by C.S. Stinton
* *
The world span. And rang, or at least, that was all Ramirez could hear, flat on her back, staring at the whirling ceiling of the warehouse. Was there smoke everywhere, or was her vision going?
Then the crystal-clear face of Tycho appeared, and she realised that not only had an explosion gone off, but the warehouse was on fire. Her limbs were sluggish as she tried to stand, fingers numb as she accepted the sidearm Tycho pressed into her hand, and she had to lean on her partner as she was hauled to her feet.
‘You should have ducked!’ Tycho’s voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away, even though she was shouting.
Ramirez shook her head as if to clear it, but that just hurt more. The incendiary explosive inside the crate hadn’t been that big, but it had gone off next to the fuel cells of Ragnarok’s van, and that had exploded, too, spraying shrapnel about the warehouse, filling it with billowing smoke, and setting the vicinity aflame. If from her distance the blast had left her rattled, it had done Ragnarok worse. It was hard to tell through the thick smoke, but she could see shapes writhing on the ground, and gunshots hadn’t started yet.
But a burning warehouse when she could barely see was no place to slap cuffs on people. Tycho tugged on her arm and Ramirez took a stumbling step towards the door. ‘How was I supposed to know?’ she shouted.
‘I told you!’ Tycho, staggered as she supported her weight and they broke into a ragged run. ‘Remember the Krensler case!’
‘You didn’t blow anything up in the Krensler case!’ Her head was clearing now, and the smoke was less thick as they weaved towards the big, heavy double doors.
‘No! But I left a back door in his network without telling you, and it paid off! Like this time I left a bomb in the case without telling you, and it paid off! So what’s the lesson here?’
‘Don’t let you play with explosives?’
A grin. ‘Always trust Tych to save your a-’
Tycho jerked. And dropped.
The gunshot had sounded distant to Ramirez, irrelevant, right until her partner hit the floor and didn’t move. She was pulled down with her and rolled as she landed, letting off a couple of rounds from her sidearm at where she thought the smoke moved.
Two more answered. She heard the crack of bullets winging by close, far too close, and kicked her feet to scoot into cover and drag Tycho with her. It wasn’t an easy job from on the floor, her Hauer in one hand, her head reeling from the explosion, and she only made it halfway before one of the huge doors behind her - her route to escape, and close, so close - rolled open.
The torrent of gunfire which flashed from the door sounded like an automatic with her head spinning, and for a moment she thanked whatever sane, just soul in the HCPD tactical team hadn’t decided to leave them to burn. Through the smoky depths she saw the silhouettes of Ragnarok scattering, moving for cover.
But it was not a HCPD tactical officer who reached her, snatching Tycho from her grip and lifting her partner, her back a mass of blood, like a ragdoll. It was Harrigan, and he didn’t stop firing his gun into the smoke. ‘C‘mon!’
Ramirez didn’t wait, staggering towards the blessed cold, clean air beyond the doors. Blind as she was she, too, returned fire into the smoke, the gun jerking in her numb grip. It wouldn’t hit anything but it might keep some heads down as they fled. Tycho’s feet dragged along the ground next to Harrigan, who didn’t stop firing until his sidearm gave its treacherous click, at which point he tossed it and grabbed the prone Marshal with both hands.
Then they were out in the open, Ramirez could breathe clean air again, and the gunfire behind them faded. Figures swarmed at them from the darkness, indistinct through her spinning vision, but it was the HCPD tactical team finally gathering themselves to answer the mayhem and explosion. She couldn’t see Navarro.
The next few minutes passed in a blur as the adrenaline began to fade and her body felt the debt left by borrowed energy. Harrigan swearing and shoving at the tactical team, not letting go of Tycho or, once he’d taken a hold of her elbow, her. Ramming his way through the crowd, telling them to go inside, and dragging her across the walkway to the van. Yanking the door open and shoving her in, putting Tycho’s prone form next to her in the back.
Before the rear door slammed shut, she could see Navarro leaning against the other heavy cruiser and staring at her, pale and numb. Now she could think through the spinning in her mind enough to remember what she’d realised inside. He’d not sent anyone after her. Ragnarok had been waiting for them.
It had been a trap. And he’d set it up.
Then the van was lurching under her and her head snapped up to see Harrigan in the driver’s seat, hammering controls to bring the siren squawking to life and powering them off the walkway, into the lanes, away from the warehouse.
Ramirez grabbed the edge of the nearest console and yanked herself to her feet, remembering the locker in the corner of the van. It was torn open and she dragged the medkit out before collapsing next to Tycho. Her partner was sprawled on her front, blood oozing in a pool onto the van’s floor.
‘She needs a hospital.’ Her voice didn’t sound like her own, echoing in her head, hoarse and worn. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d sat in the back of a metal box and watched one of her comrades bleed to death from their wounds.
No. Not Maggie. Not tonight.
‘That’s where I‘m going!’ Harrigan said. ‘Technically I’ve hijacked this thing, so you better wave your ID around at the other end, but I had to! You were set up!’
‘I know,’ Ramirez mechanically. Field aid training was flooding back, taking over as she opened the medkit and tugged off Tycho’s bloodied uniform, the armour mesh too thick to rip but not enough to stop a high-calibre round from a modern, military-grade rifle. Her hands were unsettlingly steady as she plucked the anti-coagulant out of the case. ‘It was Navarro.’
But with her partner’s blood covering her hands, her uniform, the floor, nothing in that moment seemed less relevant than whose fault it was.