“The ones we’re looking for are going to be the batch that caught the wrong train,” Abbado grumbled to Glasebrook. Matushek, the third member of the group, was scanning civilians to match the holographic portraits downloaded into his helmet database.
For the loading, Top Daye had broken 3-3 into fire teams under Horgen and Abbado to get colonists to decks 18 and 19 respectively. Methie and Foley were detached to help the two survivors of Heavy Weapons guide the building support staff.
The apartment block from which the colonists came had eight stories. For the voyage the residents were split into east and west corridors and each group was supposed to be on a single car of the train. If there’d been a little coordination back when the train was loaded the strikers would know exactly which carload went to which deck, but of course that hadn’t happened.
“Don’t see why civilians can’t count the decks up to nineteen themselves,” Glasebrook muttered.
“Buck up, Flea,” said Abbado. “Nobody’s shooting at us, right?”
The monorail shivered for its full length as current to the magnets raised the hangers a hair’s breadth from the elevated track. The train accelerated slowly, but it was up to ninety miles an hour by the time the last car whipped past Abbado and his strikers. Suction dragged at them, but the only sound the train made was a hiss and the faint click of couplers.
“Sarge, got them!” Matushek reported. He was standing twenty feet from the others, so he used helmet commo to speak over the nervous chatter of a thousand colonists and their guides. “They were on the other side of the track! Over.”
“Fucking typical,” Abbado said as he strode toward the clump of fifty-odd stunned-looking civilians. In a louder voice he shouted, “Six West! Form on me!”
The track serving Emigration Port 10 had loading platforms only on one side. Naturally, one of the cars had been misaligned so that its doors were on the wrong side; and naturally, the folks Abbado was looking for were on that car.
The police had noticed the misplaced civilians also. Half a dozen of the nearest strode under the support rail ahead of the strikers. A tall, badly overweight cop bellowed, “Hey you assholes! What’re you doing over there? Move it!”
He grabbed the nearest civilian by the arm and jerked her in the direction of the starship. She was carrying bulging net bags, far too much of a load for a woman in her sixties. One of them spilled packages onto the ground.
“That’s okay, buddy, we’ll take care of this!” Abbado said. His voice was thinner than normal because he was going to be reasonable, he wasn’t going to do what he wanted to. “Folks, we’re your—”
The cop turned and said, “When I want your opinion, dickhead, I’ll—”
Abbado kicked him in the balls. Shit, he’d known he was going to do that all the time.
A cop holding a shock rod faced Glasebrook, who took the rod from him and broke it over his knee. The blue sparks snarling against Flea’s left palm stopped when the shaft fractured.
“Fellas, we can let this stop right here,” Abbado said. The big cop had settled to his knees. His riot helmet had skewed and now hid his eyes, though the faceshield was up. “Let’s do that, right?”
“Yeah,” said Matushek. “Let’s.”
He bobbled a grenade in his open right hand. For an instant Abbado was afraid somebody might not believe the grenade was real or that Matushek really would throw it. A grenade wasn’t much of a weapon for close enough to spit, not if you cared about surviving yourself.
“Ace, put that fucking thing away,” Abbado said as he stepped between his striker and the police. Christ on a crutch! He’d thought this was a cush assignment and he’d be able to keep out of trouble.
Glasebrook helped up the man Abbado had kicked, holding the fellow by collar from behind. “All under control, right?” Abbado said.
A cop looked over her shoulder. Maybe she was expecting to see help coming. What she saw was the rest of C41. There were about as many cops in the escort detail as strikers, but the police didn’t have lethal weapons and C41 didn’t have anything else. The company’s baggage hadn’t been delivered yet, but the strikers had been nervous about the screwy situation. Most everybody’d brought a security blanket.