Taylor plunged back into the smoke.
The acridity drew tears from his eyes and he had to shut them. He held his breath. Feeling his way like a blind diver, all he could sense was heat.
Suddenly the latch was under his hand, hot and firm. He yanked it, breaking open fresh blisters. The gear had shaken loose in the crash, and a falling shovel nearly struck his head. Just in time, he caught it by the handle.
There was no more time. He felt the dizziness welling up. Coming over him the way a blanket came down over a child. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to surrender to it.
Taylor stumbled back out into the snow, falling to his knees and dry-retching. His eyes burned and he could barely see through the forced tears. He dropped his head and shoulders into the snow, trying to cleanse himself of the smoke and heat. When he tried to rise, he stumbled.
On the horizon he could just make out Merry carrying a body over his shoulder.
Taylor forced himself to his feet. He rounded the side of the wreck at a dizzy trot, hugging the shovel to him. Mercifully, the fire seemed to be spreading very slowly; the resistant materials in the M-l00's composition were doing their job.
The NCO had his back to Taylor, assault rifle held up in the position of a man who wished he had a target at which to fire. As Taylor came up beside him the NCO jumped backward, as if he had seen a great snake.
The man crumpled, still holding fast to his weapon as the snow all around him splashed scarlet.
He was dead. Lying openeyed and openmouthed in the storm. More bullets nicked at the wreck, rustling the air above the crackle of the flames.
Still dazed from all the smoke he had drunk, Taylor wrenched the rifle from the NCO's hands and raised it to send a warning burst out into the whiteness. But the weapon clicked empty.
Taylor slapped the man's body, searching the pockets for additional magazines. The man had been working with his battle harness stowed for comfort, and he had come outside without it. Now there was no more ammunition to be found.
Taylor discarded the rifle and drew the pistol from his shoulder holster. There were no targets, but he fired anyway, two shots, as a warning. Then he shoved the pistol back into its leather pocket and picked up the shovel again. Slipping in the snow and mud, he ran at the cockpit, swing the tool with all his might.
It only bounced off the transparent armor of the windscreen.
He smashed at the barrier again. And again. Then he drove the blade as hard as he could into the synthetic material.
It was useless. The windscreen had been built to resist heavy machine gun fire. His efforts were ridiculous.
But you had to try, you had to try.
A single round punched the nose of the aircraft beside Taylor's head. He dropped to his knees, discarding the shovel and drawing his pistol again. What the hell, he thought furiously. If it's got to end here, so be it. But it's going to cost the sonsofbitches.
A burst of fire erupted just behind him. But his old warrior's ear recognized the sound as coming from a friendly weapon. The sharp, whistling signature of his own kind. Then he glimpsed Meredith coming up low along the side of the wreck, automatic rifle in his hands.
The younger man was short of breath when he got to Taylor's position. 'Come on, sir,' he begged. 'We've got to get out of here.'
'The pilot,' Taylor said adamantly.
'For God's
Yes, The smoke. Better smoke than fire. The smoke would even have been welcome, in a way.
A sudden volley played an ashcan symphony on the side of the wreck.
'Let's get the hell out of here,' Meredith said.
Yes, Taylor realized. Meredith was right. There was no more point to it. It had become an empty gesture. And it was only results that mattered.
They would all be waiting for him. He knew that Krebs would never lift off without him. Even if it meant that everyone on board perished. And he did not want to be responsible for any more unnecessary deaths.
A part of him still could not leave the site.
Meredith fired two shots out into the blowing whiteness, then followed them with a third.
Meredith With his wife and a golden future waiting for him,
'All right,' Taylor said with sudden decisiveness He reached for the dead NCO and ripped off the man's microchip dog tag. 'Let's give them another couple of rounds, then run like hell.'
'You got it,' Meredith said.
The two of them rose slightly and fired into the storm, wielding a rifle and a pistol hardly bigger than a man's hand against the menace of a continent.
The two men ran sliding through the sodden snow that ringed the heat of the wreck. Meredith was well in the lead by the time they rounded the aft end of the downed M-100. He turned and raised his rifle again, covering Taylor
They took off on a straight line for the dark outline of the command ship. The big rotors churned the sky in readiness. The underlying rumble of the engine promised salvation.
Krebs had seen them coming He had increased the power to the upended rotors and soon the noise was so loud that Taylor could no longer hear the rounds chasing him. Up ahead, the M-100 began to buck like an anxious horse Then Krebs steadied it again
Taylor ran as hard as he could. I don't want to get shot in the goddamned back, he thought. Not in the goddamned back.
The M-100 grew bigger and bigger, filling up Taylor s entire horizon.
His lungs ached.
'Come
He hated to leave the bodies. There was enough guilt already. Enough for a long, long lifetime.
Not in the back, he prayed, running the last few yards.
He felt Meredith's arms dragging him up into the hatch.
Krebs began lifting off before Meredith and Taylor could finish closing the hatch behind them. The ground faded away before their eyes. The universe swirled white. Then the hatch cover slammed back into place.
The two men dropped exhaustedly onto their buttocks, cramped in the tiny gangway. They looked at each other wordlessly, each man assuring himself that the other had not been touched by the send-off bullets. They were both covered with grime and with the blood of other men, and Meredith's eyebrows and close-cropped hair bore a fringe of snow that made him look as though he had been gotten up for an old man's part in a high school play. As Taylor watched, the S-2 wiped at the melting snow with a hand that left a bloody smear in its wake.
Taylor flexed his burned paw. Not too bad. Slap on a little ointment.
The M-100 climbed into the sky.
Taylor dropped his head back against the inner wall of the passageway, breathing deeply in an effort to purge his lungs of smoke and gas.
'Aw, shit,' he said.
They had to gain sufficient standoff distance before they could use the main armament to destroy the remainder of the wreck. The Gatling gun would never have penetrated the composite armor. While they were gaining altitude, Meredith gave Taylor the rest of the bad news. Of the soldiers carried out of the rear compartment, only the shocked boy and one evident concussion case were alive. The remainder of the light squad of dragoons had died, victims either of the impact or of smoke inhalation. The command M-100 bore a cargo of corpses down in its compact storage hold.
