Lights flash in front of us.Flash, flash faster, and then stutter to a halt. A second run ends the same way. And then a third. I know what the ship’s AI is glitching against, but we have enough time to let it reach its own conclusions.
‘Give me three sixty.’
Screens come to life around the crewpit.
At my nod, Haze revolves the entire pit, letting me check the new arrivals. The lenz in the hangars might be blind, but we have our own on this ship and they’re showing us a major and fifty Death’s Head troopers bundling through an emergency door, and stopping in the darkness, backlit from the stairs.
‘Idiot,’ says Neen.
Also lazy and arrogant. Any half-decent NCO would kill those lights before coming through. If we were out there, we’d have cut them down by now. But luckily for the major, we are in here and keeping the surprise.
At an order from a corporal, the lights go out.
Lasers play across the emptiness of the hangar. A couple of NCOs turn on the torches on their rifles. And then, the panels on the ceiling above us all flare into life again.
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘Perhaps . . .’
‘We should think about leaving?’
He nods.
‘And maybe not,’ the SIG says.
Lights or not, the wall bolts are still powered down.
As Haze checks that the SIG is right, a dozen Silver Fist hurl themselves through the opening doors of an elevator, guns drawn. They stand down the moment they realize there is no enemy in sight. Another three elevators open a second later. We’re drawing ourselves a big crowd, and soon someone is going to begin scanning the pods and work out where we are.
‘Sir,’ says Neen. ‘Do you want me to take the attack outside?’
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It’s all going to plan.’
That earns me a stare from Colonel Vijay.
So I grin, letting adrenalin flood my body. This is the bit I like. Only we’re not there yet. More troopers must be on their way, and I would hate to deny anyone their share of the fun.
It takes five minutes before a braid appears.
The first thing he does is send a dozen Silver Fist to check the fancy-looking launch next to us. Maybe he reckons we can’t all get into the B79 bomber. He’s wrong, but looking at Shil, Rachel, Franc, Neen and Emil tied under a cargo net behind me, I can see how they might feel he’s right.
When the Fist start coming towards us, I decide it’s time to move. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Sven,’ says Colonel Vijay. ‘The bolts are still dead.’
I know that. Why does he think the B79 won’t start? My gun is going to override the safety routine that prevents ignition. ‘Fuck the bolts, sir,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going to put a rocket through the wall.’
‘You can’t,’ he says. ‘There’ll be an equal and opposite.’
‘A what, sir?’
‘Newton’s Third Law,’ he says. ‘You must remember.’
God . . . Do I look like someone who knows Newton’s Third Law?
Turns out it’s not a problem. If firing a rocket will make us slam into the escape craft directly behind us, then surely all we have to do is fire our engines at the same time? One can cancel out the other.
Seems I have reduced Colonel Vijay to silence. But that’s OK, because the SIG is back up and chattering probabilities.
Our best choice is three rockets, apparently. That gives us a seventy-eight per cent chance of removing the wall, with only a thirty-eight per cent chance of killing ourselves. Four rockets would guarantee the wall but total our odds of surviving in one piece.
Two rockets, barely worth discussing.
‘Three,’ I say. ‘Fire the engines at the same time. And then hold us steady.’
The gun wants to tell me this can’t be done and then decides it can. Obviously, such a feat will take brilliance and inhuman levels of skill.
It’s disgustingly smug as it says this.
As I wait for the SIG, a helmet drops from the crewpit roof, so I slot it over my head. Flipping down the visor reduces the pit to a ghostly haze. I have schematics where the bulkheads are. And I’m looking at the hangar outside as if there’s no hull in the way.
‘Not meant to work like that,’ says Emil.
Flipping the visor up, I discover my helmet schematics are also on screen, and the ex-Ninth officer is looking around at the walls of the crewpit in shock.
‘Get used to it,’ says Neen.
Every fucking thing in the hangar not nailed down begins moving as the wall blows out and vacuum sucks away what it can. Firing retros, the B79 lurches forward and then reclaims its position.
The troopers closest to the blast are lucky. They die quickly. As do the ones standing behind our engines. It’s the rest who suffer. A roiling wall of flame swallows them for a second, before they’re sucked into space, their lungs rupturing as air is dragged from their bodies.
It is a bad way to go. We know it without needing to see it on screen.
‘Behind us,’ shouts Haze.
Slipping to the left, the B79 shudders as something glances off its side. Retros fire, and we stabilize again. ‘Neat,’ says the SIG. ‘Though I say so myself.’
The vessel it dodged tumbles once, slides sideways and blocks our exit. It’s bigger than we are, a lot bigger. We’re staring at the general’s launch.
Emergency routines are running in the hangar. If a whole hangar has to be sacrificed that’s what will happen. The troopers nearest the exits aren’t stupid, they know that. That is why they’re gripping on for dear life, while scrabbling over one another to get out.
A sergeant fails to make it through a door.
We get one half, from shoulder to knee, which is sucked towards the broken wall. The rest of him disappears inside the elevator. It’s not going anywhere because the lift shafts have already sealed themselves. ‘Clear our way,’ I tell the gun.
‘My pleasure.’
Launching a fourth missile, it fires a fifth just for the hell of it.
As the general’s little liner shatters, a lieutenant is sucked off his feet, his hands scrabbling for anything to grip. As we watch, he’s dragged across the deck and disappears. Just one of a hundred.
‘You know how to fly this?’ demands Colonel Vijay.
‘Of course.’
Haze looks surprised.
‘Flew a skimmer round the landing fields,’ I tell him. ‘At Bosworth. How different can it be?’
Opening his mouth to answer, Colonel Vijay realizes it’s a joke and shuts it again. Leaning across, he offers me his hand to shake. That is how I know he expects to die.