Hohiro laughed with relief as tears rolled down his ashen face. "I am glad you came for me at all. Even when word got through that something was going to happen, I couldn't believe it. I should have known you would come up with something."
Shin shook his head. "I am merely the servant of a master craftsman, doing what I have been told." He ripped open the leg of Hohiro's prison togs up to mid-thigh, then pulled a white adhesive patch from the medical pouch. He pressed it to Hohiro's leg, just above and behind the knee. "That's for the pain. Can you walk?"
Hohiro nodded, the tension lines around his eyes beginning to ease. "I can walk, maybe run for a short distance."
"Good. Bare your right forearm." As Hohiro complied with the command, Shin slapped a blue patch to the crook of his elbow. "You'll sleep for a week after we get out of here, but this stuff should keep you going until then."
Screams and the sounds of gunfire echoed up to the cell. Hohiro grabbed Shin's arms, the second drug having already sharpened his reflexes and increased his strength. "What's going on?"
Shin freed himself from Hohiro's grip. "I don't know. Crawl along the balcony to Cell Fifteen and wait for me there." The yakuza pulled his faceplate on again, fed three more shells into the shotgun, and ran to the cell's entrance. What he saw below brought him up short and took his breath away.
Marching relentlessly through the milling throng, a Smoke Jaguar in a bulky suit of powered armor lashed out right and left with his arms. Even a glancing blow crushed bodies and sent them flying deeper into the crowd. Short bursts from the laser burned swaths through the inmate population. The Gallery was so packed that none could escape, try as they might to flee, and people involuntarily filled in the bodystrewn path behind the warrior.
Without thinking, Shin brought the laser rifle to his shoulder and triggered two shots. The bolts hit the Jaguar's head and the hump on his gray-spotted back, but failed to breach his armor. Like the cat whose skin he wore, the invader spun quickly, then bent his legs and launched himself up toward the third tier.
The railing collapsed beneath the invader's armored bulk, but impeded him just enough to make landing awkward. He landed on all fours, but his bloody left foot slipped on the ferrocrete decking as he started to get up. The shotgun slug from Shin's rifle hit the Smoke Jaguar in the right shoulder, further unbalancing him. His arms windmilling wildly, the armored figure pitched back off the balcony.
Before he could slip out of sight, his left hand clawed the ferrocrete like an anchor. Shin saw the gray form swing back and forth twice, building momentum, then the right elbow bit into the deck. As inexorable as the sun rising at dawn, the invader hauled himself up.
Shin's hand dropped to the laser rifle's pulse-rate selector and dialed it all the way up. At point-blank range, he sighted in on the dark, glassy V in the middle of the figure's lumplike head. His finger squeezed the firing stud, and the sustained bolt sliced through its target. The figure, smoke curling up from its single, shattered eye-piece, jerked, then fell back. It smashed into the tier below, then whirled end over end into the waiting crowd.
Nervous sweat misting against the inside of his faceplate,
Shin stepped back and moved down to Cell Fifteen. Hohiro was leaning against a bunk as Shin entered. "Now what?"
Without stopping to reply, Shin studied the cell's back wall. From the lower right-corner, he counted five cinderblocks out and five up. As he popped his power pack from the laser and snapped a new one in place, he offered the Sho-saan explanation. "When the contractor built the prison, the yakuza put pressure on him to seriously modify the original design. Various cells, with numbers and levels determined by use of the lucky number five, had escape routes built into them. They were never used because once their secret was revealed, all would be shut down."
The yakuza triggered a dozen laser bolts. The fivecinderblock pattern in the center of the wall dissolved into smoke and ferrocrete dust. The hole in the wall sucked much of the smoke down. Hohiro walked over to it and peered in, but carefully avoided touching any of the still-glowing rock.
He looked back over his shoulder at Shin. "This gets us out?"
"Yes. We climb down and take the first crosscut shaft heading north. That will dump us out in the Uramachi area. From there, the Old Man will get us aboard a fast shuttle heading up to a ScoutClass JumpShip hidden in the Rings." Shin forced himself to smile. "After that, it's up to your father's people to get us home."
Hohiro nodded and touched one of the hole's melted edges. "We can go now." More screams sounded from the Gallery. "What about them?"
Shin's eyes narrowed. "We live to serve the Dragon. Those who escape will join the Old Man's underground army." Muscles bunched at the corners of his jaw. "Those who don't ... Well, it's up to us to see they are avenged."
24
Nadir Jump Point, Arcturus
District of Donegal, Lyran Commonwealth
26 May 3050
Kai Allard turned and tossed the small petrochem case to the next man in line as the stream of cargo continued to flow from the small shuttlecraft's cargo hold. His shoulders ached just a little, but somehow the simple repetition and physical exertion felt welcome. I hate being cooped up in a DropShip, especially a troop transport ship. Granted, all of us moving from theViper to theGibraltar means the ship will be overcrowded, but there will still be more room to move around than on theOverlord Class ship."Leftenant Allard."
Kai turned at the sound of the voice and began to smile at Leftenant-General Redburn, when the guy next in line turned and shoved the next parcel at him. The sharp edge raked across the back of Kai's right hand, gouging out a bloody gash. "Youch!" Kai caught the package in his left hand and passed it along, then took a step back and inspected the damaged hand.
The trooper looked stricken. "Sorry, sir ..."
Kai shook his head and Andrew Redburn reassured the soldier. "Not your fault. I shouldn't have broken the rhythm of the line."
Kai sucked at the cut, then watched as blood refilled the wound. He clapped his left hand over the back of his hand to stop the bleeding, then grinned at Andrew. "You will forgive me if I don't salute, sir?"
Andrew nodded and draped his arm over Kai's shoulder. "I was up on the officers' deck waiting to welcome you with the rest of the Tenth Guard officers, but you weren't there. Leftenant Pelosi told me you'd come over with a cargo shuttle and were helping out. I should have known ..."
Should have known what, sir? That I wanted to help load and unload cargo, or that I wanted to avoid shipping over in the same shuttle as Deirdre Lear?Kai shrugged. "I assumed that the faster we unload the
Viper,the sooner we can be on our way toward the rim. I just wish the
Gibraltar
Andrew grimaced. 'That is a desire we share. Unfortunately, the JumpShip assigned to carry the Viperblew a helium seal. Without liquid helium to supercool the Kearny-Fuchida drive, there's no way the ship can make the jump to Surcin with the rest of the armada. I wouldn't worry, though. We have more ships coming through Arcturus and their 'Mech bays will be free. Yen-lo-wangwill catch up with you soon enough, but if worse comes to worse, I know of a halfdozen 'Mechs available to a promising young officer."