Organization

6

- How are you, three hundred and first?

- Hooked a little, but you can live, - frowned partner. He got much more: the armor was dented, the rifle was smoking from overheating. When did you manage to?.. - Look, it seems that the opposing side has come out.

Indeed, gloomy ragamuffins with various rubbish in their hands began to seep out of the adjoining alleyways.

“I remind you that shooting to kill is prohibited against the Charterers in the absence of danger ...” the dispatcher muttered, but Ernest did not wait for the weapons to be blocked. He nodded to his partner and threw a gas grenade. Blue cloud, hacking cough. Someone began to puke right on the spot. Soon the coughing crowd dispersed. For a while.

Because after a couple of minutes the cloud began to dissipate. Too fast.

- Three hundred and first, step on the gas.

The partner silently swung and threw a grenade. Flight - the cloud fell behind the squat barn opposite, causing a stream of curses. And without stopping the creeping crowd.

- Second!

“I spent the second one in the neighboring area on marauders.

- Are there any flash noises left? ..

Three hundred and first did not have time to answer. From somewhere on the side, a young guy ran into view. With a grimace of rage, he pulled out a submachine gun and yelled:

"Die, you fucking dogs!"

Already turning in his direction, Ernest realized: the kid was aiming and firing at his partner, who did not even have time to react. Two lines. The crackle of laser discharges and the rumble of shots merged into one sound. A moment later, two bodies crashed. One of them is in bone-colored armor.

— Three hundred and first? Oh shit...

An unfamiliar comrade-in-arms was lying sprawled on his back in a stupid pose and trying to pinch his neck. The "landing" armor did not have a gorget. And the ballistic fabric could not withstand a point-blank shot. Ernest straightened up, looked at the approaching group of a couple of dozen ragamuffins. Three - with weapons (rifle, crossbow and shotgun), hold at the ready and aim at it. The rest are cold, gloomy, getting closer, but not attacking. A multi-mode rifle is a terrible thing, and the reputation makes it worth considering with its owner.

“According to the collection of city laws, you are accused of endangering the life of a security officer,” the dispatcher was silent until A.N. threw up the weapon. “And for this you will be executed on the spot,” he threw up his rifle and managed to shoot one.

The crowd, without waiting for the shot, moved forward. Two fired. One missed, the other hit in the chest. The momentum almost knocked Ernest off his feet, but the crossbow was weak. Shot at the aiming shotgun. Ready. The queue discharges through the crowd. The battery is empty, there is no time to change. Queue kinetic. The front row is ground. Ragged wounds, severed limbs, the front rows are falling, but the back ones are pushing.

Ernest had seen this before, so he knew how to react. He blocked the rifle, threw it under his leg and pulled out the bayonet-knife. At random, he made a flailing movement with his right hand and saw a retractable blade. And he began to move towards the distraught crowd.

A blow from a pipe immediately flew over the helmet. Punches with sharp objects flew into the armor, but none had yet hit the joints on the torso, and Ernest waved his limbs, as if he had been a joser in a past life. Backhand blow, poke. Kick in the groin, hit on the head. Shake off the howling man who is clinging to his shoulder, cut the belly of the giant swinging with an ax with a hand blade, hit the climbing thin subchik in the jaw.

— Base! Ernest exhaled. I'm calling the drone! Urgently! According to your coordinates!

— Accepted, three hundred and second. Hold on for two minutes.

While the crowd was pushing against each other, the "302nd" had an advantage - often the blows fell not on the security guard, but on the other attacker. But now that the crowd has been thinned out, the number of strikes has increased. And Ernest decided not to risk it. After the bayonet-knife got stuck in the ribs of another attacker, he pulled out his laspistol and fired several shots at point-blank range. He turned to the thinned part with his right side, with his left hand with a pistol he dealt several blows with the handle.

Shots. Another blow to the back, this time he couldn't stand on his feet. Fall on your back and shoot at the attackers with your blade out. One stumbles over the corpse of a comrade, falls directly on the tip and serves as a shield through which the gun pierces very well. But melee attacks are not. The remnants of the crowd can not get it, out of inertia they try to beat the corpse ... and fall from short bursts. Death from heaven, bullets from the sky. The biobot walks through everyone who was on their feet and calmly floats away to recharge.

And Ernest risks rolling with the corpse. He raises his head and realizes that the few survivors have fled. The rifles remained where they were. The partner had almost no reserve ammunition left - a consequence of the raid of the Cordules. Ernest has more ammo, but not much. Apparently, in that collision mentioned earlier, they had to shoot. The time before reinforcements was seven minutes, and all that remained was to hope that there would be no more assaults like the first.

Hopes were dashed two minutes later, when a powerful laser bolt crashed into the door frame. The 302nd crouched down and saw five okapis descending from the rooftops, each heavily armed.

“Do they keep plasma weapons instead of smoked meats in the basements?” Ernest muttered to himself and began to aim at the most heavily armed stick insect. Queue, queue, module failure. Discharge queue, battery empty. The low wall under the window is torn apart by hits from unknown weapons. It seems, thought "three hundred and second", will have to take risks again.

He pulled the pin from the last stun grenade and threw it into the square. For some time nothing happened, then there was a bang - and the shots died down. Wasting no time, Ernest jumped out, already habitually pulling out his wrist blade. Poke-poke into a thin "torso", the blade goes through. Get a laspistol, point-blank shoot the rhombic head of the next one. Feel the failure of the pistol on the third, strike with the hilt, modify with the blade, pick up an unknown energy weapon, discharge it into the fourth who has awakened. Everything. There were no more living people left on the square, except for himself.

"I hope that's it?" Ernest muttered.

- Three hundred and second, report the situation.

- I have one cold cargo, I specify the number of dead attackers.

“Agreed, 302, reinforcements will arrive in five minutes.

Later, recalling the next moment, Ernest took an oath on no account to breathe a sigh of relief ahead of time. But then, among the corpses, he just sighed. And a minute later a snorting urdaleb swam out at him. The size, as Ernest had already managed to make sure earlier in the Hub, is much larger than any dzhoser. Even three dzhosers placed on top of each other.

- What are you doing here! And dare to call yourself a Hartist! Security Service! Whose security? My business? The shop has been destroyed! The area will be called cursed!

"I'm sorry, but this...

— Forgiveness! Oh yes, you need to ask for forgiveness! I will file a complaint against you, and not to the authorities, but to the Masters!

- Mister...

“Mister,” the walrus-like “guest” stopped short and blindly looked at the “security guard” with black eyes. He paused and yelled: “Mr. Come here, ground worm, and I'll show you what it's like to call a high-born ur'dalebkh "mister"!

At the sight of the rushing carcass weighing several tons, Ernest froze, but his reflexes worked for him and threw the body to the side. The walrus-like stranger swept past and stopped only in a pile of construction debris that had been a barn a minute earlier.

Although Ernest had a potentially deadly okapi hand cannon in his hands, he did not even think to use it, on the contrary, he immediately threw it away. First, as he managed to see, the walrus-like race enjoyed a certain position in society. So maybe killing him would be worse than being maimed. Secondly, it is not a fact that you will be able to hit, because the urdaleb moved very, very quickly...

Behind these reflections, the 302 picked up speed and moved to cut circles along the resulting area. Behind him, the angry and snorting owner of the shop moved jerkily. After his movements, the bodies of both people, and dzhoser, and stick insects moved into a bad-looking mess, on which Ernest almost slipped a couple of times and one did slip. Right at the ill-fated shop near the body of the poor "three hundred and first". Outside, the growing roar of the urdaleb could be heard.

Dead end. The back door is littered with the patrolmen themselves, an evil stranger rushing through the only exit. And before arrival - a long minute and a half ... Ernest's eyes fell on the body of a partner and rested on a grenade. Light noise. Grab her, get up. Remove the safety cover. Wait for the owner to accelerate, jump to the wall, pull the pin. Throw it against the wall where the swearing body is stuck, jump out of the shop.

Cotton, foreign howl. Screw sounds. The cavalry has arrived. Ernest could only be helpless when the damn urdaleb nevertheless jumped out, all smeared with blood and almost rolling over.

“You know what, brat?

“Well,” replied the 302nd languidly.

"I'll kill you, damn...

Base, did you hear?

- That's right, three hundred and two.

The helicopter opened fire. Sparka's lascannons didn't spray the walrus's body right away, but the long burst melted it like a lump of sugar under boiling water. Soon the board landed and the reinforced platoon scattered over the area. I wanted to lie down and sleep. Ernest could not resist this desire ...

He freed himself from wires and sensors without a thunder of applause. But under the watchful eyes of employees. Interesting, I thought “almost three hundred and two”, where it was possible to improve the result and, on the contrary, frankly mess up. It turned out inconvenient with grenades - it would be better to immediately clarify their presence with a partner. Well, with the urdaleb it turned out so-so, although not through his responsibility ...

He was asked to dress in a dressing room adjoining the engine room.

“You will be called,” the same campaigner who connected him to the simulation chair calmly explained.

And Ernest was waiting for a call. Ten minutes, fifteen. On the twentieth, he began to try to leave and go to a rival office, even to the "black-mouths", but on the twenty-third he was nevertheless called into the negotiation room. There were three people sitting there. A memorable "sergeant", a lean man with a piercing, cutting look in a jumpsuit without any insignia. And a broad-shouldered redhead in a suit, whose beard carefully covered a small scar on his chin. I'm lucky with redheads today, Ernest thought distantly. And it was the last of the trio who took the floor after everyone gave their orders (Elm Sverige, Josef Timmerman and Stefan Kuste, respectively) and sat down.

“Well, Ernest, we liked your results.

- I am glad.

“To be honest, the sucker is the first one in the last two years who made it to the evacuation,” Elm Sergeant grumbled, but turned his head to the applicant: “Though you should not take off for pleasure. You messed up quite a bit in the process. But the fight pulled you out.

Ernest struggled hard not to wince. He considered his non-combat skills to be excellent.

“Tell us something better,” Josef began quietly. - You flew in under the quota for emigration. Why?

Begins, mentally sighed Ernest.

“Because my father blew all his capital at the races and pawned the lion's share of mine. Which he didn't have the right to. I paid off my legal debts, cleaned someone's face, and thought it best to fly away.

- And you think that in our city you will be able to start everything from scratch?

- Exactly.

Yosef nodded with a grin, showing that he was completely satisfied with this answer. Elm was silent, looking at the authorities, and they did not keep him waiting.

— When did you arrive?

- This morning.

The trio looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

So you don't know anything about the situation in the city?

“Nothing but what I read in the pamphlet 'twenty-five'.

The table erupted in laughter.

“Oh, yes, excellent reading for the night,” Sverige somehow suppressed his laughter.

“Well,” Kuste calmly took the word, raising his hand. “Then I will express my general opinion. You are a great fighter, and we need such. If you pass the medical examination, we will be happy to enroll you in the training company. And when ... more precisely, if you pass the training, we will gladly accept you, for the time being, to the position of a private. How do you like this offer?

- Pretty decent.

“Then the day after tomorrow, come for a medical examination,” the whole trio stood up. - Get a package of documents and lifting permits from the quartermaster, office one hundred and two.

Shake hands again, nod. Go to the one hundred and second, sign for the receipt of documents and money (again stamps), sign the training contract. Go outside and find that it's already fifteen minutes to ten and he's on the opposite side of the far edge of the Old City. Where is Dirty Harry and Agnett.

Ernest scouted out the meeting place even before going to the recruiting office. But the adrenaline after the battle (albeit in a simulation) was still raging in the blood, and he took off, barely leaving the base. Ran four blocks, checked the clock. Seven minutes to ten. No, it won't. Seeing the usual “waffle iron” coating, he ran there, but there was no taxi. Although there were a cloud of cars in the streams above. In desperation, he threw up his hand - and ten seconds later, a yellow cab descended from above, from the stream.

- Where we go?

“Dirty Harry, old town. Do you accept stamps?

We accept everything, buddy. Are you in a hurry?

- A little.

“Don’t be afraid, we’ll rush through the air in the blink of an eye.”

It didn't work in the blink of an eye, but the taxi landed at the bar at ten zero eight. Having paid with a decent amount of bills, Ernest somehow stumbled into the bar and looked around him several times. In the farthest corner, at a small table, Agnett sat and imperturbably sipped some scarlet aperitif from a frosted glass. All that was left was to take a breath and prepare an apology.