McCreed staggered as Sam pulled the trigger.
A gout of red flame preceded the heavy round that impacted into the rear of his right shoulder. I stared, dumbstruck, as he quickly ducked out of view. Without hesitation, he'd used the forward momentum from the hit. The sudden lurch melted into a smooth roll with all the grace and urgency of a predatory cat startled by a hunter.
Sam's rifle barked. Additional rounds slammed into the scaffolds, and the adjacent goons scattered as the chaos unfolded. The attention of the eyes below were diverted, some toward Rob and most now onto ourselves as I jerked in surprise from a sudden sting.
The warmth of blood, drawn from my cheek, soaked my collar as bullets fell around us like hail in a storm. Most had fallen too short or too wide to be of any danger, but a few of the more accurate shots, like the one that had chipped shards of plastcreet into my face, hissed and vibrated like vindictive hornets as they zipped by.
Sam shouted as she shifted her aim, "Hillside!"
Her barrel swiveled mechanically and punched echoes through the hazy maintenance yard at guards at different levels. Those who'd fired at us abandoned their attempts to aim as they ducked, dove, or weaved to avoid her sudden counterattack.
I could empathize.
My mind screamed I'd be hit any second now. It made me want to hide. To not want to stand. A "Chicken Little" feel, like the sky itself might collapse without a moment's notice.
"Reloading!" Sam shouted as her gun steamed in the cold air and dug for more ammo.
The guards resumed the bullet rain, and I raised my rifle with the full intention to join the fray, determined not to be useless.
It went off prematurely with a jolt so hard I almost dropped it. In the distance, a lone figure tumbled down the hillside with a clutched leg. The language he used was colorful and expressive. I could hear him, even from all the way over here, but the return fire from that direction immediately became sporadic and uncoordinated. The guards had redoubled their efforts to hide, so I spared a quick glance in Sam's direction.
Her side profile was toward me; she'd turned to aim toward Rob's side of the maintenance yard, which I'd lost track of when I'd focused on the hillside. I did a slight readjustment of my grip, confident at least I was able to hold the rifle properly this time as Sam's rifle report brushed past my face like a pillow's whisper. Her shots were out of sync with my own as I continued to keep the hillside too busy to take aim at either of us.
Each shot had the impact of a mortar in a war zone. I discovered I only needed to send a stray round whenever a head or barrel seemed pointed in our direction. I was reminded again of ants on a lightning-struck hill as the tiny figures dove for cover or scrambled to remain hidden.
The blare of a second klaxon signaled another Lock gate release.
Mid-aim, a guard was twisted violently by a round from Sam. She'd snap-shifted her aim to protect Rob's back and caused the disrupted shot to fly wildly off course, where it struck another victim of "wrong place at the wrong moment" syndrome.
You and me both, buddy...
The mob-like cloud of bodies within the yard erupted into a madhouse as Rob's hulky form charged into their midst and disappeared. It all unraveled like a warped round of Marco Polo. In between moments, I could detect Rob's location simply by the screams. Gaps began to appear deeper within the pile. Bodies flew. Limbs and equipment were shattered or broken. The guards were tossed aside like ragdolls upon the pitted and scarred plastcrete as heads appeared at the top of the stairwell: reinforcements.
Like a shark, Rob surfaced.
He was positioned near the edge of the stairwell when he yanked one of the guards into the air. Metal handles scattered in random directions from the tops of cylindrical objects strapped to the front of the guard's chest. Like an overturned turtle, the guard flailed. He frantically clawed at his vest just before Rob threw him into the first wave of the reinforcements that'd reached the top. The group fell like a line of dominos into the hidden opening of the stairwell as Rob shoved more of the confused crowd into the pile.
No one came back up or chased after him as he rocketed away. A deep, gut-twisting "whump" sent a plume of dark black smoke into the air as my rifle clicked dry.
Sam continued to fire beside me, a relentless stream of rounds to cover Rob's wild dash across the yard.
A near miss slammed into the grate in front of me, and I pressed against it. My mind screamed to take cover. To find a place to hide.
"I'm low!" Sam yelled, and it shook me back to the moment. My hands flew to my jacket as they began a frantic search for the ammo Rob had stashed, but memory failed me. I couldn't recall where he'd stowed...well, anything. Bullets pinged around us as I tore through pockets filled with objects useless for the situation. My palm finally brushed the edge of a boxy magazine along the side of my waist, tucked into the pockets Rob had stuffed them into.
I felt a surge of relief as I struggled to extract them. An impossible task half crouched. Fun fact: Pockets apparently aren't always the best place for magazines in a firefight. I think I finally got why all the games had characters bristling with pouches.
I turned toward Sam as one of the boxy magazines finally freed itself with a sharp tug.
"HERE!" I shouted and threw it in a beautiful arc, straight toward her head.
I winced.