Retired – Chapter Five – Street War

“Asta, it is not safe for you to be out in the city right now. You know there have been rumors of an attempt on your life.”

“If I stay cooped up in this palace one more day, I am going to start having people flogged.” Asta’s voice was one filled with annoyance.

“What if we arrange for you to have a picnic on the grounds?”

“Drake, I want to go out and see something besides this damn palace. I don’t care if we tour the sewers! At least it will be different. I have been locked down for almost a year. Make it happen!”

I grumbled to myself. My team was ready for anything, but why invite disaster? Asta wanted to go out and do some shopping, and she was going to make my life hell if I didn’t make it happen. I activated my implant bob and contacted Pralla. “The lady is a donkey. We have orders to make it happen. Do you think the emperor would get pissed if I tied her up and stuffed her in a closet?”

“I wouldn’t say it was a good career choice. We will pull in Gold unit to assist. They have been getting lazy with no crown prince to cover.”

“What about you, providing a full regiment of men to carry her packages? She has not been shopping in over a year.”

Prall laughed. “I don’t think so. Tell her we want a full itinerary and travel plan. That should give us another day to prepare.”

“No chance there. She provided those when I walked in this morning.”

“Take Gold unit and Silver One unit. I will put stingers in the air to prevent air traffic. Make sure she wears the body shield.”

“Are we really going to do this?”

“We don’t really have a choice, Drake. I will gather the others. We will put top four on this one.”

It took about two hours to plan things out. We would send out Gold to secure the first location. Then when Silver arrived on site, Gold would move to the next location. This way, hopefully, no one would know where we were headed fast enough to move into place ahead of us.

The first place we hit was a shoe store on the west side of town. Inside the store, Pralla, myself and the two other marshal-ranked men surrounded Asta. Five soldiers were just inside the door to carry her purchases back to the palace. There were also twenty other PG members in the store and twenty additional around the outside.

The remaining sixty men in Silver One were scattered on the street outside.

Every five minutes I would give the command, “Count off!”, over the bob. The men would then count off from one to one hundred, one at a time. Each one of them, waited for the one before him to sound off.

On the fourth cycle through the count off, number eight did not sound.

“Number eight, report.” I waited a few seconds. “All PG, assume alert status. Failure in count off. Nearest one to eight’s position verify his status.”

“This is number twenty one, eight is no longer…” His message had stopped mid-broadcast.

“All units, we are now on high alert status.” I moved over to Asta. “Your majesty, we need to get you out of here.” I pulled my rail pistol off my hip and offered it to her. “Like I showed you earlier — aim and squeeze.” Then I turned to look at Pralla. “I have point, ma’am.”

“I will stay on the package. Get us to the limo, Drake.”

I moved to the front of the building and looked out the door. That look before I exited saved my life. I managed to dive just before the rocket impacted on the sidewalk outside.

Glass went everywhere as I dove behind the shelf behind me. I recovered from my roll to look back and check on Asta’s status. She was sitting on the floor with Pralla over the top of her. Even from my location I could tell it was bad. Pralla had a shard of glass sticking out of her back. The other two commanders were just as badly wounded.

I got up and ran towards Asta. “We have to leave now!”

She shook herself out of her confusion and started to rise. I dove to cover her. I had heard the clicks just before the rifles started to fire. I went down hard as a round creased my back from my hip to my shoulder. Asta was once again on the floor with a body on top of her.

I rolled us behind a shelf and pulled Pralla’s rail pistol with me. Once Asta was under cover, I popped up and opened fire on the five men with rifles. They went down hard and fast.

I yanked Asta to her feet and pushed the button on her body shield. She would have some protection from random fire, but she would not be able to shoot back now. We headed for what remained of the front of the store. I heard the gunfire and turned to see a lone Black and Grey uniform covering us.

It was a tough-looking blond woman. Her name was Angel. “Angel, we are switching plans. The vehicle is compromised.”

Angel nodded and switched her field of fire. We would have to fight our way back to the palace. I bent down and picked up one of the field rifles the men carried. As far as I knew at this point, Silver One was completely gone. It had one member left; Angel.

We moved up until we were right behind Angel. “We have to fight to primary. By now they have the emperor in a warren. Clear and move.”

Angel broke cover and moved at a run across the street. She fired at several targets, then made cover again. Next, I moved out with Asta in tow. Angel kept us covered.

We leapfrogged across several intersections.