"They're still coming!" Etidorhpa's panicky whisper reached Becki's ears, but the Terra Group agent offered no reply, only held out her free hand back toward the girl slightly to signal her to be quiet.
The Neris sisters were oblivious to the gesture. "We must go!" Dohrnaira insisted, plucking anxiously at the back of Becki's shirt.
"Just . . . one . . . moment . . ." Becki murmured, trying to ignore the distraction of the girls' chatter. Leaning forward just slightly past the corner of the building that hid the three of them, she glanced down the street through which they had just run. No sign of the enemy yet.
"But if they find us here--" Eti pressed, starting to reach toward the blaster in Becki's hand. "Can't you at least give us guns, too? There's so many of them!" This had been her constant demand ever since Becki had cornered the two ladies in waiting, only a block away from the building where they had been waiting out the firefight at first--and ever since the enemy had cornered the three of them in turn, and the chase had begun. Eti had, it seemed, been using Vickie's blaster until, in the confusion following the arrival of the rest of Terra Sancta Group on the scene, it had been shot out of her hand, and she and Naira had panicked and taken to hiding in the building. It was lucky, after all, Becki reflected, that Mike had sent her after them when they tried to escape that building, unarmed as they were. She wasn't sure why, but it seemed to be the sisters, more than herself, that the men were chasing; and at least Becki's presence meant the girls had more options than merely running for it.
"And this is our first good chance to make a few less of them," Becki reminded the girl. "Anyway, I told you before, I don't have a spare blaster, and maybe my own marksmanship isn't all that much to talk about, but I'd rather--"
Footsteps echoing in the quiet of the night stopped her. She whispered for the Mendellian girls to get back; "and be ready to run when I say."
"What about you?" Naira asked.
"I'm right behind you. Now . . . GO!" she hissed.
The armed men--whoever they were, and whomever they were fighting for, since, between the darkness of the Old City streets and the constant necessity of keeping just ahead of their blasters, Becki hadn't yet been able to get a good look at them--came in range of her blaster at just that moment. At the same time, Eti and Naira, braver than Becki would have first thought, burst from their cover and darted out into the street. A shout resounded through the narrow street as the men caught sight of the fleeing girls and brought their weapons around to trace their path. Fleet-footed, Eti and Naira were halfway to their goal before the pursuers' blasterfire began to come near them: but by then, the men had stormed past the alley where Becki waited, and, with their attention so wholly focused on the other two girls, it was a simple matter for her own fire to take them down.
At least the first few of them. After that, the others apparently caught on to the fact that the girls they were chasing were not shooting back, but someone behind them was, and they turned to meet the new threat. Becki made certain that by the time they got back to her alley, she was nowhere near it.
"It worked," Naira breathed in a sort of astonishment when Becki rejoined them at the crossroads she had pointed out to them before the ambush.
"It would've worked better," Eti snorted, "if we'd been shooting at them too, from our side."
"I'm sure it would," Becki sighed, suffering, not for the first time that night, the impression of being back in student teaching again, fending off some insolent teenager's complaints about a grade. "But we don't exactly have time for efficiency analysis. Come on, let's run--they're right behind me."
The pursuers, though fewer now, continued to pursue them. Old City Jerusalem's stone-paved streets and dusty alleyways rang with blaster reports and glowed with the light of ricocheted shots. The girls managed to keep just ahead of the fire, but could not shake the pursuit however they tried, nor did another opportunity for ambush present itself. The enemy was learning fast. Becki and her charges were wearing out fast, too.
Their flight carried them into streets that seemed, even in the dark, vaguely familiar to Becki. She cast curious glances at the shops lining the street, shutters drawn and locked tight at this hour, and made a guess: Jewish Quarter? Or are we in the Muslim Quarter already? I think, maybe, the Chain Street? No . . . past this crossroads, I think this becomes David Street. Then Jaffa Gate should be up ahead; if we can just get past the gate, out into the New City. . . .
But their opponents had other plans. Shots still rang out in the streets behind them--and farther away, too, well out of range, implying that the rest of Terra Group hadn't finished its part in this firefight either--and suddenly shots were ringing out before them as well, as three figures appeared out of a dark-shuttered building up ahead, bringing their weapons to bear.
With a handful of return shots Becki managed to bargain the three down to two, but in this dark her aim was less reliable than usual and she doubted she'd be able to bring the price on down to a truly reasonable rate. "No sale," she muttered, and then hollered to her companions to head right at the crossroads ahead.
They fled on, north past more tiny shops, ducking down side streets when they could and detouring around the ancient stone buildings, darting up flights of steps and down again to elude their pursuit.
Finally, they came around a corner and down a few wide steps into a courtyard between two broad arms of some building far taller than most of the shops and residences lining the narrow streets. A sense of recognition quickened in Becki. She glanced to either side of the open pavement, then straight ahead to the double-arched entryway, and above that, two windows in matching arches, and on up, to a grey dome. . . .
"Ohhhhh. . . ." she breathed, knowing the place now.
But with the sounds of pursuit still not far behind them, this wasn't the time to pause in awe. She motioned to her companions to follow her, into the imposing stillness of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Getting in was only the first of troubles. The heavy door at the entrance--twice the height of a tall man--proved to be sensibly locked at this hour. That might have been no problem, but that its massive keyhole was positioned well above head height, out of Becki's reach--even if the NRI-issue lockpick she carried would have worked on a lock so curiously archaic. In the end, they managed to find a safety exit, only very recently installed from the looks of it, around the side of the building, and the lockpick worked nicely here.
Inside the ancient sanctuary, the darkness was little less than in the streets. The quiet, however, seemed even greater, almost oppressive with the weight of the stones above. Yet as the three of them tiptoed through stony corridors, it soon became evident that the place was not as empty as Becki had hoped. Even in the middle of the night, prayers of pilgrims could be heard in some of the tiny chapels tucked into corners, and the oil lamps were burning steadily when the girls reached the Rotunda built around the Sepulchre itself.
One advantage to the antique grandeur of the place: Eti and Naira, apparently awestruck, had held silence ever since the emergency exit closed behind them. Becki wondered at this, considering that these ladies-in-waiting must be quite familiar with the Mendellian High Palace, of which this Byzantine church almost reminded her in some places. Perhaps it was simply the garishness of the décor that had stolen the girls' tongues; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Becki reflected, was testimony to the inadvisability of having not one but six different sects of the same faith responsible for one sprawling edifice. The resulting clash of renovation styles, she felt sure, must be unparalleled anywhere else on Terra. Each of the mosaics, murals, hanging lamps and censers, and whatnot, would have been just lovely on its own or in like company; but jumbled all together like this . . .
And yet, in places, this church truly was breathtaking. They stood beneath the dome of the Rotunda, and Becki gazed in wonder up at the stars visible through the open eye of the dome. At least the scaffolding had come down by now that had lined this chamber on her last visit, two years ago.
Having left the firefight outside--she hoped--she took a moment to report in to the rest of Terra Group. "Three here," she spoke quietly into the comlink. "Where is everyone? I may need some help."
"What's your position?" replied a familiar, but utterly unexpected, voice.
"Chief?" she squeaked. "Where are you?"
"Almost to Jerusalem," Sci answered. "Now, your turn."
"Oh. We're in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."
"We?"
"Me and a couple of guests. I'm looking after them because Vickie caught one of them trying to get away with something we want. And it looks likely that the guys shooting at us tonight want it, too. But our guests thought they'd just slip away while the rest of us were shooting it out, so, well, the three of us sort of got cut off from the rest of Terra Group. Long story, I'll explain later. Anyway, it's quiet now but I don't figure it'll last, so we could use some backup."
"I'll send someone," Sci said. "Lead out." He cut the connection before Becki could answer; she nodded, unsurprised, and tucked away the comlink.
Then the sounds of heavy footsteps rose over the sounds of the pilgrims' prayers, and the time for sightseeing was past.