‘Gunnery!’ Spika commanded. He used a haptic reader to communicate the munitions spread he desired. The Ominator’s attack squadrons were already rolling in on them, zipping over and under the smoking mass of the wrecked Domino.
‘Shields as a matter of urgency,’ said Spika, trying to clear his throat of rising acid. ‘We’re going at them, and we’re going to burn them all the way back to hell.’
ELEVEN
The Clear Shot
Everybody was down on the deck, the women sobbing, the children bawling. Elodie was holding on to Juniper to stop her throwing herself at the man who had seized Yoncy. He had a gun, and he was shooting it wildly. Anyone who waved a gun, and was prepared to fire it in a crowded room, anyone who was prepared to snatch a little girl as a shield, that was someone you didn’t try to tackle.
Elodie wrestled Juniper down, slapping her pawing hands aside. Elodie was moaning. Everyone was making some kind of sound: distress, fear, desperation.
Everyone except Yoncy. Elodie saw that Yoncy was still and expressionless. Trauma had clearly conquered her. She was like a doll in the crook of the gunman’s arm.
The man rattled off a few more shots to keep them all ducking. More screams came from the womenfolk. He was backing towards the hatch under the portside walkway, coming right down past them. Elodie wished she could work out what was wrong with the man’s face. It was twisted, distorted. It wasn’t a proper face at all.
‘Drop her! Drop the girl!’
More panicked screams. Elodie glanced around and saw three Ghosts rushing into the transport deck from the far end, rifles at their shoulders, covering the man and his hostage as they prowled through the rows of cowering retinue personnel.
The man who had shouted the order was a Belladon, Cardass. To his left was Bonin, the Tanith scout, weapon up and sighted. To Bonin’s right was Gol Kolea.
Kolea’s lasrifle was at his cheek. The expression in his eyes tore Elodie in half. It was part hatred, part anguish.
His daughter. His little girl.
‘Drop her!’ Cardass yelled again.
The gunman answered with some inarticulate noise as though his mouth wasn’t working properly. His face seemed tangled.
Elodie felt her heart fluttering. She so wanted to get up, to tear the girl out of the maniac’s grip.
She saw Captain Meryn. He was cowering right beside her, next to one of the cots. Costin was nearby too, his head in his hands, the documents he’d been carrying scattered around his knees. One of the gunman’s wild shots had clipped his shoulder, leaving a grazed burn.
Meryn’s eyes were bright with fear, like those of a cornered animal. He wasn’t carrying his rifle, but Elodie could see the laspistol holstered at his waist.
‘Shoot him,’ she hissed, holding Juniper down. ‘Captain, shoot him!’
Meryn ignored her.
‘Shoot him!’ Elodie repeated.
There was a clear angle. The gunman was side on to them, and he hadn’t seen Meryn or his comrade. Any half-decent shot could have put a las bolt through his head or his torso, missing the girl entirely.
‘Are you mad?’ Meryn rasped back.
‘You can take a clear shot!’
‘Shut up!’
‘Captain, shoot him!’
‘Shut the feth up!’ Meryn snarled.
‘Put the girl down,’ Kolea ordered. His voice cut the air and the panic like a scythe. It was toneless, as if the light had gone out in his heart.
‘Back off! Back off!’ the gunman yelled back, the words clawing, imperfectly shaped, out of his deformed mouth. The strain of his efforts had finally overcome the Sirkle’s face-shifting abilities.
Kolea, Bonin and Cardass had him triangulated, all aiming straight for his head. They were squinting down the top sights of their weapons, shoulders hunched, trotting forwards with short, hurrying steps.
Elodie wondered if any of them would dare take the shot.
‘Put the girl down!’ Cardass demanded.
‘Forget it,’ Kolea said. ‘Judd, forget it. He’s got nothing to lose any more. He’s not going to let us take him.’
He lowered his rifle to his chest, though he still kept it pointing at the gunman.
‘Are you?’ he asked. ‘You bastard. You’re going to make us kill you, and you’re going to make us kill the girl to do it.’
The gunman said something. His lips were too slack and misshapen for the words to be intelligible.
The ship shook. It was violent and abrupt. There was no sound, and no light came through the sealed port shutters, but the ship juddered as though it had been dropped.
A moment’s distraction.
Rawne dropped from the portside walkway onto the gunman’s back. The impact felled the gunman and took Yoncy over too. Rawne’s straight silver blade plunged into the killer’s right shoulder. His weapon went off, spraying las bolts into the air.
All three of them tumbled. Rawne lost his grip on the warknife. The gunman kept his grip on Yoncy. With a bellow that made the civilians sheltering around them shriek, Rawne got hold of Yoncy and wrenched her out of the killer’s grasp. He simply hurled her into the air, perhaps out of desperation, perhaps in the belief that a fall injury would be preferable to letting her stay in the killer’s reach a moment longer. The killer lashed out and clubbed Rawne in the face with the edge of his rifle.
Hoisted, Yoncy tumbled. Elodie sprang forwards, her arms outstretched, and managed to catch her before she bounced off the sheet metal deck. The little girl was heavy. The impact tore muscles in Elodie’s forearm. She kept her grip, rolling, trying to shield Yoncy from the landing. They crunched down onto Elodie’s right shoulder, Yoncy cushioned against Elodie’s breasts and stomach. The back of Elodie’s head struck against the leg of a cot and she blacked out for a second.
There was blood in her mouth, in her nose. She blinked. Yoncy was yelling and thrashing on top of her, squirming, kicking her heels. Pain flooded Elodie’s skull and her right arm.
The gunman was back on his feet. The warknife was still wedged into his shoulder blade. Rawne was down, flattened on the deck by the clubbing blow. The killer pointed his lasrifle at Rawne to cut him apart.
Kolea’s first shot blew the gunman’s right arm off at the elbow, causing the dismembered limb and the lasrifle it was aiming to spin like a slow propeller. Kolea’s second shot blew out his chest in a splash of burned blood and splintered ribs.
Kolea’s third shot traumatically deformed his head far more significantly than anything the face-slip had achieved.
The killer went down, full length, felled like an old straight nalwood, leaving blood mist in the air behind him.
Elodie’s shoulder was busted. The pain speared into her so sharply she couldn’t move.
Meryn took Yoncy off her and turned to Kolea.
‘She’s all right,’ Meryn said. ‘She’s safe, Gol. She’s safe.’
The Ominator’s attack ships, ugly, cackling arrowhead craft, came in around the dead Domino. They were like miniature versions of their sire, a litter of squealing, ravening whelps.
‘Shields?’ suggested Spika, overcome by a terrible, analytical calm.