Halfway Heroes

by Dustin Martin

A majority of the weapons had been looted by the mercenaries, but they’d left a decent supply of ammunition. Jando tried to get his hands on an assault rifle, but Sylvia forbade him. “There’s hardly enough to go around as it is. Let someone with more experience use it,” she said, tossing the gun to an unarmed officer. She did take an extra pistol, a shotgun, and ammunition for herself though.

  One officer was designated to stay behind at the station, sending out the call for any fellow servicemen. After Claude was patched up, he and the other mercenaries were locked in a cell on the second floor. Rogers was separating their forces into teams, showing them his map with the planned routes.

  “You three are with me,” Sylvia said to Lydia, Aidan, and Jando.

  “Like we expected any different,” Lydia said.

  “Okay, I want you two on the roof,” Rogers said to a pair of officers wielding sniper rifles. “First, we’ll head to the other side of the street through the back door and deal with any stray snipers. Cover us. Lydia, come open the back door. We’ll go out that way.”

  Suddenly, two bullets pelted the front windows. Everyone fell to the floor, covering their heads. Several shots hit the front doors, ripping open tiny holes. “The snipers! Get to the back!” Rogers yelled. The group crawled, rolled, and scrambled for the rear door. But it was tightly locked.

  Then, they heard a dreaded sound. Pop! A short instance later, a hissing spread throughout the building. The SN91. The gas was flowing in from the floor above. Claude was yelling from his cell, but he was swiftly silenced. The last they heard from him were guttural gags.

  Rogers kicked at the rear door. “Lydia!” Sylvia called. But Lydia had leapt into an office, out of the snipers’ line of fire. When the bullets passed, she raised her head. Across from her, outside the window, were two mercenaries with their guns drawn. The office was barricaded on one side. The other end of the room offered no space to hide or take cover. The windows were too low and would expose her to the enemy. The snipers had been driving them directly into the waiting crossfire of their backup and into the deadly gas of SN91.

  One of the mercenaries spotted her. He raised his rifle. A red dot trailed up Lydia until it was smack dab in the middle of her forehead.