Page 103 of Elven Lies

Plus, there was no guarantee she could reach it from here.

The pros and cons flashed through her mind in an instant before Rebecca turned to take down two other Harkennr soldiers gunning for her, Tig still desperately trying to neutralize the heavy artillery on the roof, even when it looked like Shade might not be able to call this one a win tonight.

Honestly, it looked like they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

With growing horror, Rebecca recognized the sound of that heavy artillery weapon finishing its power-up, and the blazing orange within the cannon’s barrel reached a blistering peak before the first debilitating shot was finally fired.

Orange light sprayed across the ground in front of the warehouse, sending up buffeting sprays of dirt and shattered glass from the windows and floodlights in its wake. Screams rent the air as the rooftop gunner still struggled to seize full control over aiming such a deadly weapon from above on a swiveling mount.

Rebecca caught a brief flash of her own operatives diving for cover at the last second while the deadly orange stream punched through the ground, powerful magitek energy ripping through everything it touched—so far with nothing left to stop it.

They were screwed.

She had no opportunity to get away from the fighting on the ground so she could stop the assault cannon from above.

Her automatic rifle grew painfully hot in her hands as she fired at the enemy targets continuously coming at her in a seemingly endless wave.

Then a massive explosion rocked the interior of the warehouse, followed immediately by a second. The ground trembled, throwing combatants on both sides off balance as the warehouse’s remaining windows burst outward in an exploding storm of glittering shards and heat. The partially raised garage door blew off its hinges and caught an enemy soldier in its path, sweeping the guy along with it before it crashed into the woods.

The air filled with thick black smoke and the orange and yellow flicker of natural fire now added to the mind-numbing crash of multicolored magical light and crackling, electrifying magitek rounds lighting up the darkness.

A stream of bodies emerged from the blasted-open garage door, spilling out of the smoke billowing from the opening. Rebecca turned that way and almost opened fire before she realized who they were.

Some of them had found weapons inside. Most barreled out of the warehouse, unarmed, looking just as terrified of and confused by the raging battle out here as by their previous circumstances in the warehouse. Some screamed non-stop as they raced ahead into the battle, with no idea where they were going or who was on their side.

Rebecca couldn’t blame the prisoners for losing their minds during a situation like this, but she hadn’t expected them to give under the pressure of sheer terror and turn this already blistering firefight into pure chaos.

One of the freed prisoners who’d armed himself with an augmented pistol—most likely taken from his captors—stepped forward, his expression a blank mask of shock before he lifted the pistol, took aim at nothing in particular, and fired shot after shot.

A Shade operative had to rescue the guy from his own shock before he seriously hurt those trying to help him or himself.

With the fires from the explosion blazing inside the warehouse, freed civilians running amok with no clue how to fold themselves into the battle, the high-powered heavy artillery cannon spewing orange destruction from the roof, and more enemy soldiers getting in their way than Rebecca had expected, the realization finally settled in with growing horror and despair.

Rebecca and her teams—not to mention the prisoners they’d come to liberate—most likely wouldn’t be getting out of here in one piece.Ifthey got out of here at all.

And she was the only one who could make the final call as to what Shade did next.

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She didn’t see how things could get any worse.

While the battle raged everywhere and thick black smoke stung her nose and eyes, Rebecca ran through every possibility in her mind with the practiced speed of crafting strategy under even the most disastrous circumstances.

First and foremost, they had to finish what they started in freeing the prisoners and save as many of them as possible before it was too late. Whatever happened after that would also be on Rebecca’s hands, but she’d be damned if she let Harkennr’s victims suffer even more of a defeat on her watch.

“Get the civilians out of here!” she shouted before stepping in front of a terrified troll woman running aimlessly across the field of battle. Rebecca stepped forward to intercept the other woman, grabbed her by the shoulders, and looked her dead in the eye before pointing behind her. “Go straight back that way toward the road. Take as many as you can with you, but don’t stop, no matter what else happens. Understand?”

The troll woman’s mouth gaped open, and she started to stammer something in response, but it just took too long.

“That way!” Rebecca shoved the woman behind her and gave her another nudge in the right direction for good measure. “Go! Get out of here! Don’t stop!”

That was all the time she could spare before returning to the battle to offer cover fire while her operatives tried to do the same with any panicking civilians they could get their hands on.

But it wasn’t enough.

This was only getting worse, with the assault cannon spewing deadly lines of orange from the roof and all sense of order on the ground abandoned to the violence.

This was it, then, wasn’t it? The first Shade mission planned and executed to the best of their ability that these Shade teams still wouldn’t win because they were far too under prepared.

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