“I want you all lying down when the warning goes. We may have up to five gees on landing and I don’t want you falling around and breaking bones and giving us trouble. If you are foolish enough to get hurt you will not be repaired but will be killed. I promise you that.”
The metal door slammed behind them and the prisoners looked at each other in silence.
“Wait until after we’re down and they switch from ship’s gravity,” Debhu said. “That will be when they are busiest in the shutdown routine. No one will be moving around yet and the outer hatches will still be closed.”
Jan nodded just as the alarm horn sounded.
There was vibration when the ship entered the atmosphere, then the pressure of deceleration and the rumble of distant engines sounding from the metal walls around them. A sudden tremor and they were down. They lay still, looking at Jan and Debhu.
A sudden twisting sensation pulled at them, followed by a feeling of heaviness as Earth’s slightly stronger gravitational field took hold.
“Now!” Debhu said.
Jan had been lying next to the door. He was on his feet instantly and pushing the key into the lock; the door swung open easily in his hand. The short hall beyond was empty. He sprinted the length of it, aware of the others close behind him, slammed his weight against the door at the end — then carefully slid the key into the opening in the lock. Holding his breath,
The door unlocked. No alarms were sounded that they were aware of. He nodded to Debhu who grabbed the door and hurled it open.
“This way!” he called out, sprinting down the empty corridor. A spaceman walked around the bend, saw them and tried to run. He was overwhelmed, crushed down, held, then pounded into unconsciousness by Jan’s bare fists.
“We’re armed now,” Debhu said, tearing the pistol from the man’s holster. “Take it, Jan. You know more about its use than we do.”
Debhu was up on the instant and they were close behind him. He ignored the lift shaft, too slow, and instead hurled himself down the emergency stairwell, risking a fall with every leap. When he reached the door at the bottom he stopped and let the others catch up.
“This opens into the main engine compartment,” he said. “There will be at least four ratings and an officer there. Do we try to take them, knock them down…”
“No,” Jan said. “Too risky. They may be armed and they could sound the alarm. Where would the officer be?”
“At the ancillary control panel. To your left about four meters away.
“Fine. I’ll go first. Fan out behind me but don’t get between me and any of the crew if you can prevent it.”
“You mean…” Debhu said.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Jan said, raising the gun. “Open the door.”
The officer was very young and his frightened cry, then scream of pain before the second shot silenced him, brought the escaping prisoners to a stumbling halt. Only Jan ran on. The engines were lightly manned. He had to murder only two other men; the second by shooting him in the back.
“Come on!” Jan shouted. “It’s clear.”
They kept their faces averted from his as they ran by, following Debhu to the hatch. He did not waste time looking for the electrical controls but instead seized the manual emergency wheel and began turning. After two turns he was pushed aside by Hainault who used his athlete’s muscles to whirl the wheel, over and over, until the latches clacked free.
“And no alarm yet,” Jan said. “Push it open and see if there is any kind of welcome waiting for us outside.”
Five
It was dark and quiet in the landing pit, the only sounds the click of contracting metal and the drip of water. The air was warm but not hot, the hull and pit itself had been cooled by the water sprays after landing. Jan led the way, through the open hatch and onto the wide metal gangway that had extended automatically after the landing. They were at least fifty meters above the pit bottom, that was still boiling with steam. High above them there were harsh lights and the sound of machinery, engines.
“There should be exit doors near the water jets,” Debhu whispered. “If these pits are designed like the ones I’m familiar with.”
“Let’s hope they are,” Jan said. “You had better show us the way.
He stood aside as Debhu led the others past, looking on all sides for any sign of pursuit. Their escape must have been discovered by this time.
The lights flared on, set into the rim of the pit above, bright as the unshielded sun of Halvmork. An instant later the guns began firing. Rocket-powered slugs ricocheted and screamed off the concrete and steel, sent up explosions of water from the puddles. Tore through the soft flesh of human bodies.
Jan shielded his eyes with his arm as he fired upward, blindly. Throwing the gun aside and falling backward when his ammunition was exhausted. By a miracle of chance he was unharmed as yet — hoarse screams brutally informed him that the others weren’t that lucky. His shoulder crashed painfully into a metal support and he sought shelter behind it, trying to blink away the floating spots of light before his eyes.
He was only three meters from the hatch they had used to flee from the ship into this bullet-filled trap. Their escape had not gone unnoticed; the guards had taken instant revenge. There was only death in this pit. Trying to ignore the rain of bullets, Jan ran forward and fell through the open hatch.
It was an act of instinct, to escape the sure death outside. He lay on the hard steel for a moment, knowing that he had not escaped but just postponed his destruction. But they could not find him like this, not just lying here waiting to be captured or shot. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled back into the engine room. It was populated only by the dead. But the lift door was opening…
Jan dived for the bank of instruments against the bulkhead, jammed himself into the narrow space behind them, pushing back deeper and deeper as the many thudding footsteps came close.
“Hold it right there,” a voice ordered. “You’ll get blown away by our own men.
The murmur of voices was cut short by the same man again. “Quiet in the ranks.” Then more softly. “Lauca here, come in command. Do you read me command… Yes, sir. Ready in the engine room. Yes, firing stopping now. Right, we’ll mop up. No surviviors.” Then he shouted aloud as the gunfire ceased in the pit outside.
“Try not to shoot each other in your enthusiasm — but I want those rebels wasted. Understand? No survivors. And leave them where they fall for the media cameras.
The major wants the world to see what happens to rebels and murderers. Go!”
They streamed by shouting angrily, guns ready. Jan could do nothing except wait for one of them to glance aside, to see for just one instant what was behind the instrument board. No one did. Their guns were ready for the vengeance waiting them outside. The officer came last.
He stopped not an arm’s distance from Jan, but staring intently after the troops, then spoke into the microphone on his collar.
“Hold all firing from the rim, repeat, hold firing. Mop-up troops are now in the…”
Jan sidled forward — and his shirt caught on a protruding bolthead, held an instant, then ripped free. The officer heard the slight sound and turned his head. Jan lunged forward and seized him by the throat with both hands.
It was unscientific and crude. But it worked. The officer thrashed about, trying to kick Jan, to tear his fingers from his throat. They fell and the man’s helmet went rolling away. He tore at the throttling hands, his fingernails tearing bleeding welts in Jan’s skin, his mouth gasping for air that he could not breathe. But Jan’s muscles were strengthened by hard work, his fingers squeezing even tighter now with the desperate fear of failure. One of them would live; one die. His thumbs bit deep into the flesh of the officer’s neck and he looked with no compassion into the wide and bulging eyes.