Criid glanced at the billet, and reflected that it probably had lice of its own.
‘They’re going to die, Mumma,’ Yoncy said.
‘Who are, sweet?’ Criid asked.
Yoncy pointed through the rusty links at the figures kicking the ball around.
‘Them soldiers,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ Criid asked.
‘They’re soldiers,’ said Yoncy. ‘Soldiers all die.’
‘Not all soldiers,’ Criid assured her, and gave her an encouraging hug.
Yoncy seemed to think about that. The hem of her little dress shivered in the breeze.
‘No,’ she said, ‘but those ones will.’
‘Let’s get you inside,’ Criid said. ‘Juniper will wonder where you are.’
There was a sound like a twig snapping.
Criid looked around. It had been a high, distinctive sound above the murmur of the regiment behind her.
She looked back at the soldiers in the distance. They’d stopped their game. Some were looking around as if they’d lost the ball. Two had run over to a man who’d clearly been brought down by an overenthusiastic tackle.
‘He fell down, Mumma,’ said Yoncy.
There was another crack. This time, Criid saw the man go over. He’d been standing over the man on the ground, shouting something. She saw the puff of red as he twitched and fell.
Criid turned and yelled.
‘Shooter! Shooter!’
Fourteen: Line Of Fire
Ban Daur turned. He’d heard someone shouting. There was a lot of noise around him, the chatter of off-duty ease, but this had been fiercer. Urgent.
He turned and looked. He saw Tona running towards him from the fence line. She was carrying Yoncy in her arms.
What the gak was she shouting?
He saw her mouth move. He read her lips.
‘Shooter!’ Daur yelled. ‘Shooter! Shooter! Get to cover now!’
The off-loading personnel around him scattered. Several took up the cry. Daur saw people ducking behind trucks and cargo loads, or fleeing through the doorways of the hab units. Panic, mayhem, like a pot of ball bearings poured onto a hard floor spinning in all directions. Children started to cry as the retinue womenfolk snatched them up and ran with them.
Tona reached him. Daur’s rifle was still in the truck, but he’d drawn his sidearm.
‘Where is he?’ Daur asked.
‘Feth knows,’ Criid snapped. ‘He’s looping kill-shots into the yard next door. Two of those Helixid boys are down, at least.’
‘Medic!’ Daur yelled.
‘Don’t be mad!’ Criid snarled at him. ‘No one’s going to make it across to them alive. It’s wide open!’
Daur heard a snap-crack. No mistaking that. Distant, though. Where the gak was it coming from?
Mkoll ran up, pushing through the last of the stragglers jostling to get through the hab doorway. There were people prone all around the yard and the approach track, down in the dirt or cowering behind cover. Some troopers were scrambling in the back of trucks for their weapons.
‘Angle?’ Mkoll asked directly, unshipping his rifle.
‘Not clear,’ said Criid. She was struggling with Yoncy. The child was sobbing and squirming. ‘East side, towards the old ruin.’
She pointed towards the derelict cement works.
Mkoll tapped his microbead.
‘East side,’ he said. ‘Past the access track.’
At the end of the yard, near the mouth of the track, someone opened up. A burst of auto.
‘What the feth?’ Mkoll snarled. He started to run in that direction, across the open yard. Major Pasha, Mklure and Domor broke into a sprint after him.
‘Ban!’ said Criid. ‘Can you take Yoncy? Get her inside?’
Daur looked at her. She had her rifle looped over her left shoulder, and that was going to be a lot more useful than his sidearm. He took the child from her. She was surprisingly heavy. He felt the effort strain painfully at his freshly healed wounds.
‘Go with Uncle Ban,’ Criid said, and ran off across the yard.
‘Come on, Yonce,’ Daur said, his arms around the kid. ‘Come inside with me.’
She was crying and thrashing. What was that she was saying, over and over?
Bad shadow?
‘Make room!’ Daur yelled. People packed the doorway. He had to force his way in.
Mkoll reached the trucks parked along the end of the yard, and slid into cover with men from E Company. Didi Gendler was on his feet at the end of one truck. He let off another burst of full auto. Las-bolts swooped and spat across the vacant lot.
‘Cease that!’ Mkoll yelled.
‘I can see the bastard,’ Gendler replied, taking aim again.
‘Didi reckons he can see him,’ Meryn said, sidelong to Mkoll.
‘He’s a fething idiot,’ Mkoll said to Meryn. He looked past him at the E Company sergeant.
‘Gendler, stop fething shooting!’ he yelled.
Gendler paused, and glanced back. His face was flushed pink and sweaty.
‘He’s in the cement works,’ he hissed.
‘We can’t fething track him if we can’t hear him,’ Banda said. She was crouching behind the rear wheels, stripping her long-las out of its weather-case.
‘We need to be able to hear,’ Mkoll said very firmly.
Pasha, Mklure and Domor dropped in beside them.
Everyone listened. The only sound was the hiss of the breeze, the wailing of startled children and the murmur of everyone in cover.
There was a muffled crack.
‘Cement works. High up,’ said Banda. Mkoll nodded.
‘I damn well said so,’ said Gendler.
‘Get your mouth shut tight,’ Domor told him.
Banda wriggled up for a look. She ran her long-las out over the rear fender and snapped in a cell.
‘Firing away from us,’ said Pasha quietly. ‘Firing down at the other habs, not us. The wind’s cupping it.’
Banda bit her lip and nodded. Major Pasha had been scratch company. She was an old hand at reading the sound-prints of gunfire in an urban environment.
Larkin and Criid ran up and dropped in beside Mkoll. Larkin had his long-las.
Mkoll signalled the old marksman to go up and around the front of the truck. Larkin nodded, and made his way on his hands and knees. Banda was hunting through her scope, moving her mag-sight from one blown-out window of the cement works to the next.
‘No movement,’ she whispered.
‘Fether’s probably upped and gone now,’ mumbled Larkin from the far end. ‘Opportunist. His job’s done for the day.’
Mkoll shook his head.
‘We’d have seen him move. That’s open ground all the way to the wire.’
‘So we flush the fether out,’ said Gendler. He got off his haunches and sprayed another burst of fire over the engine cowling of the cargo-8.
‘I’m going to fething gut you,’ said Domor, slamming Gendler against the truck’s side panels.
‘Get off him,’ barked Meryn, grabbing Domor’s arm. ‘Get the feth off!’
‘Shut the feth up!’ said Mkoll.
The cab window beside him blew out in a flurry of lucite. Another shot spanked through the truck’s canvas cover. Everyone huddled hard.
‘You feth-bag shit,’ Domor said, his hands clamping Gendler’s throat to keep him pinned. ‘You’ve got his attention. Now we’re the target!’
Three more shots tore into the cargo-8 sheltering them, and the one beside it. Larkin swore and ducked. A pool driver nearby squealed as shards of glass punctured his cheek and eyelid. Criid and Meryn dragged the man into cover under a wheel-well. He was bleeding profusely.