Page 31 of Max
“I’ll look into it.” Max had no sooner ended the call than his com beeped. It was Falyn.
“Max, there are men here. They came in a flyer, and I don’t know what they want.”
“Where are you now?” Max ran for his sky cycle.
“I’m in the house in the upstairs bedroom over the kitchen. I locked all the doors.”
“I’m on my way. Can you hold them off?”
“I’ve got the rifle. I think so. They’re coming toward the house. I got to go….”
Max climbed on his cycle and took off vertically while converting to flyer mode. He sent a message to his second in command, who was more than capable of handling the situation. As he jetted off toward home, he noted that Falyn never ended the transmission. Max transferred it to his internal computer so he could detect what was happening at her end.
It seemed like the longest ten minutes of his life.
Falyn dropped the com-tablet on the single bed by the window. Four men climbed out of the flyer parked in the pasture and strode purposefully toward her house. At least two of them were armed, but she couldn’t tell what kind of guns they had.
She’d been taking a break with some cold tea in the kitchen after weeding the garden when she heard a flyer coming to land. It was a deeper, more robust sound than Max’s Skycycle. As it settled in the horse pasture, Falyn locked the kitchen door and grabbed the ion rifle beside it.
Running to the living room, she locked that door as well, then ran upstairs to her old room to the window that overlooked the pasture. Four males came out of the vehicle, ducking under the butterfly doors. Sighting them through the rifle scope, she saw they were all armed with automatic long guns.
Rounding the single bed behind her, she lifted it on its side and pushed it against the wall under the window. Her com-tablet clattered to the floor, but she didn’t notice. She was too worried about what the intruders would do. The home was well insulated against temperature extremes, but she didn’t know if it would stop bullets.
Falyn knew the locked doors wouldn’t stop them. All they had to do was break a window to get in. She couldn’t let them get that close. She aimed short and squeezed off a shot that exploded in the grass in front of them.
“Stop, right there! The next shot won’t miss. Just get back in your flyer and go back wherever you came from.”
“Ma’am, we just want to talk,” said the one left of center.
“Then talk. I can hear you just fine from there.
“We’re from the base. We need you to come there with us.”
Falyn squeezed off another shot. This one landed to the left of the group, so close the man on the left end could feel the heat.
“Nice try. I just talked to my mate. He was told that Driscoll sent you. So, he’s coming for you.”
“I guess we’ll do this the hard way.” All of them started shooting at the house.
Falyn jumped back from the window and flattened herself on the floor behind the mattress, hoping the added barrier would protect her. She could hear glass breaking, and she could only imagine the mess she would have in the kitchen.
They each must have spent a full magazine shooting up her house. It seemed like it went on far longer than a couple minutes.
“Well, now you’ve done it!” Muttering, Falyn got to her knees and aimed the rifle out the window. Flipping a switch on the stock, she fired on auto-repeat, sweeping across the four men walking toward her home. They all went down, and none of them got up.
She stared for a moment, checking for movement. She had killed them.
Falyn started to shake as she slid to the floor, holding the ion rifle resting across her lap. She had just killed four men after they tried to kill her. Too stunned to even cry, Falyn just sat there staring straight ahead until she heard the familiar whine of Max’s sky cycle.
“Falyn!” Max called frantically. “Falyn, are you alright?”
“Here! I’m up here!” she called out to him, still trembling, unsure whether she could get up or not.
Max bounded up the stairs and stood in front of her in seconds. “Baby, are you alright.”
She looked up at him and blinked, trying to find an answer.
Max squatted in front of her searching her face with a concerned expression. "Here, let me have this,” he said, slowly reaching for the rifle and gently prying her hands from it. Standing, he flicked on the safety, set the bed upright, and laid the rifle on it.
