Jan shielded his eyes with his arm as he fired upward, blindly. Throwing the gun aside and falling backward when his ammunition was exhausted. By a miracle of chance he was unharmed as yet — hoarse screams brutally informed him that the others weren’t that lucky. His shoulder crashed painfully into a metal support and he sought shelter behind it, trying to blink away the floating spots of light before his eyes.
He was only three meters from the hatch they had used to flee from the ship into this bullet-filled trap. Their escape had not gone unnoticed; the guards had taken instant revenge. There was only death in this pit. Trying to ignore the rain of bullets, Jan ran forward and fell through the open hatch.
It was an act of instinct, to escape the sure death outside. He lay on the hard steel for a moment, knowing that he had not escaped but just postponed his destruction. But they could not find him like this, not just lying here waiting to be captured or shot. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled back into the engine room. It was populated only by the dead. But the lift door was opening…
Jan dived for the bank of instruments against the bulkhead, jammed himself into the narrow space behind them, pushing back deeper and deeper as the many thudding footsteps came close.
“Hold it right there,” a voice ordered. “You’ll get blown away by our own men.
The murmur of voices was cut short by the same man again. “Quiet in the ranks.” Then more softly. “Lauca here, come in command. Do you read me command… Yes, sir. Ready in the engine room. Yes, firing stopping now. Right, we’ll mop up. No surviviors.” Then he shouted aloud as the gunfire ceased in the pit outside.
“Try not to shoot each other in your enthusiasm — but I want those rebels wasted. Understand? No survivors. And leave them where they fall for the media cameras.
The major wants the world to see what happens to rebels and murderers. Go!”
They streamed by shouting angrily, guns ready. Jan could do nothing except wait for one of them to glance aside, to see for just one instant what was behind the instrument board. No one did. Their guns were ready for the vengeance waiting them outside. The officer came last.
He stopped not an arm’s distance from Jan, but staring intently after the troops, then spoke into the microphone on his collar.
“Hold all firing from the rim, repeat, hold firing. Mop-up troops are now in the…”
Jan sidled forward — and his shirt caught on a protruding bolthead, held an instant, then ripped free. The officer heard the slight sound and turned his head. Jan lunged forward and seized him by the throat with both hands.
It was unscientific and crude. But it worked. The officer thrashed about, trying to kick Jan, to tear his fingers from his throat. They fell and the man’s helmet went rolling away. He tore at the throttling hands, his fingernails tearing bleeding welts in Jan’s skin, his mouth gasping for air that he could not breathe. But Jan’s muscles were strengthened by hard work, his fingers squeezing even tighter now with the desperate fear of failure. One of them would live; one die. His thumbs bit deep into the flesh of the officer’s neck and he looked with no compassion into the wide and bulging eyes.
He held on until he was sure that the man was dead, until there was no trace of a pulse under his thumb.
Reason returned — and with it fear. He looked around wildly. There was no one else there. Outside the firing was becoming more spasmodic as the soldiers ran out of targets. They would be back, someone else might enter soon… He tore at the officer’s clothing, ripping open the magnetic fasteners, pulling the boots from his feet. It took less than a minute to strip the man, to throw off his own clothes and pull on the uniform. The fit was adequate though the boots were tight. The hell with that. He jammed the helmet on his head then stuffed the limp corpse and discarded clothing behind the instrument bank where he had hidden, pushing them as far back as he could. Time, time, there was not enough of it. As he ran toward the lift he fumbled with the chin strap of the helmet. His thumb was raised to the button when he looked at the indicator.
It was on the way down.
The emergency stairs, the way they had entered. He slammed through the door and pushed hard against the mechanism to make it close faster. Now. Up the stairs. Not too quickly, don’t want to be out of breath. How far? What deck? Where would there be an exit from the ship? Debhu would know. But Debhu was dead. They were all dead. He tried to blame himself for their deaths as he stumbled on the treads, but he could not. Murdered here or murdered later. It was all the same. But he was still free and he would not be as simple to kill as it had been to slaughter the unarmed men in the pit — who did not even know how to fight. Jan loosened the officer’s pistol in the holster. Well he knew how. It would not be that easy with him.
