The Swashbucklers by K.T. Tomb

Author:K.T. Tomb [Tomb, K.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quests Unlimited Press
Published: 2014-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

His position was hopeless.

Kang was too far to get to without Manny getting himself shot. There were three soldiers and the Governor himself to tangle with, and Kang was clearly quite injured. Manny was no warrior, but it looked like the only one here had been Kang. The volunteers were shooting like the unregulated militia they were, blazing away, shell after shell, and generally going well wide of the mark. Manny chanced his life, squeezing off a shot at one of the soldiers below him who was trying to get closer to Kang to get a clear shot. The recoil from the shotgun pumped into his shoulder, but the shot was low and to the right, kicking up a huge spray of dust and pebbles. The soldier scrambled for cover. The dust lingered in the air, and it seemed all wrong to Manny. Rock shouldn’t just implode like that. He didn’t have time to think about it, as the soldiers, caught between Kang and Manny, began suppressing them with a constant stream of fire over their heads. The three guards were backing away to get out of the way, edging back towards their leader. Quincy was screaming instructions at them, almost purple in the face from exertion and rage. Manny used the troopers’ temporary retreat to scoot round the curved wall opposite the Governor, bringing himself closer to Kang. He no longer had the dark tunnel behind him to hide from bullets but Kang was now a mere ten feet or so away and breathing hard.

Manny had seen enough cop shows on TV and action movies to know that he had been lied to by the silver screen his whole life. Getting a shot to hit its target while moving was nearly impossible.Rather than the steady hand that was perfectly lined up aiming down the sight, he found that both himself and the soldiers were just pointing in the general direction of each other and hoping for the best. Out of all the shooters, it looked to be Quincy who was the most skilled, getting much closer to Manny’s head with the pistol than the buckshot and solid shells of his guard.

Firing another couple of shells at the enemy who were now in deep cover behind more of the strange rock formations that peppered the chamber, Manny finally made it to where Kang was laying. His shoulder was a mess, but not as mangled as it would have been if he had been hit by one of the shotguns; Quincy had winged him with his pistol. Keeping his head down and poking the gun’s barrel over to point in the direction of the soldiers, Manny tried to think about what he could do for Kang.

“Manny, I’m ok. You should not have come back here.”

His breathing was halted with the pain of speaking.

“Like hell,” Manny said, “my Grampy’s ghost would have come after me forever if I let these assholes kill you while I got away.”

He forced a smile, but he knew it was unconvincing.

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