Hollow by Doty Lee

Author:Doty, Lee [Doty, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

***

OSI Headquarters, Rural Virginia, 2019

At Crow’s signal, Shadow raised his compact assault gun over the lip of the destroyed fountain in the center of what remained of the building’s main entrance and fired two short bursts blindly. The sound of Tink’s overlapping burst came from ten yards beyond Shadow.

Crow moved.

Shadow used the distraction of Tink’s fire to peek over a different portion of the fountain and give their opponents another two bursts aimed directly at where they’d taken up shooting positions, driving them behind cover. As Shadow began the aimed bursts, Crow sprinted from shelter behind the fountain, took three leaping steps, and vaulted the security desk, hopefully protected by the suppressing fire of his two teammates. Return fire came back, but it was blind suppressing fire, and Crow was already sailing through the air over the now unmanned security desk. As their opponents’ fire ricocheted off the fountain, Crow rolled in midair and his back bounced off the wall behind the security desk. He landed on his side not far from the upended swivel chair and the body of the security guard who had manned it. The guard looked like he’d been killed by shrapnel from the initial artillery barrage that had destroyed most of the lobby. Crow quickly checked the guard to insure he wouldn’t be a threat, then scrabbled to the console that was built in to the fixed security desk. It didn’t take him long to determine that it would be of no use to Shadow. Whether it had been damaged during the assault or had been disabled as some part of a defensive protocol, Crow couldn’t tell.

Crow moved into the corner formed by the security desk and the wall and crouched with both hands on his weapon. He made himself as ready to move as he could, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet with his back to the wall. Then Crow closed his eyes and listened.

The deafening sound of Shadow’s assault rifle, as well as the submachine guns that the installation’s defenders were using, slammed into him at sporadic intervals. The sounds from the unsilenced weapons were too loud, too overwhelming in this semi-enclosed space to be used to locate the shooters. Sometimes, after a longer exchange, Crow could hear the brief squelch of ringing in his ears as the contained explosions damaged his hearing, but then the ringing quickly ended as his body repaired the damage and his hearing cleared again. This was a tactical advantage that he’d used quite a few times before. His opponents were either wearing hearing protection, which decreased their perception of smaller, more subtle noises, or by now they were listening to a chorus of tinnitus from the gunfire.

Eyes closed, body still, Crow heard Shadow firing sporadically. He could tell from the cadence of the exchange that Shadow was firing blind or nearly so, moving to a different position behind the fountain between each shot. Crow smiled, hoping that the defenders would hear at least this much.

It

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