continued along an unchanged line. The concrete was sloped, slightly but enough to give the tonnes of plasma cannon a will of its own.
'I'm changing sides,' Stephen shouted. The fire at the rear of the big warehouse was bursting containers- clangs, not explosions, but they reverberated loudly within the structure.
The hot, smoky air made Stephen's eyes water and his lungs burn. He'd raised his faceshield because he wanted to save the remaining contents of his air bottle for a real emergency, but he was beginning to think he'd need it before they got out of this
The hard suit chafed Stephen's neck, his hipbone, and his knees. Maybe he should have taken the suit off, but when they entered the warehouse they hadn't been sure how quickly the fire would spread. The armor would have been their only chance of survival if the roof had collapsed. .
'We'll be all right,' Piet gasped. The rhythm of the casters slowed slightly. The four men with Piet and Stephen slacked their efforts as they saw the problem ahead.
Stephen let the dolly rumble past, then walked behind it and around to take his position directly in back of Piet. He'd thought of trotting in front of the gun-and thought of slipping on the concrete, exhausted, and having the dolly upset its load onto him. His hard suit might or might not withstand the shock, but they'd certainly lose the gun tube.
'Easy, now,' Piet warned. Stephen settled his weight against the weapon, then put a little more of his strength into the side thrust with every pace. The dolly hesitated, then slanted 15° to the right; enough to miss the door wedged open by a corpse that had fallen into the track. Stephen stepped back, made sure the dolly would hold its new line, and trekked around to the right side again.
The sunlight beyond was a beckoning dazzle. Smoke rising from the fires in the rear of the building filtered the overhead lights into ruddy glows. The ventilation fans in the roof peaks prevented the haze from filling the warehouse, but they also stirred the flames to greater enthusiasm. The Feds hadn't stored fuel or munitions here, but the packing materials themselves were combustible.
'Watch the lip!' Piet warned. The metal threshold plate was a half-centimeter higher than the concrete to which it was bolted. The front casters hit the plate at a skew angle. The dolly rocked, then righted, and rolled out onto the stabilized earth of the spaceport proper.
A dozen Venerians, several of them gentlemen wearing enameled and polished half armor, were arguing around the 15-cm gun Piet's team had dumped in front of the warehouse before going back for the next one.
'Well, let me tell you, Blassingame!' an officer shouted. 'Even if it had been my men responsible for the fire, I don't have to answer to you about it!'
'Let the whole bloody-' another officer said. The sound of the dolly banging over the threshold made him turn.
'God and His saints!' a sailor who'd sailed with Piet in the past blurted. 'It's the captain!'
The truck that had carried the first two guns to the
His vision cleared suddenly; he recognized Sal. He wished she was-home on Venus, in orbit; anywhere but in this dangerous mare's nest. But he was very glad to see her.
'All right,' Piet said in a hoarse voice. He loosened the turnbuckles clamping the gun to the dolly. 'Everyone on the right side and push.'
'The truck's coming back, sir,' Vanderdrekkan said. He took his place beside the other five men of Piet's team, however, his gauntlets against the plasma cannon.
'It has the winch and shear legs,' Stephen rasped. 'It'll lift as well from the ground as from this dolly.'
'Together,' Piet said. 'Push. .'
The men who'd been gathered in front of the warehouse stepped clear when they saw what was about to happen. A pair of sailors moved to join Piet's team, but they were too late to help and unnecessary anyway. The gun tube rolled off the dolly and crashed to the ground like a meteor impact.
Tsarev pulled the truck around in a U-turn, then backed close to the pair of 15-cm guns. Sal stepped out onto the running board to guide him. She was wearing a helmet but no other protective garb.
'Blassingame,' Piet ordered. 'Take five of these men and get the remaining gun tubes. They're midway down Aisle Three.'
A plasma cannon spoke from far across the field. One of the Venerian ships was shooting at Feds peering over the berm of the military port.
'But it's burning, sir!' Blassingame said in surprise. His family had a small hold in the Maxwell Range, not dissimilar to Eryx where Stephen had been born.
'Then you'd better work fast, hadn't you, man?' Piet said. His tone was even rougher than his throat, very unusual for him. 'The Feds will have time to sift the ashes for anything we miss, so I don't intend to leave them guns that won't be harmed by a fire.'
Blassingame nodded in puzzled agreement. 'Whatever you say, sir,' he said.
Blassingame wasn't one of the squadron's brighter lights, but now as in the past he'd proved himself dependable within his capacities. He pointed to a group of men and said, 'You five, come along now!' He suited his actions to his words by personally wheeling the dolly around to return.
Vanderdrekkan had hopped into the cab. He was trying to raise someone on the truck's radio. He didn't seem to be having any luck because of the varied forms of interference.
Tsarev, Sal, and the three sailors who'd helped push the guns out of the warehouse were looping sashes beneath a tube for the truck's winch to hook. Stephen checked the sling of the rifle that had replaced the flashgun he lost in the gunpit, then knelt to join them.
'Cherwell,' Piet ordered sharply. 'You and the rest of these men load the guns. When you've done that, go into the warehouse and help Blassingame.'
'At once, sir!' Cherwell said, bracing himself to attention. He glared at the men with him and said, 'You heard Factor Ricimer. Get to work!'
'Were your arms amputated, Cherwell?' Stephen heard himself demand in a high, liquid voice. 'Or is it that you don't think anyone who works with his hands can be a gentleman?'
The plain finish of Stephen's hard suit was now dirty gray from condensed metal. Save for his size, he was anonymous at a quick glance. Cherwell, a young gentleman, hadn't noticed Stephen until he spoke.
Cherwell bent to put his weight with the others rolling the plasma cannon over the fiberglass sash. 'I'm not too proud to serve Venus in whatever fashion Factor Ricimer orders,' he said with a simple dignity that raised him several steps in Stephen's estimation.
A party of ten or a dozen sailors trotted by a hundred meters away. They carried cutting bars and firearms, but only a few of them were wearing body armor. Piet shouted to the men-whatever they thought they were doing was less important than getting the last pair of guns out of the warehouse. They couldn't hear over the gunfire and engine noise pulsing across the spaceport like chop on a pond.
Stephen looked at Sal, who'd stepped out of the way when Cherwell's men took over from Piet's team. She was fresh, but handling tonnes of dense ceramic was a job for bulk and peak strength, not endurance and good will.
'Any trouble landing?' he asked inanely. As he spoke, his eyes continued to check his surroundings, and he shifted on his left heel to scan through the helmet locked to the gorget of his hard suit.
'We-' Sal said. She lifted her helmet to wipe her forehead with a bandanna. A roar building within the military port smothered the rest of her sentence.
Plasma billowed over the berm. A cylindrical starship-a moderate-sized freighter, two or three hundred tonnes burden-lifted into sight some distance within the enclosure. The vessel wobbled a little, but it had no forward way on.
A midships hatch was lifted like a wing. There would be a cutter in the hold, ready to take the skeleton crew to safety once the Feds had locked their controls on course for one of the larger Venerian vessels.
'We're going to have to do something about the military port,' Piet said. His voice was clear and calm. Sight of the next task had done more than the few moments of rest to cleanse his body of fatigue.
The featherboat and three large cutters Piet had set to watch for just such an eventuality lifted from the field. Bulging cargo nets on the bows of all four boats were filled with spun-glass matting that would resist the wash of
