Crossfire by Matthew Farrer

Author:Matthew Farrer [Farrer, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780857873057
Publisher: BL Publishing
Published: 2013-12-04T07:00:00+00:00

SHE COULDN'T GET a clear look at what had shot at her, but the glimpse of movement was enough to judge its direction and speed and reflexes took over. Her shotgun was locked into the shield’s gunport and the gun-grip bucked as the shield juddered against her shoulder and thigh. Her eye had been true: the gun-platform dropped to the floor with a clank as its clamps released their hold on the railing.

She spun back in the other direction straight away, ready to pump out more shots, but there was no movement in the brief flick of the torch clipped to the top of her shield. Four long paces and she was at the end of the alleyway, scowling upward: there were several ways an Arbitrator was trained to scale a wall, and all of them were damned awkward if you were on your own, but there was nothing for it. She disengaged the shotgun and flipped it into the scabbard at her back, then slung her shield so that it sat over the angle between the walls.

One hand on the wall and one on the shield grips, she swung her feet up, hung for a moment growling with effort - she was in worse shape than she had realised - then slid and dropped into the space beyond, already swinging the shield back onto her arm and turning to face the shape rambling out of the darkness.

It was roughly humanoid, an automaton torso built onto a randomly-lurching ring of motorised castors. Chains and control cables snaked from its head up into darkness. One heavy arm finished in a snub gunsnout and the other in a thick piston: two shots from the gun rang on her shield before a blow from the piston knocked the shield-edge back into her face and bounced her off the wall.

There was no time to redraw the shotgun, let alone to lock it back into the gunport so she could fire it one-handed with the shield to steady it. Although the thing was too fast for her to dodge out of its path she was able to quickstep to one side and let the next piston-blow propel her out of the machine’s way. She had to bound backwards to soak up the momentum and leave it to faith that there was nothing waiting behind her while she drew her stubber: the reassuring feel of the lock-glove clicking together around its grips was instantaneous and it took a second for her to plant one foot behind her to fire. Her aim was perfect: the round boomed through an armour-seam under the automaton’s arm, and after a moment it slumped over as whoever was directing it decided it was out of the fray.

She took a moment to catch her breath and pan the lamp around, then moved forward again. Half a dozen cautious paces. She had just bolstered her pistol and was reaching over her shoulder for the shotgun when a rack of searchlights came stabbing down on her.

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