hole in the accommodation section as though it was about to enter a garage, when he heard firing.
He ran through the corridor leading to the rear of the section, readying his gun. “What is it." he said into his helmet mike.
“Laser. Down the tunnel, from the shafts," Yalson’s voice said. He ran into the open store-room area where the others were.
The hole they
had opened in the plastic boarding was four or five meters wide. As soon as Horza came through from the corridor,
flame splashed from the
wall alongside him, and he saw the brief airglows of lasertracks just to one side of his suit, leading
back through the gap in the wall and down
the tunnel. Obviously whoever was doing the shooting could see him. He rolled to
one side and came up by Dorolow and Balveda, who were
sheltering by a large portable winch. Holes burst through the wall of
plastic boards, burning brightly, then going out. The whoop of laser-fire
echoed down the tunnels.
“What happened." Horza said, looking at Dorolow. He looked around the storage area. The rest were all there, taking cover
where they
could, apart from Yalson.
“Yalson went—" Dorolow began; then Yalson’s voice cut in:
“I came through the hole in the wall and got shot at. I’m lying on the ground. I’m OK, but I’d like to know if it’s all right
to fire back. I won’t
damage anything, will I."
“Fire!" Horza yelled, as another fan of glowing tracks spattered a line of burning craters over the inside wall of the store
room. “Fire back!"
“Thanks," Yalson said. Horza heard the woman’s gun snap, then the dopplered echo of sound produced by superheated air. Explosions
crashed from down the tunnel. “Hmm," Yalson said.
“Think that’s got—" Neisin said from the far side of the storage area. His voice cut off as more fire slammed into the wall
behind him. The
wall was pockmarked with dark, bubbling holes.
“Bastard!" Yalson said. She fired back, in short, rapid bursts.
“Keep his head down," Horza told her. “I’m coming forward to the wall. Dorolow, stay here with Balveda." He got up and ran
to the edge of
the hole in the plastic boards. Smoking holes in the material showed how little protection it afforded, but
he knelt there in its cover anyway. He
could see Yalson’s feet a few meters out into the tunnel, spread on the smooth fused
floor. He listened to her gun firing, then said, “Right. Stop
long enough to let me see where it’s coming from, then hit it
again."
“OK." Yalson stopped firing. Horza stuck his head out, feeling incredibly vulnerable, saw a couple of tiny sparks far down
the tunnel and off
to one side. He brought the gun up and fired continually; Yalson’s started again as well. His suit chirped;
a screen lit up by his cheek, showing
he’d been hit on the thigh. He couldn’t feel anything. The side of the tunnel, far down
at the elevator shafts, pulsated with a thousand sparks of
light.
Neisin appeared at the other side of the gap in the boards, kneeling like Horza and firing his projectile rifle. The side
of the tunnel detonated
with flashes and smoke; shock waves blew up the tunnel, shaking the plastic boarding and ringing in
Horza’s ears.
“Enough!" he shouted. He stopped firing. Yalson stopped. Neisin put in one final burst, then stopped, too. Horza ran out through
the gap,
across the dark rock floor of the tunnel outside and over to the side wall. He flattened himself there, getting some
cover from the slight
protrusion of a blast door’s edge further down the tunnel.
Where their target had been, there was a scatter of dull red shards lying on the tunnel floor, cooling from the yellow heat
of the laserfire
which had torn them from the wall. On the helmet nightsight, Horza could see a series of rippling waves of
warm smoke and gas flowing silently
under the roof of the tunnel from the damaged area.
“Yalson, get over here," he said. Yalson rolled over and over until she bumped into the wall just behind him. She got quickly
to her feet and
flattened out beside him. “I think we got it," Horza broadcasted. Neisin, still kneeling at the gap in the
boarding, looked out, the rapid-fire micro-
projectile rifle waving to and fro as though its owner expected a further attack
from out of the tunnel walls.
Horza started forward, keeping his back to the wall. He got to the edge of the blast door. Most of its meter-thick bulk was
stowed in its
recess in the wall, but about half a meter protruded. Horza looked down the tunnel again. The wreckage was still
glowing, like hot coals
scattered on the tunnel floor. The wave of hot black smoke passed overhead, wafting slowly up the
tunnel. Horza looked to his other side.
Yalson had followed him. “Stay here," he said.
He walked down the side of the wall to the first of the elevator shafts. They had been firing at the third and last one, judging
by the grouping
of the craters and scars all around its open, buckled doors. Horza saw a half-melted laser carbine lying in
the middle of the tunnel floor. He
poked his head out from the wall, frowning.
Right on the very lip of the elevator shaft, between the scarred and holed doors, surrounded by a sea of dull, red-glowing
wreckage, he was
sure he could see a pair of hands—gloved, stubby-fingered, injured (one finger was missing from the glove
nearer him), but hands without a
doubt. It looked like somebody was hanging inside the shaft by the tips of their fingers.
He focused the tight beam of his communicator, aiming
in the direction he was looking at. “Hello." he said in Idiran. “Medjel.
Medjel in the elevator shaft. Do you hear me. Report at once."
The hands didn’t move. He edged closer.
“What was it." Wubslin’s voice came through the speakers.
“Just a moment," Horza said. He went closer, rifle ready. One of the hands moved slightly, as though trying to get a better
grip on the lip of
the tunnel floor. Horza’s heart thudded. He went toward the tall open doors, his feet crunching on the
warm debris. He saw semisuited arms as
he went closer, then the top of a long, laser-scarred helmet—
With a rasping noise he had heard medjel make when they charged during a battle, a third hand—he knew it was a foot, but it
looked like a
hand and it was holding a small pistol—flashed up from the elevator shaft at the same time as the medjel’s head
looked up and out, straight at
him. He started to duck. The pistol cracked, its plasma bolt missing him by only a few centimeters.
Horza shot quickly, ducking and going to one side. Fire blew out all around the lip of the elevator, smashing into the gloves.
With a scream
the gloved hands vanished. Light flickered briefly in the circular shaft. Horza ran foward, stuck his head between
the doors and looked down.
The dim shape of the falling medjel was lit by the guttering fire still burning on its suit gloves. Somehow it still held
the plasma pistol; as it fell,
screaming, it fired the small weapon, the cracks of its shots and the flashes from the bolts
drawing further away as the creature holding it, firing
it, whirled, its six limbs flailing, down into the darkness.
“Horza!" Yalson shouted. “Are you all right. What the fuck was that."
“I’m fine," he said. The medjel was a tiny, wriggling shape, deep in the shaft’s tunnel of vertical night. Its screams still
echoed, the
microscopic sparks of its burning hands and the firing plasma pistol still flaring. Horza looked away. A few small
thuds recorded the hapless
creature’s contact with the sides of the shaft as it dropped.
“What’s that
noise.
" Dorolow said.
“The medjel was still alive. It shot at me, but I got it," Horza told them, walking away from the open elevator doors. “It
fell—it’s still falling—
down the elevator shaft."
“Shit!" breathed Neisin, still listening to the faint, fading, echoing screams. “How deep is that."
“Ten kilometers, if none of the blast doors are shut," Horza said. He looked at the external controls for the other two lifts
and the transit
capsule entrance. They had escaped more or less undamaged. The doors leading to the transit tubes were open.
They had been closed when
Horza inspected the area earlier.