“There’s no way I’m le—”
“Do you think I can get her out?” he shouted at me. “Huh? When I’m fucking bleeding to death? Shit! Now promise me and get the fuck out of here!”
I looked at his face, at the door, at the bomb.
“Promise me!” he screamed. “Promise me!”
“I promise,” I whispered.
And then he shouted, “Now leave!”
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Brandon. “What if he faints? What if he can’t—”
“Do you want to stay with him?” I snapped.
“I don’t think—”
“That’s right, you don’t think! So just shut up.”
Suddenly Fingers lifted his head and started screaming, “They opened a hole in the lightwall! I tied-in with a Red watching it. We gotta blow this thing now or all the ships are going to get through before it can re-form!”
“Get out of here, goddamn it!” shouted Simon. “Go! Go!”
“Give us ten seconds, then blow it,” Pierre said to Simon, his voice soft, aching. And then we were all retreating, barreling back through the door, down the hall. I couldn’t take in what had just happened. I didn’t feel the gravity of almost dying. Of still being close to death—bullets were spraying everywhere again. Instead there was just a jagged momentum to everything. A free-falling, concussive chaos that was pulling me along without my even having to think.
We’d sped halfway down the ladder before there was a crack and a boom. I felt my stomach rise and then fall, and then I was on a lower landing, sprawled, pain twisting through my arm.
“Come on!” Pierre cried, helping me up.
I was so relieved that we’d knocked out the array and so devastated at what it had cost that I didn’t even feel the damage after the first few seconds. My emotions stacked one on top of the next, compressing the eruption of nerves into a fine enough point, my body discharging so much cortisol that all I could think about was moving forward to the next junction.
“Brandon, what shuttle bay are we going to?” Pierre asked.
“Five.”
Satisfied that I was okay, Pierre looked down at his U-dev, turned, and started running.
We were going to have to double back across a lot of the Inner Ring and just seeing the shrapnel in Simon’s leg had reminded me of the smaller amount in mine. Like everything else, it seemed to be phasing in and out of reality, one second excruciating, the next banished by adrenaline. Everything was happening so fast that the only way I could stay ahead was to concentrate on the moments—each individual breath, each scan of the area. I let my fingers mold to the gun grip. I let my feet feel the shock of each step as I whipped around a blind corner, aiming the Pegasus at possible targets.
A Blue beside me collapsed before I even heard the shot that got him. I tried to reverse course but ran smack into Brandon. “They’re down there, too,” he cried.
I peeled off into an adjoining utility alley along with another Blue, Merced, but he was pelted twice in the shoulder before he could round the corner. I tried to pull him back but he was hit again, and I released him before I was, too. “Fingers! Where do we go?” I shouted down the tube.
There was no response.
“Fingers!”
Daries’ voice slid between bursts of gunfire from around the corner. “He’s still tied in.”
“What’s it like on your side?”
“There’s a bunch of ’em.”
I peeked out and got a couple of shots off before a barrage of bullets flew back, making me retreat. “Not good here, either. Pierre! Pierre!”
“He’s over by me—same thing,” said Whistler.
“Christ,” I muttered, feeling desperate and ill. I crouched down and glanced around the corner again, firing. The same barrage came back at me, high like before, and I managed to hit one of the Reds shooting at me before he could correct lower, then receded.
“Fingers just woke up. Says we’re pinned down pretty good here.”
“No shit!” someone called out.
I wiped a film of sweat off of my forehead. “We have to break through.”
“I don’t see how,” responded Daries.
I slipped just one eye around the corner and back before a shell exploded the wall. I reached for a grenade, but I was out and gathered that everyone else was, too. Just as I was thinking about making some kind of run for it anyway, a shock wave sent me crashing into the bulkhead and I had to grab the top of one of the emergency lights to keep from rebounding into the corridor.
“What was that?” someone cried.
My mind flipped through possible reasons as bolts started flying off the clear pipes overhead.
“The hydro storage unit is one level above us!” Fingers shouted above the noise. “Something must’ve breached it!”
I heard rushing water and looked up to see a huge surge hurtling down the utility alley toward me. I grabbed the grating of the light fixture again and braced for impact, but my grip was too clumsy and I was washed into the open. I flinched, expecting to be shot, but another rush had come down that corridor, too, and I caught only a flash of red uniform as the Reds were swept around a corner.
I tried to raise my gun up but it slipped out of my hands as I got slammed against a wall, instantly disappearing into the cascade. Carried down one tube and then another, I worried I’d been separated from the rest, but every time the tube veered or T’ed off and I’d spin round, I’d catch glimpses of Daries or Pierre behind me, seized by the same flow. After a few more turns the current finally ebbed and I fumbled for my sidearm, getting it out just in time to take down two Reds who were staggering to their feet in what had become only thigh-deep water.
Brandon splashed up behind me and then Pierre, Daries, Fingers, and a handful of others.
“Where’s everyone else?” asked Brandon.
“Kate and Janny got sucked the other way down a fork,” Pierre told him.
“We gotta keep moving,” said Daries over the sound of the gushing pipes. “They know where we’re going.”
“We can’t just leave them,” Pierre argued.
“Do you want to get pinned down again?” growled Daries. And then, without waiting for a response, he started splashing through the tube.
Fingers returned to consciousness and looked around frantically trying to place how far we’d made it since the last time he was up. “Okay—uh. We gotta go down that way. The whole level’s flooded.”
“Calm down, buddy,” I said, drawing up even with Daries and putting my hand on Fingers’ neck. His face was pallid—green, almost—and he was shivering, the tie-ins clearly taking their toll. I always felt a little under the weather after one and was queasy after three, but he must’ve done it twelve or thirteen times now. “You’re doing great. We’re close. Just a couple more and we’ll be out of here.”
“Th-there won’t be any more,” Fingers stuttered.
“Why not?” asked Brandon.
“The fluid’s finished.”
“What?” Brandon cried. “So what do we do?”
“The shortest way’s through Commroom B, but there wasn’t drainage there and it flooded. We’ll have to swim across the whole level, about ninety meters, in order to reach the access tube on the other side.”
“You mean swim underwater?” asked Whistler.
“Well, obviously. And fast, too—more security’s coming and chatter about them sending back a combat shuttle with an entire marine company,” Fingers said, rubbing his crossed arms for warmth.
“I can’t swim,” said Woodrow.
“Me, neither,” said a girl.
“Well, you’ll have to,” Daries barked.
“I fucking can’t—it’s not something you can just pick up!” Woodrow shouted at him. “Besides, aren’t there another couple shuttle bays on the other side of the Inner Ring? Why don’t we just go there?”
“Because . . .” Fingers’ teeth were chattering so hard he had to pause. “They don’t have the fastest
ship docked in them, so there’s . . . there’s . . .”
“There’s no point in escaping in anything but the Pulsar since it could run us down,” said Daries, finishing for him.
Brandon sighed. “Why don’t you guys go to the Pulsar and I’ll take this pair to Shuttle Bay Two? That’s just on level eight all the way over, right?”
“You’d know better than me,” said Fingers.
“Why, Brandon, can’t you swim?” Daries said mockingly.
“Yeah, I can fucking swim, but someone’s got to get them out!”
“Guys, Jesus Christ,” yelled Pierre. And then in a softer voice, turning toward Brandon, “That’s a hell of an offer—it’ll take some real heat off of us. Are you sure?”
Brandon nodded.
“Okay, we’ll rendezvous just outside the nebula at the BB asteroid and pick you guys up, okay?”
“What do you mean we’ll rendezvous with them?” Daries asked.
Pierre grabbed Daries’ collar and shoved him against the wall. “Of course we’re going to pick them up! Fuck, man! What’s your problem?”
“You, always risking our necks trusting this clown!”
“Guys, we’ve got to go!” I hollered, getting in between the two of them. “There’s no time for this!”
“No shit,” Daries answered, trudging in a half-run through the water.
“Can I have the finger to open doors?” Brandon asked after Daries was out of earshot. “You still have charges to open yours.”
Pierre pondered for a few moments and said, “Here, take it. Get going.”
“Thanks, man,” Brandon replied. And then to me, his eyes burning, as I grabbed a Pegasus rifle off one of the dead Reds, “I’ll see you, okay? Promise me I’ll see you.”
I suppose he wanted to make sure I’d help keep Pierre’s word about the rendezvous, in case Daries tried to make us renege. But we weren’t going to leave them. I nodded and disappeared around the corner.
“Where do we go?” I asked Fingers.
He gestured toward Daries. “Down through the hatch, then left into the commroom, through the side exit, exactly like the one we used in A, and then up and out the hatch again.”
Fingers, who’d gotten off Daries’ back, slipped and collapsed into the water, but I pulled him up. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“I can swim . . . I’ll be fine.”
“You’re damn right,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder and splashing forward.
We rounded a few more tubes, our wading turning into a near-run in the shallows approaching the hatch. Underneath, the water gurgled and the emergency lights flashed blue, but their illumination got progressively dimmer, disappearing completely a couple meters down.
I was a good swimmer, but I’d never been much for diving. The lakes on Mars had too much red silt for it to be fun, and holding my breath unnerved me. Anytime I did, an invisible clock began, counting down the seconds I had to live. Even when it was only in the double digits, it was still ominous—still ticking—and so I’d always surface quickly.
The clock had started again as I holstered my Juniper sidearm and dove down the hatch, plunging lower and lower into the gloom. I turned left, like Fingers had said, already feeling panicked, but I knew everyone behind was depending on me. Their lungs were on fire, too.
I gritted my teeth and cut through the water, extending myself into the graceful, competitive glides I’d always used to dominate races with Marco. I kept telling myself that I was a good swimmer, over and over, and by the time I reached the commroom, I almost couldn’t feel the blackness swallowing me. The ticking in my head faded as well when I thought of Simon, sacrificing himself for Eve. For all of us. She was out there somewhere trying to get to the shuttle bay and we had to be there to meet her. We had to make all this count for something.
Commroom A was the mirror image of B, except for the dozens of floating bodies lit up by flashing lightboards in various stages of short circuit. I aimed for the support columns and used them to kick off, propelling myself faster toward the gangplank in long, increasingly anxious strokes. I tried taking the most direct route possible, but a few times I had to swim around the cables, sparking yellow and orange like the tendrils of some alien monster. One lunged out at me, somehow farther than its previous radius, and I collided with a woman’s wide-eyed corpse after swerving behind a fallen beam to avoid it.
As I reached the suspended walkway, the clock started ticking louder and louder. My lungs felt as if they’d already caved in. I tried to think about Eve again, but dizziness blurred every image I conjured up, instead favoring ones where my brain was melting down or my body was fragmenting into a million pieces. The walls clenched. The commroom, which moments ago had seemed a huge, cavernous hollow in the middle of the station, felt like a crawl space. All I could see was a thin little funnel of light in front of me: the side exit, the flooded tube, and then the ladder. Finally, the surface appeared in the distance. I didn’t think I was going to make it—the walls were closing in on me too fast. The light was getting weaker, so I was stunned when I burst through, gasping and sucking up air in huge, yawning gulps.
I hugged the floor, forgetting where I was for a short time and, then remembering, jerked up and pointed my weapon down one corridor and then another. But there was no one there. As I collapsed back to my elbows, Daries erupted out of the pool and then Pierre a second later, wheezing and coughing, trying to reanimate.
We formed a makeshift perimeter as, one after the other, Blues broke the surface.
“Where’s Fingers?” I asked, glancing back at the submerged ladder.
“He was right by me . . .”
“Hell,” I muttered, and dove back in, not even thinking about the countdown anymore; fear for myself replaced by fear for him. Fingers was an eccentric pessimist, but he’d been truly brave this whole time, saving us all with those tie-ins and there was no way I wasn’t going after him.
Luckily, I didn’t have far to go. He’d gotten snagged on the edge of a lightboard support that had fallen and in one big yank, I tore him off it. He’d been on the verge of losing consciousness, and his gasp was even bigger than mine had been when I pulled him through the hatch.
Chapter 62
Daries led the way while I took the rear, backpedaling in a shooting stance—every once in a while looking over my shoulder to make sure I was going the right direction.
“How close are we to the bay?”
“A few hundred meters, assuming the ship’s still there,” Fingers answered.
“You mean it might not be? I thought Brandon sa—”
“Yeah, but we don’t know what’s happened in the meantime.”
I spun at the sound of gunfire ahead, then spun back around to make sure there was nobody coming from behind. The column stopped and just as I was about to tell the guy next to me to watch the rear so I could help up front, Daries called, “Clear,” and we started moving again.
“Look out—there’s a junction coming up. There’re probably more of them up there!” Daries hissed.
Pierre and another Blue made careful scans of all four tubes intersecting with ours as we crossed, but just as he was stepping out of the junction, the face of the Blue next to him vanished into a red smudge. Pierre fired back relentlessly and I joined him, entering the junction and missing a Red as he disappeared back behind a corner. I waited for him to pop back out and dropped him when he did, but in the process lost sight of the tube I’d been watching before, whipping back to see a stream of tracers already tearing past. I thought most of them had gone wide right but flinched when Pierre twisted around on his knees clutching his breastbone just above where the Devlon ended.
“No!” I tried to say as I bent over, pulling him out of the junction with one arm as I fired across the tube. When I ran out of ammo, I reached forward and grabbed his Pegasus rifle, raising it just in time to shoot the two Reds farther down who’d gotten Pierre, before swiveling back around and mashing my h
and against the bottom of his neck.
“You’re going to be okay, man. Hang in there. Just hang in there.”
He nodded once, but then his head sagged. There was too much blood to plug with just my hands. “Oh God, fuck, no!” I cried, trying to clamp down harder.
It felt like there was thunder in my ear as Fingers opened up on what had to be more Reds down the hallway. But even as loud and close as the shooting sounded, it was still in the background as I slapped Pierre’s face. “Wake up, Pierre! Wake up! You can’t do this!”
Blood kept leaking out of his wound.
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold them off!” shouted Fingers. “How is he?”
“He’ll be fine,” I mumbled, trying to believe it as I pressed down even harder.
Daries shouted, “They’re trying to flank us. Another thirty seconds and we’ll be surrounded.”
“Just fucking hold them!” I screamed.
I heard another cry and saw another Blue, Tanya, tumble awkwardly to the ground a few meters away.
Shaking my head and cursing, I lifted Pierre and threw him into a fireman’s carry over my shoulder. I nearly buckled under his weight, but a slurry of desperation and hate and fear buoyed me, and soon I had achieved enough balance to fire the Pegasus a few times as I staggered toward Daries.
“You hang in there, Pierre.” As his bulk sank in, the lights around me seemed to broaden, reflecting off the water on the floor, turning the scene into a lake of blue and white flashes. It felt like this strange color was pouring into me, reacting with my cells. Warming them. Prying them loose. I slipped in a puddle and had to steady myself on the wall, bullets still zipping by, making steel-drum sounds on the bulkheads. Instead of feeling weighed down by Pierre, I began to feel like I was going to float away.
The pain from my leg fused with the lightness, ascending in zigzags, stabbing behind my eyes and forehead before hardening in my mind, making me furious with myself for not covering the rear like I was supposed to.
“Give me the charges!” Daries shouted.
I didn’t even realize that we’d made it to the shuttle bay. “What?”
Lakes of Mars Page 43
