‘I’ll deal with the hatch,’ she said to Lopomac. ‘You put a piton in and give us a line.’
The hatch above the reactor room was not the only access to the roof. A small vertical airlock sat directly over the garage, built in its previous incarnation when it had simply been a major storeroom. The hatch had allowed personnel access to the roof in order to make repairs to cams, lights and radio dishes, but it hadn’t been used in years, and even the ladder descending from it had been removed. On reaching it, Var thumbed its console whilst Lopomac drove in another piton. The console screen instantly warned her of a pressure differential, but she ran a reboot and it corrected the error to show no differential at all. Finding the manual lever stiff and the seal stuck, she cautiously got up on her knees to provide herself with more leverage, and heaved. The outer hatch eventually came up with a thin tearing sound, strips of torn seal hanging from it. She dropped down inside, and clinging to the upper section of ladder that had been left inside the airlock, she released the lever of the lower hatch, then paused to check image feed.
Another grenade detonated by the bulkhead door leading into the reactor room. The blast sent the forklift skittering over to one side, and the door tumbling into the room beyond, where it slammed against one side of the reactor itself. Var winced – she’d have to check for damage – but at least Silberman and the others were still where she wanted them.
‘Any movement from Ricard?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Carol. ‘He’s keeping his head down.’
‘Lopomac, where’s that line?’
‘Coming.’ He dropped a coil of rope over the edge, then peered down towards her. She attached her climbing motor, then kicked down on the hatch, once, twice, until it fell open, then as fast as she could she lowered herself into the garage underneath. After a moment, Lopomac joined her.
‘They’re in the reactor room,’ she explained, unshouldering her assault rifle and knocking off the safety. The enforcer who seemed always to get the shit jobs had been sent in first, the other two rapidly following.
‘Come on,’ said Var.
She quickly opened a bulkhead door, leading into the next outer section, then in towards the reactor room beyond. Lopomac unshouldered his assault rifle and held it ready. By now Silberman himself was entering the reactor room. Of course, he would be puzzled: how had they sealed the door like that and yet apparently disappeared? As she reached the junction from which the corridor led up to the reactor room door, she waved Lopomac ahead. ‘When I give the word.’
He still looked a bit sick, but nodded and moved over to the opposite side of the corridor entrance, resting his back against the wall, with his assault rifle braced before him.
‘The reactor?’ he queried.
‘Not in line of sight,’ she replied.
That was true enough, but a stray round might still hit it. She just had to hope the imminent firefight damaged nothing vital, but it was a risk they had to take. Also backing against the wall with her rifle ready, she once more studied her visor screen.
Silberman sat himself at the control console to work through the menu. After a second, she realized he must be turning the power back on to the rest of base. This accomplished, he stood, gestured to the other three and headed back towards the door. What would he now be thinking? He must realize that there were few places they could be hiding in the outer section, yet would assume they hadn’t been stupid enough to seal themselves inside one of the less vital inner sections.
‘Ricard’s on the move,’ announced Carol.
Var briefly switched to an exterior cam view. Ricard was now in a crouch, his rifle up against his shoulder as he swung it about to check the screen view through its telescopic sight. This told her all she needed. Silberman had just informed Ricard of the situation, and now Ricard was worried; he thought they must be somewhere outside the hex.
‘Kill him, if you can,’ she instructed, flicking back to the previous view inside the hex.
Waving Mr Shit Job ahead, Silberman stepped out of the reactor room, the other two enforcers emerging behind him. Let them get halfway down the corridor . . .
They were a few paces away from the room when Silberman abruptly halted and gestured behind him. One of the enforcers turned, and started to head back. Silberman had clearly decided to leave a guard.
‘Lopomac,’ she said, ‘now!’
As one, they swung round, facing along the corridor, rifles up against their shoulders. Lopomac went down on one knee, but Var remained standing. She opened up on full automatic, whilst Lopomac fired in short bursts. The lead enforcer was slammed back into Silberman, but the spray of blood and escaping vapour showed that his body had not been sufficient protection, for the bullets had gone straight through him and struck Silberman too. One of the enforcers behind spun against the wall, smearing bits of himself across it, steaming like raw meat dropped onto a hot stove. The last enforcer managed to stumble a few paces towards the reactor room, before shots stitched across his back and he went down.
Var took her finger off the trigger. ‘We got them,’ she said, for Carol’s benefit.
‘I missed Ricard,’ said Carol. ‘He’s back down in his hollow.’
‘Keep your head down,’ said Var as she advanced.
None of the four scattered on the floor showed any signs of life. Simple as that: extinguished in just over ten seconds of gunfire. Var called up a menu on her visor screen, and keyed into a com icon that was presently dormant. It started flashing, down in the bottom right corner of her visor as the rest of the menu faded. Then it blinked out, and her helmet speakers beeped to let her know the new channel had been opened from the other end.
‘You’re alone now, Ricard,’ she said.
After a moment, he asked, ‘What do you mean, alone?’
‘I mean Silberman and the last of your enforcers are dead.’
‘Then you’ve won.’
Var turned and began heading back the way she had come, leaving Lopomac standing behind her, seemingly horrified by what they had just done. He wouldn’t be strong enough, she realized, he wouldn’t be able to carry this through to its inevitable and necessary conclusion.
‘Surrender yourself now, Ricard, and you get to live until the base personnel decide what to do with you,’ she said. ‘If you don’t surrender, then that’s fine. You can stay out there until your air runs out.’
Into an outer section now, blast damage evident all up the walls beside her, the broken window ahead where the enforcers had entered.
‘Someone was shooting at me from the roof,’ he protested.
‘Carol?’
‘I hear you.’
‘You can come down now.’
‘Okay, on my way,’ the woman replied, relief obvious in her voice.
‘I need some sort of guarantee,’ insisted Ricard, but his decision was already made. She could hear it in his voice – he was all out of choices.
‘I give you my word that no one here will try to kill you, Ricard. I need you alive, and telling the people here what instructions you received from Earth. I need them to know.’
She could now see him through the window, as he stood up, holding his rifle above his head.
‘Put the weapon on the ground,’ she said.
By the tilt of his head, he was still gazing up at the roof, expecting shots from there. With care he lowered his rifle and did as instructed, then began walking in towards the hex. Var moved towards the window, detaching the mostly used-up clip from her rifle and slotting a new one into place. She vaulted the sill, boots thumping on to the dusty ground. His head jerked back down, seeing her now. She walked out towards him, closing the gap until they stood just five metres apart.
‘The base personnel will understand,’ he ventured anxiously.
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘they certainly will.’
She pulled the trigger and watched him dance for a moment, then tumble backwards through a cloud of dust. The base personnel would certainly understand that this man wasn’t worth the precious air it took to keep him breathing.