She clamped her hands around the upper ropes for dear life. If she clamped down very hard she could slow her progress, but already she could smell the ropes beginning to melt and fray. She worked one of the foot ropes up by bending herself into a U, but that rope was smoking as well and the bottom of the cable was coming up fast.
She managed to slow herself to what felt like a hurtling speed just as first one of the foot ropes and then the other gave way. Her glove-covered hands were now for all practical purposes the only things on the cable and she slammed onto the end of the cable at nearly twenty miles per hour.
What saved her from a broken back were several variables. The first was that she was near the end of the cable, and the weight of the metal above her had put some "stretch" into the line. Thus it gave a bit when she hit the end. The second was that the security line was designed with a give of one third of its length so a bit more of the energy was absorbed by that design. Last, her harness was well designed and transferred most of the energy up along her spine rather than across it.
That didn't mean it was a good experience, simply survivable. She slammed into the wall, hard, and the only thing that kept her from cracking her head was that her shoulder caught the blow. Of course, her left arm now seemed to be out of commission. It didn't seem like anything was broken, it just wouldn't flex worth a damn.
She dangled on the end of the cable for moment and just moaned.
"Are you okay?" Shari asked from ten feet above her.
"No, I'm not okay," Wendy croaked. "I'm alive and . . ." she moved her arms and legs, "everything seems to be working. But 'okay' is not how I'd phrase it."
"I saw a Posleen up there," Shari whispered.
"That damned Postie is about a thousand feet above us, Shari," Wendy said. "And two hundred feet across. If my scream on the way down didn't attract his attention, talking in normal tones isn't going to do it."
"You didn't scream," Shari said.
"I didn't?" Wendy asked. "I could have sworn I screamed."
"Nope, just fell past mostly in silence," Shari said. "I was really impressed. You might have been cursing, I couldn't tell."
"Shari?" Wendy asked, pulling herself up with her functional arm and wincing at the strap bruises.
"Yes?"
"Start winching me up or I'll climb up there and so help me God I'll eat your heart."
* * *
Elgars checked both ways on the main corridor and stepped out carefully. The flickering blue sprite leading her bobbed up and down in the air, maintaining a strict ten-foot separation as it led the way to Hydroponics.
The corridor was wide and high with a tram-track running down the center and oversized doors on both sides stretching off into the distance. It also was deserted. She had always noted that there were fewer people in the lower areas of the Urb, but with the Posleen intrusion this sector seemed to have emptied out completely.
She shifted her burden and took a deep breath. The trip to this point had been relatively uneventful, but nerve-wracking nonetheless. And the weight of all the weapons and ammunition was beginning to wear her down; it was at least her body weight of gear if not more.
She trotted clumsily across the corridor, carefully using the crossing points on the tram-track, and over to the twenty foot high door marked "Hydroponics." To the right was a personnel-sized door with a palm pad identifier. She shifted her massive load to get a free hand and slapped the pad.
"Name?" the security system intoned.
"Sandra Ells . . ." She stopped and shook her head for a moment, her eyes widening and a shiver going down her back. "Anne Elgars. Captain, Ground Forces," she said, panting slightly from startlement as much as the exertion.
The door opened smoothly and she bent down and shoved a combat knife into the juncture; it was a blast door—the entire wall was heavy duty blasplas—but with six inches of Gerber steel in the crack it wasn't going anywhere.
She heaved herself to her feet and stumbled into the interior.
This was clearly an entrance for hydroponics personnel. The room was large, sixty feet or so deep and forty across, with lockers down both walls and a deserted security stand against the far wall. The room was filled with benches and tables and there were open wall-lockers and a scattering of personal items on the tables as if the place had been hurriedly evacuated.
She dumped her gear on the nearest table and straightened out her combat harness. She knew that she had to hold the fort until Wendy and Shari got there, but other than that she was at loose ends. Since wasting time in this situation didn't make any sense to her, she started laying out the guns and ammunition, readying the combat harnesses and making small packs for the older kids to wear.
That only took five minutes or so and when she was done Wendy and Shari still hadn't turned up. She wasn't worried, the situation was a simple binary solution set. If Shari and Wendy turned up before she got overrun holding the door, they would all leave together. If not she'd die here. She didn't like the children very much and she could take or leave Shari. But Wendy was the only friend she had; if she left her she would be all alone, without memories and without a purpose. There wouldn't be much point in leaving. Besides, she knew Wendy would do the same for her.
She watched the door calmly for a few minutes, considering her options, then decided that it was not a good use of her time. Keeping one eye on the door she started going through the open lockers, looking for anything useful.
She found a few candy bars and snacks, a few small tools that might or might not come in handy and, most importantly, a physical map of the hydroponics section. She wasn't sure that sprites would work in the area; they tended to stay to the main routes rather than the back ways the group was going to prefer.
At the end of the lockers along the right hand wall was a box of hazardous material suits and three cases of general respirators. She took one of the suits and filled it with the smallest respirators she could find and a selection of the hazardous waste suits; if they were available to personnel, there was probably a reason. Then she plucked out three of the masks for the adults. The respirators were an emergency type that could filter just about any toxin for fifteen minutes; she suspected that they would come in handy.
Elgars walked back to the front, dropped her acquisitions, peeked back out the door and frowned. There still wasn't anyone around. She wasn't impatient, exactly, just well aware of the need for speed. As she started to duck back into the room she heard a racket of railgun fire down the cross-corridor; the Posleen had arrived first.
She knelt in the doorway and trained the AIW towards the opening of the cross-corridor. As the first Posleen came into sight, she heard a splintering sound to her right. Sparing a brief glance in that direction she saw a portion of the wall shatter and Wendy step into the main corridor.
* * *
Wendy spotted Elgars just as the grenade launcher of the AIW chugged. She cursed and pulled Billy through the hole in the wall.
"Go!" she said, pointing at the entrance where Elgars kneeled.
The boy nodded his head and sprinted across the corridor, carefully keeping to the crossing points of the tram-track, but not slowing or stopping at all.
"What's going on?" Shari asked, pushing children through the opening.
"What do you think?" the younger woman snapped. "Elgars took care of the first scouts, but we have to move."
"Get over there," Shari said. "I'll push them through. You go get a gun or something."
* * *
Elgars nodded to the boy as he skidded through the doorway. "Left wall," she said, with a gesture of her chin. "Grab the smallest pistol and the three boxes of ammunition by it then line up against the wall. Make sure the other kids line up with you."
Billy picked himself up off the floor and darted to the table, grabbing the Glock and the boxes of .45 ammunition.