Josh was dressed in his angsty intellectual gear, his Kevlar vest hidden by the lines of his leather jacket, his Glock riding in the waistband of his pants. He'd actually managed to leave his blaster behind this time, which was a small weight off his mind.
Of course, carrying a presumably illegal firearm in a country to which he had illegally gained entrance, and didn't even speak the language to boot, was a much larger weight. Still, it was one he'd have to bear, and hope he didn't drop it.
He paused near the rear of the building, trying to keep the turnings of his head nonchalant, playing the part of someone waiting for someone. He hoped that he would be disappointed. The rest of the team had gone into the building containing Cheriss's last known address. Josh didn't think there was much he'd be able to find inside that the two Jedi couldn't pick up. That, and if he found himself in an awkward situation inside, the only language he could use to wangle his way out was probably the international language of violence.
Not the most discreet of methods. Still, there was a need for a lookout, especially with the number of gendarmes on the streets today. Maybe a bomb threat had -
*WHUMP.*
It was raining glass. Josh had thrown himself to the ground instinctively, and a sliver of glass sliced into the left arm of the jacket as he lay splayed-out on the ground. After a second, he lifted his head to check for the source of the explosion.
The third floor.
Where Cheriss's apartment was.
Where the rest of the team were.
Bloody hell.
Josh ducked into the alleyway around the rear of the building, dashing up the stairs, shouldering a few dazed people out of his way. He sprinted out of the stairwell on the third floor, contingency plan after contingency plan whirling after each other through his head, slowly descending into useless gibberish. If they were hurt - if they were dead - what if - what if...
He turned the corner so fast he skidded on the smooth carpet, and found his team - Mike, Becki and Josh C. were all alive, upright and apparently unhurt - but Vickie...
"Are you guys all right?" he asked, his mouth not quite keeping up with his brain.
Josh Cochran looked up quickly at the sound of his voice. "Josh!" He glanced back at Vickie for a moment, then nodded firmly at the Australian. "Josh, I need you to go downstairs and keep the cops out of here for a few minutes!" Cochran glanced at Mike. "Mike, get Vickie back to the apartment. I tried to put her in a healing trance, but it's not working. Becki and I are going back in there."
Nolan nodded, then ran to the doorway and looked inside. The apartment was devastated - the floor, the celing, the interior walls - nothing was intact, and soot filled the air like black snow. And yet there was a clear line in the doorway where the destruction simply stopped. Josh squatted and began to scoop up ash as a plan of action crystallised in his mind.
In the background, Josh faintly heard Becki ask, "We're what?"
Cochran ignored her and barked, "Josh, move!"
Nolan began to quickly smear soot on his face and hands, shoving his beret and glasses into a jacket pocket as he did so. "I'm moving," he replied, rubbing his hands against each other. "Just give me a sec - I sort of want a shot at coming out this alive." Satisfied that he'd covered most of the obvious spots, he pulled his Glock out and checked there was a bullet chambered. "I'm set. Good luck. I may be a while."
Cochran nodded and glanced at Mike, who was already hauling Vickie off towards the stairwell. "Yeah. You too."
Nolan stood and went to the lifts, hoping they were still working, and pressed the down button. He glanced nervously around him, hoping no-one would come across him while he waited.
Somehow, the lifts were both working and close, and the right-hand lift pinged almost immediately. The doors opened, revealing a woman in her early forties, stylishly dressed but obviously shaken.
She was shaken even more when Josh shoved the barrel of his Glock at her and began screaming incomprehensibly, gesturing at her to get down on the ground. He hoped his rantings sounded something like Arabic, and that the woman wouldn't try to put up a fight.
The woman was smart, though, and lay down on the floor of the lift, quaking with terror. Can't be helped, Josh thought, as he continued to babble loudly. He pressed the 'down' button, and finally the lift made it to the lobby. The lift pinged, and as the doors opened, Josh pushed them aside and charged out, waving his pistol threateningly, still ranting in his pseudo-Arabic. The doorman cowered away from him, and Josh fired a shot in his general direction, missing by about a metre.
He barged through the doors, and out onto the street. A few cars had halted after the explosion, and Josh squeezed off a few shots at their tyres. He jumped up on the bonnet of one of the cars, ran across it, and headed off into an alleyway across the street. He needed to keep moving and draw a trail away from the rest of his team. He couldn't hear any sirens yet - but they'd come.
And he had fourteen bullets left.
Alleyways. All the same. Run. Avoid garbage. Cat? Jump it. Keep moving.
Person in garbage. Yell. Wave Glock. Make impression. Keep moving.
Crowd. Fire over them. Thirteen. Yell. Hope.
Sirens. Getting closer. Run.
"Terra One, this is Five. I need help."
Kristy perked her head up from the console at the sound of her callsign, and her brow furrowed at the breathless voice on the other end. "Crispy? Are you okay?"
"No. Can I get you to home on my signal and give me some idea of the layout, for at least five hundred metres around me? I've got cops closing in on me, I need you to get me out of here." Josh's voice was measured, but the speed of his delivery let his tension shine through like a beacon.
"One sec," Kristy replied, scooting her repulsor-chair over to the visual console.
"Hurry, please..."
Kristy fumbled with the unfamiliar controls, ordering satellites to orient and position themselves. More controls, trying to zoom in, and she frowned as she tried to make sense of the image. "Getting there..."
"Gotta run," Crispy said tightly. There was some background noise on the commlink, sounding like shouting mixed with faint sirens, and Kristy could make out some motion on the screen in front of her. Someone was running out of the alley in the centre of the screen - and there, behind a parked car, were two more people... arms outstretched...
Gunshots played over the comlink, but the figure in the centre of the screen kept running, ducking in between two buildings, with the figures from behind the car giving chase. It sounded like Crispy was yelling something, away from the comlink, but Kristy couldn't make head or tail of it - it sounded vaguely like a German version of gibberish - but only vaguely.
Finally, his voice came over the comlink clearly. "What've you got for me, PK?"
"You've still got those two after you..." Kristy said as she searched over a wider area for threats.
"Stuff I don't know, PK! Please! I don't know where I am!"
Kristy nodded to herself as she tried to view the screen as a gestalt. "You've got others heading your way... six o'clock, and a police car's pacing you two streets away at your three."
"Cheers!" The figure that was Crispy broke to its left, the people on the streets almost magically parting before him as he ran. He was shouting nonsense again, and he wove his way through some more alleyways, bowling over some civilians as he did so.
This served to increase his lead on his pursuers, and the tiny figure turned in between two parked cars to race across the road. "Car!" Kristy cried almost without thinking, and the figure checked its motion just in time to let an automobile scream past.
"Clear?" asked Crispy tersely.
A second police car entered her screen. And another. And another. Kristy pulled the screen back, trying to see the larger pattern of police movements, and gasped. Crispy began running across the street, his pursuers just emerging from the alley he had left.
"Crispy..."
"What?"
"They've... got you surrounded."