raa in line flailed in sudden disorientation as he tripped over the unexpected obstacle in front of him, and from the sounds of confusion coming from behind him I gathered the rest of the group were slamming into each other like the characters in an old dit-rec comedy. Kordiss himself had just enough time to snarl something and start into a tiger leap of his own before Bayta zapped him to the floor to join his friend.
“Keep them busy,” I ordered Bayta as I got her left leg free. Ducking around the end of the bed, making sure I stayed below the kwi’s line of fire, I got to work on the right-hand straps.
By the time I finished, two more of the group had strayed into range and view and joined the growing pile of unconscious Shonkla-raa stretched out on the floor. “You up to traveling?” I asked as I took Bayta’s arm and helped her off the bed.
“I think so,” she said. She staggered once, then seemed to find her balance. “Yes, I’m all right,” she said, reaching for the kwi wrapped around her hand. “You’d better have this.”
“Keep it,” I said, shifting my gun to my right hand and taking her arm with my left. “There are a lot of open spaces here, and the kwi doesn’t have nearly as much range as the Beretta.”