Birden looked back and saw him. “Dash is coming through. Hold that door.”
Keene ran to the door and pulled it open. Behind was a work area with a tool bench. Birden stepped out and fired again as Dash appeared around the corner and ran past him. Keene held the door while Dash went through. At the far end of the passage Birden fired again and turned to follow. Keene waited, holding the door. But before Dash could cover effectively one of the pursuers appeared and cut the running figure of Birden down with a stream of bullets. Keene found that he was still staring, horrified, when Dash slammed the door.
“He’s gone! Move!”
They dragged the bench behind the door and tipped it over to form a block, then started away again; but Keene, on a second thought, turned back and took down a heavy sledge from a wall rack while the bench rocked from the pounding against the far side of the door. Turning again, he found that Dash had waited to cover him in case the door gave. They raced for the stairs that would take them up to the access bridge.
They arrived to find Mitch bundling Cavan across the bridge into the shuttle, and Legermount and Reynolds holding off more pursuers at the far end of the boarding antechamber, where one body was already lying on the floor among splashes of blood. Dash followed Cavan and Mitch across the bridge and disappeared inside. Keene stopped just past the blast door to wait for Legermount and Reynolds. Looking up, he saw the silo doors open, revealing a circle of orange-streaked sky. Jason must have already gone through. Legermount detached and ran through with Reynolds covering and took the door. “Where’s Birden?” he asked Keene.
“Out of it.”
Reynolds backed through, firing from the hip, and went through to the shuttle. Legermount waved for Keene to go after him. Keene shook his head, motioning with the sledge in both hands. Reading his intention, Legermount swung the door shut and stood back while Keene delivered a series of heavy blows to jam the hinge and latch mechanisms. By the time Keene tossed the sledge down and turned away, Legermount was across the bridge and in the shuttle, waiting at the hatch.
Inside, Dash and Reynolds were fastening themselves into harnesses; the others were all secured. While Legermount closed the hatch and settled down, Keene paused to find a grin for Robin, who was hunched between Vicki and Alicia, looking pale. “Bearing up okay?” Keene said to him. “That’s the worst over. We’re on our way.” Robin nodded, managing to keep a brave face. Keene squeezed Vicki’s shoulder in a way that said everything would work out okay—it wasn’t as if he would ever have to answer for himself if it didn’t.
“Okay, I’ve seen Mexico,” Colby said from his seat. “Can we move on?”
Keene went forward to join Joe in the crew section and buckled himself into the flight engineer’s seat. He would have to handle the electronics too, since they had no Ccoms operator this time, but that didn’t make a lot of difference to anything, since there was nowhere to communicate with. The first thing he made sure of, however, was that the computers still contained the navigation beacon and homing codes that had been used for the rendezvous with the Osiris. A quick run through the checks showed engines, fuel, power, hydraulics, environment, and cooling all looking good. He keyed in the command to retract the access bridge, and an auxiliary screen with a vertical view down between the silo wall and the body of the shuttle showed it sliding back cleanly into its recess.
“Tank and pump pressures good, temperatures good, auxiliaries functioning,” he told Joe. “Do we want the whole list?”
“With guys out there wanting to shoot this thing full of holes? Hell, no. Let’s get outta here!”
“Then you’re all set. We have delivery. . . . What’s this? Oh, my God!” Keene stared at the screen, horrified, as it showed the blast door at the bottom of the silo being opened from the other side. A group of figures in helmets and combat gear ran out, brandishing guns, onto a concrete ledge flanking the duct that directed the exhaust out to a water-cooled pit on the far side of the structure—Keene and Jason hadn’t bothered to flood it; what would have been the point?