moments away on a pointless argument, though, so I bit back my instinctive response and peered round the Chimera's dozer blade again.
'Something's definitely wrong, here,' I said. These were no panic-stricken routers, fleeing the Astartes: they were advancing swiftly and purposefully from one piece of cover to the next, half of them moving while the rest kept their comrades covered. I pulled my head back behind the thick steel plate just ahead of a blizzard of las-bolts.
'You think?' Mira levelled her lasgun to retaliate, heedless of the state of her powerpack, and I cracked off a few shots of my own in the general direction of the upper floor, certain I'd seen movement up there again. The situation was getting more desperate by the second: it could only be a matter of time before the lurkers above us managed to line up a shot, or the advancing troopers moved round our flanks.
Looking back, we'd probably have been dead, or a great deal worse, in another handful of minutes, had it not been for the surviving rebels in the artillery park. By the grace of the Emperor, they chose that moment to break and run, pelting down the avenue in an inchoate, howling mob, any pretence of military discipline completely forgotten in the desperate rush to save themselves.
'Come on!' I said, grabbing Mira by the arm and making a dash for the open manhole before she had a chance to start arguing again. 'Now's our chance!'
To her credit, she seemed to get the idea, putting on a fair turn of speed for a woman whose usual idea of exercise was probably walking down the corridor to the dining room. Timing was crucial: it would have been ironic to say the least to have been shielded from the las-bolts of our enemies by the bodies of their comrades, only to be trampled to death by the hysterical mob.
As it was, we managed to make it to the hole in the road with no more difficulty than one might expect, despite the risk of twisting an ankle on the rubble-strewn carriageway, cracking off a couple of shots at our most visible enemies as we ran; not with any hope of hitting them, of course, but in the vague hope of preventing them from gunning us down as we emerged. Seeing no point in delaying any more than I had to, I raised my laspistol and chainsword above my head, to keep them from fouling on the manhole's rim, and jumped feet first into the darkness beneath. I was no stranger to this sort of thing, having grown up in the underhive, and was already flexing my knees to absorb the impact as I hit the rockcrete about three metres below. I don't mind admitting it jarred a lot more than I remembered it doing as a juvie, but I remained on my feet, and took a couple of cautious steps to check that my ankles were still where they belonged, instead of having been driven up through my shins like they felt.
'Are you mad?' Mira asked, scrambling down the ladder, the luminator still attached to her lasgun strobing round the narrow chamber, and I shrugged.
'How would I know?' I asked, not really caring to hear her answer. I'd already met enough head cases in the course of my career to have filled an asylum, and every single one of them had thought they were perfectly sane. To my relief, however, Mira disdained to reply, having found something else to get sniffy about.
'Sergeant!' she yelled, raising echoes which chased their way down the tunnels. 'Where are you?'
'Quiet!' I said, the absence of the squad we'd left here beginning to register for the first time. 'Something's very wrong.'
'I can see that,' she said pettishly, the beam of her luminator sweeping round the tunnel at random, which was no help at all. At least there were no visible signs of recent combat, which I supposed was something. 'They should have been waiting for us.' The full seriousness of the situation still seemed not to have registered with her; it was a minor annoyance, on a par with being kept waiting by a tardy chauffeur, that was all.
'We need to get moving,' I said. Whatever had happened to our companions was a mystery which could wait until later. 'That squad will be down here after us at any moment.' As if to punctuate my words, something rattled down the rungs of the ladder, and I started to run down the passageway without further thought. 'Grenade!' I called back over my shoulder.
Fortunately, Mira was fast enough on the uptake when it mattered, and was hard on my heels when the frag charge exploded, peppering the stonework around where we'd been standing a moment before.
'You just left me there!' she squeaked indignantly, once the echoes had died away enough to hear her.
'I warned you,' I snapped back. 'What more do you want? ''Ladies first'' doesn't count on the battlefield.' And a good thing too, if you ask me, otherwise we'd both have been shredded.
Mira stared at me, her mouth working, but stunned into silence for the first time since I'd met her. While my momentary advantage still lasted, I grabbed the barrel of the lasgun[19], and doused the luminator.
'And keep that frakking thing turned off,' I added, 'if you want to get out of here alive.'
I braced myself for the argument I was certain would follow, but our adventures so far seemed to have convinced Mira that playing soldiers was a lot more dangerous than she'd bargained for, and she contented herself with muttering something that sounded like ''peasant''. All in all, I've been called a lot worse in my time, and could certainly live with that.
'Come on,' I said, taking her arm and leading her down a side passage which I could sense nearby from the altered pattern of echoes around it. I suppose it was possible that our pursuers might have given up after chucking their frag grenade down the manhole, but if I was as determined to see someone dead as they seemed to be, I certainly wouldn't be taking anything for granted at that point.
'Where to?' Mira asked, keeping her voice down at least.
'Wherever this leads,' I replied, resisting the temptation to shrug, which she couldn't have seen anyway. There was a faint current of air, which meant that it must come out in the open eventually, or at least connect to somewhere that did. Then I caught the unmistakable sound of running feet in the passageway we'd just left behind us, and tightened my grip on her bicep. 'Freeze.'
At least she had the gumption to comply with that, and we remained immobile as the slapping bootsoles got louder, accompanied by a rising glow, which seeped into our refuge - though not, fortunately, far enough to reach our position. If any of the troopers chasing us had bothered to direct a beam along the side passage they would have nailed us for sure, but luckily they seemed convinced we'd stuck to the main tunnel, and could be caught up with if they just ran fast enough. As the glow and the hurrying footsteps faded away, Mira let out a sigh of relief and sagged against me.
'Who were those people?' she asked.
'I've no idea,' I told her, happy to let her remain there for a minute or two, while I got my bearings and my breath back. Sure we'd eluded our pursuers for the moment, I pulled the slate out of my pocket and checked Orten's map, being sure to keep my back between the passageway behind us and the faint glow of the pict screen. Mira's face shimmered out of the darkness, as she leaned forwards to look at it.
A few seconds' scrutiny was enough to identify the side passage we'd taken refuge in, and my spirits began to lift, at least a little. We hadn't come far, and if we could follow the draught I still felt against my face to the surface, we would come out close enough to the Astartes to link up with them.
'We have to go back,' Mira said, a worried frown just visible on her face as she studied the pictscreen. 'This passage is heading completely the wrong way.'
'It's the right way, if it's taking us away from those troopers,' I told her shortly. 'They'll realise we've given them the slip at any moment, then they'll double back.' This clearly hadn't occurred to her.
'But what about our own people?' she asked. 'Shouldn't we try to find them?'
I shook my head, forgetting the gesture couldn't be seen in the darkness. 'There's no point,' I told her bluntly. 'Something must have happened to them, or they'd still be waiting when we got back. Best case, they spotted some rebels trying to escape along the tunnels and are still trying to chase them down.'
'And worst case, the mutineers found them first,' Mira concluded.
'Right,' I said, not wanting to think too much about that. There was too big a contradiction here, between the disciplined, coordinated troopers who were pursuing us, and the disorganised rabble who'd fortuitously got in their way just when they had us cold.
'Then let's get on with it,' she agreed. 'Can we use the luminator again?'
After a moment, I agreed, reluctantly. We'd make precious little progress without it, the governor's daughter lacking my feel for the labyrinth we'd found ourselves in, and I didn't want to still be here when the squad we'd eluded came back to check the side tunnels. 'For the moment,' I said. 'But keep listening out. The moment we hear movement behind us, I want you to douse it. Clear?'
'Pellucid,' she said, and clicked it on again. The beam revealed the same age-worn brickwork that I'd seen in
