The Courtship of RD Rivero

Part 9

Zhyan flew across the rooftops of the city level, discovering quickly that it
was only three blocks wide, but densely populated with things that liked to
shoot at flying people. After several strafing runs, he was out of shuriken and
forced to rely on heavier weaponry, including his own chain gun. Soon, this was
also empty, and he decided to set down and advance on foot.

The street he landed on looked like a construction zone. To his left was a
crane positioned on top of several massive blocks. There was a door to an
office across the street, and he headed towards that. He got about three feet
before the area around him began to ring with the sound of multiple shotgun
blasts. With a graceful gliding backflip, the archangel landed safely in the
cover of the worksite. From this shelter he could see several pig cops crowded
into the office and scanning his location with their weapons.

Zhyan checked his loads and cursed - out of every ranged-weapon ammo that could
help, and unlike Chanur, he had not entered the story equipped with a rocket
launcher. "Just as well. Silverkat would have swiped it in any case," the angel
grumbled. Still, he had his sword, and he was a ninja - if there were any
creatures prowling the construction zone, he could try to get the drop on them
and collect the ammunition he needed to pass the pig cops. Keeping low, he drew
his katana and moved deeper into the rubble.

"Whooooo wants some Wang?" he whispered, grinning wickedly.

********

Chanur edged down the dark hallway, straining his ears for the grunts of pig
cops or the snarls of alien monsters. He held his chain gun ready, finger on
the trigger, tensed to blast any living thing that crossed his path. He came to
a thick wooden door, paused and pressed his ear to it. Immediately he could
detect the strains of go-go music from the other side, but the song was too
loud to allow him to hear anything else. Finally, with great care, he opened
the door a crack and looked inside.

"Hoooleeeee Chris," he said, awed, pushing the door the rest of the way open.
The room was full of scantily clad women, busting out of microscopic bikinis,
or dressed in cowgirl accoutrements more suited to the bedroom than public. The
women danced on the stage, the floor, tables. Everywhere he turned there were
more of them.

He paused in gaping long enough to remember why he was there, then walked up to
one young brunette cowgirl and said, "Excuse me miss, which way is the exit?"
She ignored him, oblivious to his voice. Chanur considered a moment, then
checked his jeans pockets and found a roll of twenties. He peeled off two and
dropped them at the girl's feet.

"Okay, where is the exshiiit," he stuttered, as the woman turned, pulled open
her vest and bounced up and down rapidly. She scooped the money off the floor,
closed her top again and continued dancing while Chanur gaped in utter shock.

Behind him, at the back of the club, five sets of beady red eyes gleamed out of
the darkness, then got up and began to slip towards the stupefied felinoid.

********

Axelle's rapid departure had impressed the yokels, but now the assassin had a
problem. She'd never been an avid video game player, and although fighting and
strategy were natural to her, finding her own way out could take more time than
she had to spare. Watching the others from concealment, she observed Chanur's
confident departure, and elected to follow him.

Stalking the hani was easier than she's anticipated, and was child's play when
they reached the club. Axelle noted the semi-nude women with detachment,
classifying them "object, non-threatening", then returned her attention to
Chanur just in time to see him throw money at a dancer's feet, and get an
eye-full in return. She frowned in disgust and shook her head.

"Men," she muttered, then spotted movement in a distant corner of the room.
Five pig cops had risen from their table and were coming up behind Chanur, who
was still gaping in stupefication at the dancing girl. Axelle calculated she
had six seconds to act before the Hani was blasted into a smear on the rug, and
debated wether or not to intervene.

At five-point-nine-five seconds, she threw herself at the pig cops and sliced
two of them down before they knew she was there. Two more turned and fired at
her, but the nimble assassin had already spun aside, allowing the monsters to
blow each other across the room. When she came to rest, she drew a black-powder
pistol from her belt and shot the last pig squarely between the eyes. As the
final hog toppled onto the dance floor, Chanur turned zombie-like from the
dancer and stared at her.

"Axelle? What are you doing here?" he mumbled in a daze. She sighed, grabbed
the hani and pulled him towards the stage, where she expected to find an exit.

"If I feel money being tucked into any article of my clothing, you're getting a
stainless steel enema on the spot," she warned as she dragged him along.

*********

"Three, maybe four," Fianna said, peeking around the corner. The caninoid
looked back to see Skat readying her rocket launcher, and blanched. "Um, what
about the others?" he asked. "There might be somebody nearby."

"Guess they should have thought of that before they ran off, huh?" Skat
grumbled. She brought the weapon to her shoulder and spun into the street. The
pig cops in the control room saw her and aimed their weapons, but Skat had
fired her missle and stepped back into cover before they could shoot. There was
a loud explosion and several splatting sounds. Then Fianna took up his shotgun,
and together the remnant of Team Tyger moved around the corner, up the street,
and into the control room.

Fianna collected shotgun shells and body armor from the pig cop corpses while
Skat tried the back door into the building. "Locked," she pronounced. "Sign
says it needs a card key."

"The key is in the construction zone across the street," Fianna said. "You have
to clear it first."

"Well, let's go," Skat said.

"Not what I mean," Fianna replied, stopping her. The caninoid pressed a button
below the window, and a panel opened revealing a detonator console.

********

Zhyan crept stealthily behind the alien and cut it down with a single stroke.
The monster had no time to scream as it toppled over onto the gravel in two
pieces. The archangel grinned in satisfaction and collected the pistol
ammunition from the body. Fully stocked, he was ready to snipe the hogs in the
control room.

He loaded his pistol and launched himself into the air, hovering about thirty
feet above the construction zone. He took aim on the control room window, then
hesitated when he saw Fianna framed in the glass, looking at something. He had
one moment to wonder what had caught the dog's interest when the entire world
exploded around him.

********

"Damn. Great place to get ambushed," Axelle muttered, looking down the corridor
that extended from the stage curtains into the gloom.

"Hani warriors have a saying: the best way to disarm a trap is to spring it."

"So that's why the life expectancy on the males is so short," Ax jibed. She
ignored the hani's indignant snort, considering. They had already scouted the
area, and there was no other way to proceed. Resigned, with just a tinge of
nervousness, the assassin moved silently into the corridor, sword at the ready.

A few seconds brought them to the end of the hall. Listening, they could detect
the grunts of several pig cops in the adjoining chamber, just around the
corner. Axelle indicated silence with her hand, and they slipped back to the
middle of the hall.

"I count five, maybe six," she whispered.

"No problem," Chanur replied, hefting his chain gun.

"I'll slip in first and take a couple down. When they turn on me, hit them from
the rear. Just don't shoot me."

Chanur was indignant. "We're in this together, I'm not going to shoot you," he
hissed.

"I don't think you'd do it on purpose, but I've watched you trying to aim. You
treat that gatling like a fire hose."

Before Chanur could answer, the entire building was rocked by a powerful
tremor. Through the walls of the club, they heard an explosion echoing outside.
From the room ahead, the grunting became agitated, then louder as the pig cops
ran towards the disturbance, and towards Axelle and Chanur.

Axelle swallowed hard and yelled, "We've got one chance! We have to break
through!" Then, without waiting for Chanur, she bolted around the corner and
towards the rush of enemies on the other side.

Chanur ran after her, chain gun ammunition rattling. He came around the corner
into a large, dark expanse of room, to find Axelle standing in the middle of
it, sword lowered. He jogged up beside her, then froze.

Ahead, floating in the darkness, were two dozen sets of glowing red eyes.
Shotguns were pumped for a full minute. The grunting and snorting seemed to
take on a gloating aspect as the pig cop forces advanced.

Chanur did some fast mental calculations, and realized they were too far from
the enemy to close and take advantage of the cross-fire. There were too many to
shoot before both he and the assassin were wasted. They were too far into the
chamber to retreat.

"Damn," Axelle said with resignation. "I really wanted to see how this one
turned out, too."

********

"Oh, I have GOT to get me one of these!"

"Calm down. It's not a weapon, just a prop," Fianna said, indicating the
smoking ruins across the street. He trotted out the door, jogged across the
street and returned a few moments later with a yellow pass card.

"Funny, all the monsters were dead, but they looked cut up instead of bombed,"
the caninoid mused as he slid the key through the slot. The door hissed open,
and the two proceeded carefully into the dark corridor beyond. From somewhere
nearby, they could hear go-go music, but past that was the definite sound of
shotgun blasts.

Skat and Fianna looked at each other a moment, then began running in the
direction of the firefight.

********

The pig cops had their weapons up and ready to fire. Determined to go down
fighting, Chanur tightend his finger on the chain gun trigger. Then, with a
loud crash of splintering wood, Zhyan smashed through the ceiling of the club
and landed flat on the floor.

The pig cops spun in alarm and opened fire towards the singed and stunned
archangel, but their shots, aimed for center body mass of a standing foe, went
right over the prone Zhyan. Before they could adjust their aim, Chanur had
begun hosing them down with his chain gun while he and Axelle dashed for the
cover of the hallway. They were almost there when the pigs recovered and began
firing back at them.

The wall past Zhyan crashed inward in a cloud of splinters. Fianna rolled
across the floor and came up to one knee, firing a steady volley of shotgun
blasts. Panicked, the pigs grouped up and turned to attack this new foe, just
as Silverkat stepped through the opening and fired her rocket launcher. The
room shook with the force of the explosion as the last of the pig cops rained
down in a shower of Bac-o's on the scorched floor where they had made their
final stand.

When the shooting stopped, Chanur and Axelle came cautiously back to the room.
Silverkat was helping Zhyan to his feet while Fianna kept watch.

"Not bad, you guys," Chanur said appreciatively. "I guess that proves it, we
really are stronger as a team."

"Wha?" Zhyan asked blearily. "How the hell'd I get here? I was just in the
construction site, collecting ammo, when--"

"Uh-oh," Silverkat said sheepishly. "I guess that was OW!" she yelped as Fianna
stepped on her foot.

"-- pretty lucky for you that you didn't get blown up," Fianna finished,
ignoring the Thunderan's punch to his arm. "We all heard the blast inside."

"I think the exit is over there," Axelle said, pointing to the far side of the
room. "I've got a feeling we're close to the end of --" The assassin was cut
off by a keening whine, and suddenly her white jumpsuit top blossomed in a
bright red flower of blood. She looked down at it in astonishment, then
collapsed onto the floor.

"THERE!!" Chanur yelled, and ran towards the entrance he and Axelle had come
from. Fianna dashed after him while Skat and Zhyan rushed to the fallen
assassin, examining her injury. The hani and caninoid rounded the corner in
time to see a lithe figure at the far end of the hallway disappear into the
club. Chanur was about to follow when he felt Fianna grasp his arm, stopping
him short. He shook the dog off and snapped, "What?!"

Fianna was looking down the corridor with a strange expression on his face, one
Chanur was not used to seeing - caution.

"That wasn't a game character," the dog said softly. "Game characters don't
move like that, and they sure as hell don't retreat when pursued. C'mon, we
better get back to the others."

Chanur looked down the hall, then snapped a curse in his native tounge before
carefully retreating with the dog. When they reached the others, Axelle was
sitting up while Skat bandaged her shoulder with strips torn from her own
petticoat.

"How bad is it?" Fianna asked.

"Left shoulder blade shattered, two ribs cracked, lung punctured but not
collapsed, and I bit my tounge," Ax rattled off smoothly. "Fighting efficiency
down twenty percent for the injured arm, another thirty percent for reduced
oxygen uptake."

"Can you walk?" the caninoid asked.

"For the moment, but if we don't get out of here soon, I just might bleed to
death," the assassin replied. Her tone was unconcerned, as though her life
running out was no more critical than a gas tank running low on a car.

Fianna nodded, then walked past the group and began examining the wall and
floor. After a moment, he picked up a small sphere of silvery metal,
suprisingly heavy for it's size. He rolled it in his palm for a few moments,
considering, then straightend and slipped it into his belt pouch.

"Find something?" Chanur asked when the dog returned.

"Nothing," Fianna replied. "Nothing at all."

********

"She's not dead, right? I can look now?" TygrisHawk whimpered.

Spark said, "If Axelle was dead, would you be asking?"

Tygris peeked out from under her paws and breathed a sigh of relief. Her mentor
was on her feet and the group was moving carefully towards the elevator to the
next level, watching behind them as well as in front.

"Dammit, Fianna, why did you turn back?" Ayanna swore at the scene. "You two
could have caught her!"

"Who is her?" Peachyra asked.

"The one that shot Axelle."

"What makes you think it's a her?" Tygris asked.

"The way she moved, she was too graceful to be a man."

"My Zhyan is that graceful," Spark said proudly

"Like I said, too graceful to be a man," Ayanna smirked.

"AH!" Spark yelped indignantly. "When we are loose from this RD mess, Miss
Kitty, you are going to need to be very fast indeed to escape me!"

"Down, girls, down," Peachyra said soothingly. "It's bad enough that our
friends are in danger, but you know RD's watching all of this from somewhere,
and laughing his ass off to boot. We have to stick together. Besides, isn't the
whole cat-fight thing a little stereotypical?"

TygriHawk said, "This from the woman who promised to pull off my tail and
strangle me with it twenty minutes ago?"

Peachyra frowned at Tygris, but the white tiger only smirked at her. The avatar
looked back at the scrying bird-bath, intentionally ignoring it as all three
stuck their tounges out at her.

********

"Aren't you worried about them getting away?" Shark asked. "The next level is
the last one, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, my finny friend, but cheerfully for me, they have no hope of
survival," RD said merrily. "The final stage is guarded by a host of beast,
foul and demonic, heated and hungry, furious at all things living and
determined to--"

"Yeah, yeah, enough already," Thunderwolf growled. "But what if they do get
through?"

RD shrugged. "In the unlikely event they were to survive the final battle, they
will simply be transported here, bloody, battered, and most certainly reduced
in number." He looked back at the monitor and smiled wickedly.

"We should have no trouble finishing them off ourselves."

TBC

The Courtship of RD Rivero 10