“Can you two-gun mojo?” Jaenisch asked.

“A bit,” Berg said. “But I can’t fire simultaneously. That’s total bullmaulk. Usually what I do is empty one pistol then empty the other one. The problem is, it really slows down reload. So if you’ve got more targets than you’ve got bullets…”

“Want to try it that way?” Jaenisch asked. “I’ll stay one gun on pistol, you go for two-gun?”

“I’ll try it,” Berg said. “But I’ll stay on M-10 to start since we don’t know what it’s going to throw at us.”

“I’ll set it up for the same scenario,” Jaenisch said. “I’m really curious.”

The third time through, Berg carried two of the magnums and Jaenisch one. The centipedes attacked at the same time and in the same way, which was a bit of cheating, since it meant Berg didn’t have to guess where they were coming from.

But the two-gun mojo worked. This time, knowing where and how they were going to attack, he managed to start winnowing them down earlier. When his right pistol ran out of rounds he holstered it and pulled out a clip. When the left ran out he did a fast reload then switched hands and went to a two-handed fire position, backing away from the centipedes until he had the last one dead. The things thrashed as they died, splattering green blood over the mostly blue vegetation and opening out the underbrush as they crushed it in their death throes.

“Damn,” Jaenisch said, shaking his head. “Shiny. Now, let’s see if we can make it to the far side of the room.”

They were hit twice more but Berg’s two-gun fire managed to stop both attacks cold and they eventually reached the “stream” that marked the far side of the room. He only had four rounds of magnum left, though.