The Amazon warriors behind J.B. didn’t need to be told what was going on. Seeing the way in which he angled part of firing sweep, two of them used their blasters to try to ricochet off the walls. The others held back as the line of firing would be too crowded, and would necessitate their coming out into the open. They could hear cries of pain from below as blasterfire bit home.
The area below was suddenly lit as the sec door to the first level was keyed open, and light from the corridor beyond filtered into the darkness.
“Hold fire,” J.B. cried, ceasing his own efforts. The echoes of the bullets died away, and the attacking party could hear the sounds of a hurried retreat into the corridor below, along with the moans of those members of the attacking party who hadn’t been chilled, but had been wounded enough to necessitate their companions dragging them to safety.
“Forward—triple red,” J.B. commanded. “They may have time to get into a defensive position, so tactics as before, but hit the bastards hard. With luck they’ll be right open.”
THE SERVICE HATCH into the corridor was cobwebbed on the inside, the dust motes reflected in the beam of artificial light that bled through the grille and into the narrow duct where Jak was crouched, almost bent double.
On the other side of the hatch lay a corridor that should, if his sense of direction was as good as he believed, be on the first level of the redoubt. The tortuous climb down the shafts and the blind gropings in the direction of the airflow had led them to a point where the concrete of the walls had been replaced by smoothly riveted metal. Tight, but of a questionable thickness, the rivets had given way quite easily under pressure and a few well-placed kicks from Jak’s heavy combat boots. Having made it thus far with little noise, it seemed almost absurd to then create such a loud disturbance. However, there was no option, and at least they were now in the final leg of the journey. By the time any noise was detected, located, and forces sent to intercept, they should be out into the open and ready to fight.
It was a notion that didn’t bear too much examination, but so far it was holding up.
Jak looked through the grille onto the corridor outside, twisting his neck until the muscles screamed at him for relief, trying to wring every last degree of turn and view out of the restricted window.
The corridor was empty. And quiet.
Could it be that their breakthrough had been undetected? Jak sniffed at the air, trying to separate the scents that drifted through the grille. There was no fear, no sweat that was fresh. No smell of oil or cordite, no smell of tingling ozone, which he’d noticed faintly after the laser blasters had been fired. And the sound: there was quiet and there was silence.
Jak’s ears were those of a highly attuned hunter, and his sense of sound was heightened by the compensation for the lack of pigment and oversensitivity of his albino eyes. They were ears that could hear the scuttle of a cockroach at a hundred yards, and pinpoint its direction.
There was something; not near, not yet, but moving his way. Whether to intercept them or by chance he couldn’t tell. That didn’t matter. He judged they had time to get out of the duct and into the corridor.
He spoke as he began to probe the edges of the duct with busy fingers, information gathering on its strong and weak points.
“Corridor empty, but sec on way. From quarter mile at double speed. If can get this fucker…”
As he spoke, his fingers found the nuts that secured the grille on the inside to metal brackets. They weren’t set exactly in the corners, but indented slightly. The nuts were loose, the screws oxidized over the years by air that was more contaminated than the redoubt’s designers would have wished.
Strong white fingers gripped the nuts, taking two at a time. The tension and power in his grip made what little color there was in his skin bleed out at the knuckle joints, so that in the dust-moted beam his fingers seemed to glow incandescent. Under such pressure, the nuts gave easily, and Jak shuffled back, kicking at the grille with a force muted by the constrictions of space. He hoped that the screws securing the outer part of the grille were also in such poor condition.