Sal stood up and adjusted her pistol holster to the side now that the navigation console's bucket seat no longer squeezed her hips. She thought of taking a respirator from the locker near the hatch, but she didn't bother. She'd breathed hotter, fiercer air every time she crossed to or from a starship in a transfer dock on Venus. She could take this.
A Venerian 6x6 with fiberglass wheels drove toward the Gallant Sallie. The vehicle was moving as fast as the load, two heavy plasma cannon, allowed.
Only one Fed ship had attempted to resist the Venerian assault on Winnipeg. The crews-mostly just anchor watches-of the others abandoned their vessels on foot, trudging toward the edge of the reservation. The risk of another ship landing close by in a crown of lethal exhaust seemed less serious than that of being used for target practice by the invaders.
Sal stood a meter back from the hatch so that the angle through the airlock chamber would trap heat radiating from the ground. There was a good deal of activity around the warehouses and administrative buildings on the port's southern edge. The fighting seemed to be over, though Sal couldn't be sure from a klick away.
She wondered where Stephen was.
"Ma'am?" Godden called. "Captain Blythe, sir?"
Sal turned. "Ma'am?" the gunner repeated. "Can I fire into that freighter that's burning? I'd like to see-"
"Christ's blood, man!" Harrigan shouted. "What d'ye want to be wasting ammunition for? Aren't there fireworks enough for you?"
Godden stiffened. "I'd like to see how a gun handles before I use it for serious, sir," he said. Godden was a rated specialist, not a common sailor, and he'd been posted to the Gallant Sallie from the general commander's own ship. "And as for blasphemy-your soul's in your own keeping, Mister Harrigan, but I don't care to be party to terms such as you just used."
The remainder of the crew watched the gunner and their officers. Their faces were in general studiously blank, but Brantling wore a broad grin.
"Tom, see what the truck's doing here," Sal ordered crisply. "Godden, one round, and make damned sure that you don't hit somebody driving past!"
She stepped to the hatch to join Harrigan. She'd extricated the mate from a situation he shouldn't have gotten involved with in the first place. Tom wasn't the Gallant Sallie's captain; but everyone aboard was tense and uncertain right now, in a chaotic, dangerous place and out of communication with the other Venerian ships.
When the truck stopped, the driver in the open cab was only two meters from the airlock hatch. The man wore a full hard suit. He'd thrown open his faceshield, but Sal didn't recognize him.
"Gallant Sallie?" the driver called. He jerked an armored thumb toward the two 15-cm plasma cannon in the truck bed. "Captain Ricimer said to bring you these to load soonest, then for me to get back. There's more where these come from, if they can just get them out before the whole warehouse burns."
Sal jumped to the truck bed. "Tom, unlimber the winch and get these aboard!" To the driver she added, "You! Pull around to the main hatch."
The truck's torque converter built to a peevish whine as inertia fought the diesel's rattling surge. The vehicle eased forward to halt again by the hatch as it lowered.
Sal rubbed her hands together. Her throat was dry. She should have grabbed a water bottle.
"Is Mister Gregg with the general commander, then?" she asked the driver. She wished she knew the man's name. She'd seen him aboard the Wrath, she was sure.
"Oh, yeah," the driver said cheerfully. He gave Sal a slight smile as he eyed her. "The Feds tried to start something at the arms warehouse, so he was there to sort them out."
"He's all right, though?" Sal asked, her heart as parched as her mouth.
"You needn't worry about him, ma'am," the driver said. "Our Mister Gregg-he's the Angel of Death, he is."
The Gallant Sallie's crane squealed as Brantling ran the hook out the beam positioned over a gun tube. Four crewmen were lifting the fiberglass sashes tied around the heavy weapon.
"Harrigan!" Sal called. "When we've got these guns loaded, take charge of the ship. I'm going back on the truck to-to see what's going on."
WINNIPEG SPACEPORT, EARTH
April 16, Year 27
0345 hours, Venus time
The casters clacked like gunshots at every irregularity in the warehouse floor. The manual dolly tracked straight enough, but as the entrance neared Stephen saw that they weren't going to clear the door, which had jammed only three-quarters open.
Piet, across the dolly from Stephen, leaned hard against the muzzle of the 15-cm gun tube. The dolly continued along an unchanged line. The concrete was sloped, slightly but enough to give the tonnes of plasma cannon a will of its own.
"I'm changing sides," Stephen shouted. The fire at the rear of the big warehouse was bursting containers-clangs, not explosions, but they reverberated loudly within the structure.
The hot, smoky air made Stephen's eyes water and his lungs burn. He'd raised his faceshield because he wanted to save the remaining contents of his air bottle for a real emergency, but he was beginning to think he'd need it before they got out of this damned building.
The hard suit chafed Stephen's neck, his hipbone, and his knees. Maybe he should have taken the suit off, but when they entered the warehouse they hadn't been sure how quickly the fire would spread. The armor would have been their only chance of survival if the roof had collapsed. .
"We'll be all right," Piet gasped. The rhythm of the casters slowed slightly. The four men with Piet and Stephen slacked their efforts as they saw the problem ahead.
Stephen let the dolly rumble past, then walked behind it and around to take his position directly in back of Piet. He'd thought of trotting in front of the gun-and thought of slipping on the concrete, exhausted, and having the dolly upset its load onto him. His hard suit might or might not withstand the shock, but they'd certainly lose the gun tube.
"Easy, now," Piet warned. Stephen settled his weight against the weapon, then put a little more of his strength into the side thrust with every pace. The dolly hesitated, then slanted 15° to the right; enough to miss the door wedged open by a corpse that had fallen into the track. Stephen stepped back, made sure the dolly would hold its new line, and trekked around to the right side again.
The sunlight beyond was a beckoning dazzle. Smoke rising from the fires in the rear of the building filtered the overhead lights into ruddy glows. The ventilation fans in the roof peaks prevented the haze from filling the warehouse, but they also stirred the flames to greater enthusiasm. The Feds hadn't stored fuel or munitions here, but the packing materials themselves were combustible.
"Watch the lip!" Piet warned. The metal threshold plate was a half-centimeter higher than the concrete to which it was bolted. The front casters hit the plate at a skew angle. The dolly rocked, then righted, and rolled out onto the stabilized earth of the spaceport proper.
A dozen Venerians, several of them gentlemen wearing enameled and polished half armor, were arguing around the 15-cm gun Piet's team had dumped in front of the warehouse before going back for the next one.
"Well, let me tell you, Blassingame!" an officer shouted. "Even if it had been my men responsible for the fire, I don't have to answer to you about it!"
"Let the whole bloody-" another officer said. The sound of the dolly banging over the threshold made him turn.
"God and His saints!" a sailor who'd sailed with Piet in the past blurted. "It's the captain!"