By now his eyes had adjusted to the gloom. Enough to see that the man was dead, shot through the cheek, his jaw hanging askew and pasted onto his face with dried gore. Enough to see that he was wearing a Vardic uniform. Enough to see that he was one of theirs.
He heard a sound: sharp and hard, like someone stepping on a branch. The voices of his crew, suddenly raised in a clamour.
With a cold flood of nausea, he realised what was happening. Panic plunged in on him, and he bolted, running for the only safety he knew. Running for the Ketty Jay.
As he rounded the corner of the house, he saw Kenham lying face down next to a sundered crate. Jodd was backing away from the trenches, firing his revolver at the men that were clambering out of them. Rifle-wielding Dakkadians: two dozen or more. Small, blond-haired, faces broad and eyes narrow. They’d hidden when they heard the Ketty Jay approaching. Perhaps they’d even had time to throw the bodies of the dead Vards into the trenches. Now they were springing their ambush.
Rabby and Martley were fleeing headlong towards the Ketty Jay, as Frey was. There was fear on their faces.
One of the Dakkadians fell back into the trench with a howl as Jodd scored a hit, but their numbers were overwhelming. Three others sighted and shot him dead.
Frey barely registered Jodd’s fate. The world was a bouncing, jolting agony of moment after moment, each one bringing him a fraction closer to the gaping mouth of the Ketty Jay’s cargo ramp. His only chance was to get inside. His only chance to live.
Dakkadian rifles cracked and snapped. Their targets were Rabby and Martley. Several of the soldiers had broken into a sprint, chasing after them. A shout went up in their native tongue as someone spotted Frey, racing towards the Ketty Jay from the far side. Frey didn’t listen. He’d blocked out the rest of the world, tightened himself to a single purpose. Nothing else mattered but getting to that ramp.
Bullets chipped the turf around them. Martley stumbled and rolled hard, clutching his upper leg, screaming. Rabby hesitated, broke stride for the briefest moment, then ran on. The Dakkadians pulled Martley down as he tried to get up, then began stabbing him with the double-bladed bayonets on the end of their rifles. Martley’s shrieks turned to gurgles.
The cargo ramp drew closer. Frey felt the sinister brush of air as a bullet barely missed his throat. Rabby was running up the hill, yelling as he came. Two Dakkadians were close behind him.
Frey’s foot hit the ramp. He fled up to the top and pulled the lever to raise it. The hydraulic struts hummed into life.
Outside, he heard Rabby’s voice. ‘Lower the ramp! Cap’n! Lower the bloody ramp!’
But Frey wasn’t going to lower the ramp. Rabby was too far away. Rabby wasn’t going to make it in time. Rabby wasn’t getting anywhere near this aircraft with those soldiers hot on his heels.
‘Cap’n!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t you leave me here!’
Frey tapped in the code that would lock the ramp, preventing it from being opened from the keypad on the outside. That done, he drew his revolver and aimed it at the steadily closing gap at the end of the ramp. He backed up until he bumped against one of the supply crates that hadn’t yet been unloaded. The rectangle of burning sunlight shining through the gap thinned to a line.
‘Cap’n! ’
The line disappeared as the cargo ramp thumped closed, and Frey was alone in the quiet darkness of the cargo hold, safe in the cold metal womb of the Ketty Jay.
The Dakkadians had overrun this position. Navy intelligence had screwed up, and now his crew was dead. Those bastards! Those rotting
