Candless and Yard reached the culvert and flung her flat in the deep ditch it served, and Candless threw his body over hers. His weight crushed her down on Nimitz, and she writhed out from under him. He tried to drag her back, but an elbow slammed into his belly with the precision of thirty-six years of unarmed combat training. It didn't even occur to Honor that he was trying to save her life. All she could think of was Adam. She started back, only to go down as Yard tackled her bodily from behind, and LaFollet dropped Reverend Hanks less gently than the old man's years deserved and flung himself into the struggle to restrain his Steadholder's insane charge back into the wreckage.
"No, My Lady! We can't risk you!"
"Ill go, My Lady!" Sutton had gotten his mind working again, and he dashed back towards the pinnace, his soul writhing in shame as he realized he'd left an injured man trapped while he ran. Candless was still clutching his belly and whooping in agony from Honors elbow strike, and the other armsmen had all they could do to keep her from following her lieutenant without injuring her themselves.
"No, goddamn it!" LaFollet screamed in her face, and the sheer shock of hearing him swear did what all his physical efforts could not. She froze, staring into his wild gray eyes and panting, and only then noticed the tears flowing down his face. "We can't risk you!" he half-sobbed, shaking her in his fear for her. "Don't you understand that?"
"He's right, My Lady." Reverend Hanks hobbled over to her. He favored his left leg and his face was blood-streaked, but his voice was unnaturally calm, almost gentle, and that gave it even more weight than LaFollet's passionate plea. "He's right," the Reverend said again, even more quietly, and she slumped in her armsmen's.
"All right," she whispered.
"Give me your word, My Lady," LaFollet demanded. She looked at him, and he managed a strained caricature of a smile. "Give me your word you'll stay here, stay here!, and we'll go back after Mr. Gerrick."
"I give you my word," she said dully. He stared into her eyes for one more moment, then released her and jerked his head at Yard, and the two of them started climbing back up out of the ditch.
"Did we get them? Did we get them?" Taylor demanded, and Martin shook his head irritably.
"I don't know."
He stood upright, staring out across the field. He'd been certain, at first, that all the explosions and fire meant they'd succeeded, but now he saw the battered, buckled pinnace, not fifty meters away, looming against a backdrop of flame as the first rescue vehicle slammed to a halt beside it. The damage was terrible yet not total, and it was just possible some of the passengers had survived.
He looked around and, despite his faith, swallowed a thick, choking bolus of fear. There were other ground cars out there now, not rescue vehicles, but HSG patrol cars, sweeping directly towards Austin and him. He looked the other way and saw still more of them, closing in along the sides of an isosceles triangle with the wreckage at its base.
"We're not going to get out, Austin," he said, and the calmness of his own voice surprised him. Taylor stared at him for a moment, his mouth working, then dropped the empty launcher with a sigh.
"I guess not," he said with a matching calm, and Martin nodded.
"In that case, I think we should make certain we accomplished what we came for."
LaFollet and Yard heaved themselves out of the ditch, whose side seemed far steeper than it had when they'd dragged their Steadholder down it, and Honor stood beside Reverend Hanks. Enough sanity had returned for her to realize Andrew and the Reverend were right. She was who she was, and she could no longer rush into avoidable danger. Too many people depended upon her for too much, but the acceptance was bitter, bitter poison on her tongue while she watched her armsmen start back towards the pinnace. Nimitz crooned to her, sharing her wretched sense of shame as she let duty hold her back, and Reverend Hanks rested one hand on her shoulder in silent understanding.
Jamie Candless coughed and shoved himself to his knees, and Honor shook her head and knelt beside him.
"Sorry, Jamie," she said with true contrition, and he shook his head.
"Not... not a bad hit, My Lady," he gasped with something like a smile, and she set Nimitz down to help him to his feet. The cat scampered up to the lip of the ditch and perched there, watching the wreckage and the rescue workers he was far too small to help, and Honor slid an arm around Candless' shoulders. He muttered something and leaned against her, something he would never have done if he hadn't been all but out on his feet, and the two of them turned to look at the wreckage.
Emergency personnel moved with trained, desperate haste. Half a dozen charged straight into the wreckage, looking for survivors, while others pumped thick, white foam over the wreckage, and she recognized the green-on-green uniforms of two more guardsmen running towards her. They must be from the HSF detachment, she thought as they circled wide of the pinnace and dashed in her direction, and wondered how they'd gotten here so quickly.
"There! By the culvert!" Martin hissed, and heard Taylor growl something foul as they saw the tall, slim figure in the deep ditch. The roaring flames struck glittering splinters from the golden key and star about her throat, and the two of them ran even faster, desperate to reach her before a real armsman challenged them.
LaFollet and Yard had gotten no more than twenty meters from the ditch when it happened, and only the fact that they were both looking at the wreck saved their lives.
The hole in the propellant tank wasn't large... but enough fumes had finally gathered inside the hull, where the fire-suppressing foam hadn't quite reached in time. The first, brief warning was a lurid sheet of flame, shooting up out of the wreckage like some obscenely beautiful fan of scarlet and gold and blue, and both armsmen flung themselves flat a fraction of a second before the world blew apart.
The concussion threw Honor, Candless, and Hanks from their feet, and Honor's face went whiter than bone as Adam Gerrick, Jared Sutton, and forty-two HSF rescue personnel were turned from living human beings to so much seared and shredded flesh. She felt the thermal bloom reaching out over the ditch, heard the shriek of flying metal, and loss and guilt worse than any agony of the flesh smashed through her as the explosion hurled her to the ground.
Edward Martin, like Andrew LaFollet and Arthur Yard, had seen and recognized the first dreadful flare. He was older than his companion, and his reflexes weren't what they once had been, but Taylor cried out in confusion as the ex-sergeant tackled him. Then the paving came up and smashed them both in the face as the concussion hit, and Martin felt Taylor's shocked understanding through the arms still pinning the younger man down.
The explosion went on and on, like the Wrath of God Himself. A heavy weight slammed down less than five meters away, then bounced over them and went crashing into the darkness, and he raised his head cautiously.
What had been a pinnace was a flaming crater crowned with tattered scraps of wreckage and the blazing hulks of rescue vehicles, and he wondered numbly how many more men he'd just killed. Then he shoved upright and reached down to drag Taylor up beside him.
"Come on, Austin," he said, and his voice held an eerie calm. The blood guilt for so many innocent lives crushed down on him, but he was about God's work, and he clung to that assurance desperately. It was his talisman, the only thing that kept him sane in this nightmare of fiery mass death. "We have work to do."