Page 43 of Shielded Heart

Her eyes somehow widened farther. “N-No.”

“Do you favor your left hand or your right?”

“My right.”

Arcanthus stepped behind her, positioning the auto-blaster in front of her. He slipped the shoulder strap over her arm, guided her right hand to the grip and her left to the foregrip. “Nestle this against your shoulder. Good. Don’t point at anything you’re not prepared to shoot and keep your finger off the trigger until you’re going to fire. Point the barrel at what you want to hit and squeeze the trigger. It’ll put out enough plasma to do the rest.”

Despite her trembling, she nodded firmly and said, “Okay.”

“I want you to walk behind me, little terran. Right on my heels.”

When she stepped behind him, he slipped his tail around her waist, coiling it tight. “This is going to be frightening, but I’m here. You’ll be safe.”

Shouting from the hallway called his attention to the door. He positioned himself directly between Samantha and the entryway and moved forward, crouching behind the couch. Samantha followed, easing down behind him. Arcanthus aimed his blaster at the door.

An explosion consumed the doorway, its flash temporarily blinding Arcanthus. Something slammed onto the floor with a heavyclang. Samantha flinched and cried out.

Arcanthus squeezed the trigger of his blaster. The weapon made a series of high, thumping whines as it sprayed plasma bolts into the opening. Someone released a choked cry, the sound followed by the thump of a collapsing body.

Arc’s vision cleared to reveal a warped, open doorframe where the door had stood a moment before. The smoke from the explosion slowly dissipated, leaving a haze in the room that wasn’t quite thick enough to obscure the body lying across the threshold. The mangled door lay a meter inside the apartment.

“You’re not getting out of here alive, sedhi,” someone shouted from the hallway.

Narrowing his eyes, Arc shifted his blaster to the right, aiming at the wall beside the doorway. He fired another burst.

The frantic curse from the hallway told him his shots had been close, but not close enough. Keeping his weapon raised, he hurried forward. Samantha lagged for a moment; a tug from his tail got her moving.

“Surrender and we won’t hurt your terran,” the male in the hall said.

Arcanthus replied with another volley of plasma bolts, these aimed slightly more to the right. He rushed into the hallway an instant later—keeping Samantha inside the apartment behind him—to see a volturian ducking away from the orange-glowing holes in the wall. The volturian had time enough to meet Arcanthus’s gaze before the sedhi fired a prolonged burst into him. The alien’s body shuddered and jerked before dropping.

Arcanthus swung his blaster to the left, checking the opposite direction along the wall. No one else was present. He guided Samantha into the corridor. “So, where do I need to go, Drak?”

“Down,” Drakkal replied through the commlink.

“Remind me, which direction is that?”

“We’re working on it, Arc. Got at least four here at the front entrance.”

“Three more out back,” Kiloq added.

Blaster fire sounded briefly in the open feeds.

Frowning, Arcanthus kicked the volturian just to make sure he was dead. The still-smoking corpse bore no gang insignia, no discernable uniform, no distinct affiliated colors. Who were these attackers?Whywere they after Arcanthus?

No time to speculate now.

He led Samantha toward the elevators.

A soft tone sounded from somewhere ahead of them. Arcanthus stilled.

Three aliens touting auto-blasters emerged from the elevator bank; they were already facing Arcanthus and Samantha.

Releasing his blaster’s foregrip, Arcanthus raised his right arm and activated his hardlight shield projector. He splayed his fingers and snapped them shut, bending his wrist inward. The circular shield expanded and changed into a rectangle nearly as tall as Arcanthus just before the first bolts from the elevator crew struck.

The shield flashed with each impact. Plasma bolts burst against the barrier, their normally blue-white light turned to a pale green through the translucent hardlight. Arcanthus bent his arm to angle the shield vertically, covering as much of the hallway as possible while the elevator crew advanced.

“Stairs?” he asked, glancing at Samantha over his shoulder.

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