Fire broke out from the place Jenrette had occupied before, the intersecting hall a little down from the lift. Two of Sabin’s party went down, a third hit.
Banichi ran; Bren dived after him, a hard sprint down the corridor toward what had become a firefight. They passed Jago’s position; passed the lift, where Kasari held the doorway, no one in position to get the sniper that was taking down Sabin’s guard.
The sniper put his head and his sidearm around the corner.
Banichi braked so fast Bren nearly hit him, braked, and fired, and the sniper vanished backward, leaving an appalling spatter against the opposing wall.
Fire had stopped from Sabin’s party; Banichi flattened himself against the wall and whipped around that corner, but the immediate relaxation told the tale, and Bren didn’t think he wanted to see the damage that had left its evidence on that other wall.
Banichi wasn’t so fastidious. He squatted down, collected items from Jenrette’s pockets, a sidearm, a pocket com and a handheld, on each of which he killed the power with a press of his thumb.
Those were worth later investigation.
Sabin arrived, her guard battered and bloody, herself with a bloody forearm and a ripped sleeve.
“Mr. Cameron?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is that Mr. Jenrette?”
“Yes, ma’am.” They didn’t have time for question and answer. There was that ship moving in. “Dr. Kroger’s out there trying to defuse whatever-it-is, we’ve got the station up there, we dislodged Braddock from Central and blew the Archive. Captain Graham’s boarding civilians fast as he can. We took the alien hostage Braddock was holding, we’re trying to get communication with him, and last I heard, his ship’s moving in, but we’re talking to it.”
Several blinks. “Not half bad for a day’s work.”
He was numb. He had a dead man at his feet. And a captain who’d tried her best to take the station from inside, with the force she had. And not done a bad job of it, counting she’d ended up at the right place to secure the fuel, the high card she’d known the station held. “Captain Graham will want you aboard soon as possible.”
“Possible, once we get the fuel flowing.” Sabin gave a glance aside as Banichi stood up; and up. “ Hato ,” she said. Ragi, for good . It applied to food and drink, not quite apt.
But Banichi understood.
And called Jago. “Jago. Jenrette is dead. Sabin-aiji is safe.”
Jago said something that made Banichi smile.
“Barnhart has found Gin-aiji,” Banichi reported. “She has swum up to the camera and made encouraging signals. One believes she is in direct communication with Jase.”
“Get my wounded aboard,” Sabin said. “I’ll handle the fuel.”
“Get them into the lift,” Bren said. “We’ll manage. Fast as we can.—Banichi-ji. We are requested to take the wounded back as quickly as we can. Sabin-aiji will manage here.”
“Yes,” Banichi said, and relayed orders to his associates in three positions.
They’d done it. His knees felt weak. They’d actually done it. It didn’t feel done. They’d been attacked from two fronts and the middle, and the way down wasn’t guaranteed safe—particularly sneaking a handful of very tall atevi back on board; but they did what they could.
“I have Jase’s key,” he confessed to Sabin. “I need it to get them back.” Meaning the wounded, and the handful of techs in their keeping.
“You’re just full of tricks,” Sabin said. “Go lock those section doors with that key, Mr. Cameron—I trust you know how to do that—and then get that thing back aboard the ship. Fast.”
The lord of the heavens had his bailiwick and his arena of understanding; it didn’t include ship’s operations, or that fueling station, and when Sabin suggested locking the critical doors with an unbreachable lock, barring all station access to this place, it seemed a good idea to do exactly that, and fast.
Chapter 19
Go,” Bren said to their detainees, once the lift car reached the mast entry level—one expected that to be the most desolate area of the station; but it was jammed with refugees, men, women, children carrying other children and parents carrying baggage—and their detainees vanished into jammed lines of refugees. Terror rippled the lines as unprepared stationers saw atevi exit the car, but they were locked in that essential fact of station life, the line, the line that gave precedence, the line in which all things were done and solved, the line which meant entitlement—in this case, to ship-boarding; and the line buckled.
“They’re from Alpha!” Bren shouted. “They are, and I am! Pass it on! We have injured people here—excuse us. We need through to medical immediately, please !”
They didn’t have access to station communications; but word of mouth rippled both ways in the moving lines—lines ultimately diced and packeted by the lift.
They had one of ship’s security, walking wounded: Barnhart had an arm around him, helping him along. There were three who couldn’t walk, one in bad condition, and Ilisidi’s men carried them like children, gear and all—atevi protocols: Banichi and Jago had their lord present, and guarded him , and that was the way of things. So he went, scaring evacuees—until humans saw a bona fide mission of mercy, and blood, and atevi carrying human wounded toward the ship. Then stares attended them, and confusion swayed the line, but no panic ensued.
“Excuse us,” Bren said, all the lengthy way up the line to the lift. “Excuse us. We have to get to medical. Urgent. Excuse us.”
He was breathing hard, despite the lightest of station gravity. They reached the lift, and stationers there, next in line for salvation, clearly didn’t want to wait—“We have children,” the head of the line objected.
“We have a man critical,” Bren said, in this contest of crises. “Ship’s officer. We can take the children through with us, if you want. Rest a minute. Protect those kids’ faces. It’s a long cold on the other side.”
The man didn’t half know. Frustration, fear and resentment of alien presence were all in that expression; but he was willing to argue with ship personnel and half a dozen towering aliens to get to a safety that—he hadn’t thought it through—likely had more such aliens in charge; and Bren didn’t altogether blame him for his confusion. If a station was going into critical failure, as these people began to realize, it was a very thin bubble in a very big dark, and anywhere with air, light, and power was life itself.
The lift car arrived. Bren crowded his own party in and punched the button, no key. The car shot off, express for the mast; and they were alone for the moment, hoping that Sabin, upstairs, was managing the fueling station without interference.
But the more that line of refugees grew, the more people would begin to realize the station was in trouble, and when neighbors started leaving, people started calling those they cared about. By now, anyone calling Central might not get through. And a failure of communications meant a spread of rumor, in a station already half-dead, already having lost one essential asset, and all protection from alien incursion. Families were taking the ship’s offer. Individuals with non-critical jobs were. Probably a few with critical jobs had begun to weigh staying and going, and if one bolted—more would.
Faster and faster. More and more desperate. They’d gotten through a line reasonably well-ordered and willing to reason, in this early stage of the evacuation. Later—as systems started failing—panic was going to pack more and more people into that line.
“We still cannot reach Asicho, nandi,” Jago said.
“Soon, at least, Jago-ji,” he said. “One believes Gin has relayed reassurances to Jase. And perhaps Sabin-aiji has gotten through.”
Warning lights flashed red. The car began deceleration and the comfortable illusion of up and down shifted, an assault on a stomach already uncertain—he didn’t like this, didn’t like it, stared at the indicators for proof of their location in time and space, reassurance of destination imminent.