Many a tourist has remarked upon the bewildering nature of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with so many sacred sites, between Calvary and Joseph's Tomb and everything in the vicinity that might have the slightest measure of significance to the tale of Crucifixion and Resurrection, all crammed into one building, and that building crammed in among all the other tight-fit buildings crowding the Old City's narrow streets. It makes for quite a maze to explore. Such tourists, however, at least had the advantage of making their way through the Church at no quicker a pace than their tour guide might urge them to.
Becki, Eti, and Naira were exploring the ill-lit building at a dead run now, with pursuit hot on their heels. Byzantine mosaics and smoking censers blurred past unnoticed. The blaster bolts that occasionally shot past their heads, however, did not go unnoticed. Becki was glad when they managed to dodge them, but winced every time a shot landed instead on some formerly pristine marble wall or some precious ancient mural. She winced all the more when it became necessary for her to shoot back as the bolts landed ever nearer herself and her companions; it was ridiculous trying to aim behind her and run at the same time, so she knew her own shots were only going to be adding to the damage to the venerable old building. But the pursuit was ever gaining on them, and there was no other way to discourage it.
They fled without the least idea where they were heading. Only the sound of blaster fire and running steps behind them gave any indication of where their pursuers were. Pilgrims and priests ducked out of their way once or twice as the girls and their hunters burst through various chapels in the complex.
Up stairs they sped and down corridors of age-worn stones. They were, as far as Becki could tell, already fairly high up in the building when an opportunity presented itself. They had climbed up onto a gallery running along one high chamber, and as they raced for the other end of the gallery, she glanced back to see four men, brandishing blasters, following their path through the chamber below. Intent on reaching the stairway up to the gallery, not one of them looked up to see her at its rail.
She caught at Eti and Naira and motioned for them to get down, then crouched by the rail herself, waiting. . . . And then, as the men came into range, she took aim, carefully for once in that night of mad flight, and shot.
The first two went down in seconds, thanks to surprise and the protection of the marble rail, but then the other two took note of her location and crouched down behind the stairway railing themselves to return fire. Becki shot back, less well-aimed now but keeping more carefully to her own cover.
And all the while Eti was whispering: "Let me help! Oh, this is dreadful, I can' t abide just sitting here waiting for them to shoot you. . . ."
"At least when they do, you can have my blaster all to yourself," Becki answered tensely. "Hush and let me handle this." She ducked as another bolt whizzed past her head to scorch the wall behind her and a second fell just short of her to burn into the railing. Behind the rail she crouched, biding her time, till finally the shots ceased and the echoes of them faded away. Then, slowly, she eased up to peek over the railing, guessing that the enemy would be doing likewise, guessing that he would have noticed that her return fire had stopped and would wonder if this meant he'd got her.
He spied her just about as quickly as she spotted him, but her shot proved the quicker, and the last of the four men went down. Becki sighed in relief and sat back on her heels, letting her forehead come to rest on the rail.
"Lieutenant," Eti nudged her back to alertness. "I have an idea--their guns, down there, Naira and I could grab a couple of them, and then we won't be helpless and if more of them come after us we can shoot back, too."
Becki sat up to glance down at the bodies fallen at the base of the stairway. There seemed no sign of further pursuit, at least not for the moment, although she wouldn't be surprised if there were more of these thugs in the church somewhere; there had certainly been more of them out in the streets, more of them holding out against the rest of Terra Group, and more of them chasing Becki and her two tag-alongs after they'd gotten separated from her teammates. "All right," she sighed, pulling herself to her feet. "Go grab a blaster, each of you. I'll cover you from here."
Naira began to protest, recoiling from the thought of approaching the still figures below, but Eti overruled and dragged her along down the stairs. Becki followed them just to the top of the stairway, from which point she kept her blaster ready and her eyes wide open, glancing back and forth between each of the doorways opening on the chamber.
A short yelp from Naira was her first warning that she'd overlooked a door. She turned to the sound, starting to take aim, but--
It was only a priest, gnarled and ancient like the Church itself, like the olive trees bent with years in the Garden of Gethsemane, who'd suddenly come up behind the girls and laid a hand on Naira's shoulder. The elder Neris sister stood paralyzed, but Eti was swinging a pilfered blaster around--
"Wait!" Becki scolded, running down the stairs. Eti looked up at the sound of her voice, sparing the priest; he looked up as well, directing at Becki a glare of righteous indignation.
"What is this?" the little man demanded of her. "What is going on? Why do you do this violence in this holy place?"
Becki shook her head, holding her own weapon down to her side in show of truce. "They were chasing us, we had no choice. . . . They were shooting to kill, and we've been eluding them all night. I'm sorry. . . ."
"But this is no place for your fights!" the priest snapped. "You bring murder into this place of the Resurrection!"
"Oh! No, Father, they're--I mean--it's set on stun. . . ." She trailed off as she realized the difficulties in explaining extragalactic weaponry to Terrans outside of Mendellia. "Well, that is--they aren't dead, they'll just be unconscious a while." The priest looked skeptical. "See for yourself?" she tried.
He kept a one-eyed glare on her for a few seconds while the other eye narrowed appraisingly, then finally turned away, stooping down beside the nearest of the still figures. After a moment he glanced up, his face softened somewhat: "This one breathes."
Becki nodded. "Yeah, he'll be fine soon enough. Which we would not be, if they'd managed to shoot us. But--" The vexingly familiar sound of footsteps suddenly echoed down the hallway that had originally brought the girls to this chamber. She glanced that way and her heart fell. "Oh dear Lord," she murmured. "Not again."
"They still hunt you," the priest said quietly.
"Yes. There's just no end to them."
"No more hunting and shooting in this place," he proclaimed.
"Fine with me, but I don't think they will--"
"Come," he nodded. Standing swiftly, he ducked past the fallen bodies and through a low doorway behind the stairs, presumably the one by which he had so unexpectedly entered the room after the firefight ended.
Eti and Naira, clinging still to their newfound weapons, looked anxiously to Becki. "What do we do?" Naira whispered.
The footsteps grew louder. "Anything but wait for their backup to get here," Becki decided. "Let's go."
They ducked through the doorway; the priest, waiting there for them, pushed the door shut and pulled out an old-fashioned key. "This," he said cheerfully, locking the door, "will slow them. You leave, they don't have anybody to shoot. You leave fast, maybe they don't shoot you after you leave, either."
"How do we--" Becki began.
"Come," the priest said, and led them away down a winding, low corridor. At last they reached a pair of windows, moonlight glimmering pale on the floor before them. The priest pried one of the windows open and stepped back. "Go along the roofs, then down when you can. They won't come out this way, so you only have to watch for where they do come out and don't go that way, hm?"
Becki nodded and cautiously peeked out from the window. Judging that the coast was clear, she lowered herself from it onto a stone roof, and again glanced around, keeping her blaster ready, before motioning for Eti and Naira to join her.
When all three of them were safely out on the roof, she paused, turning back to the window just as the priest started to shut it up again. "Thank you," she said quietly.
"Go, be safe," the old man smiled. "God bless."
"He has," Becki nodded.