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Who, along with his crew, promptly blasted away at the sound. Mingo's response was short-lived, however: "Shit! I'm out." His silhouette jabbed a finger frant...
Mingo had a new magazine out, snapped it up into his weapon-
As he did, Trevor shoved his body against Mingo's flank, rotating him slightly out from the wall as the thug finished reloading. In the same instant, Trevor r...
Trevor snagged the MP-5 in mid-fall as he dropped to one knee, made sure the slide was back, and snapped the selector switch to semiautomatic.
"Mingo-Mingo, man-"
Trevor aimed for the center of Peak's mass and squeezed twice in rapid succession. Peak screamed, went backward, firing wildly, still screaming without words....
Peak was still screaming, heard someone approaching. "Help me, man-oh, oh, shit-fuck, help-"
Trevor crouched so he was very close and fired a single round into the center of Peak's bucking forehead. He snatched up the thug's pistol-another ten-millime...
Then over to the table as he pocketed the small packet, found his helmet, latched it on and toggled the communicator as he started moving in the direction of ...
"Quarrel, this is Crossbow. Go."
"I am in. Beacon is set. Have you acquired lock?"
"Negative, Quarrel. I'll have to come closer to see the heat from the fuse. Not getting the UV phased-spectrum signal from your beacon at all."
"Roger. Any sign of laser targeting beams?"
"Negative. Looks clear. No sign of fixed defenses or heavy weapons."
"Take no chances. Use the antilaser aerosols as you approach."
"Pretty marginal effect, Quarrel. Wind is over forty klicks, here. And rising."
Trevor had spun open the storm-room hatch. "Use the aerosols anyway. Out."
"Out."
He swung the hatch inward-and found the hostage, taped to a chair in the center of the room. The duct tape was so thick on her that she seemed half-mummified....
He slung the machine pistol, stuck the barrel of Peak's weapon through a utility ring on his belt, grabbed her chair by the backrest, dragged it out of the do...
"Nod for yes. There were eight of them, all told?"
Nod. He moved on to her arms and hands.
"See anything bigger than a machine gun?"
She shook her head.
"You know how to use a rescue ball, right?"
A pause. Then a tentative nod.
Great. That pause meant she didn't really know. He began to slice at the wraps that bound her midriff to the chair. There were a lot of those. And there was s...
He pulled the pack off of his belt, dropped it on the floor in front of her. "Rescue ball. Listen carefully. When you pull the tab, the ball will balloon out ...
Trevor slipped away from the chair, listened beyond the door. The smoke was not quite as thick, but, having filled a single room with only two narrow exits, i...
One bright white silhouette was just entering the main room, the suggestion of another one, maybe two, hanging back in the corridor's entryway.
Trevor pulled Peak's pistol out, sighted carefully, high in the first silhouette's chest, and fired twice.
The silhouette went down, and after a quick, blind fusillade, the other two ducked back.
So did Trevor-only to discover the hostage trying to pull the tape off her mouth. For one incongruously mischievous moment, he was tempted to make her leave i...
"Copy that, Quarrel. I see the fuse now, and have locked on. Ordnance is hot and ready to fly. Waiting your mark."
"Roger, Crossbow. Out." Turning: "Into the ball. Right now. No talking. We've got to go."
To her credit, she was already pulling the activation tab. The ball's two halves burgeoned outwards; she sat between them. Trevor nodded approvingly, sidestep...
This was the tricky part-how to get the loaded rescue ball from the storm room to the exfiltration point he'd chosen. He hoped the last four of the bastards h...
Trevor turned back, found himself face to face with a Day-Glo orange and reflective-white bubble, topped by a set of heavy handles and a winch loop. He grabbe...
Releasing the MP-5 to hang on its sling, and taking Peak's Sig Sauer in a steady, two-handed grip, he swung to the opposite side of the pressure door and lean...
The klaxon started to shriek yet again-now in the triple-time yowling that meant a critical pressure breach. The smoke gusted out in that direction, along wit...
And didn't have the time to ascertain: grabbing the top of the rescue ball, he lifted its sixty-three kilos as though it were twenty-five-thankful for the 0.3...
As Trevor reached the far wall, he pulled out the ten-millimeter pistol and emptied the remainder of its magazine in two vertical lines, about four feet apart...
Just in time: an emerging figure ducked back, firing two wild rounds.
Wild rounds, yes-but they weren't blind, this time: they could see him just as well as he could see them, now that the smoke had been sucked out. Time to go.
Dragging the rescue ball so that it was behind his body, Trevor let the MP-5 fall loose on its lanyard and pulled the safety sleeve off the pinch contacts. He...
The blast was not loud in the thin Martian atmosphere, but it tumbled him off the side of the rescue ball. Catching up the MP-5 in his right hand, and the bal...
"Quarrel, I see your new doorway. We are locked and off-safety."
At the jagged hole that he had blasted in the side of the dome, Trevor had to pause to maneuver the rescue ball through without slicing it open on the torn ed...
Trevor crouched, aimed, dumped the entire magazine: the standing shooter went down, the other one put a crease in the left arm of Trevor's suit before ducking...
Trevor rolled the rescue ball through the gap-feeling the contents thump awkwardly around as he did so-and popped out into the tan-pink dust swirls of a fifty...