“Well, I’m not sure I’ll tell anybody we did it,” Wendy answered. “Assuming we live to get out of here. But, no, we’re not nuts.”
“You must be,” Shari said angrily, looking around the room. “You can’t blow this place up! There are survivors all through the Urb!”
“It took them four years to retake the Rochester Urb,” Wendy pointed out. “The estimate is that after two weeks there will be less than two hundred survivors and I think that is being generous; I’d say less than two. Compare that to the Posleen losses if the whole Urb comes down on them; there are probably fifty or sixty thousand Posleen in this place right now.”
“You can’t blow the whole thing up anyway,” Shari countered. “It’s designed to survive a close explosion of a nuclear weapon.”
“It’s designed to be hit from the outside, lass,” Elgars answered. “The supports aren’t designed to take side damage. Plus the bleeding bombs will start fires; lots of them. If the Posleen aren’t all burned out they will still weaken the supports and the whole thing will come down.”
Shari looked at Elgars with a sidelong expression. “What bombs? And why do you have an English accent?”
“She’s channeling a Brit,” Wendy said. “Probably one of their demo experts. And the bombs are all the tanks; each of them is filled with ammonium nitrate fuel oil bombs.”
“They look like… gray gunk,” Shari said.
“Don’t worry, it’s a bomb,” Wendy said. “A big enough one that it’s going to gut the whole Urb and any Posleen that are in it.”
“And all the human survivors,” Shari said.
“And all the human survivors,” Wendy agreed.
“That’s sick,” the older woman spat.
“No, it’s war,” Wendy answered coldly. “You remember where we came from?”
“I survived Fredericksburg,” Shari snapped. “And there will be people who would survive this! But not if you detonate that bomb!”
“What was important about Fredericksburg was that it gave the Posleen a seriously bloody nose!” Wendy snapped back. “After that, they knew we could and would fuck them at every opportunity. With this we’re going to cut the head off of their advance and take out a sizable chunk of their force. And that is worth the casualties. Worth the dead. In war, people die. Good people and bad people. If I thought most of them would survive, no, we wouldn’t detonate the bomb. But almost all of them are going to die in these tunnels and be turned into rations. Not. On. My. Watch.”
“So are you going to stick around to be blown up?” Shari asked bitterly.
“Hell no!” Wendy said. “I’m going to get the fuck out, if I can. And bring you and the kids with me! And we’re setting the bomb for six hours from…”
“About four minutes ago, actually,” Elgars said, looking at the controls. “So I suggest you ladies get this discussion done.”
“Shit,” Shari said quietly. “Okay, okay. Let’s go.” She looked upwards to the rest of the Urb and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t die in Section A,” Wendy said, putting her hand on Shari’s shoulder. “That would have been… clean. But we’re going to fuck up the Posleen, and that’s the bottom-line.”
“Well, you two can talk about it all you’d like,” Elgars said, heading for the far door. “But I’m getting the hell out of Dodge.”
“Agreed,” Wendy said, following her. “Agreed.”
Shari took one more look at the controls and turned to follow the other two as the north door opened up.
The Posleen normal took one look at the three women and started trotting down the swaying catwalk, burbling a cry as it pulled its railgun around.
Wendy turned and let out a shout as she pulled her MP-5 to the front.
“NO!” Elgars yelled, ripping the submachine gun from her hands. “This whole place would go up!”
“Eat nitrogen, asshole!” Shari shouted, firing a stream of the cryogenic liquid at the catwalk and the Posleen.
The normal paused to look at the liquid flying in a foaming arch. It seemed confused as to why the thresh would spray white liquid all over the walkway. But as the catwalk began to shatter from tension and brittleness the Posleen let loose a stream of railgun rounds then fell screaming into the ammonia tank.
“Oh crap,” Wendy said, getting up from having thrown herself on the floor. “Ah, hell, Shari.”
Shari was lying on her back, hands clamped over her stomach, with blood pouring through the catwalk and onto the floor below.
Wendy walked over and rolled her onto her stomach, exposing the massive exit wound of the railgun round.
“Aaaahhh,” the older woman yelled in pain. “Oh, God! Wendy, I can’t feel anything from my waist down.”
“That’s because it went right through your spine,” Wendy said sadly. She put a pressure bandage in place and waved for Elgars to come over. “Put your hand on that.”
“We need to leave,” Elgars said, putting pressure on the bandage.
“Yep,” Wendy answered. “And we will, in just a moment.” She ripped open a Hiberzine injector and applied it to Shari’s neck.
“What’s that?”
“Hiberzine,” Wendy said. “I can’t move you awake like this.”
“I don’t want to be out,” Shari panted. “The kids need me.”
“Not with a great damned hole through you they don’t,” Elgars replied. “You’re not going to be doing them any favors screaming every time we move you.”
“We’re nearly to the elevator,” Wendy said desperately. “We can get you out; getting you up to the surface won’t be that hard.”
“Oh, God,” Shari said, her lips turning blue and going cold. “I can’t die now.”
“You won’t,” Wendy promised. She jammed the Hiberzine injector against her neck and watched as the woman went limp. Her color improved almost immediately as the nannites directed blood to the brain. In moments her face was flushed and her tongue protruded horribly.
“Okay, let’s go,” Elgars said.
“Fuck that,” Wendy answered. “We need to find a medical facility and a stretcher.” She pulled out the medical pack and withdrew some clamps. “If I can put her together even a bit the Hiberzine will keep her from bleeding out while we move her.”
“We can’t operate on her!” Elgars snapped. “We have six hours to get out of this place or we’ll all be jelly. We have to leave.”
“WE ARE NOT LEAVING HER!” Wendy screamed coming to her feet and putting herself nose to nose with the soldier. “NOT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
Elgars met her stare for stare, but after a moment she backed off. “Most of the Class One facilities are where there are people. And there’s not much we can do, unless you’ve been taking night courses as a trauma internist.”
“We can stabilize her,” Wendy said, waving at the console. “Go find a medical facility, one that won’t have the Posleen all over it.”
“This is impossible,” Elgars said, shaking her head. But she keyed in the information request anyway, asking for the nearest full-scale medical facility. Strangely, the database asked her for her username and password. Keying both in, it noted that there was a Class One Plus facility only three quadrants away. The map showed it as being carved out of the wall of the main sector.
“There’s a facility practically next door,” Elgars said. “That door that didn’t appear on the map you downloaded? It’s the way into the facility.”
“Well, then we’re fucked,” Wendy cursed. “We can’t open it.”