Chapter Twelve
Martha’s Gonna Sing
Eleanor looked away from the book she was reading for a second and listened. Nothing, but she wasn’t deceived by the lack of auditory feedback. One didn’t always have to hear a threat, in order to sense it. She pulled a few books together and grabbed an item off the crate beside her and got to her feet and hobbled outside with the use of her makeshift crutch.
Raffi was attempting to read a book, probably because he’d seen her doing it during a lot of her spare time. A smile touched her lips. She knew the little boy idolized her and it felt nice to be held in such high regard by someone, even if he was only five. She approached him and arched one expressive eyebrow high and gave him a conspiratorial wink,
“So tell me young man, have you ever been to the seaside?”
“Just when you picked us up with the plane.”
“Well then, since you weren’t there very long you probably didn’t get a chance to build a sand castle or go snorkeling did you?”
The little boy just shook his head, his eyes big.
“Well then, it’s time to rectify the situation. As you can see we have plenty of sand for castle construction. Now where do you think we can collect the briny old salt water from? Oh well, we’ll have to do a bit of make-believe on that one. Well, come along then, I have a game for you to play and if you win it, I can guarantee that it will go a very long way into making you an exemplary flight pilot such as myself one day. Naturally that won’t be easy, but I think you’re just the man to give it his best shot!”
Rafael practically bounced up and down in excitement at the game she was offering.
“Oh Raffi would you drag that crate along? There’s a good chap, should be just the right size.”
Titus hadn’t been kidding Talaric had to admit. There were hard cases dropping down all over the place from the surface. Talaric threw a grenade around a corner and waited a second for it to go off, with its accompanying screams of death.
Darting around the corner he searched the dead bodies for any sign of who was behind this. He found some papers, to only moments later have to throw himself over backward with them clutched in his hand, as automatic gunfire riddled the place he’d just been. He ducked back around the corner to deliver several short bursts from his assault rifle.
He had the satisfaction of seeing several of the enemy drop. He ducked back around the corner and headed down an interconnecting hallway just as a grenade landed in front of his old position.
Titus didn’t know small. He wasn’t small and the guns he used weren’t small. The custom-made cartridge wheel shotgun he carried in his arms would have served just as well as the gun mount of an armored personnel carrier and if that wasn’t enough the high caliber custom fifty machine gun slung to his back, which came equipped with the strung out cartridge belts on demand, would.
If he aimed it right he could take out a tank with the explosive tipped rounds, but he rarely aimed as the general mass effect of his weapons was usually enough to get the job done.
“By gum, where do you spider monkeys keep popping up from?” He exclaimed, as he blew several more to kingdom come with blasts from the canon in his hands.
Coming to an overlook he saw where a group of thirty or more of the enemy were repelling down from a crack in the ceiling above.
“Oh no they ain’t!” Titus said emphatically.
He set the shotgun canon down to lean against a railing. Small caliber bullets sprayed all around him from those in the act of repelling downward and from some who had already reached the ground plain. Reaching behind him Titus unsnapped the fifty caliber and let it swing around in front of him.
“You want to make something of it spider boys, well you got it! Martha’s gonna sing now!” And that was all that could be heard for several loud percussion filled seconds.
Nothing moved in the space beyond when his finger relaxed off the trigger.
“That’ll teach’em!”
Two double doors burst open on the far side of the space and fifteen more black clad fighters spilled out with guns blazing.
“Lord have mercy they was born plum ignorant they was!” Titus said, as the big fifty named Martha began to sing again.
Ellanara’s voice was calm, as she instructed Sparky what to do, even as she typed on two separate keypads and glanced between her two screens over to Sparky’s repeatedly.
Beads of sweat broke out on Sparky’s brow, as he played catch-up both technologically and linguistically speaking.
“My dear allow me to say that I have never in all my years met someone whose skill level proficiency makes me appear, as if I was a bumbling schoolboy still unable to spell my own name!”
A smile ghosted across Ellanara’s face briefly, “Don’t feel bad about it, this is all I ever do.”
“Blow stuff up?”
“No, learn.”
“Learning? I daresay you have more to teach than you have left to learn my dear!”
Ellanara’s fast-moving fingers never stopped as she glanced briefly at Sparky, he caught her glimpse at him and looked into her eyes as she said, “If you only knew Sparky!”
Sparky swallowed slightly and quickly refocused on his work, as he couldn’t redirect attention from the focus of his work like she could and still be productive.
I pointed down the last hallway.
“There is an entrance to the surface at the end of the hall. Wait there for us. I turned to go, but Talaric’s father’s fingers closed firmly around my upper arm halting any movement on my part.
“Krista go along with the men. I’ll join you there in a bit!”
Talaric’s mother leaned up and very possessively kissed him on the lips before heading down the hall with her bodyguards. Roric’s eyes came back to me, after lingering worriedly on the departing woman for a long moment.
We could both hear the sound of distant heavy gunfire echoing up the long hallway we had just come through.
A glint of humor returned to Roric’s eyes, “You didn’t think I was going to let you go back alone did you? What would I do without someone to protect me?”
I couldn’t help the grin that popped onto my face at the absurdity that someone like him would ever need protecting by the likes of me.
“Eva’s the name isn’t it I believe?” He asked enquiringly.
I nodded, wondering what he’d ask next.
“Pleased to meet you Eva.”
He pointed to the shotgun in my hand, “Do you mind if I borrow that?”
I tossed it to him and the cartridge belt that went along with it and then we were both running back down the way we had just come. I rather liked what I had seen of Talaric’s parents so far. Would they like me?
Titus was bent over his shotgun trying to spring the jammed up mechanism free, when he felt the barrel of a heavy pistol touch the skin of the back of his neck. There was a heavy burst of automatic fire and the pistol fell to the ground, as did its owner. Titus looked up to see Katie step out from around a corner.
“The good Lord sure does work in mysterious ways! If it ain’t sure enough Miss Katie this time. Yuh done saved my hide this time Miss Katie!”
“Save it big man companies coming!” The short blonde spit out curtly, as she opened up on a bunch of black clad fighters stepping through a door behind and to the left of the still kneeling Titus.
Titus snatched up the fallen pistol and put three into a shooter taking aim at Katie from behind her.
Katie turned to look at the fallen back shooter and then back to Titus and the pistol swallowed up in his hand, “I thought you didn’t shoot anything that didn’t come in a shoe size 13?”
“Size 17.”
“Oh whatever!” Katie said in exasperation.
“Well it’s like this Miss Katie, there comes a time for everything, but it just ain’t time for Miss Katie to go.” Titus said philosophically.
Katie oddly touched inside by the big man’s words followed along closely after him, as Titus moved on down the gallery they were in.
“Especially not when you got so much repenting yet to do.” Titus finished on a rumbling chuckle.
“Hey!” Exclaimed Katie.
She stopped and kicked Titus in the shin, but it had about as much of an impact on him, as a lion cub swatting at a water buffalo.
There were several balconies above the walkway they traveled. The overlying floors ran above and to the side of the gallery they were walking down. A group of eleven or more black clad gunmen were making their way along the walkway directly above theirs.
Both Titus and Katie ducked behind some pillars. Titus looked at the small pistol in his hand and looked like he wanted to swear.
Katie hoarsely whispered out, “Martha?”
“Out of juice.”
“Bruno?”
“Dang thing done busted on me Miss Katie.”
Titus looked away from the pistol and turned speculative eyes on Katie letting them run over her diminutive form.
“What?” Katie asked looking down at herself expecting to see something wrong or out of place.
“How much you weigh Miss Katie?” Titus asked speculatively.
Affronted, Katie drew herself up another inch and shot back indignantly, “I don’t see what business that is of yours!”
Titus slipped two fingers under the top of Katie’s gun harness and picked her completely off the floor up to his eye level.
Chuckling softly he said, “Why you don’t weigh more than a bag of sugar Miss Katie.”
Through gritted teeth Katie spit out, “Put me down now or I start cutting you down to my size starting at the knees!”
Titus frowned at her and set her down as he said, “Make that a bag of old sour patches!”
Katie was about to respond heatedly when Titus cut her off, “If’n I was to throw you up there do you think you’d be able to cut the tails off them monkeys?”
Katie turned abruptly serious and looked upwards at the open balcony to their left that lay situated ten feet up higher than they were, not including the open rail running along it that added another two feet to be cleared. She unclipped a second short barreled automatic carbine from her gun harness and put a new clip in the one she already held.
Tucking the butt plates of both carbines tightly under her arms she faced both carbines forward. Tucking her chin down she said, “Pull!” As if asking for a clay pigeon on a trapshooting range.
Titus’s big hand gripped the back of her shirt and gun harness in a tight hold and he swung with her in tow around the side of the pillar, as the group of gunmen making their way along the upper walk came broadside of their hiding location.
Titus, with an explosive grunt, let go of Katie, who sailed upward toward the upper balcony. As Katie rose up above the railing the shocked gunmen had no chance to react before the ends of both carbines started blinking with hot yellow color.
Blonde hair flowing out from beneath her cap, Katie had the presence of mind to tuck her feet up under her, even then she barely cleared the top of the railing. She landed on her butt in the middle of the group and quickly kicked out with her feet against the floor pivoting herself on her butt, as she spun in a semi circle, her guns hammered out lead. An abrupt silence followed.
Titus hauled himself up over the railing, which bent under his weight.
Katie lay moaning flat on her back and with real concern Titus called out to her, “You okay Miss Katie?”
“I think you broke my butt!” Came her pained reply.
Titus went to her and picked her up off the floor in the middle of the chaotic mess she had made of the group of gunmen who were all down and out for the count.
Titus couldn’t stop laughing, as she brushed off her rear eliciting another moan of pain and a sharp retort, “It’s not funny!”
“Oh yes it is! Come on foxy lady we’ez need to find another chicken coop to throw you into!”
The odd couple made their way down the walkway as Titus continued to chuckle at her expense. They reached a small circular courtyard of sorts. A hail of bullets rained down upon them suddenly.
Katie screamed and fell hard to the floor. Titus grabbed a hold of her and dragged her with him, as he ducked into a pile of barrels and boxes. Bullets chewed up the wooden crates and ricocheted off the metal barrels all around them.
Staying low Titus ran his hands over Katie.
“It’s my leg!”
Titus found the freely bleeding hole in her thigh and where it exited out the back side of it. He ripped the sleeve of her over shirt off.
“Just a little itty bitty flesh wound Miss Katie, wouldn’t be a problem, if you didn’t have such an itty-bitty little leg to start out with.”
“Just tie it off you big overstuffed meat patty!”
“Now that’s no way for you to be talking to me! You ain’t ever going to get yourself a man talking the way you do with that sharp tongue of yours. No Sir!”
“Ahhh!” Katie screamed in frustration, as well as with the pain of her wound.
They were pinned down by enemy fire. Suddenly heavy gunfire came from somewhere else and there was a lull in the amount of fire being directed at them. Talaric was suddenly standing before them.
“I’ll cover you, run!”
Titus grabbed at Katie and made to lung to his feet and was halfway there when Talaric forcibly shoved him and Katie back to the floor just as a savage flurry of bullets kicked up debris all around them.
Tucked back down in amongst the rapidly disappearing cover of crates, Titus looked from the bullet hole through his forearm over to Talaric.
“This ain’t looking good boss!”
Talaric nodded his features grim. They needed a break of some kind. Grenades would have worked, but he didn’t have any more. Then he heard a muted sound different from the rest of the gunfire. A sound that he had never wanted to hear, especially not right now.
Unmindful of the bullets spraying all around and slamming into their protective hiding place he started to lunge up out of the space, but Titus grabbed a hold of him and jerked him back down to the floor, “Leave that girl be! She can take care of herself I’m ah thinking!”
Talaric strained forward against Titus’s grip on him and peered around the edge of a metal barrel. He watched, as Eva walked into the gallery with both machine pistols chattering.
She walked out in an ever-changing approach into the center of the courtyard. Bullets kicked up debris all around her and any second he expected to see her riddled with bullets and the life he had wanted to spend with her would be over.
Her quick and slow movements and spins followed by abrupt stops and changes in direction had bullet trails following in her wake or chasing too far ahead of her.
Her moves almost seemed choreographed somehow as graceful as they were. Then it dawned on him what she was doing.
She was performing!
The act she was pulling off was an approximation of the same act that he had seen her perform in that strip bar in Columbia, only with a few of the more suggestive moves cut out.
As one pistol clicked empty she would deftly flip the release lever with a finger. The spent cartridge holder would drop out and then she would ram the butt end of the pistol down toward her belt. Like the quills of a porcupine, extra magazine clips stuck out from the special belt at her waist.
One gun never stopped firing and most of the time both were flinging led. She was a virtual weapon of finesse and graceful power. Her bullets tick tacked off walls, railings, and the bodies of the enemy with brutal inefficiency that was still proving effective somehow.
She wasn’t alone either in her mad fight. Glancing up Talaric watched, as his father cleared away a whole group of gunmen, focused on eliminating Eva on the lower floor, with Eva’s short shotgun.
The chattering of the machine pistol came to a close several moments later, as did the booms of the shotgun, as there were no more available targets to be fired at within the gallery.
Titus released his hold on Talaric, “There what did I tell you! It ain’t good to go doubting women folks in a fight. They can surprise you.” He said patting Katie’s head lightly, which lay up against him.
Katie looked pale and her brow was covered in sweat. Her usual tomboyish bravado must’ve been all gone, because her little white hand reached out in response to Titus’s words and squeezed a couple of the big black fingers of the man, who had just given her a rare complement.