Monofil sheared through scale and bone. The soldier screamed horribly, stumbling, useless leg collapsing. Dawd reversed the blade, slashing open the side of the slick's head from shoulder blade to snout. The Jehanan toppled over, gargling. The Skawtsman lunged, clearing the slippery pool and reached the far door of the compartment. Pressing his back to the wall, he extracted his mangled finger from the pistol, switched it to his off hand and jammed the wounded arm into his gunrig.
Flames licked along the ceiling over his head as the baggage car filled with smoke.
"Dawd," a familiar voice coughed. The sergeant's head snapped up. Colmuir crawled out from under the bodies by the door, combat visor gone, hair greased to his head. "They've got the prince and the Resident's wife…quickly now, lad, quickly! There's only one or two of them left."
Wrenching his attention around, Dawd swayed into the doorway, timing his motion to the jump and rattle of the train car. The sliding door banged back and the sergeant dodged through, automatic close to his chest. Sunlight blazed around him – he was exposed on an open platform, facing a tender stacked with firewood – and Dawd flung himself to the side. His hip struck a railing, he tipped over halfway and was staring down at tracks and gravel rushing past. Bullets shattered the door and tore chunks of wood out of the end of the baggage car.
Dawd folded himself back, falling to the floor of the little platform, and crawled on one hand and both knees to the other side. Craning his neck, he glimpsed a Jehanan in black body armor and a modern pair of combat goggles crouched on the far end of the fuel tender.
Cursing all arms merchants for fools, Dawd forced his injured hand to work, plucked the last grenade from his gunrig, armed the device and flipped it up and into the back of the tender. In the next motion, he rolled out from the platform, legs hooked into the railing and the automatic blazed twice in his hand as the Jehanan flinched back from the flash of the grenade bursting atop the firewood.
The commando jerked aside, hit twice in the chest, and then the blast of the grenade knocked him over the side with a scream. Dawd hauled himself back onto the platform, shucked a clip from the automatic and jammed in a fresh one. Gathering himself, he vaulted up into the fuel tender, which was now smoldering. Keeping low, he scrambled up along the cords of firewood and hurried forward. He could make out the chuffing smokestack of the engine ahead. Cinders dinged from his combat visor.
The railroad tracks split and split again as the express entered the Parus rail-yards. Despite this, the train did not slow down, roaring ahead at full steam.
Parker picked his way down the hallway, duffel digging into his shoulders as if it were filled with lead bars. Smoke bit at his throat and fouled the air. The passenger car behind him was now burning furiously, the flames fed by the rushing air of the train's passage. Gingerly, the pilot climbed over a dead Jehanan and found himself staring into a blood-streaked baggage car littered with bodies.
"Oh, Maggie," he groaned, hands clutching the sides of the connecting door, "this does not look good!"
"Move it, witless!" The Hesht shoved his duffel with her shoulder, forcing Parker to scramble across the gap and into the next car. "We'll be burned alive if we stay here."
Inside the ruined baggage car, Parker kept to the wall, trying to avoid the lake of blood, urine, intestinal fluid and limbs sloshing back and forth on the floor. He stared with amazement at the crumpled bodies of two young human women and then froze, terrified to see that one of the bodies leaning against the wall was alive. Fierce brown eyes met his and the seeming-corpse stirred.
"Ahhh…Maggie! Maybe we should…"
The Hesht was caught in the sliding doorway, but, by dint of a rasping growl and main strength, she managed to force her way through, despite the pair of duffel bags on her back catching in the mechanism. Panting, she shucked the bags, letting them splash to the noisome floor.
Colmuir glanced from the thin human to the Hesht and back again. "Civilians," he choked, sounding amused. "Give a man a hand up, would you?"
Magdalena stared down at him with cool interest. "You're the brainless kit who tossed a grenade into our compartment, I think."
"Did I?" The master sergeant swallowed, trying to muster the strength to stand. One thigh bone seemed to be broken and his chest stabbed with pain each time he took a breath. "Sorry about that, I was in a bit of a hurry."
"Luckily, Parker has quick hands." The Hest leaned down, nostrils flaring. "Pfah! You stink." She stood up, reaching for her duffel bags. "Let's leave him. The fire will reach this car soon, and we'd best be -"
All three heads turned, hearing the blast of a grenade and the rattle of gunfire.
"Ah now, the lad's in trouble again." Colmuir beckoned to Parker. "C'mon, sport, help me up. There's still work to be done. You haven't a gun to hand do you?"
Parker stared at Maggie, who snarled, showing a great many white teeth in her black face.
"Leave him!"
"But -"
The train lurched, making a shockingly loud grinding sound. Something metallic shrieked in agony and everyone in the baggage car was abruptly thrown the length of the compartment with tremendous violence.
Dawd surged up over the top of the last stack of cordwood, automatic in both hands and caught sight of the enormous glassed-in roof of the Parus train station looming ahead of the train engine. Four tracks ran into the building, and the train, still barreling ahead at full speed was rushing into siding number two. Smoke stained the sky and an unexpectedly large number of multistory buildings loomed on all sides. The sight of panicked Jehanan scattering away from the passenger platform froze him for just one tiny instant.
His eyes snapped down, the gun leveling, and he glimpsed – in a moment of crystalline, unforgettable clarity – Mrs. Petrel staring up at him with open, glad relief; the prince lying limply on the floor of the engineer's compartment; the engine-mouth blazing red; and the Jehanan officer swinging around, a long-barreled pistol lined up along his shoulder, the muzzle looming huge in Dawd's vision.
Too fucking late, he had time to think, squeezing the trigger of his automatic.
The native pistol flashed, Dawd's Nambu bucked and something slammed into his chest, smashing through the tools hanging on his gunrig and flattened violently against the combatskin. The light armor stiffened automatically, absorbing the hammer-blow of the slug, but the Skawtsman pitched backwards, spilling across the cordwood and crashing into the side of the tender. His head rang, a cloud of sparks flooded his vision and – despite the valiant efforts of his medband – Dawd blacked out.
At that very moment, while the Jehanan officer was distracted, Mrs. Petrel threw herself on the brake lever of the engine, bearing down with all her strength. A rippling shock leapt through the train cars as each set of brakes engaged in turn, shrilling deafeningly with the agony of metal on metal. The wheels skidded, gouting sparks and the entire train slid wildly out of control into the station at forty kilometers an hour.
An Undisclosed Location Central Parus
A string of portable lamps hanging from the ceiling of the bunker jiggled, sending shadows chasing across concrete walls. Bhrigu, kujen of Parus and the principality of Venadan, halted in the midst of incessant pacing and lifted his long, cream-colored snout. Nervous, he turned an Imperial-made comm over and over in his claws. Rubbing the hard plastic case against his scales distracted his thoughts from veering into bleak despair.