Yalson stopped shooting. The front of the train glowed red where she’d been firing at it. The explosive shells from Neisin’s gun crackled round the window the first shots had come from; short bursts of fire. Wubslin and Dorolow had come out of the main tunnel, past the slab of the train’s rear. They crouched near the wall, firing at the same window as Neisin.
The plasma fire had stopped. The humans stopped shooting, too. The station went dark; the gunfire echoed, faded. Horza tried to stand up, but somebody seemed to have removed the bones from his legs.
“Anybody—” Yalson began.
Fire cascaded around Wubslin and Dorolow, lancing out from the lower deck of the last carriage. Dorolow screamed and fell. Hand spasming, her gun blasted wildly over the cavern roof. Wubslin rolled along the ground, shooting back at the Idirans. Yalson and Neisin joined in. The carriage’s skin buckled and burst under the fusilade. Dorolow lay on the platform, moving spasmodically, moaning.
More shots came from the front of the train, bursting around the tunnel entrances. Then something moved midway up the rear carriage, near the rear access gantry; an Idiran ran from a carriage door and along the middle ramp. He levelled a gun and fired down, first at Dorolow where she lay on the ground, then at Wubslin, lying near the side of the train.
Dorolow’s suit was blown tumbling and burning across the black floor of the station. Wubslin’s gun arm was hit. Then Yalson’s shots found the Idiran, scattering fire across his suit, the structure of the gantry and the side of the train. The ramp supports gave way before the Idiran’s armoured suit; softening and disintegrating under the stream of fire, the gantry tubing sagged and collapsed, sending the top platform of the ramp crashing down, trapping the Idiran warrior underneath the smoking wreckage. Wubslin cursed and shot one-handed at the nose of the train, where the second Idiran was still firing.
Horza lay against the wall, his ears roaring, his skin cold and sweat-slicked. He felt numb, dissociated. He wanted to take his helmet off and gasp at some fresh air but knew he shouldn’t. Even though the helmet was damaged it would still protect him if he was shot again. He compromised by opening the visor. Sound assaulted his ears. Shockwaves thrummed at his chest. Yalson looked back at him, motioned him further back down the tunnel as shots smacked into the floor near him. He stood, but fell, blacking out briefly.
The Idiran at the front of the train stopped firing for a moment, Yalson took the opportunity to look back at Horza again. He lay on the tunnel floor behind her, moving weakly. She looked out to where Dorolow lay, her suit ripped and smouldering. Neisin was almost out of his tunnel, firing long bursts down the station, scattering explosions all over the nose of the train. The air boomed with the rasping noise of his gun, ebbing and flowing through the cavern and accompanied by a pulsing wave of light that seemed to reach back from where the bullets struck and detonated.
Yalson was aware of somebody shouting — a woman’s voice, yelling — but she could hardly hear over the noise of Neisin’s gun. Plasma bolts came singing down the platform from the front of the train again, from high up, near the forward access ramps. She returned fire. Neisin poured shots in the same direction, paused.
“— in! Stop!” the voice shouted in Yalson’s ears. It was Balveda, “There’s something wrong with your gun; it’ll—” The Culture agent’s voice was drowned by the noise of Neisin firing again. “—crash!” Yalson heard Balveda scream despairingly; then a line of light and sound seemed to fill the station from one end to the other, ending at Neisin. The bright stalk of noise and flame blossomed into an explosion Yalson felt through her suit. Bits of Neisin’s gun were scattered across the platform; the man was thrown back against the wall. He fell to the ground and lay still.
“Motherfucker,” Yalson heard herself say, and she started running up the platform, enfilading the front of the train, trying to widen the angle of fire. Shots dipped to meet her, then cut out. There was a pause, while she still ran and fired, then the second Idiran appeared on the top level of the distant access ramp, holding a pistol in both hands. He ignored both her and Wubslin’s fire and shot straight across the breadth of the cavern, at the Mind.
The silvery ellipsoid started to move, heading for the far foot tunnel. The first shot seemed to go right through it, as did a second; a third bolt made it vanish completely, leaving only a tiny puff of smoke where it had been.
The Idiran’s suit glittered as Yalson and Wubslin’s shots struck home. The warrior staggered; he turned as though to start firing down at them again, just as the armoured suit gave way; he was blown back and across the gantry, one arm disappearing in a cloud of flame and smoke; he fell over the edge of the ramp and crashed down to the middle level, the suit burning brightly, one leg snagging over the guard rails on the middle ramp. The plasma pistol was blown from his hand. Other shots tore at the wide helm, fracturing the blackened visor. He hung, limp and burning and pummelled with laser fire, for a few more seconds; then the leg caught on the guard rail gave way, snapping cleanly off and falling to the station floor. The Idiran slid, crumpling, to the deck of the ramp.
Horza listened, his ears still ringing.
After a while it was quiet. Acrid smoke stung his nose: fumes of burned plastic, molten metal, roasted meat.
He had been unconscious, then woken to see Yalson running up the platform. He had tried to give her covering fire, but his hands shook too much, and he hadn’t been able to get the gun to work. Now everybody had stopped firing, and it was very quiet. He got up and walked unsteadily into the station, where smoke rose from the battered train.
Wubslin knelt by Dorolow’s side, trying with one hand to undo one of the woman’s gloves. Her suit still smouldered. The helmet visor was smeared red, covered with blood on the inside, hiding her face.
Horza watched Yalson come back down the station, gun still at the ready. Her suit had taken a couple of plasma bolts to the body; the roughly spiralled marks showed as black scars on the grey surface. She looked up suspiciously at the rear access ramps, where one Idiran lay trapped and unmoving; then she opened her visor. “You all right?” she asked Horza.
“Yes. Bit groggy. Sore head,” he said. Yalson nodded; they went over to where Neisin lay.
Neisin was still just alive. His gun had exploded, riddling his chest, arms and face with shrapnel. Moans bubbled from the crimson ruin of his face. “Fucking hell,” Yalson said. She took a small medipack from her suit and reached through what was left of Neisin’s visor to inject the semi-conscious man’s neck with painkiller.
“What’s happened?” Aviger’s tiny voice came from Yalson’s helmet. “Is it safe yet?” Yalson looked at Horza, who shrugged, then nodded.
“Yeah, it’s safe, Aviger,” Yalson said. “You can come in.”
“I let Balveda use my suit mike; she said she—”
“We heard,” Yalson said.
“Something about a… ‘barrelcrash’? That right…?” Horza heard Balveda’s muffled voice affirming this. “…She thought Neisin’s gun might blow up, or something.”
“Well, it did,” Yalson said. “He looks pretty bad.” She glanced over at Wubslin, who was putting Dorolow’s hand back down. Wubslin shook his head when he saw Yalson looking at him. “…Dorolow got blown away, Aviger,” Yalson said. The old man was silent for a moment, then said:
“And Horza?”
“Took a plasma round on the headbox. Suit damage; no communication. He’ll live,” Yalson paused, sighed. “Looks like we lost the Mind, though; it disappeared.”