Kuandu turned the barrel of the heavy machine gun towards the oncoming pirates and opened fire. He didn't know how so many of them had gotten together in one spot, but he guessed it was some kind of regrouping checkpoint. Moments after he unleashed his hail of bullets, a rocket-propelled grenade shrieked out from the other side of the street, crashing into the midst of the pirates. The pirates fled from the fire of the M60, diving for cover behind the barricade which, ten seconds ago, they had abandoned in favor of their bold but idiotic charge. Kuandu followed them back to their hiding spots, killing as many as he could. Another RPG flew into a slum building with a solid half-dozen pirates hiding in it. The building went up in flames, as did the pirates. Several of them fled into the street, some burning, some not. Kuandu began shooting down the ones not on fire.
All the living pirates were now behind the barricade. Xien appeared at Kuandus side as he began taking more careful shots at the pirates who were sticking heads and limbs out of their hiding spots to return fire. "Kuandu, we're leaving!" he shouted over the din of the machine gun, the assault rifles, and the grenades.
"We can't let the pirates take this alley!" Kuandu shouted back.
"Two squads of marines just got here and entrenched themselves! They'll hold the street, we're going to find a way around that barricade!" Kuandu nodded, then beckoned for Daoxin, about five feet in front of him. Daoxin ran back to where Kuandu was hiding.
"It's time to go!" Kuandu said. Kuandu picked up the gun and slung it over his shoulder next to his AK-47. The two of them began a careful retreat down the street, constantly running between one point of cover and the next to avoid the constant hail of bullets and the pirates' RPG-7s until, about two minutes later, they were a hundred feet down the street with the rest of their squad. "Where's Mei and Hanshu?" Kuandu asked.
"They were taken out by an RPG on the way here." Sakura responded. She was one of the few women in the Cantrian army. Unlike men, women were not required to serve a year in the army, and generally there were not very many volunteers among them. Sakura was an exception.
"Where's the alternate route going to be?" Yuan asked. He was the second in command of the squad.
"Down that alley," Xien responded, "And through two or three slum buildings. We should come out about twenty feet behind the barricades. Let's go!" The squad headed down the alley. They and another squad of paratroopers had cleared it a half-hour ago, only to find it was a deadend. Perhaps the fight for it wasn't in vain after all. The squad rushed down the alley and began crashing through the slums. They'd bash down a wall, take cover, check the other side for pirates through all the chinks in the shoddily built structures, and then, finding it clear, they'd crash through the wall again. Then, with just one wall between them and clear space, they heard voices on the other said.
"What was that?"
"Just one of these godforsaken slums falling in on itself, what'd you expect from a warzone?"
"No, there's someone in there, I know it!" The squad found cover. A burst of AK-47 fire filled the slum.
"There, you happy? Whatever was in there, they're dead now. Can we kill the real Imperials now?" Xien gave a signal. As one, the six remaining members of the squad layed into the enemy with their AK-47s. It's a pity, Kuandu thought, With the wall of the slum in the way, we can't see the looks on their faces. The slum wall collapsed; the pirates who hadn't been shot had already found cover. There weren't very many, and they were all in the bar. Now that Kuandu could see outside the slums, he could see that they'd made a couldesac around a bar. To the left of the squad was the barricade they'd been going around. The squad moved ahead, while Kuandu and Daoxin stayed behind, Kuandu setting up the machine gun while Daoxin pulled the remains of the slums together to make some cover. The squad found some cover behind some small barricades the dead pirates had been hiding behind. The barricades were facing the street. Apparently, the pirates hadn't been expecting an attack from the slums.
Kuandu opened fire on the bar. The windows shattered, splaying glass out on the floor inside. The walls were thin, and the bullets from the machine gun ripped through them like cardboard. The pirates tipped over tables inside and, using them as cover, returned fire. Sakura began sniping out the pirates from the cover of her barricade. The pirates hurled a molotov cocktail through the window and consumed one of the barricades in fire. Yentei, the medic, ran from it screaming and was quickly gunned down by the vengeful pirates. Kuandu continued spraying them with his machine gun, moving it back and forth. Stray bullets struck bottles of vodka at the bar behind the pirates, creating a tiny fireball which immediately burned out, sometimes leaving the glass remnants of the bottle burning. The bar seemed unusually heavily fortified...and the number of pirates behind it seemed to be growing. But Kuandu could tell there wasn't enough room for a back door. Where were the pirates coming from?
The few pirates still alive in front of the bar moved behind it, and Xien, Yuan, and Sakura moved into the building, taking cover behind the tables that, moments before, had been sheltering the pirates. Kuandu grabbed the machine gun and rushed forward with it, Daoxin right behind him. Kuandu set up the machine gun behind one of the barricades while Daoxin rushed ahead to join his comrades. Xien tossed a grenade inside the bar. The pirates rushed out, straight into Kuandu's machine gun. The pirates were scattered all either killed or wounded. The squad rushed behind the bar and began firing downward. The pirates had been coming up through a trapdoor!
Kuandu checked his left, in the direction of the street. The pirates at the barricade about five hundred feet from him were mostly dead or wounded, and apparently hadn't noticed the battle in the bar. He started pouring bullets into them. It took them a few seconds to figure out where the enemy fire was coming from, but one of them located Kuandu and pointed. Fortunately, the barricade Kuandu was hiding behind had been placed specifically to protect against an attack from the direction of the barricade. Unfortunately, it wasn't capable of protecting him from rocket propelled grenades, one of which passed barely a foot over his head as he ducked behind the barricade. Kuandu poked his eyes back above the barricade and shot down the pirate holding the RPG before he could fire again. Kuandu grabbed his machine gun and sprinted into the building. He set up the machine gun again in the window of the bar, and began firing into the pirates. They found cover and returned fire, but didn't charge him. Behind them Kuandu could see the marines making an attack in the rear, a good deal more than the two squads they'd originally left there.
Suddenly, Kuandu's back was hit by a wave of heat. One of the pirates in the tunnel below the bar had tossed a match up. In the crossfire, the bar floor had been covered with vodka from shattered bottles. The fire only lasted a split second, but it covered the entire area behind the bar. The squad leaped out from behind it, using their arms to protect their faces from the intense heat. Daoxins uniform caught on fire, and he dropped to the ground and began rolling to put it out. Fortunately, the bar was between him and the pirates, otherwords he would've been filled with holes.
Sakura and Yuan both tossed grenades towards the bar.
The marines had overtaken the barricade. The pirates had laid down their weapons. Kuandu rushed over to the bar. The pirates weren't shooting anymore. Daoxin didn't look like he was burned, just his uniform. The five of them hopped over the bar and stared down into the pit. There appeared to be some lights down there, but a few gun shots were heard from the depths of the tunnel and they went off. The pit looked even less inviting now that it was a seemingly black abyss. "Okay," Xien asked, "Any volunteers?" No one stepped forward. "Alright then. Kuandu, you go first." I get the feeling Xien doesn't like me. Kuandu thought just before he jumped in.
