The meaningless act of dissuading the others to fire enabled him to focus on something other than his inner feelings, and let him return to some sort of equilibrium. He knew his strength, and realized that he was better equipped to deal with practical matters of combat—things for which he needed a clear mind.
The firing had ceased, but for the odd shot, when something made the Armorer look up. It was a sudden change in the atmosphere, the humidity of the room suddenly dropping in temperature, the moisture in the air growing cooler—no, definitely cold. There was more of a density to that moisture, as though it had changed from mere humidity to a fine mist or spray.
“Dark night, they’re spraying us,” J.B. said softly, as he looked up, the lenses of his spectacles becoming spattered with ever larger drops.
“Shit, they’re going to soak us,” came a voice from somewhere within the war party. Although he couldn’t see the speaker, J.B. was able to identify him as Jon, the Gate Armorer, who had been absorbed into the main body of the army during the charge. “Cover your blasters, and try and keep warm!”
It was good advice, and couldn’t be bettered by any of the companions, or by Gloria or Tammy. The army as a whole covered their weapons as best as possible, and also tried to cover as much exposed skin as possible with their clothing. For the Gate women, who made a habit of wearing as little as possible in order to move as freely and take as much of the sun as possible, this was a difficult task. As the atmosphere moved from a mist to a spray to the equivalent of a shower of rain, some of the women began to shiver.
The water droplets that fell from the ceiling grew larger and heavier, and rather than fall they began to bombard, as though forced from pipes by an immense pressure, so that they rained down heavily on the army below, the shower of rain now becoming like a monsoon.
The water was extremely cold, almost like little blocks of ice that stung as they hit exposed skin, leaving it numb from the extreme cold. The Gate warriors were the worst hit, their skin a mass of goose flesh and small bruises from the impact of the water. They huddled together for warmth, trying to cover one another.
Doc offered Cat his jacket, and although the small Gate huddled closer into him for warmth and shelter, she refused to take the heavy cloth coat.
“Nice of you to offer, sweetheart, but you’re ill, and you probably need it a whole lot more than I do,” she said through chattering teeth.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gloria breathed, each syllable taking effort as her body spasmed with cold, “what’s this all about?”
“Trying to soften us all up,” Mildred commented as pain and cold racked her body, the air like ice as she tried to draw it into lungs that refused to obey under the stress of the cold. “Not trying to infect us, like before. That’s already done…this is to make us weak, so we won’t be able to react with any kind of speed or accuracy.”
“Which means we’ll need to,” Ryan spit. “Fireblast! They must be about to take some kind of action.”
The one-eyed man was correct in his assumption. After a few more minutes of the water treatment, by which time the fighters were numbingly cold to the bone, and the Gate warriors were almost unconscious on their feet from something approaching hypothermia, the water suddenly ceased to fall. The floor surface of the chamber was covered in a thin film of water that spread around everyone’s feet, seeking holes and seams in boots, creeping in to numb feet and make the warriors ache in their bones with the cold. The surface of this film was no longer pitted with the consistent rainfall of the water, but was slowly stilling into a reflective sheet.
“Quickly,” Mildred rasped, forcing herself into action even though she was still shaking spasmodically, and every muscle and tendon was painful. Her breath was labored, and her voice hoarse, harshened by the damp and cold. “Quickly, everyone move! Just get the circulation going again, get warm. Don’t let anyone else fall asleep. It could be fatal.”