Survivor by Saffron Bryant Page A

whole place to pieces.
    She forced her eyes away from the wall and
turned back towards the voices. There was only one thing for it.
Even if she did have to carry two bodies out, she was sure that
Codon would forgive her, in time. After all, she was saving his
damned project.
    She reached into her holster and pulled out
her gun. She checked it over. The blue tube on the top glowed with
pent-up energy. She strained her ears for their voices. It was easy
to tell exactly where they were standing based on their raised
words. She took a deep breath and stepped around the corner.
    An older man with a thick moustache looked
at her and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "What the-"
    The other man also sported a thick moustache
and a chunk of his left ear was missing. He followed his fellow's
gaze and fell silent. They both stared at Nova with open eyes and
mouths. Their fingers twitched, no doubt readying to dive for the
guns at their belts.
    "I will give you one chance," Nova said in a
firm voice. "Come out of here with me now and you'll be able to
live. Try anything and I'll be forced to do what I have to do."
    "And who the hell are you?" one of the men
said. He glanced sideways at his partner; their faces were
emotionless masks.
    "There's a pretty penny on both of your
heads. Dead or alive."
    "Well," the first man said and held his
hands up high near his head. "We'd hate to cause you problems."
    "I'm sure," she said.
    "But we're not going to spend our lives
wasting away in some jail cell when the Confederacy is blundering
around like it does."
    "Then you'll escape, like last time, and
I'll find you and collect another reward," she said.
    "Sorry," the second man said and his hand
whipped down to his gun. He flicked it out of its holster and
levelled it at Nova.
    Nova held out her own gun, set her sights,
and squeezed the trigger. Her arm flicked with the force of the
kickback but she barely felt it amongst the hard vibrations going
on all around.
    The man's gun flashed white and sailed out
of his hand and into the air. It clattered to the floor of the
tunnel metres away. He let out a cry of surprise and grabbed his
right hand to his chest, nursing it with his left. He looked at
Nova with wide-eyes, his mouth working.
    The other man wasn't so shocked. He had his
gun out before his companion's hit the ground and fired once.
    Nova stepped to her right, well out of the
way of the shot. She squeezed her own trigger and a flash of blue
light screamed through the air between them. The man's gun exploded
with light and was also sent sailing through the air.
    "Two for two," Nova said.
    "I'll admit you're a good shot," said the
first man.
    "Damn right," the man with the missing ear
said. "But we aren't coming with you."
    "Too bad," she said with a shrug and fired
two more shots. They slammed into the men's chests and they
collapsed backwards. They crumpled down onto their backs and their
heads lolled onto the sand, eyes still open.
    Unseen by the fugitives, she had adjusted
the setting on her gun. They would be unconscious for some time,
but they would survive. She sighed; it looked like she would be
carrying two bodies out of the tunnels.
    She looked around the corridor and down the
other fork. There had to be some kind of carting device for
carrying the sand and dirt of the excavation back up out of the
tunnel. She walked away from the men and down the other fork,
towards the sound of digging.
    She wasn't worried about the fugitives
waking up and walking away. They would be incapacitated for some
time to come.
    The tunnels were darker in this area. The
metal plating and strange lights dimmed, turning from a yellowy-red
to blue. The floor was sandier and covered in newly churned dirt
but there was no sign of a cart.
    At the next turn there was more writing.
Nova frowned at it. Her curiosity had gotten her into mountains of
trouble in the past but it had also saved her life, and it was more
reliable than her luck, however unlikely that