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“Two thousand kilojoules We call theeant?”

“Just felt a little naked without ’em”

“I’ll overlook it this ti the troops to him They took cover behind the half-closed door Verbinski crawled out onto the surface and peeked over the side, out and back fast as a lizard’s tongue Half a dozen bullets split the air where his head had been The Martian floated in the air, his legs in lotus position, as he arrenade Bull waited, Holden and Corin at his side

“Just to check,” Holden said “We’re throwing grenades into the place that controls the reactor?”

“We are,” Bull said

“So the worst-case scenario?”

“Worst-case scenario is we lose and Ashford kills the solar syste containment on the reactor and we all die is actually second worst”

“Never a sign things have gone well,” Holden said

Verbinski held up a fist, and everyone in the group put their hands over their ears Verbinski did soers and flicked the black cassette through the gap between the door and its frame The detonation came almost at once Bull felt like he’d been dropped into the botto pool His vision pulsed in time with his heart, but he pushed the joysticks forward His ears rang and he felt his consciousness starting to slip a little As he , it occurred to hi the fight He had a broken spine and his lungs were half full of crap No one would have thought less of him if he’d stayed behind Except he didn’t care what people thought about hiht on the other side was short The grenade had been much worse for the defenders Half of the soldiers had dropped their weapons before all of Bull’s peoplecorridor betweenand the communications array board until Corin had stepped into the space and shot hi with a pistol ould have been a difficult shot with a scoped rifle They took half a dozen of Ashford’s men alive, the prisoners zip-tied to handholds in the bulkheads None of the table, curled with her array cast to it, and her hands were tre from a display panel to the readouts on the different bits of equipainst what it said elsewhere Holden hovered behind her like the tail of a kite

“Anaht?”

Ruiz nodded

“Thank you,” she said, and then before she could say anything else, Naoainst the desk

“Was this where Sa?” she asked

Ruiz looked at her for aWhen she nodded, it see?” Bull said “Can you shut it down?”