The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Extraction

Cohen looked over at the entrance to the passageway at hearing a frantic scrambling sound from it. Then a tousled head was poking out. Quickly he reached out to take the breeder's outstretched hand.

"Follow me, little sister," he said with a reassuring smile as he pulled her to her feet. "Let's get you to safety!"

Last one out some twenty minutes later, Lash smoothly came to his feet in time to watch the m'tada trooper run out of sight beside Faust. Then, instinctively, he was stepping to the side to let a pair of sundogs slam into his kevlar vest, and doing so, blocked them from reaching Ellie.

"Ell!" he barked, sending a burst towards several moving shapes moving through the space towards them using a broken field advance to take advantage of the crates of supplies and materials liberally strewn throughout as cover.

"Go with Jensen. He'll get you to the door! I'll be right behind you!"

"Promise?" she asked nervously as bullets began to hum more frequently around them.

"Blood vow, Ell, remember?"

"I'm holding you to that!" Then she was scampering off with Jensen, a broad-shouldered vampire from Ventru's Danish enclaves.

"Wedge formation," Lash tautly directed as the incoming fire increased by an order of magnitude.

"Copy," Morel replied, sliding into Lash's left and just behind to add her firepower to his.

"Coming in, Wolf," said Kazza, another North African Ventru, his Arabic face intent as he sent tight, short bursts at the enemy from Lash's right. "Picking up angled fire from the right, your one o'clock."

"Copy, Kazz. Tighten up," Lash directed as his remaining nestari moved in front to kneel in a v-shape to complete the wedge. "Aim for legs or arms, anywhere not covered by armor. We don't necessarily need to kill them here, just stop them from following us."

Abruptly he grinned.

"But it'll be a welcome bonus if you can!"

For several long minutes the two sides exchanged furious fire, much as they had done in the courtyard outside the puzzle door. As they pounded away, Lash could feel both Morel and Kazza reach out with their knives to fulcrum out sundog rounds that stuck to his vest, knowing he wasn't wearing his neuron armor.

"Mind your heads," he directed as a round buzzed by his ear, close enough that he could feel the warmth from its radioactive payload. "Sundogs mean nobody's coming back from a head shot!"

Abruptly one of the White Flames was getting dropped from a shot to his right side. Then Ballan's team appeared behind stacks of boxes to add their weapons to the firefight, effectively creating a crossfire-filled kill box.

The resulting firestorm raged for only a handful of minutes more, the skilled but now outnumbered White Flames fighting to the bitter end. An eyeblink and it was over, the last enhanced human dropping with his armor nearly torn from his body.

"I'm guessing we found the breeders," Ballan said as his team jogged towards Lash's small company. Nodding as he dug out a stubborn sundog round, it biting deep enough into the kevlar that he could feel it burning his skin, Lash flicked it free and away from his comrades.

"We sent them to the door with Cohen and Absinthe in a straight line exfil. Faust and a surviving Blood Guard trooper brought up the rear."

"How many?" Truk wanted to know.

"At least two hundred," Morel revealed. "Maybe more."

"Let's not keep them waiting," Lash suggested heavily. Then, as one, the Ventru warriors were turning and running full tilt back the way they had come into the building.