"There were explosives the last time I was here."
'That was a long time ago. They clamped down on that, but I expect there's some about. Where do you want the women to assemble?"
"In front of the elevator banks. As soon as you can. Tell them to keep the stuff they bring with them to an absolute minimum. No more than they can easily carry. "
As Rance and Hark left Conchela to start marshaling the women, alarms started to shrill all over the environment.
"Seems like they're on to us." "It took them long enough."
After a full minute of clamor, the alarms were replaced by a full-power authority voice.
"This is addressed to the unauthorized men by the elevators. You will lay down your weapons and prepare to identify yourselves."
Rance, Hark, and the men with them broke into a run. The announcement was repeated once more. There was the sound of shore patrol sirens on the other side of the area. Rance reached the elevators just in front of the shore patrol.
"Hold your fire! Nobody fire unless you have to."
The shore patrol came out of the central avenue. There were six of them in servo suits and maybe a dozen more on foot. When they saw the size of the force from the Anah 5, they stopped in their tracks. Clearly no one had told them what they were up against. Rance gave thanks for the confusion. The leader of the squad dismounted from her servo and walked uncertainly toward the men.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"We're liberating you."
The squad leader halted. "Liberating?"
Rance talked fast. At first the squad leader refused to believe him, but in the end, the obvious evidence of the large force of men was just too overwhelming.
"So, are you with us, or do we all have to start shooting each other?"
The squad leader looked totally confused. "I don't know. I've got to talk to my people."
"No communicators."
"I just want to talk to the people with me."
She walked back to her squad, and they went into a huddle. Rance shook his head.
"I wish they'd hurry it up. Time is not on our side."
At that moment, Conchela emerged from a side corridor with a crowd of women behind her. Quickly she detached herself and hurried over to the shore patrol. There was further discussion, then she and the squad leader came back to Rance together.
"It looks good," Conchela said.
"We'll throw in with you. It may be the only chance that we ever get. I hope you can pull this off, because if you can't, we're all dead."
"We can try," Rance said.
"Well, you better make it fast. We were ordered to investigate a disturbance, but we had no details. Up on the surface they don't know what's happening. A couple of dauquoi called in a seven-twenty, but the lanteres didn't believe them. If we don't report pretty soon, the lanteres will be down to see for themselves."
"Can you stall them?"
"Not for long."
Women began to come out from all over the environment. They came with bags and bundles. Most had followed Rance's instructions, but some were hopelessly loaded down with possessions. Some were even brandishing homemade weapons. Their attitude was one of grim determination, although not without fear. More of the shore patrol came across and joined the breakout. There were even some men from the recstar's permanent complement. The crowd by the elevators grew until it threatened to become a real problem. There were close to three hundred women and further fifty men.
"Is this all of them?" Rance asked.
"All that want to come. The others are either too brainwashed or too frightened. They think we're all going to be killed."
Rance could almost sympathize with them. It was only now that he realized the enormous logistic problem that he'd set himself. Fortunately, Conchela had her own chain of command through the covens that helped to control the situation.
"We should start moving up." Rance looked for the squad leader, who seemed to have assumed the leadership of those members of the shore patrol who had come over to the mutineers' side. "How are we doing with the lanteres?"
"We're faking a communications screwup, but they're getting impatient."
"If they came down here, would they use these elevators."
"With their bulk, they'd be more likely to use the emergency chutes on the other side of the environment."
"Then we'll position a rear guard there."
"My women and a detachment of your men could hold them there for a while. They can only come out of the chutes two at a time. We could bottle them up there."
"What's the fastest way to the shuttle dock?"
"With human atmosphere all the way?"
Rance looked at the crowd of women. None of them had suits. "It'll have to be."
"Okay, you take these elevators to level 1. That's directly under the surface. At the elevator head you take the corridor to the right for two sections. After that, you use the lat tunnel to bypass the lantere atmosphere. Most of level 1 is lantere."
"So we'd have to secure two sections of corridor and the passage."
"As well as the dock itself." "Damn."
"None of it is that well guarded. There's never been an attack from inside. One thing, though, we ought to get as many breathing masks as we can. It's possible for the lanteres to breach the tunnel. That soup they live in could kill the women as effectively as blaster fire."
"Are there masks?"
"Theoretically there should be a mask for every woman in the emergency dispensers. How good they are is another matter. They haven't been used in years."
Rance shouted to Conchela. "Have your people break out all the breathing masks they can find. We may need them."
He turned back to the squad leader.
"One more thing. I need a technician to rig the elevators so they can only be controlled from here."
The squad leader beckoned to one of her women. "Hey, Jacka, get up here. Move it."
With the elevators gimmicked, the great move to the surface began. The armored men went first. The others waited until the route to the shuttles was secured. As he rode up on the first elevator, Rance gave his last-minute instructions.
"While we're in here, were bottled up. If we can't break out immediately, we're dead. There may well be lanteres waiting for us at the top. I want a firing line right inside the door. Directly the doors open, start blasting and move out. The lanteres may be big, but they're slow. That's our main advantage."
The men arranged themselves accordingly. The elevator seemed to be rising painfully slowly. It eased to a halt. The front line tensed. The doors started to roll back. The MEWs opened up. There were lanteres.
Everyone pressed forward. Hark, who was positioned right behind Rance, found himself yet again caught up in the confusion and isolation of combat. No matter how many times he went through it, he never lost the jagged sense of fear and breathless excitement. He was in among the huge crustaceans, pumping his weapon at anything that presented itself. One of them loomed over him, bringing around a posicannon. He ripped the creature with a sustained blast. Its armor smoked as it toppled backward. The deck plates were becoming slick with colorless crustacean blood. There was a constant alien screaming in his communicator.
They were in the right-hand corridor, and for the moment, there was no more opposition. The half dozen lanteres that had been guarding the elevator head had been overcome with no human losses. More men were coming from the elevator cages. Rance moved them forward, leaving detachments at each crucial point along the way. Hark noticed that among the men from the Anah 5 there were also shore patroL and even civilian women wearing facemasks and carrying improvised weapons. Two were lugging one of the heavy posicannons that had been dropped by the dead lanteres.
Hark, along with Renchett and Dyrkin, was in the advance party. They reached the first corridor intersection without incident. There was the sound of firing from behind them. Something was happening back at the elevators. Dyrkin waved the party to a halt.