"Of course. What support do you need?"
She put the schematics up on her faceplate. "Tell that Hauler to get its people aboard and button up."
"Already done."
"Good. We'll move out against the spin, pushing them ahead of us. Once we clear the section, knock a hole in it and let the air out so they can't sneak up behind us. We'll breach the radials as we go."
"Right. Don't take chances, Jo."
Chunk! Clack-clack-click-clack. The Traveler was in, held by drive. Some station genius had secured the docking mechanisms. A demo charge opened the station side lock. Jo checked the schematic. Probe saw nothing that looked like resistance. But there were people out there, apparently carrying on with business. "Go!"
The first two out covered the rest. They drew no fire. When Jo hit the dock she saw a lot of nothing. In the distance several civilians ran like hell up the curve. "Let's move."
Four soldiers went left, to seal the accesses from the next section. Two went to breach the radial to the hub. There would be few EVA suits on station, none designed for combat.
She assigned two soldiers to seal the lock behind them. She did not want the section decompressing before they left it.
Station shivered as charges holed the radial. Jo started up the curve. Her people spread out. Those with assignments would catch up. She came even with the Hauler. It was closed up tight.
So quiet.
She did not have outside sound. She switched on and got all she could handle: breach alarms, riot alarms, computer voices repeating calm warnings.
She found a dozen frightened civilians caught at the section boundary, unable to pass the decompression doors. She checked them over while she waited for the welders.
Degas came on. "Looks like an ambush shaping up ahead of you, Jo."
"I see it. Colonel Vadja. Can you get into the station system deep enough to override the commands to this decompression door?"
"Can do, Lieutenant."
"Open on my mark, then."
She moved the civilians out of the line of fire, disposed her troops, relayed her schematics on squad tac, assigned someone to each of ten targets.
The ambush had been laid in the expectation she would use demos to come through one of the personnel hatches.
"Now, Colonel."
The big door shot up.
The shooting started.
The shooting stopped.
Five ambushers were dead. Three were wounded. Two were in flight.
Another fusilade.
Nine dead now. One escaped. For the moment.
"Move those civilians over here. Colonel, shut the door after we're through. Hoke, blow that section as soon as he does."
Degas came on. "Jo, you've got them all stirred up around the other side. The big alien is headed back for the hub."
"Feed that to Fire Control. Hoke, when that thing gets halfway along the radial put one right through it."
"I can't hit the spoke from here, Sarge."
"Then move the damned ship. You're Weapons." She grinned at her faceplate. Hell. She was WarAvocat here. Even Haget had to take her orders as long as the team was engaged.
The station staggered as Hoke put two CTs into the section just cleared.
The alarms went berserk.
"Let's move up."
Station shivered again as Hoke took out the Outsider.
They received sporadic rifle fire, mostly inaccurate. None was effective. The other side had no weapons capable of dealing with Guardship soldiers in full combat armor.
There was a brisk, one-sided fight at the next sector boundary. They took several prisoners.
Hoke came on net. "Lieutenant, you want that section breached after you're out?"
"No. Let's not do any damage that isn't tactically necessary. We got to leave something for the honest folks. Degas. That next section shaping up as hairy as it looks to me?"
"Yes."
"How many of those people you figure for civilians?"
"No telling."
"I'm not getting my ass shot off for their sake. Colonel Vadja. This time open all the accesses so they don't know where we're coming from. Shut them as soon as we're through. Hoke. When the doors close behind us put a round through the section. They can't fight if they can't breathe."
"I might hit you...."
"Put it through the far end." She disposed her troops, sent the civilians and prisoners back up the curve so they would not be hit. "Open up, Colonel."
The doors opened. Massed small-arms fire poured through. It died as gunners realized they had no targets. She let them sweat for six minutes before she ordered, "Go!"
They flung through behind grenades, got down, got behind things. The doors slammed shut. Seconds later the far end of the section flared with the blinding light of matter annihilation.
Jo waited till the pressure had fallen below a level that would sustain life. "Let's see what we've got."
"What we got is a lot of dead people," somebody said.
She let it slide. He was not a false prophet.
She was surprised there were so many. And few were civilians because they were all armed.
"Sarge!"
One of the methane breathers, inside some kind of pressurized, motorized tank, was headed toward her. She shifted to microwave output and gave it a whole charge pack in one blast. Its tank exploded.
"I think it wanted to talk, Lieutenant."
"Tough shit."
That was the last shot fired on station.
The picking through the ruins began.
— 79 —
Lupo scanned the report again. "What business could she have in the Black Ring?"
For three days a Valerena Other had been seen going into the Black Ring. The past two Provik ground people had tried following her and had failed. This Other seemed to have no existence outside its jaunts. Where it came from was as mysterious as where it went.
"Smells to me," Three said.
"You and Four go see if you can pick her up today. Be careful. Have the regular team back you up."
Three and Four left before he changed his mind, fleeing routine.
Lupo returned to work but twenty minutes later yielded to a hunch. "One. Call Operations. Tell T.W. to scatter stationary watchers around where she turns up."
Four trailed Three by twenty-five meters, self-conscious there in the fringes of the Black Ring, though nobody paid her any attention.
Three gave the Other more room. The two men of the regular ground team kept pace across the street.
Four became uneasy as they approached the area where the Other had vanished twice before. She loosened her weapon.
It was a wide open aisle between ranks of warehouses where surface transports could maneuver into loading docks. But there were no transports there. There were no workers. The warehouses had been sealed up and broken open again by thieves and vandals. The walls were enscribed with folk literature that was short, pithy, anything but ambiguous.
Three hesitated, stepped out after the Other. Four exchanged looks with the ground men, shrugged, followed.
She saw it coming before it started. She was amazed that Three did not.
She shot the Other before it finished giving the signal to the assassination team. Shooting with mechanical precision, she blew three of those out of their hiding places before the ground men reacted.
One had icewater for blood. But the weapon he chose was a camera. He stood there taping while the shit flew. The other shot back, with no more luck than the rattled ambushers.
Four shot three more before the rest ran for it. She shot two of those. Two got away while she slapped a new charge pack into her weapon.
No matter. She knew where to find one of them.
She went to Three, knowing there was nothing she could do. He'd been hit at least twenty times.
The Other groaned.
Four stepped over. The Other looked up, eyes appealing.