To Get Out Alive - Part Seven (a Guns For Hire fanfic)

[churbooseanon]

Data secured, David now needs to get out.

 

To Get Out Alive [Part Seven] - (A Guns for Hire Fanfic)

    Fifteen minutes. That’s how long David spent under the desk, looking out every now and then to check the progress bar on the screen and check for potential hazards. But nothing. The tension slowly ate away at the thin veneer of his patience, and David was certain he checked his load-out of weapons about ten times before the datadrive chimed it’s completion. Only then was David safe enough to pull the thing free, turn off the set-up, and move to the exit.

    Even made it all the way to and through the airlock before all hell broke loose.

    The night, he found, was the same sort of dark it had been when he’d entered. The same dark there had been when he’d run out into the night to try and help Karim. The last dark night his ex-boyfriend ever saw. What he also found, though, was that the streetlights near the building had been shot out. Wonderful. Even as David peeked out through the barely opened door of the airlock, he knew how this had to play out. They were waiting for him, waiting for whatever was on the datadrive. Apparently this time the mercenaries or whoever they were that had gone after Karim had decided to make sure the data was in hand before they brought down their prey.

    Too bad for them this target had teeth all his own, ready to bite them for the arrogance to think that he didn’t see this coming. Karim sure hadn’t, only armed as he had been with a poor quality battle rifle and no backup weapon. Granted, Karim had seemed certain during his conversation with his employer that this was going to be an easily done job. The only reason David was going in the wiser was because this wasn’t his job, and he got to see the after effects of being prepared. Then again military life reminded you that even when things were good, things that could go wrong would go wrong.

    As his instructors at bootcamp had told them, no plan, no matter how well devised, survived the first encounter with the enemy. Why, for the love of all that was holy, couldn’t people just behave in predictable fashions?

    David slowly eased the airlock door back closed, just a hair, to give himself better cover, and then closed his eyes. Tried to think about the layout of the street he’d noticed before coming in. Where were the places with the best cover? Where would he strike from if he was the attacking force? In their place he knew he’d wait until the target was far enough from the airlock that they couldn’t dive back in for cover. He could use that and the heavy steel door to his advantage. It could easily give him cover from a whole arc of potential attack vectors, and he was pretty certain they wouldn’t come from behind him. In fact, they couldn’t with the outer door open unless someone initiated fire emergency protocols, which would warn him before the inner door opened. So his back was covered, and he could cover a decent range with the door only partially opened.

    One last time David checked the magazine of his battle rifle, an old stress reaction that apparently all his time out of the army hasn’t freed him from.

    “Time to move, David,” he reminds himself.

    Within a moment David was stretched out in the airlock on his belly, sticking the muzzle of his battle rifle through the gap. If memory served there should be a bench just over… There, he got sight of the faint shape of the shuttle stop bench through his gap in the door. There were definitely too many supports under it, but he didn’t have a good angle like this. With a sigh he leaned forward just enough to push the heavy metal door open a little bit more. Much better like that. Smirking in his helmet David lined up a shot. Time to play with his new toy.

    Safety off and rifle switched into burst-fire, David squeezed off a quick shot just short of the bench. A warning to whoever thought they were going to attack him. Almost immediately he could see feet jumping backwards a few steps. Good he had their attention. Still, they had moved enough that he had to adjust his aim up. Instead of aiming for their legs, he had an angle instead on their now visible torsos. Idiots. Such a clear, clean target, and they were cursing loud enough to confirm their presence even if he hadn’t been sure before.

    “I’ve got good news and bad news,” David called out, turning up the speakers on his helmet to make sure he would be heard. “Bad news is that was a warning shot, not a miss. Whether you’ll believe it or not, I’m an expert marksman, so you don’t want to be on my badside. Good news, I’ll let you all walk away with all your blood and no extra special dose of lead supplements if you let me go unharmed.”

    A voice scoffed right back at him, a male one that had an accent David could place as from a small colony world called Genos which was known for being one of the least pleasant places to live in human colonized space. Granted, it was better than Adaptive, but that David was pretty sure was by dint of them not having toxic storms. He’d known someone from Genos in the service, a good man trying to get ahead of what his life had dealt him. If only this one had made as similar choice. And too bad for him he happened to be one of the two bodies just behind the bench.

    “Like hell we’re letting you…”

    The man didn’t get to finish whatever he was going to say as David lined up another shot and squeezed off another three-round burst. In the silence that came after the crack of the shots the sound of the body hitting the ground was far beyond eerie. And god help him, David’s hand almost started to shake. First confirmed kill since leaving the service. And from the way the other person behind the bench was ducking down and raising their gun over the bench itself, it wasn’t going to be be the last.

    “I gave you an out,” he announced into the silence. “I’m sorry you didn’t take it, but you’re between me and my job.”

    “Same here buddy,” another voice shouted in response, somewhere off to his right, the door between himself and the origin. Well, at least that confirmed the location of another target. And now, he decided, was time to move.

    The first step of which was pulling one of the grenades back out. It took nothing at all to prime the thing, a careful count to get ready, and a quick roll through the door to create the perfect distraction. All eyes would be on the explosion, he knew how people tended to work, and these ones probably weren’t smart enough to watch for movement with the blast. So the second it went off David was scrambling to his feet and through the door. Still in motion he shot down the other person behind the bench he had been able to see, and threw himself over the railing of the stairs to the left. That would give him cover from the right. There was shouting, people calling for attention, guns going off too late behind him as David turned his attention to the new area unveiled to him. Seemed like they weren’t smart enough to position someone over here. Even as his attention went up he didn’t find someone stationed on top of a building either. Was it really that simple? Just a few people on either side of the door?

    Well, now that he thought about it, he had already taken out three people. The one he had shot at back in Karim’s alley most definitely wasn’t going to be battle ready any time soon. In fact, the other one had probably been taken to the hospital with them after David had called an ambulance for them, so that was two people on a team of however many already taken out. Then there were the two behind the bench he had shot, and he knew it was two, because he could hear the groaning from behind the bench. Hell, he hadn’t even been shot at yet. Given the other two voices…

    Six people. Was it really possible that whoever else was after this data or the person that had hired Karim had only sent six men to ensure the job as done? Actually, when he thought about it six people might be a little overkill. This could easily be another set of people called in after the one he had knocked out called back to his employer. How important was this information?

    For a moment David patted the datadrive in his pocket, wondering just what Karim had gotten himself into. And then the gunfire behind him, beyond the stairs, reminded him that the concern really wasn’t as important at this moment as survival was. And god help him if there were more than two more people here and they’d disabled his vehicle. Well, no use borrowing trouble. David briefly cast his attention toward the side street he had his vehicle stowed on, and when he saw no one approaching from that direction he returned his attention to the problem on the other side of the stairs, which had decided to go and complicate itself further.

    While not a universal rule, David had found that there were more than a few airlocks in the city that had interior sensors to tell them if they were occupied. If no one was in them and there was nothing blocking the door from closing, an automated system kicked in that slowly swung the thing back shut. Which meant the additional cover David had intended to work with had closed while he was scoping for more targets behind him. Upside, it left him with a relatively clear line of sight on a remembered parked van further up the street. No doubt where these people had been hiding. Stupid him for not clearing it while he was inbound. But mistakes were made and you either died or you made it out and learned from them. David intended to be part of the latter category.

    Another grenade came out and David popped his head up just long enough to try and get range on the van. Good thing it was a brief check too, because almost immediately there were gunshots, some pinging off of the stairs behind him. Damn, they were quick shots. He had thought with his dark helmet and the darkness here there wouldn’t be too much of a problem staying hidden. But, now that he thought about it, there was the yellow stripe on his helmet and…

    Right. The lights were shot out. David cursed himself as he realized it. He’d heard of illegal street mods that mercenaries used, had a few of them himself when he was in the army. After all, night-vision put into a helmet was actually more efficient than into the scope on a gun or even with goggles. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

    Probably because he wasn’t thinking about these people in the fairest way. Shouldn’t what he saw at the gun dealer’s place have taught him better? Whatever had led to this mercenary culture on Adaptive, they’d definitely lived up to the planet’s name. Which meant he had to be even more careful with all of this. Fuck, why couldn’t they just be incompetent assholes rather than competent ones?

    Still, the plan was sound. He thought. So far as he knew there weren’t many people who could shoot a grenade out of the air. In fact he’d only ever heard of that happening once, and since the person claiming it had been at a military bar at the time bragging and deep in his cups, David wasn’t quite sure how believable the story was.

    Deep breaths. Caution is the better part of…

    Head up, arm going as he threw, and then back down into cover as he listened to people shout and run. Scrabble away as he counted down in his head. Two… one…

    The explosion was loud, far louder than it should have been, which meant David had hit his target. With that in mind he popped up out of cover and started shooting on full auto, trying to figure out where the people had gone. Sure enough the place where the van had once stood unharmed there was now the burning remains of the vehicle. Damn, he must have gotten the grenade close to the tank to get that sort of quick reaction. Perfect. He could see one body on the ground near the van, someone apparently hadn’t moved fast enough. The other person he found only because of the gunshots they let loose as David was sinking back down into cover.

    Of course he didn’t get down soon enough. There was a sharp pain in his shoulder, and when he turned his back against the stairs while he traded out his magazine for a fresh one, he had to look. David let himself have a sigh of relief as he found it was only a graze across his bicep, but there was a bit of blood, so he lowered the gun long enough to reach into the ammo pouch to bring out one of the self-stick bandages he’d taken from the arms dealer. It took nothing at all to slap that in place. Sure, it wouldn’t do too much to help, but it would keep him from leaving blood behind. The last thing he wanted was to get out of here and have the cops after him.

    Deep breath. Caution… fuck it.

    David rolled out of cover to the side, bringing his weapon up toward where he’d been shot from. Sure enough the shooter popped up to take a shot at him. They were fast to get up to line the shot up. David was faster. A three burst shot and silence dominated the area, save for the sound of the flames and the moans of pain. Done. Victory secured.

    No time to waste gloating, especially if one of them could get up at any moment. David trusted his safety his vest and just ran. If he could get to his truck, well, it would all be over. Just like that, everything over. Or it would be, once he got back to Errera.