Bullet for my Valentine

The riot was well underway.
Jay dodged under a stray inmate fist, and standing back to his full height swing the metal food tray he’d grabbed from the canteen as hard as he could, smashing it over the back of the attackers head and leaving a big head-shaped dent in it.
He tossed the tray aside and headed for the main door to the food hall, grabbing Katrina by the hand as he did and gesturing to the others to follow.
He and Kat were the first to reach the doors, and burst through, holding the doors open for the others until they too were through then slamming them shut and locking them from the outside.
“Tram station is this way!” Jay barked, and ran down the corridor, stooping on his way to grab the rifle of a fallen guard. He checked the magazine, and happy that it was loaded, tossed it to Plisken, himself already being armed with a gun picked up from a downed canary earlier.
The group darted down the stairs into the tram station, and onto the platform.
Checking the information board, Jade read out “Next tram due in 2 minutes…guess we wait.”
“CHECK THE STATION!” rang out a voice from the top of the stairs.
“Smeg” Jay snapped “Guess we won’t have time to grab a coffee and read the paper – get to cover!”
He and Plisken, the only two Dwarfers with guns tipped an anti-grav platform laden with supplies and took cover behind it, aiming their guns at the entrance at the top the stairs.
A guard began to descend, so the pair opened fire, before he was followed by another guard, and another.
“Sod it” Jay said “We’ll run out of ammo before they run out of guards…”
“Jay!” yelled Jamie, grabbing a propane tank off a nearby engineering station and rolling it across the floor to him. Jay nodded his gratitude and dropped his rifle, hefting the canister with both arms, and tossing it upward toward the entrance. Plisken cottoned on immediately and at the right moment let off a burst of fire, hitting the tank perfectly and igniting it sending a fireball bursting outward toward the approaching guards.
The tunnel hummed with the noised of an approaching tram, it’s lights visible through the darkness.
The automated three-carriage train ground to a halt at the platform, it’s doors opening.
“PLEASE MIND THE GAP, PLEASE MIND THE GAP”
“That won’t hold them for long!” Jay yelled, meaning the fire at the top of the stairs. “Everyone get aboard now..”
The group moved quickly onto the tram, its doors hissing shut just as the next wave of security guards made it through the fiery obstacle and onto the stairwell, opening fire as they saw the Dwarfers – the tram moving off and into the darkness of the tunnel as the bullets ricocheted off its reinforced chassis.
The guards leapt off the edge of the platform behind the tram, one of whom managed to climb on to the rear of the last carriage. Jay pulled the rear door open and kicked the climbing guard, sending him tumbling onto the rails. Jay sealed the door a second before the tram entered the vacuum tunnel, and the anti-grav kicked in, lifting the train from the rails and it kicked into high-speed.
“How long til we reach the saucer?” he asked no one in particular as he re-entered the front carriage into which most of the crew had gathered. Kat checked the display “A few minutes” she said “We do a circuit of the prison before it heads outside…”
“So they have what…8, 9 stations to try to cut us off…” Jay mused
“Unless they’re being kept busy by the other inmates…” Jacky added
“Yeah…but if they realise we’re heading for the saucer, they’ll be relentless in trying to stop us…” Jay replied.
“Or…” Jade said “They’ll be coming after us in maintenance vehicle…”
“What?”
The others turned to look at what Jade was pointing at, down through the other two carriages, through the door windows which slid around as the train moved they could see a rapidly approaching maintenance car.
“Smeg…” Jay said. “These rifles won’t touch the thing..not at this range…we have to stop it somehow…”
“How…” Jamie asked, still looking through the train “Smeg they’ve got rocket launchers…”
Jay didn’t answer, he grabbed his rifle and an oxygen mask, and putting it on, ran through the train, hitting the emergency override for the vacuum sealed rear door (the doors between carriages sealing as he did) he leapt from the back of the train. The frictionless environment coupled with the velocity and anti-grav generators of the tunnel meant he almost flew through the tube, he started to descend just as the pursuing vehicle caught up to him and he opened fire on the plexi-glass windscreen at close range, it shattered, and he slipped through the window and into the cockpit as the guards inside were thrown to the back by the sudden g-force now that the vehicles inertia dampeners were disabled by the glass breaking. He landed feet first on one guard, knocking him clean out, and swung around with the butt of his rifle to take out the second, and final guard.
The tram ahead slowed as it came to a station, leaving the vacuum tunnel and dropping back to the rail. There was an explosion, and the rail ahead of the tram was blown apart – a shot having been fired from a shoulder mounted rocket launcher by a guard on a mezzanine floor above.
The tram couldn’t stop in time to stop the front carriage- where most of the crew still were, from tipping over the end of the rail, and hanging precariously over the seemingly endless drop downward, broken only by the single rail of each levels tramline below it.
A second shot, and the middle carriage was hit, blowing the roof and most of the walls off it, and causing the train to lurch forward, and the rear carriage to separate.
“Smeg…” Jay grumbled as his vehicle caught up, and he climbed hurriedly back onto the tram, running through the rear carriage and leaping across to the expose middle car, shooting at the rocketeer as he did so, and – while aiming for the shooter, hit the launcher and knocked it from his hand.
He tore through the train to the door between the two front carriages and yanked the door open, and began helping the others climb to safety.
The tram grinded as it shifted, the flimsy couplings struggling under the weight of the entire carriage dangling from it. Jade climbed through, and helped Jay pull Plisken up, then Jacky, Alex, “Phil” and Jamie.
Katrina was last, and, as she reached the doorway, the couplings broke and the carriage fell away. She yelped, as she began to fall with it, but came to an abrupt halt as her hand found Jays, and he pulled her to safety.
She smiled at her husband as she stood – once again on stable ground.
“We should do this every valentines day!” she said “ok..so it was a few days ago, but it’s the most romantic thing we’ve done in months!”
“Sounds fun!” Jay replied “..so long as we can ditch these date-crashers…” he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb at the other Dwarfers. “Come on” he said turning to face the others “..lets move…trams out we need to find another way to….”
A shot rang out.
It was the guard who’d fired the rocket launcher before, having drawn his sidearm, the barrel of his gun smoking.
Plisken fired back, killing the guard. “Everyone ok?” Jay said.
Everyone seemed ok, but were staring…past Jay, a look of shock on their faces.
Jay turned.
Katrina was clutching her chest. Blood pooling in her hands.
“….Kitty…” Jay said, his voice breaking as he reached out to grab his wife. “JADE DO SOMETHING!”
She gazed back at him, her blue eyes filling with tears, before she stumbled backward, and fell over the edge of the carriage, Jay stepped forward, hand outstretched to catch her, but it was too late. She plummeted downward, a trail of her own blood following her.
“KITTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” rang out Jays voice as she fell.
He launched himself toward the edge, and but was stopped from throwing himself over after her by the combined strength of Plisken, Jacky, Jamie and “Phil”dragging him away, kicking…

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