Evira’s dive had given her the table for cover and she immediately shoved herself beneath it. The legs and thighs of the guardsmen were visible, worthy targets even if not likely to be fatal, and she fired the ancient Mauser at one figure and then the next. The guards collapsed before they could right their fire. Keeping low, Evira darted out from beneath the table and aimed her pistol at their writhing frames. Only a pair remained conscious, and these she killed quickly on her way toward the same door through which she had entered the room.
She bolted into the corridor and pulled the heavy door closed behind her. She pressed her shoulders tight against the wall and felt a shard of wood explode just over her right shoulder. Another Revolutionary Guardsman was charging from the end of the corridor opposite the door she had used to enter the building. She swung toward that door only to see it crash open and two more guards push through into the corridor. Both routes of exit were cut off for her.
Evira fired a pair of bullets in each direction, leaving her with a single shell in the Mauser and no spare clip. The three on-rushing guardsmen pinned themselves against the walls nearest them, which allowed her to charge across the corridor for another door that had caught her eye.
She saw it was locked and fired her final bullet into the latch. It gave enough for her forward charge to shatter it. The guardsmen picked up the chase again, firing a stream of bullets in her direction.
Evira found herself on a stairway bathed in coal black darkness broken only by the scant light provided by the open door behind her. She plunged down the steps blindly, hands feeling about the wall to keep her bearings. The bottom of the stairs came up fast and she nearly tripped over herself. Her stumble took her against an extension of the same wall and her head banged up against something metallic. Stunned, she maintained the presence of mind to realize it was a control box and quickly had it open.
Above her, the three guards were following in her wake. Her only chance was to distract them, and the control box held the means. Evira pried it open and slid the switches on the right side into the on position, and then did the same with the switches on the left. Immediately the overhead fluorescent lights struggled to catch and a whining whirl signalled that the processing machines were coming back to life. The whine gave way to an almost deafening screech. Everywhere on the floor before her huge machines performed their tasks with no materials to process, screeching as if to protest that fact. The resulting chaos was hers to take the best advantage of as she could. She rushed from the junction station to the largest machine she could find, intending to keep using it and the others for cover until she could find an alternate route out.
A bullet chimed above her head as she neared the huge machine that pressed unfinished plastic into the desired width. It was a gear-driven monstrosity with a tread that led to a pair of huge, narrowly spaced rubber rollers running in tandem toward each other to allow the plastic to slide through. Beyond this was a rolling machine that accepted the plastic sheeting and twisted it up into rolls ready for shipping. The other machines were almost as loud but not nearly as impressive, nor were they large enough to use for concealment.
The three guards fanned out, cutting off possible angles of escape. The strategy, she realized, meant she now had a single man to deal with three times instead of three men. Her new advantage was further helped by the noise that buried all possible communication among her pursuers. Evira couldn’t reach any of the possible exit routes yet, but with all the guards eliminated by the skills she would now be able to utilize, she would have her choice of doors.
Having crawled to the back edge of the rolling machine, Evira reached up for a rounded wooden shaft. Closer inspection revealed that it had a hook at the top for hoisting the rolled plastic up for stacking. The edge was not only sharpened, but also could be manipulated by a mechanism connected to it at the handle, much like a pincer apparatus. Apply pressure to a simple hand grip and the pincer-like hook snapped closed around the roll of plastic. Evira drew the instrument to her and edged on.
Ten feet away a Revolutionary Guardsman moved slowly forward in the aisle on the other side of the huge machines. If she was fortunate, he would not think to lean over and glance beneath the apparatus where he would certainly see her. Evira eased into a turn to start back toward the rolling machine again. She moved parallel to the guard, matching his pace as they approached each other. Her timing would have to be perfect. She had the pincer apparatus, yes, but the guard had something much more comforting — a machine gun. She must both disable him and get his gun.
Evira brought the pincer rod up close to her just as the guard reached the other side of the churning rolling machine. The moving tread slid in and between the powerful rollers, which ground in protest as rubber squeezed against rubber. Evira stayed low until the guard had just moved beyond her in the other aisle. Then she sprang.
The guard picked out her shape at the last instant, too late to stop her from jabbing the pincers against his throat and working the apparatus at the bottom of the shaft to perfection. The powerful tongs, sharp enough to grip tough plastic, dug part way into the flesh on the sides of his throat. His scream almost rose above the awful din of the machines, and he dropped his rifle as his hands flailed upward toward his punctured neck.
Before the guard knew what was happening, Evira jerked down on the pincers, and he found himself on the moving tread, only feet from the rollers. With the man’s head almost to the rollers, Evira leaned over to grab his rifle. She grasped the welcome steel only to find it attached to his shoulder by a strap. She tried to gain the leverage required to pull it free, but the motion exposed her to one of his fellows who had been attracted by the commotion.
His bullets grazed Evira’s side. Her own scream was lost in the final one gurgling from the guardsman as the bones of his face and neck were crushed in the rolling mechanism, jamming it. Evira wasn’t sure how bad her wound was, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop her from realizing she needed a weapon desperately.
Some thick shards of plastic lay on the floor beneath her, and she wedged them in her belt before lunging for the dead guardsman’s rifle, which was resting outside of the rolling machine. One of the remaining guardsmen was spewing fire from atop the pressing machine ten feet before her. The dead man’s gun was jammed in the pressing apparatus, but Evira was able to twist the barrel around and locate the trigger. A bullet grazed her collarbone, and she wailed in agony but managed to fire blindly forward. The guard’s hands clutched for his midsection and he keeled over to the floor.
Evira ducked low and slammed her shoulders against the rolling machine. There was no time to celebrate, not with the final guard still about. She started to edge forward, the pain in her side and collarbone rocking her, making her pay for every step.
The final guard materialized off her right flank. She registered that his leg was bloody and realized her single spray had wounded him. He fired a burst at her, but she had already lunged down and to the side, thinking she could perhaps reach the stairs ahead of him. But she stumbled over a crate and fell to even more pain and shock. The guardsman charged with his rifle aimed dead at her.
Evira remembered the thin shards of plastic she had wedged in her belt. Without thinking further, she drew one out and hurled it as he skidded to a halt to steady his aim. A scream curdled her ears and she saw that he was groping desperately for the shard of plastic that had lodged in his left eye.
Seizing the advantage, Evira regained her feet and rushed into him with a force that spun both of them around against the front of the pressing machine. The man forgot his pain long enough to grasp her at the shoulders and slam her backward against the steel. Her insides shook as he bent her over the tread. She saw the shard of plastic yanked from his dead eye was still in his hand. He swiped at her and narrowly missed her throat when Evira twisted. He swiped again and she deflected the blow with her functioning arm, sending further agony through her wounded side and collarbone.