The Ballard of Cairo
Part forty: Act of vengeance

Unknown location
Whittington
Lyran Alliance

Cairo and O'Brien where dragged out of their prison, a building that seemed to be a small warehouse. A trio of hover-cars waited outside. Hendrix pushed O'Brien into the middle one before turning to Cairo and handing him a map. "This is the location of the trade. You have 24 hours to remove the equipment we asked for from your Mech and deliver it. If you are even one second late, Miss O'Brien will suffer terribly before she dies". He unlocked Cairo's handcuffs and got into the hover-car next to Sinead.

Just as the first Word of Blake hover-car was pulling away from the warehouse, a silver streak shot forth from behind a line of hedges and hit its front dead centre. The car stopped just as if it had hit a brick wall. A second silver streak from the same position and hit the car containing Hendrix and O'Brien, ripping a hole ten centimetres across straight through the engine block. Cairo ran to the disabled car as Point Commander Rix and his Elementals leapt from behind a row of trees and started to rip the third car to shreds.

Cairo pulled open the door to Hendrix's car and pulled O'Brien out. The Word of Blake Demi-Precentor got out of the other side, brandishing a laser pistol, only to be ripped apart by large-calibre machinegun fire from MechWarrior Rebecca's Goshawk as it emerged from the same group of trees as the Elementals. Robert Dancer walked his Centurion around from behind the warehouse and sent a stream of Ultra AC/10 rounds into the first two hover-cars. Cairo and O'Brien where blown through the air as the fuel tank in the first car exploded under the onslaught of 100-milimeter high-explosive rounds.

Sally O'Day ran forward with a med-kit, followed closely by Rodgers and Jackson, both of whom were toting man-portable Gauss-rifles. They had obviously been responsible for disabling the first two hover-cars. People wearing light combat armour with Word of Blake insignias ran from the warehouse, only to meet death in the guise of Dancer's forward medium laser. O'Day was checking Cairo and O'Brien for injuries when a series of police cars came screaming down the street with lights blazing.

A greying man in the uniform of a Com-Star Precentor walked up to Cairo. "My name is Simon Clearwater, administrator of the local Hyper-Pulse Generator. On behalf of ComStar I would like to thank you for clearing up this little problem. We've known for a while that this group has been planning something, but until now we have been unable to pin anything on them. If any of them survive this they will spend the rest of their lives in prison."

Cairo shook the Precentor's hand, "That's something I'm glad to hear."

DropShip Wataru
Out-bound, Whittington
Lyran Alliance

Cairo and O'Brien were alone in the Wataru's observation bay, watching the planet of Whittington fade into the darkness of space. Cairo pulled a small box from his pocket and handed it to O'Brien. "I was going to give this to you during our little holiday, but I never got the chance". O'Brien opened the box to reveal a diamond ring. Cairo carefully took the ring from the box and held it up to her. "Sinead, will you marry me?"

O'Brien smiled - tears of joy shining in her eyes. "Yes...yes, of course I will Steven".

To Be Continued...