Jak suddenly saw how the invaders had cut the tunnels leading to the high-rad areas. With their shoulder fired energy weapons, they could carve out immense caverns in the glass in a matter of minutes.
As Jak raced for the turn in the corridor just ahead, another slave appeared around the bend, lugging his ore bag. The trooper fired again. And again he missed high, perhaps because he was shooting on the run. This time the pulse opened a two-foot-wide hole near the top of the wall. The slave who ducked under the shot was caught in a molten glass waterfall that poured down over his head and back. He managed to stand for a split second as it cascaded over him, then he slowly sank to the floor, unable to scream because his lungs had already been scoured out. As he slumped, his flesh burst into flame. By the time Jak reached the turn, all that remained of the man were the charred bones of his legs, which stuck out of the smoking blob of glass.
Jak ducked around the corner and sprinted. The sound of his own breathing was loud in the narrow corridor. But not loud enough to drown out the sound of heavy boot falls behind him.
The tunnel went through a series of zigzags before a crevice on the left offered him the detour he was looking for. He slipped through the crack and followed it as it doubled back to join the main shaft. The trooper couldn’t fire at him. He was a hundred feet behind and his target was not only out of sight, but pulling away.
Jak knew his real trouble was going to come when he got back to the sledge loading zone at the end of the side tunnel. There were no sharp turns in the shaft there to give him cover. And there was a long straightaway before he reached the fork. All he could do was pour on the speed, try to get as big a lead as possible.
Head bobbing, arms pumping, he burst through the end of the crevice, vaulting past groups of slaves who stopped loading their ore and craned their necks around to follow him.
Ahead was the hard glare of the klieg lights.
He dashed madly for it.
“Look out!” someone shouted from behind.
Jak veered away from the tunnel wall just as a thin green beam squealed past him. Trigger pinned, the trooper swung the laser rifle back, trying to slice him in two.
Jak threw himself down and rolled.
Chapter Nineteen
Dredda unbuckled her torso armor and pulled her sleeveless T-shirt over her head. “How is it?” she asked Mero.
“A lot worse,” Mero said. “See for yourself.”
Dredda looked in the hand mirror her sister changeling held up. The small patch of red had spread from her shoulder to the middle of her back and down her arm. It oozed clear, sticky fluid like a second-degree burn. Even more disturbing, the infection was starting to impact movement and nerve function on the right side of her body.
Mero put down the mirror and picked up a tube of topical lotion. She carefully applied it to the irritated area.
“That stuff doesn’t seem to be doing any good, does it?” Dredda said.
“It isn’t helping mine, either,” Mero replied. “It just keeps spreading and spreading.”
There was a knock at the bulkhead door.
“Yes?” Dredda said.
Huth opened the door and stuck his head in. He had shaved his face and his head. He was dressed in clean gray fatigues. His gaze immediately dropped to take in the small, hard-nippled breasts that Dredda didn’t bother to conceal.
“What is it?” Dredda demanded of him impatiently. “What do you have for me?”
“I have some preliminary results,” Huth said as he slipped into the room. “I repeat, they are preliminary, but I think we can draw some reliable conclusions from them.”
When his focus again dropped to her chest, she angrily grabbed her T-shirt and pulled it on. Men, she thought. Hardwired stupidity was standard equipment.
“Let’s have it,” she said.
“The organism that is causing the problem is everywhere,” Huth said.
“Everywhere?”