Nightfall_at_Algemron

Gabriel shook his head.
"Then I will wait for you," she said, and the door closed.
The lift went down. Gabriel put on his own breather gear, then stood there with his eyes closed, his hands against the lift column, just breathing, feeling the tickle-tickle-tickle going on in the back of his head. Hurry up, he thought. There was so much more at stake now that he was willing to let the question of his humanity go by the boards. There are more important things.
Assuming that I get out of this alive.
Through his hands he felt the lift slip into locked position down at the bottom of the column, felt the column shiver slightly as the door slid open down there. He could faintly hear voices as Enda was taken, as armored men got in and closed the door. There came the faint rumble of the lift starting back up again.
He clenched his hand around the stone and saw the image more clearly than ever. The shadows were down in the atmosphere now and coming closer. Only a minute or so.
The lift door opened, and the armored men spilled into Sunshine, saw Gabriel, and grabbed him. Two of them hustled him immediately into the lift. The others went down the corridor to see if anyone else was inside.
Gabriel stood silent, looking at the faceless, helmeted, armor-shelled men who were squeezed into the lift with him. One way or another, he knew this was the end of his free time. From now well into the foreseeable future, he would be a prisoner of one kind or another. At the same time, those shadows dropped closer, blocking out the sun for a moment.
The door opened. The cold hit his exposed skin like a hammer, and his ears popped painfully as he was suddenly exposed to the low pressure of the atmosphere.
The soldiers hustled him out. and paused.
Even in the thin air, the sound of klaxons and alarms was noisy. Over everything, between them and the lazy orange-red light of Coulomb, a great shadow fell, burying them in darkness. Then came a moment of light and another shadow, this one bigger and lower. The VoidCorp troops stood and stared above them as the two Concord cruisers dropped low. One of them held station, hovering. The other landed between Sunshine and the VoidCorp vessel.
That moment was all Gabriel needed. He sagged as if he was fainting and reached into his waist pocket
as he did so. The trooper on his right looked down at him in shock and mild annoyance. Gabriel didn't even bother to pull the pistol out from his pocket. He grabbed the handle, aimed the barrel in the direction of the guard, and squeezed. There was a loud pop, a smoldering hole appeared in Gabriel's pocket, and the guard took the round from Gabriel's little gun right in the faceplate. As Gabriel pulled away, the other trooper who had been holding him whirled and aimed his own weapon, but Gabriel was already rolling under Sunshine's skids and away to the far side of her. Over on that side, a Concord shuttle was landing, and before it was even down, Marines were spilling out of it.
Running as fast as he could, Gabriel fired a few shots under Sunshine's belly—more to discourage pursuit than in an attempt to harm anyone.
The Marines grabbed Gabriel roughly as he plowed into them, but he found it impossible to care. One armored soldier, whom Gabriel thought might have been a woman, disarmed him and led him toward the shuttle as her comrades took up a defensive position around the shuttle. As he was pulled into the shuttle, he saw another group of Marines from another shuttle storming toward Sunshine.
It's over, he thought. The limited freedom he had enjoyed these past several months was now gone. Once again, his life was about to change irrevocably. Well, then, he thought, let it begin.
The female Marine—whom Gabriel now saw as a sergeant by the insignia on her armor—and two other guards hustled him into the shuttle.
"Glad to see you," he said. He waited for what he knew would follow, and he didn't have to wait long.
The sergeant grabbed both his wrists and roughly snapped on a pair of sturdy handcuffs. "Gabriel Connor, I hereby arrest you on charges of murder, criminal manslaughter, sabotage, terrorist acts."
Gabriel tuned her out as the list continued. He would hear it all again soon enough, probably in excruciating detail. After the sergeant finished reiterating his rights, she secured Gabriel onto a rough metal bench and ordered him to sit tight. The sergeant departed, but the guards sat down across from Gabriel. They held their weapons with casual confidence and said nothing.
The shuttle door slid shut behind the sergeant. Moments later, Gabriel felt the familiar tremor as the shuttle lifted off the ground.
It was a matter of some moments before the field was secured again. Gabriel could not hear the comms conversations that he knew were going on, but in this particular case he knew what the gist of them would be. Two Concord cruisers outgunned the one VoidCorp vessel. VoidCorp would withdraw, though with ill grace. If they did ever catch him again.
At the moment, the odds of that seemed small, since there were so many other things that were likely to happen first. Gabriel sighed.
Enda ? He whispered tremulously in his mind.
A pause. I am all right. I am with the Marines.
You acted fast, he said.
When the universe sends one such a splendid distraction, she said, it is a shame not to use it, but you anticipated that, did you not?
I had a hint. I wasn 't sure, but I'm glad it paid off.
You must let me know in future, came the reply, when you have such hints. They will lower my blood pressure somewhat. There was a touch of asperity there, and Gabriel laughed. It sounded much more like the normal Enda. The Marines took Sunshine, Gabriel. I saw most of it from the shuttle. I fear we may have a mess to clean up when we go home.
I'll look forward to it, he replied. We're landing now. See you shortly… I hope.
Be very careful, Gabriel.
A few moments later someone opened the door and stuck in a gun barrel so broad that Gabriel thought he might have been able to wear it as a hat.
"Nice Aggie," Gabriel said.
There was always something reassuring about a flechette gun, though at the moment, pointing the way it was, he would have preferred reassurance that it wasn't going to go off.
"Yeah," the man holding it muttered. "Come on, bud. Out. Now."
He went out the narrow central aisle of the shuttle, past other armed Marines and down the side stairs into the ship's shuttle bay. Elsewhere in the bay, other shuttles were landing and decanting more Marines. Gabriel had half-hoped that coming aboard a Star Force cruiser would feel like a sort of homecoming—albeit a rather dreaded one—but strangely enough, it didn't. He felt like an unwanted trespasser, and the Marines and Star Force personnel surrounding him did nothing to disabuse him of that notion.
Gabriel stood still, unwilling to make any many sudden moves that might annoy the numerous Marines standing around with their weapons trained on him. Some of them ahead parted to the left and right in order to let someone come through. Two uniformed figures approached.
Gabriel stood there and gave each of them a small bow as they stopped a couple of meters away. "Captain Dareyev," he said, "and. it's Commander Delonghi now, isn't it? See, I told you he wouldn't be vindictive."
The two women glanced at one another then back at Gabriel. Elinke, he thought. That ice-hard blonde hand someness of hers had not changed in the slightest in the past few years. It had occurred to Gabriel more than one that Elinke Dareyev was one of those women who would wear her age lightly well into her one-sixties or –seventies and then it would all come crashing down on her with no warning, leaving her merely distinguished instead of beautiful. There was no point in thinking of her like that any more though. Any friendship was all over between them.