Harlon Nayl's auto-shotgun spat death for the final time with a harsh bark and then clicked empty. The sound filled Nayl with trepidation and foreboding. He knew in an instant that the odds were about to shift against them.
The howling clanner charging him screamed hideously as he was gutted by the slug and landed in a heap a few feet from him. Steam rose from his entrails as they met the cold and damp air of the corridor.
Nayl and Kys had managed to escort the girl safely to the extraction point. It was a dead-end and with nowhere to run they had taken up defensive positions until their relief arrived. Flashing yellow lights flanked the huge chrome doors of the service elevator and bathed the surrounding area with an amber glow. With a whine of servos and motors they had summoned their means of escape from an unknown floor a few minutes earlier, but it had yet to appear.
Nayl quickly patted his plated body-glove for a spare drum-magazine. He found none, threw the emptied weapon to the ground and cursed loudly.
'I'm out!' He shouted across the hallway to Patience Kys. She was hunkered down a few meters opposite him behind the husk of a domestic servitor. A dozen utility limbs sprouted awkwardly from its rusted and bullet-riddled torso which had taken the brunt of the punishment. The decaying remains were all that separated her from the onslaught.
'Make every shot count,' Nayl urged her as he noticed a growing pile of spent magazines and brass casings at her feet. The bandolier strapped across her chest was empty save for a single remaining high-caliber clip.
'Shit's about to go sideways!' She called back at him as she unjammed a stoppage in her weapon. Nayl sensed a slight tremble in her normally-sanguine voice and knew the truth in it.
In his long career as a bounty hunter before joining Ravenor's retinue he had become acquainted with many unsavory and dangerous individuals, but to date he had never met anyone so murderous as Patience Kys. Her ability to take a life with indifference was only off-set by her dark beauty.
During his time as a gun-for-hire Nayl had reserved no qualms about killing outlaws for credits but Patience dispatched them as a matter of principle. He knew that her predatory persona, unquestionable allure and telekinetic abilities were why Ravenor had recruited her in the first place. She was an excellent operative and utilized each of her traits to equal effect when the circumstances required it.
Nayl knew that if she of all people was worried then he sure as hell should be, too.
Las-fire and tracer rounds cracked and whipped across the kill zone separating Kys from Nayl and the girl and thudded noisily against the reinforced elevator doors. The stench of cordite and scorched ozone lingered around them.
It was obvious to Nayl that the clanners were doped as they had abandoned any thought of self-preservation. The losses inflicted against them were massive and yet they would not relent. No matter how many they had slain there seemed to be two or more to take their place.
Silhouettes sprung from cover at the far end of the corridor from the trio, taking pot-shots and laying suppressive fire whilst others charged in a frenzy towards them wielding make-shift melee weapons.
Dozens of dead and dying clanners choked the length of the gloomy corridor. Broken weapons, smoking shell casings, shattered glass and narcotics paraphernalia cluttered the floor around the corpses. Sparks spat from overhead strip-lights that had been destroyed in the crossfire whilst punctured and rusted pipes lining the walls spilled their nauseous content onto the floor. The drab brown walls and threadbare ceiling was painted a sickly crimson with the gore ejected from the slain madmen.
Patience locked her bewitching green eyes with Nayl and nodded.
Things were about to go very wrong, very quickly, Nayl concurred with a grimace. Still, he decided, he had survived worse in his short and eventful employment in the Inquisition. If he was going to shuffle off of the mortal coil today he was going to be on his feet fighting.
He unsheathed an enforcers baton that he kept for last resorts and thumbed its activation stud. The baton came to life with a soft hum as electricity danced across it's forked tip. Kys loaded her last high-calibre magazine into her hand-cannon, tossed the empty bandolier to the floor and primed her weapon.
+ Sir, we're hanging on by a thread here. We need that elevator now. + Nayl sent to Ravenor.
There was a slight pause and then he felt his wraithbone necklace energize as Ravenor had located him.
+ I predict 4 minutes at most based on its rate of climb. The elevator was stalled at the 23rd floor when it fell into disuse. It has not been operated in years- +
+ Can you not speed it the frak up? + Kys interrupted. She was nearly lying prone as her make-shift cover was being decimated by the incoming fire.
+ It was designed for transporting heavy-goods between levels in its day. it's not going to be fast by any means. Be patient. + Ravenor replied.
'Unbelievable,' Patience said out loud to herself.
A smile formed on Nayl's bearded face. Patience caught his eye and shot him down with a look that would have toppled a Leman Russ.
Don't you dare, the glare screamed at him. She was right. Now was not the time for jokes. More importantly, Nayl knew better than to antagonize a telekine, least of all about her curious namesake.
+ She's right, Boss, we'll be lucky to last another 2 minutes at this rate. + Nayl sent.
+ You are both skilled combatants and it is why I sent you into the beasts maw. Trust in your training and each other. Is our guest in one piece? + Ravenor asked.
Nayl looked at the girl hiding behind him. She was a delicate, small-boned young woman. She wore the ragged and faded fatigues of a manufactorum worker that had grown too baggy for her from malnourishment. Nayl gauged by her appearance that she was over-worked and underfed like most Hive-City laborers. Her long auburn hair was tied in a messy knot above her head. Hazel eyes stared back at him in bewilderment as she clutched the shattered remains of the necklace she had been praying to.
The heirloom looked like a typical silver choker with a bright ruby at it's center. Small diamonds lined the ruby and twinkled innocently despite the madness unfolding around them. A stray stubber round had ricocheted off of the ceiling with a snap and hit her square in the chest earlier on, shattering the necklace into several pieces. What are the odds? Nayl had thought out loud with surprise.
'You okay, kid?' Nayl asked the girl.
'I've had better days,' she replied hastily.
'Me too. Do you have a name?'
'Ne...' She hesitated. 'Neloni. It's Neloni,' she said with a nod. She covered her head with her hands as a las-round disintegrated a pipe above her head and showered her and Nayl in sparks.
'Okay, Neloni, I'm Nayl and that's Patience.' He gestured across the hallway to his green-eyed companion. She had unsheathed several kines-blades and held them ready for a target to make itself known.
'We're going to get you out of here in a few minutes. Things are about to get real ugly for me and Patience but I need you stay hidden and make yourself as smaller target as possible. Can you do that for me?' He asked.
'Yes,' Neloni replied. Her voice was stricken with fear. Nayl couldn't blame her, they would be lucky if any of them survived the next few minutes.
'Hey, I'm sorry about your necklace. But it looks like your old man wasn't lying when he said that it would protect you!'.
Neloni managed a smile which quickly disappeared as she held the necklace fragments to her chest again. Tears formed in her disarming eyes.
+ She's counting her blessings but otherwise unhurt. + Nayl replied to Ravenor.
+ That is good news. You need to keep her that way. Do not let her fall into the clans possession whatever happens. +
What did Ravenor want with her so badly? Nayl wondered. He admitted to himself that there was something peculiar about Neloni but he couldn't say what.
+ That will become clear with time. For now just keep yourselves and Neloni alive. + Ravenor ordered and then closed the link. Nayl had forgotten that communicating telepathically with Ravenor meant that his inner monologue was audible to him as well.
'Bloody psy-crap,' Nayl said out loud and shook his head.
Patience's hand-cannon boomed loudly for the last time and then fell silent. A misshapen silhouette in the distance blew into messy chunks and toppled over. She tossed her empty weapon to the ground and drew several more kines-blades into her other hand.
'Time to go and say hello,' she shouted across to Nayl with a grimace.
He turned to face Neloni who had brought her knees up to her chest and was hyperventilating. 'Stay out of sight!' He told her and nodded to Patience.
Nayl quickly glanced down the length of the corridor. Over the myriad of bloody corpses he could see the silhouettes of clanners preparing to launch a fresh assault. He couldn't tell exactly how many there were but he guessed that the numbers weren't in his favor.
'Let's go and earn our credits,' Nayl called.
'You never stopped being a bounty hunter did you, Nayl? My services come free of charge.' Patience replied with a grin. She peered over the remnants of her cover waiting for a break in the wall of lead seperating them.
'If you're good at cracking skulls then don't do it for free!' He countered.
The almost deafening barrage of suppressive fire aimed at them ceased and was replaced by the howling war cries of the clanners about to rush them.
'Here they come!' Nayl announced. Neloni squirmed and began muttering a prayer to herself.
'Try and keep up old man,' Patience called mockingly and sprang from her cover. She unleashed a flurry of kines-blades and charged to meet the clanners head-on.
Nayl cranked up the voltage on his baton to a lethal level and followed in Patience's wake, hoping that they could at least hold them back long enough for the girl to escape.