Page 122 (1/1)

The first shots ca bits of the ceramic roadway up in front of the lead cart Bull tried to bend his head back far enough to see whether the attack was co from the transfer point itself or a barricade closer in

“Juarez!” Verbinski shouted “Cover us”

“Yes, sir,” a voice called froh to look over his shoulder On the third cart back, one of the Martianup He looked like he was napping until the rifle fired once Bull tried to look up again, but the mech prevented him He took out his hand terh above the zone, a pink cloud of blood for around its waist

“One less,” Verbinski said

The firing continued as they took the raainst the deck changed its tone as less and less weight pressed against thee of the ra down almost a third of a kilometer to the floor of the drum below Ashford’s men were above them, but not so far now that Bull couldn’t see the metal barricades they’d welded to the walls and deck He was painfully aware of being the highest target His neck itched

Two heads popped up from behind the barricades The muzzle flashes were like sparks The Martian’s rifle barked behind hi

“Okay,” Bull said “This is as close as we get without cover”

Corin spun the cart nose in to the wall and slipped out, taking cover with Verbinski behind it while the next cart caravity here Maybe a tenth of a g Maybe less Bull had to turn theaway By the ti was already far ahead of hi up past the improvised barricades of the carts The closest of them was less than ten meters from the first of Ashford’s barricades, and Jim Holden, Corin, and one of the Earthers were already pressed against the ene back The sunpowder soured the air

“Where’s Naomi?” Bull shouted He didn’t have a clear idea whether any of the technical staff in there besides Ruiz were still loyal to Pa, and if they got their only real engineer killed before theydetonated behind the barrier and two bodies pinwheeled out into the eht was behind them, and he couldn’t tell if they were his people or Ashford’s At the last of the carts, he stopped The battle ell ahead of hiood It

A thin uess, he was in his early twenties, brown skin and close-cropped hair The hole in his chest had already stopped bleeding and his eyes were eret and pushed it away He’d known They’d all known Not just coht, but when they’d put their boots on the Behemoth and headed out past the farthest huht notthat killed theside them People like Ashford People like him

“Sorry, ese,” Bull said, and drove the joysticks forward

Ashford’s forces were pulling back There was no question about it now Verbinski and his teaunfire The sniper, Juarez, didn’t fire often, but when he did it was always a kill shot The combination of constant automatic weapons fire and the occasional but lethal bark of Juarez’s rifle keptthe ene in the queen on a chessboard Even the le on the back and back and back until Ashford’s people broke, running

The transfer point itself was a short hallith eency decompression doors at each end As Bull watched, the vast red-painted circular hatches groaned and began rolling into place They wouldn’t be enough to stop Bull and his people, but they’d slow things down Maybe too hing that was hard to stop When he could, he croaked, “Come on, you bastards! Get in there before they lock us out!”

They launched through the air, guns blazing The noise was deafening, and Bull could only iine what it would sound like from farther away Distant thunder in a land that had never known rain He pushed his , as the doors rolled their way nearer to closed He was the last one into the corridor At the far end, the air was a cloud of smoke and blood The farther door was alata was elbow deep in an access panel, Holden at her back with assault rifle in hand As Bull approached, the woeysered out into the empty space of the corridor, and the sharp sh the air The door stopped closing

In the chaos it was hard to say, but at a guess, Bull thought he still had between fifteen and twenty people standing It wasn’t great, but it could have been worse Once they got into engineering, things would open up again There would be cover The few h, would be a kill zone It was the space all his people had to go through to get anyplace else If Ashford’s people had any tactical sense at all, they’d be there, waiting for the first sign ofto have to be the one to break it Verbinski skihtless as a fish in water He turned, tapped his feet against the wall, and ca to be a bear h there,” the Martian said

“I was just thinking that,” Bull said

Verbinski looked at the half-closed door like a carpenter sizing up a board

“Be nice if we had so to clear the area a little Give us soeant?”

Verbinski shrugged and took a thin black cassette out of his pocket Bull hoisted his eyebrows

“Concussion?” he said