The container immediately absorbed about a hundred rounds. Shussman started yelling but the metal-on-metal sounds of the e-mag fire drowned out his words.
Then the firing stopped and I could hear him. “—need him alive, you idiots.”
Like I thought. Hostage. Wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good; Harper would still release her information, probably sooner if he tried this, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
We were not quite halfway to the ship.
“—Michaels, get your ass around to the front of the forward gantry till you have a direct line on them,” a female voice said in the radio in my ear.
“Affirmative,” came the reply.
“Shoot the damned machine!” Shussman yelled, finding his own flaw in Astrid’s plan.
Instantly, hundreds of metal balls started to smash into our faithful reach stacker, blasting metal bits everywhere. The damned thing kept going far longer than I would have guessed, but it finally slowed to a crawl and then stopped altogether with still thirty or so meters till we could get cover among the steel supports of the closest automated gantry crane.
We huddled behind the end of our swinging container, both looking for an out.
“You might as well give up, Mr. Gurung. You put up a hell of a struggle, but you are soon to be outflanked. I admit that I need you, but I don’t, sadly, need your pretty friend. If you don’t give up now, I’ll have my sharpshooters kill her as soon as they have a shot.”
“You should be running, Shussman. If you think those street cops are going to leave you alone, you’re crazy. You killed their fellow cops,” I yelled back.
“What you don’t understand is just how far this reaches,” he replied. “I have all the clout I need, and you have none.”
I was thinking he was maybe right when Astrid suddenly looked skyward, then yanked me down onto the ground.
There was an earthshaking impact and when I looked up, a container was lying between us and our goal, the metal seams on its ends burst by the impact on the ground.
“What the hell?” I said, looking around.
“The deck crane on the ship spun around and threw it,” Astrid said.
“What?” I looked at the deck and sure enough, one of the two deck-mounted cranes was spinning around, a container strung out at the end of the fast-moving cable.
“Just spun right around like a track athlete and flung it,” Astrid said.
“Rikki or Harper might have taken it over,” I said. “Let’s run for it. Stay on my left so they can’t shoot you.”
We took off instantly, at a dead sprint, catching Shussman’s people while they were still recovering from the ship’s catapult shot.
They started shooting just as we arrived at the fallen container, rounds ripping up the asphalt behind us.
“Here comes a second one,” she said, and I turned in time to see the next container tumble end over end through the air above us, slamming into the parking lot between us and Shussman, landing on one end before timbering down to smash into the cube stack where Shussman was cowering with his men.
It hit so hard that it shook the whole stack; in fact, one operator stumbled out from cover to avoid a falling metal box that came down from the top. I shot him, just reflex really, the weapon shuddering into my shoulder before I was even aware of my decision.
“Ajaya, run!” Astrid yelled and again I responded without thought, following her dash forward as another container crashed down almost on top of us.
“It threw it at us?” I yelled as we scrambled the last meters to cover between the gantry crane’s framework.
“No, that one fell from the crane we’re under,” she said, pointing up, where another container was being lifted off the deck.
“It can’t hit us now. We’re under its supports,” I said.
“Ajaya, would Plum Blossom take one set of equipment while Rikki has the other?” she asked.
“Holy shit,” I was all I could say, realizing she was right. Then more e-mag rounds were sparking off the gantry frame, right over our heads. Shussman might want us, but his men seemed to have differing ideas.
“I think I pissed them off with that last shot,” I said.
“Ya think?” Astrid asked, ducking lower as metal death bounced and sparked all around us. We crouched as low as we could get and scuttled toward the ship, moving through the metal supports of the dockside crane, making it to the open space between the ship and our covering forest of steel.
“Shit!” Astrid said, and I looked where she was staring. An unladen, self-driving reach stacker was coming right for us, forcing us to jump back into cover. The stacker swerved and smashed right into the nearest crane support, bouncing off the thick steel but managing to bend it a few degrees out of true while its container clamp got jumbled around the column.
“Run! While it’s tangled,” Astrid yelled, jumping out and leading by example. I raced after her as the electric motor of the zombie stacker revved into reverse and ripped backward hard enough to yank part of the clamp right off the stacker arm.
We were two-thirds of the way to the ship before it got free and started to accelerate after us. Despite our head start, it caught up, forcing us to veer away from the ship and toward the edge of the dock behind it.
Yelling from behind us made me look back, my quick glance showing Shussman’s people running under the damaged gantry crane. Two shooters stopped, raising their rifles, while another pair, one on either side, kept running. The container that fell from above obliterated the shooters before they could fire, but the side runners kept coming.
Without hesitating, Astrid ran right off the edge of the dock, feet still pumping as she fell toward the water five meters below. I jumped off right behind her, bringing my feet together and pulling in a deep breath. Then I hit the hard ocean, cold water shocking my adrenalized body.
As momentum drove me deep, I opened my eyes, turning my head till I spotted Astrid, who was floating just meters away, eyes open wide and watching me. She pointed back toward the ship’s massive screws, then started to stroke and kick toward her objective without waiting for my acknowledgement.
She seemed more buoyant than me, staying even in the water while I was still sinking. I stroked hard after her, struggling to get myself up to her level. It was really hard going, and I realized the M-43 and extra magazine were weighing me down. Astrid’s own weapon was sinking into the dark water below us, and I hurried to get the rifle sling over my head with one hand and the mag out of my pocket with the other. They fell free as I sank another two meters, but I was instantly more buoyant. Above, the sunlight lit the surface and I kicked with waterlogged shoes and pulled down hard with both cupped hands, now moving myself upward at an angle toward my girlfriend. Suddenly it went dark above me and I looked up in time to see another reach stacker plunge into the ocean right over my head, instantly sinking toward me.
I would have told you that I had been swimming as hard as I could up until that moment, but I’d have been wrong. The sight of tons of industrial vehicle sinking toward me spurred me to a new level of frantic and the edge of the stacker’s clamp just brushed down my back as I kicked past it. Astrid was watching from just to the right of one of the massive ship propellers, watching me with eyes wide in fear. Something clipped my left shoe, yanking me backward, but then the shoe came off and I was free. Pressure in my chest was building for release, but I kept my mouth doggedly shut as my blonde warrior girl held out a hand to me. Slim, pale fingers clamped down on my brown hand and yanked me to her. She stared into my eyes, her expression almost frantic as she clutched me to her. Then we both kicked upward, moving toward the light overhead between the ship and the dock.