At least Fitch wasn't a nag, man sat down and shut up and just watched the way he said, saving it too, faceplate up, talking back and forth to Goddard, maybe clear to Central and Wolfe or Orsini, on Loki'ssealed-line phone, there at the pump-station.
She took another cap, turned its tiny edge-dial, set it as number three, was wrapping it in when the dock quaked and Fitch stumbled up to his feet.
She wound the tail, laid it down, unclipped her safety and jammed her right glove on, then grabbed up her gun and the rest of the shells. "Program," she said, "Vent seal, amp 220, gyros."
Second blast as she was standing up. Readout said this one came from dead ahead.
Loki'sberth—either Lokior the station wall around it.
Dammit!
She ran for Fitch's position behind the main pump housing, came in heavy-footed and needing the gyros on the stop. "They're in, sir, that was the ship took that hit—Get Goddard and NG off, tell them get down here!"
"I just did," Fitch said. "Goddard's on his way out. Your damn merchanter-boy isn't answering his com, Yeager."
"Shit!"
"There's the phone. You're patched into general com up there, youtell him get his ass out here."
She grabbed the phone, unplugged the line and shoved the plug into the com-patch.
"NG? NG, it's Bet. Answer your damn page!"
The deck shook. Readout said behind her. Airlock, then. She saw Fitch ducked down behind the pump-housing, figured if the tac-squad was worth anything they'd probed the airlock before they sent anybody through, and they were just going to blast through the layers, one after the other. Took a minute or so more. "NG? Never mind answering, just get suited and get the hell moving! Come on, dammit!"
Flicker of bracketing on the ramp, somebody in a hard-suit.
She hoped it was NG, she didn't think it was.
Goddard's voice said, "I can't raise the son of a bitch."
Could've ducked out before this, maybe nobody was paying attention. Maybe he was onthe docks and scared to answerc
Maybe he was gone-out, ducked into some hole on the ship—not tracking on here and now—
That damn hole in back of the storage-rack—
God!
"NG, get out of the ship!"
Flutter of bracketing as Goddard got into cover with Fitch, Goddard carrying an AP
and a couple of shell-slings, give him credit for that much, the son of a bitch—
She wanted to kill him.
"NG!"
Wanted her hands on NG at the moment, wanted to shake him till he rattled, damnit, damn his spook ways—
" NG! Get out here!"
More shocks in the readout, marker-dot flashing on the airlock at her back. You didn't need to face a thing in a rig. But she kept looking toward the ramp, hoping for a damned fool to show up.
Dot still flashing, sound-reading coming up, secondary dot intermittent with brackets as Goddard was trying to get his gun loaded—
No more time to spend, no more. She unplugged the line, squatted down with Fitch and Goddard, pulled her safety-clip and attached to the buffer-skirt support on the pump-housing, only thing she could see that might hold. Fitch followed suit, got Goddard clipped.
NG, dammit!
Puff of fire at the airlock, sudden vapor following that—
"God!" Fitch's voice.
Air freezing as it met hard vacuum.
As the dockside blew out the airlock.
She got a grip on the buffer herself, as dust and junk flew past, as the rig's pickups registered a whistling howl of escaping air—
"You got to get them when they show!" she said to Fitch and Goddard. "Got Lokiat our backs, another damn squad coming behind us—"
Things left the ground and flew, stuff hit the seal-wall and stuck under the wind-pressure, stuff skidded and rolled across the decking, a couple of shipping cans flew like so much foil-scrap, and lights started going out, old-fashioned floods popping in the vacuum, other things started exploding, less and less audible as the air went away.
No way the tac-squad was standing in the path of that storm. They were hooked in, tucked down, never in the rigged airlock when it blew, just out there waiting for Thule to bleed to death.
Same as they were.
Coming through the first instant it was safe, and she had the remote, Fitch and Goddard had the AP's, and when the Indiateam came through they met a barrage and started handing it back, firing as they went for the cover of girders on either side.
She let them. She hit 001on the keypad, and the clusters blew, head-high, about the time wave two came in, straight into the AP fire, and the three-team came through—
002, 003.
Didn't want to look at what it did.
Faceplates were where you didn't want to get it.
"We got'em," Goddard gasped.
She said, "We got 'em up our ass, dammit!" She unclipped, grabbed up the shell-slings and her gun and stood up. "We got one ship down there to deal with, we got more of 'em coming up our backsides—they breached the ship, they got to come here, dammit—"
She didn't care where Fitch and Goddard were going, she heard Fitch's, "Wait, Yeager," and she didn't stop to argue, she ordered the rig to max and headed up the ramp for Loki'sairlock.
Airlock blew out, all of Loki'sair hit her like a fist, knocked her down, the gyros brought her up and she rode the limb-movements, synched with them and had the rifle up before the rest of her was, was halfway up when vibration on the ramp told her something heavy had hit it running—
Gut told her it was armor, brain didn't have time to debate it: hands knew where to put the shell and the conscious brain got the fact a target was bracketed before it knew it had already pulled the trigger.
Conscious brain wondered was it a hardsuit or armor before the explosion went off in the guy's face.
Before she knew a shell had hit her and knocked her flat and the rig was bouncing her up again, headed for Loki'sinsidesc
Didn't stop for grace.
Didn't stop when she came face-on in the airlock with half a tac-team who maybe for a couple of critical ticks didn't reckon an oncoming rig belonged to a spook ship—till she got another one and took a shell from him, and yelled Program-gyros-off, while she was wondering if that leg was breached, it wasn't moving right.
She fired up as her opposition came up on gyros, got him in the groin and blew him out the inner door, as his AP tore hell out of the bulkhead and you couldn't see anything for smoke.
Spatter and soot all over her faceplate. She was still moving, leg still worked, loose, but it worked, she felt cold there and maybe the autoseal was working, didn't know, heard Fitch panting and gasping, "Goddard's dead—"
She walked Loki'sdownside deck, she had a rattle in her armor, wasn't sure whether that tension screw in the left shoulder hadn't gone, wasn't sure that leg wasn't freezing in vacuum, she was getting that body-display that meant armor problems, whole left leg blinking red, shoulder blinking yellowc
They got to the lift shaft. The door was open, the car wasn't there, just lines hanging in the dark of the shaft, the kind troopers used for a fast drop. "Core," she said to Fitch,
"they got in from the ship core."
She wanted, dammit, to stop and get on ship-com, see if she could raise Engineering, but there wasn't time, was a chance of any damn thing happening—