Of course—we could use the gun as a weapon. Melt the other parabola and the station’s hardware in the meantime. Why not?
“Quick, up into the control station,” I hissed at Marty over the suit com. “We take our final stand there, in the solar tower.”
“What for?” Marty gawped. “Die high up?”
“Trust me.”
“I’ve trusted you enough already, Rusco.”
“You’ll have to trust me some more.”
“Bullshit. You’re a fucking menace.” He stared at the chaos, cursing with eyes white as gunfire, shouts and death streamed all around us. “You sure?” he grunted.
“No, but what other choice do we have?”
We ripped shells into the detail of men at the base of the solar gun. They dropped one by one. Fire tore by us, but theirs was poorly aimed. Marty was an ace shot, me no less. Between the three of us we took them down, Deidra picking up the stragglers. Damn we were a prime killing machine. Could that woman shoot. The defenders died before they got a chance to aim.
We stormed up the stairs in the vacuum-protected tower to the gun’s control base. Gunfire erupted away somewhere behind us. Some fellows were mighty pissed at our illegal entry. Especially when we should be floating corpses in space. Tough shit.
We scaled the metal-gridded ladder like calfs driven in a stampede. I ripped open the steel door to the control post.
A uniformed man stood gaping at a console overlooking the beryl vessels. He’d been frightened out of his mind at the chaos below. We caught him in mid op while he had been aiming the gun at crucible #4. His mouth gaped wide. “Hey, you bozos, you can’t just waltz in here to a restricted area.”
“Not restricted any more.” I pushed him back. “Show us how to work this thing.”
“You crazy? I’m not just going to—“
I rapped him hard with the end of my rifle.
“Ow! What the fuck? Who the hell are you people?”
“Get it moving pal, west, toward the end of the station. Lift that solar gun away from those loads of beryl. Now!”
“Okay, take it easy.”
He was stalling so I smacked him hard again on the crown. He howled.
“Don’t fuck with me! Do it now or I’ll blast a hole in your head.”
Marty rounded on the operator with a toad’s grin, his R4 tipped at the man’s groin.
The man capitulated then, raised trembling hands. “No need for violence. Okay, I’m doing it.” He adjusted the gun’s trajectory, turning dials with trembling hands. I watched him with a hawk’s glare, waiting for him to dillydally again. I eyed the sequences and noted the intensities and the degrees of shift he used. “Good, Elmer. We’ll take over from here.” I clubbed him hard over the ear and he fell unconscious.
Shots came up from below. “Fuck, what else?” I cried. “You two take care of it.”
Marty pulled Deidra along. Good thing we all had working weapons.
Marty and Deidra clambered down the stairs to the lower level and took up positions at the cross landing. They rained fire into gunmen coming up after us. Like picking off flies.
I hesitated only a second. Any more would have been our doom.
This would be the last time this gun would ever fire for Sharki’s benefit. I trained it at the other parabola far across the length of the station. I kissed goodbye to the shipment on Goliath and any other we might salvage here. Channeling and magnifying solar power thousands of times, the solar beam lashed out to melt the tripod-shaped metal base of the other gun. It disintegrated in a wall of sizzling metal and steam. The structure caught on fire and burst into flames.
The heat blast triggered more explosions, a convulsive chain reaction that ripped along the spine of the station’s superstructure. I hoped Sharki was down there, getting fried.
Thetis Station started to list like a boat at sea. Artificial gravity was going to shit. We floated a few inches off the ground to our startlement, then settled back down again on the metal grates at half our weight.
I swung the gun back to zap the most aggressive of the newcomers who’d slipped through Marty and Deidra’s net. I gave a grim laugh, an ugly sound at the back of my throat. Soon there’d be nothing left of this station. Nothing to stand on. If we were going to die, why not go out with a bang? A crazy smirk crawled across my face. An intoxicating feeling, this wielding of immense power like one of the titans.
I shook the daze out of my head. Zombie talk, Rusco. You’re breathing gas fumes. Get with the program. There are ships down there. In a second you could be making a getaway—why fry to death on this perch?
“Time to get the fuck out of here,” I mumbled to myself.
I herded the other two down the stairs. “Move. Party’s over.” We scrambled down to the base and out across the smoking pad to one of the small carrier ships, an Alpha-messenger craft.
One of its neighbors, a V-Zon went up in flames as a nearby crucible blew, heated beyond measure by our runaway solar gun. It poured hot slag onto the ship’s fuselage.
Marty howled in anguish as a bullet ripped into his left leg. His suit was finished. Heaven help him if this place ever turned to complete vacuum. Already I could hear a roar and hissing in my
