We didn’t even have time to prepare for them before the explosion hit. I thought they had blown the door down already, and it even looked like they had attempted just that. It had buckled inward against its frame like it had been hit with a malfunctioning hull breacher. My suspicions of an attack on us were disproven when I heard gunfire from outside the door, projectile weapons instead of the laser-based ones I had been used to hearing on a space vessel. These ones shook the very walls as they were fired.

  I shook off the initial shock. My first act was to swap my knife, taking one of the smaller and lighter ones from the block instead of the large and fairly unwieldy blade I had used to threaten Mark. Remembering the other occupant, I looked to where he had been, only to now see him pulling a cupboard that had been pushed against the wall to the floor.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed, glancing back at the warped door every so often. The gunfire had subsided now, replaced by inaudible hissed bickering.

  “I have a passageway, leads to the basement. If we go now, we might just give them the slip.” He was one to talk about me acting different earlier, the polite and slow cadence had been replaced by a steady and confident growl.

  “Passageway?” I asked, surprised by his apparent preparation.

  “I’ll explain later, but that door won’t hold long against PEAs.”

  I rolled my eyes, “You’ll also have to explain what that means too ‘cause that means nothing to me.”

  He ignored me as he punched a hole through the paper covering the wall, tearing it off like he was attempting to tear apart the whole building. I flinched as he did, I guess I was expecting the wall to give more of a fight. Behind it, as he promised, was a hole. Cramped and dark, it looked like the space in between the walls of the building. The Ship had something similar, although I never liked crawling through those tunnels, since only one layer of metal was between me and the endless abyss of space in there. Sometimes, there was just nowhere else to hide.

  Mark motioned to me to crawl in first, I refused. “You know the way and I don’t want to have to watch my back.” He didn’t argue back, if he was trying to find an opportunity to stab me in the back, he didn’t reveal his disappointment then and there.

  He crawled in, pushing his back against the wall and lowering himself down, his movements rained dust down on his head, coating him in thick layers that changed his tone of his skin to a dull grey.

  “Come on!” He beckoned, not raising his head up as to prevent any of the dust getting in his eyes.

  I puffed, not really wanting to put myself into a confined space with someone I didn’t trust, but the only other option was the currently silent firefight outside the inoperable door.

  Ugh.

  Yaram cursed as he traced his hands up to his shoulder, embedded in it was a shard of glass, likely from one of the light fixtures in the hallway. Annoyingly, it had embedded itself into his skin, it had caught under the padding of his armour around his shoulder, a weak spot that allowed him more motion if he kept it unprotected, motion he was now severely lacking. He had suffered much worse before, and while it hurt like a bitch, a bit of bandaging and stitching would get it like new in no time.

  Thankfully, it hadn’t been his gun hand, but shooting wasn’t going to do him much good against whoever this was. He wished he had gotten a scan of their faces before he had taken the shot, then he would’ve had a much better idea of what he was up against. Then again, expecting this kind of tech from PEAs was a level of paranoia only the detrimentally cautious had. For now, he knew that one of the Agents had an incredibly effective, and excessively expensive, energy-deflection mirror.

  A type of shield that were originally designed for vehicles or small ships that redirects energy either into their own engines or weapons, but had been refined to the point where now personal ones were hitting the market.

  Very, very fancy, and very, very rare. Yaram had come across a personal version only once before, held by a URO Chairman. The hardest part about that contract had been getting around the damn thing, nothing he could carry on his own could overcome it, and he did try absolutely everything. However bigger weapons will always be around, and while they’re usually meant for bigger targets, they’ll still work on the smaller ones. Unfortunately on this occasion, Yaram had forgotten his kinetic bombardment satellite at home, it must’ve been left on the coffee table next to his keys or something.

  “More agents are on the way!” A voice echoed from the hallway, the noise piercing through the bullet holes in the door. The voice was a woman’s, it was firm and commanding, she had been doing this for a while at least, not unlikely that the mirror was hers, if she was taking charge. “Throw your weapon out and we can resolve this amicably!”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Yaram frowned, he wasn’t going to give up but now he had fewer options that he liked. When someone attacked a PEA, more would turn up like carrion birds to a fresh kill. He could either chance another shot now, and hope that the mirror had burned through whatever energy supply it had, (which was far from guaranteed, especially considering he had shot it with something so mild) or he could run now, and hope to intercept the target in a less compromised position, but risk losing the bounty entirely.

  “That’s some fancy tech,” He goaded, fishing for a response, people revealed more than they liked when they were stressed, “Your friend ok?”

  “Throw. Down. Your. Gun.” The woman responded.

  Well shit, they were more competent than the average PEAs, they weren’t going to let him know if he had the upper hand or not, even by accident. It made his choice easier though, if they were semi-competent, outnumbered him, and had a mirror, there wasn’t much way of overpowering them and giving the rest of the PEAs the slip.

  Yaram moved away from the door, towards the staircase, it was open in the centre, which made things easier. Still facing the door, he vaulted the railing, falling to the ground floor. When he landed, he shook his head, he still never got used to how good the shock absorbers in his legs were, a fall like that should’ve really hurt, but it felt like he hadn’t fell at all. Not bothering to waste more time thinking about his mockery of the laws of physics, he made for the exit.

  “You think he’s gone? It’s been pretty quiet.” Lakma whispered.

  Tae didn’t reply, instead keeping her gun trained on the door.

  Lakma scoffed and rolled his eyes.

  “If you want to check, be my guest.” She hissed.

  He considered it, then decided quickly decided against it, backup would get here soon anyway. Besides, his mirror had completely burnt through its power supply, and his pocket. It could’ve taken half a dozen more shots if he ever bothered to charge the damn thing, but he could never really be bothered to. This was the first time it had saved his life however, and the shock had hardly worn off yet. For a split second he had thought something nearby had catastrophically exploded, the entire corridor had been torn to shreds, the ground walls and ceiling were pockmarked where the concrete had been sheared off by the force of the redistributing blast. All aside from a small circumference around him and Tae, which remained completely untouched aside from the falling dust.

  “Aren’t you going to thank me?” Lakma said, now noticing how he had been the one who had saved both of their lives.

  “No.”

  “I mean if it wasn’t for me-“

  “If it wasn’t for who you are Nivas, I won’t thank you for simply having a lucky name.” Tae seethed. “Now, please, shut your mouth.”

  “Pssht”

  “Where are we?” I asked as we exited into a bare looking and damp smelling room.

  “Like I said, basement. City maintenance tunnels connect here; we can use that to lose them.” Mark replied, still keeping his curt demeanour but not losing his refined pronunciation.

  Planets seemed to be much more similar to the Ship than I originally thought. Lower levels that led to connecting tunnels to the other sections, the words were different, but the function remained yet the same.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, hoping my tone didn’t reveal just how out of my depth I still felt.

  Mark paced the room, glancing in dark corners before beckoning me over to one. “I have a few friends, they can give us shelter for a while before we figure out our next move.”

  “We?” I probed, cautiously pacing toward him struggling with a metal gate.

  “Well, consider the PEAs are at my doorstep, and then said doorstep explodes. I’m not leaving you alone if you are in that much trouble.” He grunted as he pushed against the rusted bars. Before giving up and attempting to kick it in. “I want to help you.”

  The gate shook with the sound of turbulence, rattling and reverberating, but remaining closed. “There you go again, what could you possibly gain out of this?” I demanded.

  “Nothing,” He grunted with another kick, still unsuccessful, “But if I left you on your own, I would be betraying the most important person to me.”

  I rolled my eyes and raised my arms to the air, “Do you ever speak normally? I ask you a question and you don’t give me a straight answer, but you expect me to trust you? To just follow you like a lost pet?”

  One more kick, the gate swung open and rebounded off the wall with a terrible clang, the echo repeated for long, unspoken seconds. “No,” He finally panted, “The answers I give you are true, and are mine. But if you don’t understand them, then they aren’t your answers.”

  “I swear to your god, I will punch you if you say another-“

  “SHH!” He hissed quickly, I moved to continue but his expression wasn’t of someone wanting peace and quiet, but of someone attempting to hide.

  Footsteps, above us. Muffled, but audible, and numerous.

  “Must be their back up. Come on, I know where to try first.”

  Through the gate was a cylindrical tunnel, still made of the same concrete as the rest of the city, the only difference was that it stank of mould. Mark had to stoop as he led the way, I was still able to stand with a comfortable amount of clearance above me. As we started, I was hit with a demoralising realisation. Even after escaping, I still had to crawl through tunnels, running from people who outnumber me who want to harm me. What would it take to get them to just fuck off?

  Yaram entered his exfil vehicle, an unassuming 4-door car he had gotten from a local mechanic, and sighed aggressively. His own addition, a radar on the left of his dashboard, was still turned on despite the rest of the vehicle being inactive. It showed the approaching PEA vehicles closing in. He still had a minute or two spare to escape, which was nice, he didn’t feel like shaking off a pursuit, especially from the admittedly nice cars the PEAs got. He turned on the ignition, and pulled away from the building. He saw a route open in between the approaching pursuers; they weren’t even trying to block an escape. As he drove, he pulled out a pair of earphones, plugging them into a device mounted on his wrist, before connecting to a channel he had added earlier that day, if he was lucky, he could intercept the transport of his targets before the reached PEA HQ, which even he would probably find impenetrable.