'I'm on it, One!' Valkyrie responded. 'Goodbye and God bless you!' I knew she was hurling herself blindly right at the O somewhere down that hopeless alley, a magnificent suicide for us all. I wondered briefly if any of us would survive. And then the alley erupted and a glittering blast of superhot burning gas hit us like the fist of a mighty god, and I fired, auto canister, right into Hell.
###
The relentless river of starmass faltered, briefly. I spotted a glimmer of flickering white light and hurled myself at it, frantic to escape the certain death that enveloped us. I fell in a tangle of A-suited bodies on a massive smoking hunk of cenite that dropped out from the wall. Twister had lasered a section of the alley wall and Gildron had kicked it out. We were out of the alley, wreathed in smoke and flames, our A-suits glowing white-hot. Gildron, Tara, Twister—all there.
'I can't move!' Twister, on her back. Gildron fired canister back into the flaming hell from which we had just escaped. We were bathed in white light. I looked up. A ceiling of glassy vertical tubes dangling from above, swirling madly in the hot air rushing up from our position.
'Critical A-suit failures!' Sweety informed me. 'Major hydraulics failure, total right leg movement lock, total darksight failure, weapons systems guidance disintegrating, tacmod failing, tacnet failing, numerous penetrations, surface resistance down by half, damage to forty-six percent of all systems, I cannot guarantee the continued functioning of your A-suit, Thinker!'
Tinkling—those glass tubes above us, tinkling, an eerie crystal sea up on the ceiling. Twister screamed. Tara pulled her away from that jagged, flaming hole.
'Don't fail me, Sweety! Do what you can!'
'The enemy is approaching!'
'Oh scut!' The tacmap was a glowing, swirling mess—worthless. I snatched at a psybloc grenade and tossed it toward the hole as we retreated. Sweety was right—my right leg was frozen. I could not move it. I crawled backwards like a crab, firing canister into the hole. I caught a glimpse of Gildron standing over Tara like a great metal god, firing auto canister. Tara was dragging a helpless Twister along the floor. I had no idea where we were—thick smoke swirled all around us, and all I could see was that unearthly ceiling, writhing like an undersea forest.
'Leave me, guys,' Twister choked out. 'I'm done for, but I can still fire. Leave me! Get the ship!'
'Screw the ship!' I snapped. 'We're staying! Tara…' I was against a wall. I backed into a little alcove—I'd be able to cover the others from there. And suddenly the floor spun and a door snapped shut, and I was rising—rising! An elevator! I had backed into an elevator! I leaned against one wall, raising my E. One side of the elevator was transparent—it shot upwards and the O's glassy city was outside, burning brightly from our attack. My skin crawled, but nobody appeared to notice me. I was in one of those vertical tubes running up the outside of a column building—on my way to the top! The elevator filled with smoke from my A-suit.
'Tara, it's an elevator!' I exclaimed. 'I'm going up! Take the elevator! Do you hear me, acknowledge!'
Silence. The door snapped open suddenly. An O stood there, right in the doorway.
For one horrifying frozen fraction of time I stared at it, and it stared at me. And in that fleeting instant its image was burnt onto my retina and my brain for all time, and wild fragments of thought darted through my mind. The O loomed over me like a living monolith—no mags, only naked greenish-black flesh, slightly moist, long skeletal arms with joints in strange places, a huge concave chest, and the face—split in two, a ridged skull with cold wet eyes. A wide mouth, opening in agonizing fractions of time, needle teeth, one spotted hand coming up slowly, spidery jointed fingers—no mags!
I fired auto canister just as the blast of its psypower hit me. At that range, my psybloc was not effective, and I took it full on.
The O exploded, splattering me with its awful gore. I collapsed inside the elevator, twitching and screaming. The O's psypower scrambled my brain. My E lay on the floor, smoking. The O squirmed outside in its death throes. The canister and x had worked—the creature was not in armor and did not have its mags up. Without the mag force field, it was doomed. I struggled to recover my wits. My muscles were all shaking. I picked up the E and crawled out of the elevator into that awful mess, right into the dying O. It raised one arm, and the skeletal fingers twitched. I pulled a psybloc grenade from the half-melted pack at my waist and tossed it blindly to one side. It exploded. I was going to run out of grenades soon.
'Enemy approaching! Recommend…' I crawled forward. My faceplate was blistered—I was almost blind. Darkness, ahead—shelter, escape. I scrambled forward, sliding down a slight incline in the dark. A ceiling of black cenite pressed down on my A-suit. My helmet scraped against it. I was wedged between two great slabs of metal. I crawled, my armor screeching its objections. I rolled another psybloc grenade ahead of me. It exploded, crackling phospho hot, lighting it all up: the cenite ceiling, burnt black, mils from my armor.
'Hydraulics weakening! Total hydraulics failure expected soon!'
'Then we do it manually, Sweety!' I had tried it once, in training. It was damned near impossible, even when nobody was trying to kill you.
'Tacnet failing!'
'Give me some good news, Sweety!'
'Negative, Thinker. Except for the Ship.'
'What about the Ship?'
'We have reached the Ship, Three. You are under the Ship.'
The Ship! I reached up one armored hand and touched the gritty, blackened surface—the Ship! That's what it was! I had crawled under the Ship! Deadman save us!
'Tara, Thirteen, One, Three! I'm at the Ship! Tara, get on that elevator, it leads to the Ship, acknowledge!'
'Enemy presence! I'm releasing deceptors!' Sweety informed me. They cracked all around me, flashing, blinding me momentarily. My faceplate was scarred and blistered—the polarization and darksight were both gone. Sweety had zeroed the O. I crawled away from it frantically. Even using all my strength, I could barely move the arms of my A-suit .
The world exploded in flame all around me, starmass running over my armor hissing and spitting, the kiss of death. I crawled blindly, terrified.
'Armor is fusing, Three!' Canister fire, auto x, crashing in my ears. And suddenly Gildron roared and Tara was shrieking commands. The fire flickered and died. I collapsed in a glowing A-suit, black smoke swirling all around me.
'Enemy presence! I detect…'
'Tara! Gildron!' I shouted. 'Get under the Ship! Crawl to me! Do it!' I was under an access hatch. The smoke had swirled away just for an instant and there it was, right above me, surely placed by the Gods. A great rectangular cenite hatch, firmly closed. But there was a little panel with a recessed slot. I could barely make it out. I pawed at it with my smoking cenite fingers without result.
'Get this open, Sweety!'
'We're coming, Thinker!' Tara exclaimed. 'There's another O out there!' A wild burst of canister x, the flashes lighting up the underside of the ship. We had only instants to live.
'Laser the lock, Thinker!' Sweety urged me. 'No time for techprobe!' I dragged my E up toward the lock jerkily, the arms of my A-suit almost beyond my control. I slammed the barrel into the slot, snapped the controls to laser, and fired. The hatch snapped open, leaving a gaping hole.
'Wester!' Tara crawled toward me like an armored lizard. Gildron was behind her, firing his E again, auto x. I didn't want to know what happened to Twister. I looked up—the doorway was open! And the Ship was above. I forced myself to my knees, my head in the opening.
It was dark up there—I could see the gleam of oiled cenite. I clutched my E and set it to canister x. There were little recesses set in the cenite—handholds, footholds, a stairway to the stars for unwelcome guests. I reached out a hand and grasped the first hold. My chron read 0915 local, exact.
'One, Three,' I reported. 'Cinta, Gildron, Three are entering the Ship. Repeat, we're entering the Ship! Goodbye and God protect you!' And as I clambered up into the Ship, my blood was ice cold in my veins and I swore to Deadman that we would take the Ship for the Legion, or die.
###
'It's an airlock—and this door is not going to open until the other one closes!' We were facing a tall, firmly-
