"We lost our hunters," pointed out one of the men. Sola shrugged.
"Search the old-fashioned way, then," he said. "Two men stay here; you two take that way and we'll go this way. Clockwise when you get to the ring corridor." This was Rue's chance to show she had learned her infantry-tactics lessons well; she covered Sola while he ducked through the doorway, then he knelt and waved her through. She ran past to the first door and flattened herself next to it.
The door was shut; Sola ducked past her and she hit the switch then dropped to a crouch. The door snicked open. Sola had it covered and nodded curtly to her. Rue poked her head around the corner.
The odd billowy ceiling made this wedge-shaped room look like it was half-filled by a solidified cloud. It must be cold up here: Icicles hung from the folds of hull fabric. Boxes were stacked around the room's periphery and the single table held two plates with halfeaten meals on them. There were no chairs; but another door beckoned on the far side of the room. Rue eased inside and Sola followed.
This time Rue took up position behind a stack of boxes and Sola went to the door. He was three steps from it when it flew open. A crimson flash caused her faceplate to polarize momentarily; then she saw Sola tumbling backward, his chest smoking. Another flash and the boxes in front of her exploded.
Rue rolled across the floor, firing her taser as she came back to a crouch. Sparks flew around the doorway, then someone leaped through it. The man was in a pressure suit and held an antipersonnel laser.
The laser looked just like the one she'd seen dangling from an arm of the submarine back on Oculus. This might even be the man who'd shot Max.
Rue jumped to one side just as he fired. She fired back, raising another cascade of sparks from the boxes where he now crouched. Even a near miss with the taser might short out his suit's systems, leaving him helpless— but she was having no luck.
Fire engulfed her hand. The taser exploded and the slap against her palm spun Rue around. She fell back against the smoking remains of the table.
He stepped out from behind the boxes, between her and the inner door now. The door opened and another figure dressed in an R.E. suit entered.
He glanced back, then casually took aim at Rue with the laser. She flinched and scarlet light blinded her.
There was no pain. As her faceplate depolarized she saw the man in front of her collapse to his knees and then fall on his face. The back of his suit was a blackened mess.
The soldier who had fired stepped over his body and knelt in front of Rue.
"Are you all right?" The voice was that of a woman. Rue shook her head in confusion.
The soldier reached up and undogged her own faceplate. "It's me, Mina!"
Mina. This was the woman Rebecca had begun seeing when they were aboard the Envy. She was one of Crisler's people, but obviously not on his side.
Suddenly Rue understood why Rebecca had left Oculus with Crisler. "She came back for you," she stammered.
"Come on," said Mina. She extended her hand to help Rue to her feet. "I've been managing to swing shifts so I could be with your people," she said. "It paid off, I guess."
Rue stooped to examine Sola. His eyes were open and lifeless.
She forced herself to turn away. With difficulty she made sense of what Mina had just said to her. "Are they here?" she asked.
"See for yourself." Mina pointed to the inner doorway. She could see two people standing on the other side. Rue ran to the door.
Rebecca and Blair both ran forward when they recognized her. They were alone in this small room. Both began talking at once and Rebecca grabbed onto Rue's gloved hand like a free-faller reaching for a safety line. A hot stab of pain in her hand made Rue pull back. She looked down and realized with a shock that her right glove was burned and fused. Waves of pain were radiating from her hand.
"I've been shot," she heard herself say. She had to keep her priorities, she reminded herself. "Where are Corinna and Evan?"
"They're aboard the cycler mother," said Mina. "Crisler's using them as explorers."
The room was spinning. "Rebecca, my people are outside," Rue said. "Get them…" She couldn't manage the rest, as everything blurred and roared together. For a few seconds she was sure she was going to pass out and she sat down heavily on the deck waiting for it. The tide slowly receded and she looked up to see the four remaining members of her squad crowding into the room.
This place had been set up as a prison cell. The walls were cut off near the top, as elsewhere on this level, but here they'd been stapled into the folds of hull material. There were four cots, a small table and a footlocker.
Blair was grimly rummaging through the locker. Rue's men clustered around Sola; he was obviously dead.
Rebecca was crying. "Rue, you're alive," she said. "They told me you'd drowned."
"How did you get here?" asked Blair. He was filling a satchel.
"It's a long story," she said, trying to smile. "Are those your records, Blair?"
He nodded to Rue, looking grimly relieved. "They were going to wipe it all. All my work." He had recorded everything, from the day they left Erythrion to Rue's discovery of the Lasa habitat builder at Jentry's Envy.
"What do we do about Sola?" asked Barendts sharply. "Leave him?"
They had discussed this before the mission. Casualties might have to be left behind; these men were here because they had accepted that risk. Now that they were in the situation, though, Rue found herself shaking her head.
"We take him as far as we can," she said. "If we have to abandon him to escape, then that's what we'll do. But I'm not leaving anyone behind if I don't have to."
"Have you taken over the ship?" asked Rebecca.
"Not yet," she said. "That's next on the agenda."
Mina nodded sagely. "So those are your ships out there."
"Yeah." Rue waved one of her men over. "I'm hurt, can you give me something?"
All four of them were suddenly looming over her, scrambling in their belt pouches for analgesic patches. "Your glove's been wrecked," Barendts pointed out. "We'll have to seal it."
"Go ahead."
He sprayed the glove with a plastic aerosol that hardened on contact. Meanwhile Rue fumbled her faceplate open with her other hand and let someone apply a patch to her forehead, which was the only exposed piece of skin large enough. She was sure she looked like a dolt now, with a military-black square on her brow like a little target. But there was nothing for it and anyway, the pain was receding now like a half-remembered dream.
"Crisler'll have to surrender now," said Mina. She took Rebecca's hand. "You're sure the halo'll have me?"
"Of course."
"I know you must have taken a cycler to Maenad," said Mina. "What I can't figure out, though, is how you managed to bring a big enough force with you to be able to take over Crisler's other ships. And you faked the transmissions perfectly— I mean, you even got the voices and faces right."
Rue and all her men turned to stare at Mina. "What?" said Rue.
"Admiral Crisler relayed the chatter through inscape," said Mina. "Half an hour ago— we watched the video feed from here, from the freighter and the other cruisers…" She stopped. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
Rue got to her feet. "What freighter? What cruisers? How many?"
"The… the three cruisers. You know, the old decommissioned ones Crisler had refitted and moved to Maenad."
Rue looked at her men. They looked back expectantly.
Sola was gone. It was up to Rue now; she would have to improvise. "Plans have changed. Everybody, get ready to abandon ship. Mina, tell me more about these ships."
Mina looked confused now. "They came out of hyperdrive an hour ago, just twenty thousand klicks away. Like I said, a freighter and three decommissioned cruisers. Crisler managed to get the rights to them after they were liberated from the rebels a couple years ago. They signaled us right away. I thought you must have been aboard them, I mean that you faked out Crisler… But if those aren't your ships, where did you come from?"