"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.
"If we get too far ahead, we'll be cut off." He spoke into his communicator. "Rance, can you hear me?"
"I hear you."
"What's happening back there?"
"More lanteres, but we're holding the bastards. I'm going to start bringing up the women."
"We're at the first intersection, but we need more men to hold it before we can go on."
"They're on their way."
At that moment, a number of human figures appeared in one of the side corridors. They wore the tabards of field police and carried MEWs.
"Hurry it up, Rance. We got company."
A headhunter voice was in their helmets on the general frequency. "Drop your weapons or we open fire!"
The men of the Anah 5 didn't need an order. Their response was instant and deadly. The burned down the field police with something close to relish. The e-vac fields on. JD4, and the scars that went with them, were still fresh in their memories. Troopers were coining up from behind to reinforce the corridor. The two women with the posicannon were among them. They seemed to be determined to use the thing as makeshift artillery.
"Let's move up."
Again they made the intersection without incident, and once again they had to wait as more troops came up to hold the position. Now there was just the bypass tunnel in front of them. That, too, seemed at first to be unguarded. It was halfway along that all hell broke loose. The lights suddenly went out, and the bolts of red fire were flashing at them and ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel. There were screams and curses.
"Get your redscopes on!"
A heavyweight energy weapon had been set up at the far end of the tunnel behind an improvised barricade. Finally someone was ready for them. Leaving four dead, the advance party quickly retreated to a point where a curve in the tunnel would give them cover.