“Aw, man. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Said she couldn’t stand the uncertainty.”
“She couldn’t stand it? Man, she should try being the one getting shot.”
Marcus started to laugh, then stopped. “Don’t. Don’t make me laugh.”
“Pussy.”
“Not lately.”
“That’s not something I needed to know—”
An explosion from outside was immediately followed by a flash of white-and-orange visible through one of the windows.
“It sure was good of Steph to make sure we had a view,” Frog quipped. “Or not,” he added moments later when debris hurtled through the window to shower shards of glass toward them.
“Oh, sure, Froggie. Make sure he doesn’t get shot, Froggie. Don’t mind me, Froggie. I’ma gonna blow the shit out of something fucking explosive and shoot pieces of glass at you. Yeah. Don’t mind that.”
Marcus started laughing but stopped abruptly. “Fuck, I hope the Navy gets here soon.”
As if it had heard him, the shuttle arrived shortly after and settled to the ground as a second explosion removed another large chunk of the roof.
“She coulda told us she wasn’t done yet,” the pilot grumbled and stared as Stephanie bounded down from the roof, shrouded in blue light.
She touched down lightly and trotted over to the ship. “I have wounded on the second floor of the administration wing,” she told him as Vishlog and the cats ran out of the dark toward her.
“And we have prisoners,” the Dreth added. He made a show of looking at the shuttle. “You will need another transport.”
“It’s already on its way,” the pilot told her, “and you’re in luck with the medics. We thought you might need some and fetched a few.”
It didn’t take her long to show the medics where Marcus was. Lars followed quickly behind her. “How’s that download coming along?”
“Keep your hairy, ass-hugging jock-strap on.”
The wounded man sputtered. “Please. Take him away...”
The team leader shot the medic an inquiring look, and he nodded. “He’ll be fine.”
“The next person who calls me Neurotic is getting a knuckle sandwich.”
Stephanie was puzzled but Lars got it.
“Old movie. Fine—Frustrated, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egomaniacal.”
“That’s not how it goes,” Frog argued as he headed to the computer. “I’m very sure that first one is Freaked-out.”
“Are you saying we have to watch it again?”
“Well, it’s a travesty. Stephanie hasn’t seen it. Todd would be disappointed.”
“I think we should be the ones disappointed in him for not having shown her already.”
“Do you think he’s seen it?”
“A movie buff like that?”
“Well, it’s not superheroes and stuff, you never kn— What. The. Fuck?”
“Aw man, Frog. Can’t you be trusted with anything?”
Stephanie looked over and saw what they were moaning about. A large shard of glass protruded from the computer. She smirked and turned her attention to the medics who loaded Marcus onto a stretcher.
One pulled out a bag of clear fluid and went to work inserting a drip.
“Tell me that’s the good stuff,” the patient muttered.
“Pussy,” Frog called, and Lars shoved him.
“Get the drive back up.”
His teammate’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking, right?”
Lars shook his head. “I told you. I want the data.”
“How about you go get the data and I’ll go find some criminals to kill?”
“How do you feel about minding the shuttle on the next mission?”
They continued to work as they bitched and both watched the open window and rooftop behind them. Vishlog and Johnny supervised loading the prisoners into the Navy shuttle that had touched down in the street in front of the consulate.
“Well, that’ll get the neighbors talking.”
“Data.”
“I can talk while I do this.”
One of the medics jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Are they always like this?”
Stephanie shrugged and Avery answered for her. “It’s gotten worse since they got married.”
Marcus tried again to laugh and groaned. The medic glared. “Get him out of here.”
He caught Stephanie’s look. “He’ll be...” He glanced at Marcus. “Okay. We’ll patch him up and send him back as good as new. We’ll even let him keep his spleen.”
The patient coughed. “Please. Stop.”
“Give it a minute,” the medic told him and finished hooking the bag up. “There you go. Now be a good boy and leave the monkeys alone.”
She looked around. “Monkeys?”
The medic shrugged and signaled for his partner to pick up the other end of the stretcher. “Some of them see monkeys.”
“Not me,” Marcus protested but his voice faded to a mumble.
The man gave Stephanie another look. “Mostly, they sleep, which is what they need.”
“Us, too,” his partner added. “The docs will want him out when we reach the ship.”
They started moving down the stairs. “They have some stitching to do.”
“They what?” Stephanie wanted to ask for more detail but Johnny laid a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s best to wait until after,” he told her. “He doesn’t need to know.”
“He’s out.”
He shook his head. “His subconscious can still hear you and it needs to know he’s fine.”
She sighed and shrugged his hand away. When she caught sight of the blood, she muttered, “I need fresh air.”
“I’ll go with her,” Vishlog stated as he walked in through the door. “You need to help Frog.”
They glanced over to where Frog glared at Lars as he hooked up a new monitor. “And I say the drive is fucked.”
“You won’t know until you try.” The team leader’s tone was mild.
Stephanie followed the medics and tried really hard not to crowd them in her hurry to get out of the building. On the street outside, the second shuttle lifted off, taking the prisoners with it. She saw Marcus into the first shuttle and walked to the front gate.
Vishlog followed and the two cats trotted alongside. Both ranged into the shadows and back and the Dreth kept an eye on them as well as the surroundings. He scanned the street, the buildings, and even the rooftops.
“Get down!” he roared and dived toward Stephanie.
His hand caught her in time to push her down and the dive carried them sideways. A sharp crack split the night and he cursed when a bullet drilled into his shoulder.
That was okay. His shoulder was where Stephanie’s head had been. This way was so much better, but by Hrageth’s hairy balls, it hurt.
She scrabbled to get clear when he tried to pull her under the cover of his body.
“Vishlog, if you don’t get off me, I’m gonna turn you into more meat than shield.”
He tightened his grasp, only to let go when she zapped him. The pain froze him long enough for her to slip free and take cover against the wall of the building from which the shot had come. Blue fire arced over her skin and glimmers of another silvery, almost translucent power blended with it.
Her eyes had gone midnight black and burned with anger.
“Uh, Stephanie?” he asked and flinched when she turned her head to look at him. He caught the moment when she saw he’d been wounded and managed to get to his feet.
She was at his side in an instant—literally. He hadn’t seen her move, but there she was, completely oblivious to the fact that the sniper could still be out there. She didn’t say a word but pressed a hand over the wound and focused.
His head spun at the slight pressure but he still looped his other arm around her and lifted her back to the wall. When he set her on her feet, she stepped out of his grasp, moved along the side of the building, an
d patted him on the cheek.
“Stay here,” she ordered, and before he could argue or even try to stop her, she had leapt away. Her voice came through loud and clear on the team comms.
“Vishlog is down out front. He needs medical. Morgana is in pursuit of the sniper.”
The Dreth groaned. He would never live this down.
Lars’s response was concise. “Fuck.”
Already on his way to investigate the shot, he reached the front gate in time to see Stephanie take a flying leap at the building beside the one she’d sheltered against.
“No fucking way,” he murmured as she bounded off the side and ricocheted off the building beside it. The cats raced after her but stopped when they reached the base of the wall and circled beneath their mistress while she bounded up the structure above them.
He watched until she reached the roof and ran along the edge of the parapet.
“No! Don’t you fucking—” he yelled as she leapt from the rooftop and onto the next. “No, no, no, no— Someone is so very grounded when we get back.”
Frog sputtered with laughter. “I’d like to see you try.”
“You!” The team leader swung toward him. “Try and take better care of him”—and his finger stabbed toward Vishlog—“than you did of Marcus. Brenden! Avery! You’re with me. Johnny, you too. We have us a Morgana to catch up with.”
He spun to scan the area for something he could use. When his gaze settled on the Navy shuttle, Avery groaned.
“Move your asses,” Lars shouted. “I need to be up there and not down the fuck here.”
They bolted across the courtyard. He led the way and hauled the pilot out of his seat so Brenden could take it. Avery took the co-pilot’s place, and Johnny closed the hatches.
“Keep him steady,” he shouted to the medics.
They obeyed but their faces said there would definitely be words when the flight was over. The pilot scrambled to his feet and his hand moved to the blaster he wore at his waist. “I can’t let you—” was as far as he got before Johnny’s fist pounded into his face.
“Sure you can,” he told the man, flipped him onto his stomach, and cuffed him. “See? It’s easy.”
The man tried to focus but slid into unconsciousness when the guard picked him up, dumped him on the nearest flight couch, and buckled him in. He glanced at one of the medics. “You can fix that, right?”
“Sure.” The man gave him a sour look. “But don’t go breaking anyone else.”
He made a show of looking around for someone else. “I can only see the two of you,” he told him. “Tell me you won’t be hard to get along with.”
The medic raised his hands. “Nope. We’ll simply try to keep our patient alive. Do you have a problem with that?”
Johnny smirked. “Not a one.”
Up front, Lars acted as a spotter.
“There!” he called. “Bank right, bank right, bank right. Holy crap!”
The shuttle swerved alarmingly and both medics clutched Marcus’s stretcher.
“There she is!” he shouted again, “and oh, man, is she pissed.”
Chapter Seventeen
The bullet passed close enough for Stephanie to feel it and she dropped. The crack that followed would have been seconds too late to warn her.
“Oh, so now you want to play,” she murmured, pulled eMU into a shield around her, and hoped the next bullet didn’t bounce off it and kill someone else.
“Let’s play.” She growled with cold rage and checked that the spinning vortex of gMU within was ready for use.
She scanned the buildings. “First, I need to find the little weasels.”
As she flicked through the HUD, she caught a faint trace of movement on the infra-red. “Can magic make me see like that?” she wondered and followed it with, “Do assassins and buildings store eMU differently and can I see it?”
The answer to that was either a resounding no or she merely didn’t know how to see the eMU value of a person or object because trying to see things radiating magic in the same way they radiated heat didn’t work. At least, not with the HUD on.
“I can’t take it off,” she murmured. “The Navy will be upset.”
The sudden impact on her shield was followed by another crack, and she used the HUD to locate the two heat signatures that ducked below the cover of a low rampart surrounding a high-rise roof.
“It is on,” she declared, gritted her teeth, and used magic to add an extra bounce to her next step.
An air car dropped out of a skyway and swerved wildly around her.
“Watch where you’re flying!” she screamed after it, touched down lightly on the next rooftop, and vaulted up to somersault over a canyon made of high-rise walls with a narrow ribbon of traffic winding along its base.
She cleared an air conditioning unit ahead of her and the two bright dots she’d pursued resolved into a swarm of heat. Hastily, she flicked through the HUD to discover someone had instigated a roof-top rave. Drawing on her magic to avoid landing on anyone’s head, she touched down in the middle of the dance floor.
Fury roared through her and her shields flared. Whatever sort of mood they were in, the dancers parted to give her room to move. “Which way did they go?” she demanded and the partygoers pointed in unison.
One guy boogalooed up alongside her and did a very Frog-like shimmy. Well, Steph knew exactly how to deal with that. Morgana, though, was more aggressive.
She stepped into the move, danced with a bare finger-breadth between them, and took him by the hand to spin him like any guy would spin a girl. Her smile was fierce when he pivoted and landed in the arms of a girl who’d followed him.
“He’s all yours,” she announced and took two long strides in the direction in which they’d pointed.
By the time she reached the edge of the roof, the sniper team had ziplined across to the next one. Stephanie studied the descent and scanned the building. She summoned several small globes to her hand and blew them into the air.
“Find them,” she whispered. “Show me where they are.”
The orbs rocketed away and only the barest of shimmers revealed their path. Moments later, a window in the building opposite sparkled with light. She lunged from the building and landed flatfooted against the sheer glass of its neighbor.
This time, she descended casually, bending to peer over the edge of the floor above. Once she had marked where they were, she bent her knees and leapt toward the wall opposite. She pivoted in mid-air, thrust her feet against it, and pushed back the way she’d come.
An extra magical boost added a little velocity to her flight and angled her body so she struck the glass feet first. The wedge of magic she drove before her shattered it, and she landed on the sparse wooden floor of a minimalist’s apartment.
A quick glance told her it was empty. The slamming of the apartment door told her which way they’d gone and she sprinted after them.
Their first mistake was in stopping long enough to wire the door. Her magical shield protected her when the world exploded. In the nick of time, she caught a glimpse of a young family that rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and laid down a wall of magic between them and the expanding cloud of debris.
She hoped theirs had not been the apartment next door.
Thankfully, they appeared unharmed and picked themselves up once the debris had pounded into the wall and dropped to the floor. Stephanie raced in the opposite direction. If the snipers had gone past the family, they’d have looked far less relaxed.
The stairwell was the only logical place they could have gone, and the echoing clatter of footsteps and urgent sound of a voice speaking into private comms were dead giveaways.
The next orb she conjured was the largest yet and it burnt with blue and clear, silvery flames. She rolled down the stairs and heard two startled shouts of alarm, followed by the panicked thud of a door below her.
Well, so much for that idea. She recalled the magic and followed her adversaries through th
e door, trying to determine which way they’d gone. Her shield flared as more rounds struck it and several loud claps followed.
When she peered down the corridor on the side her shield had sparked, she located a human and half-Meligornian rebel, their weapons aimed toward her. She shoved her hand toward them, the palm upraised.
A blue wall of flame careened forward in the same moment that the elevator door dinged behind them. The family that exited were laughing and talking about the movie they’d just been to see.
“Schau, mama!” was followed by two gasps of fear as the parents gathered their kids hastily and turned back to the elevator.
Even as Morgana, she could see that the flame would engulf them. The father stabbed his finger on the elevator button again and again, and the mother pulled the children close and dragged them onto the floor.
“Agh!” She ended the magic and whisked her hand from side to side to make the flames dissipate.
The elevator dinged, and the two rebels turned. Before the family could move, the pair shuffled back two steps. One man caught hold of the father’s arm and jammed his SMG into his side. The Meligornian snatched the nearest child and yanked them out of their mother’s grasp.
The woman tried to protest but he pointed his gun in her direction. “Kommen Sie!”
With a firm grasp on her other child’s hand and her gaze on the gun, the woman moved.
“Wo ist deine wohnung?” the human snapped.
“Wo?” he shouted, and the father gestured down the corridor, his eyes wide as he took in the Federation Witch standing several feet away.
The rebel jerked on his arm and dragged him in the direction he’d indicated. “Kommen!”
The family followed and the father handed the keys over when they reached the door.
“Bleibe,” the human ordered and aimed his gun at Stephanie while his partner dragged the wife and children into the apartment.
“Bleibe,” he repeated, shoved the husband through, and backed in after him.
She waited until the door had closed and walked slowly up the corridor. Several feet shy of the door, she stopped and sent a tendril of magic to knock.
The answering burst of fire demolished the door and punched holes in the walls beside and opposite it. With a smirk, she knocked again. Another burst of fire answered her, and she snickered and allowed the sound to carry down the corridor and into the apartment.
Witch Of The Federation III (Federal Histories Book 3) Page 20