Chapter Nine—Party Time on Ela Luna Keys

Everyone glanced down the hall toward the foyer. John grabbed for his pistol, but of course it wasn’t there.

Kyle revealed his carbon-plastic non-scanable knife.

“Get back!” John said, and everyone backed away from the entrance. Pulling up his wristlet, he got a holo-projection of the intruders coming into the luxury hotel foyer. Two men—no three men—armed with pistols and compact assault weapons.

Not good.

Glancing toward Kyle he lifted his fingers, counting each man as he entered. The smaller man nodded and John went to the table where Scorr’s tablet computer was located. He picked it up and just before the assault team breached the room, he stepped out into view.

The man at the front almost blew John’s head off, but he prevented the man from shooting him when he raised the computer like a shield. “Whoa! Whoa! Careful!”

The man stepped into the room and Kyle took hold of his assault weapon and rammed his blade up through the man’s chin.

Multiple shots went off into the ceiling. Kelly Hess screamed and John dove to the side as energy projectiles zipped through the hall and into the wall where he would have been standing.

“John!” Kyle called.

Sitting back up, he put out his hands just in time to catch the assault weapon. He jumped, rolled over the expensive rug and came up with the weapon and started laying down a fully automatic fusillade of hot energy at their intruders.

The man at the front took two hits to the chest, the energy projectiles burning into him and he landed on the floor dead.

The second man dodged the shots and took cover behind the wall.

“Time to go!” Kyle said, grabbing Kelly Hess’ wrist and dragging her toward the back entrance. “Gonna have to call a rain check on Ela Luna Keys, Hussy!”

“Owe! I TOLD YOU I’M NOT A HUSSY!”

John lurched across the open space where the wide hall connected to the living room and back into cover as several shots zipped by and scored the wall, burning huge chunks through it.

Running across the sumptuous living quarters, John joined Kyle and Hess in the lift. Kyle smacked the button and they started going down. Just before the lift was fully descended from their floor, the last twelve inches of view through the transparent panel revealed the third shooter.

He turned, saw them and put two shots in their direction. They shredded through the panel as John pushed Kelly down to protect her as she screamed.

“Damn,” Kyle breathed. “These guys aren’t messing around.”

“Who are they?!” Kelly cried.

“Who d’ya think?!”

“We’ll hit the subfloor and steal a ride,” John said, completely at east. As long as he had a gun in his hand, he was fine.

The lift opened up into the parking garage and they all ran out, Kelly’s sandaled feet noisily slapping against the cement.

John glanced about for any sign of other attackers and saw movement behind one of the Blue Heaven’s support beams. He put down three shots, chipping away cement on the support and taking out the gunman behind it.

Kyle wasted no time and slid behind the support and picked up the pistol.

Then two more revealed themselves from behind luxury cars and started peppering their whole area with crackling energy rounds.

John pushed Kelly behind the car on their right. “Stay down!”

Kyle was up and running.

“Where’s he going?” Kelly croaked. “I knew Squeaky was fuckin’ bird shit crazy!”

John peaked over the hood of the red Kesher-12 and put down as many shots as he could, aiming directly for the shooters.

As they returned fire, he ducked back down to safety.

“LOOK OUT!” Kelly called, pointing in the direction of the lift from where they had come. John whirled, shot even before his eyes landed on the target.

It was the man who had chased them to the lift in their room, now lying dead on the cement.

There was more shooting ahead, but now the shots weren’t impacting the car or the wall behind John and Kelly.

John took a look and found Kyle walking back toward them, another gun in his left hand. “I got ‘em,” he said.

“I thought—I thought you left us.”

“Wouldn’t you like that, Hussy?”

“No!”

Kyle laughed.

“Come on,” John said. “We need a ride.”

“Oh!” Kyle exclaimed. I saw a Cry Lamir on the other side over there. He pointed.

John shrugged. “It’ll work.”

It only took John a few moments to break through the security and unlock the two doors.

Kelly climbed into the back. “This is a sweet ride,” she said.

“Hells yeah,” Kyle said. “At least you have some good taste, kid.”

Kelly muttered something derogatory under her breath, but John didn’t hear her as he bypassed the security systems.

That’s when four more men appeared through a door, all wearing black BDUs and sporting automatic assault weapons.

“Shit!” Kyle exclaimed. “Get down.”

They all ducked down as low as they could get. Then the engine hummed to life, the electronics, blue and red and yellow lighting up all throughout the interior as the car’s computer systems booted up.

“Low jack down?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah,” John said, pulled out of the parking space.

The men were fanning out, ready to stop them.

“They’re going to shoot us!” Kelly whined.

John laughed. “They can try! Now put your heads down!”