THE BELTERS’ WAR

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 2010

 

CHAPTER 5

 

Charlie bellowed in rage, but it did no good—Pepper’s boat closed in for the kill.  Skurly’s craft rocketed after it, but too slowly, nowhere nearly catching up with Maguire’s before a shaft of flame shot out of its nose and Spindrift’s sled erupted in an explosion that roared in their ears, then suddenly cut off as his transmitter fried.  The boat drifted, charred and gutted—Spindrift’s coffin.

            Howling, Charlie shot close, blaster scarring Maguire’s portholes.

            “Mr. Spindrift!” Kit cried, and plunged her sled toward him, but a red ray stabbed in front of her, making her veer aside, just as a rocket streaked in from the twelve-foot asteroid and struck Spindrift’s corpse square in the chest.  Boat and pilot turned into a gray cloud streaked with crimson.

            Kit screamed with all the rage of a Fury and shot toward Flanagan’s drovers, firing ray after ray from her sled and, when it fizzled, pulling her work laser and firing it again and again.

            Charlie, Lucky, and Agatha realized what was happening and fired too.  Better, Skurly turned the burro-boat and sent a lance of green toward the Flanagan drovers—but they were already in retreat, their work done, speeding away from what was left of their victim, quickly lost among the tumbling rocks.

            Sobbing, Kit turned toward Spindrift’s boat to recover what was left—why, she didn’t know, but it had to be done.

            The other drovers converged on the dissipating cloud of smoke and blood.  There was no body to take home, nothing larger than a molecule; the rocket had blown Spindrift into plasma.

 

*                       *                       *

 

            “Bastards!” Charlie said.  “Murdering bastards!”

            They sat around the table in the bunkhouse on First Base, so recently a place of laughter and friendly insults over a card game, now cold and dreary with grief.

            “We’ll get them,” Lucky said, “every last blood-handed one of them.”  For the first time since Kit had known him, he didn’t sound cheerful.

            “Anybody see Flanagan?” Jessie asked.

            “’Course not!” Agatha snapped.  “Who ever knew Flanagan to do his own killing?”

            “Pepper was there,” Charlie said.  “I saw his helmet.”

“Flanagan’s foreman,” Jessie snarled.  “So much for him being a proctor.”

“A Peacekeeper!  Where’s justice?” Agatha demanded.  “Where’s justice, when it’s the proctors who lead the murderers?”

            “Then it’s up to us.”  Kit’s voice trembled with rage.  “It’s up to us to see justice done.”

            Someone should have pointed out that Spindrift wouldn’t care now, or that if he did, he wouldn’t want his drovers to tangle with whatever law officers there were over his lost life.  Someone should have, but no one even thought of it.

            Mr. Spindrift wouldn’t want us to break the law,” Lucky said with a frown.  “We did what we could.”

       “Yeah,” Kit spat.  “We towed in as much of the plasma as we could capture.”  Her eyes teared up.  “We couldn’t leave him alone out there.”

            “They didn’t know Mr. Trail had already outfitted our sleds with video,” Jessie said.  “They’ll have a nasty surprise when we get them to court.”

      “If we get them to court,” Skurly growled.  “What are the chances, when Flanagan’s foreman is the proctor?”

“We’ll get them anyway,” Kit said.  “We’ll get them all, every last slaughtering one of them.”

            The others looked up at her, startled by her vehemence, but Kit didn’t have time to notice; she was consumed with guilt because she’d gone haring off after a decoy, after bait, when her boss needed her.

            When her one true love needed her.

            She said what they were all thinking: “They need killing.”

            There it was, plain and out in the open, and everyone sat in silence for a moment.

            Then Agatha said, “Pepper first.”

            “Pepper first,” Kit agreed. 

“He led them, he gets pride of place,” Skurly said.

Kit frowned at him.  “What’s that mean—“pride of place?’”

“Right now,” Skurly said, “it means you’re right—he dies first.”

Kit stared at him a moment, then gave a single nod.

“I saw Olinger,” Charlie said.  “I’d know his leopard-spotted helmet anywhere.”

“I saw zebra stripes,” Jessica said.  “That’s Hindermann.”

Even now, that brought a smile—everyone knew Hindermann had made a dozen passes at Jessie.  Fitting, that his moving on her should earn his death warrant.

“I saw a helmet with Saturn’s rings,” Agatha said.  “That’s Matthews.”

Then the names came fast, one after another.  Two minutes, and the list was complete—but nobody needed to write it down.

“Where do we blast them?” asked Lucky.

“In front of Flanagan’s store,” said Skurly.  “They’re always around there to keep us out.”

“As though we’d want to get in now,” Charlie said in disgust.

“Oh, I would,” Skurly said. “With my laser drawn and hot?  You bet I would.”

The table was quiet for a minute.  Then Jessie said, acid in her tone, “We can’t call ourselves ‘Spindrift’s drovers’ any more, can we?”

            “No, we can’t.”  Kit matched her bitterness.  “The ‘First Basers’ doesn’t make it, either.”

            The table was quiet again.  Then Skurly said, “We’ll ask Swayne when we get back.”

            “Swayne?”  Kit looked up, startled.  “He’s a lawyer!  He’ll tell us not to do anything!”

            Charlie frowned.  “Why would he say that?”

            “Because every lawyer’s an officer of the court,” Skurly explained.  “He can’t rightly tell anybody to break the law.”

            “We won’t,” Kit snapped.  “We’ll just enforce it—or do you think it was legal to kill Mr. Spindrift?”

            “Or to take his store?” Jessie demanded.

            “Or his parcel?” Agatha added.

            “They haven’t taken the parcel yet,” Lucky said, “or we wouldn’t still be sitting here talking.”

            “Don’t count on it much longer,” Kit said darkly.  “Besides, how about the asteroids they stole?”

            “Don’t get me wrong,” Skurly said.  “Pepper and his boys broke the law, no question—but no lawyer worth asking will tell us to break it back.”

            “Who else is going to?” Charlie demanded. 

“Besides,” Lucky said, “a good lawyer can figure out how to kill them off without breaking the law.  Bending the hell out of it, sure—but not quite breaking.”

            “He might at that,” Skurly admitted.

            Jessie sat gathered tight, shrinking within her space suit.  “Mr. Trail would disown us.  He holds the law above everything.”

            “Except people’s lives,” Kit said.

            “He thinks the laws save people’s lives,” Lucky reminded her.

            “Rules, then,” Charlie said.  “Regulations.  Right or wrong, good or bad, like everyone knows.  Maybe we’ll break the law, but we’ll make the regulations stick.”

            “We’re the Regulators, then,” Skurly said.

            Kit fidgeted impatiently.  What did it matter what they called themselves?  It mattered what they did.  They all knew what they were going to do now—why did they have to talk and talk about it until they could say a reason?  She tuned them out, paying attention only to the sullen rage that burned in her belly—rage made all the hotter by a desire that could never be slaked now.  There was only one man who was the one, whom she’d want to initiate her into the mysteries and rumored delights of sex—and he was gone now.  She tasted bitterness on the back of her tongue, bile in her throat, for she knew now she would live and die a virgin.

            The floor thrummed under their feet; they heard the low rumble of a burro-boat linking to the airlock.  “Ambush!” Charlie shouted, and they all dove for cover, four behind overturned chairs, two more behind the table.  The airlock chime sounded, and Charlie shouted, “Who’s there?”

            “Trail and Swayne,” the speaker-patch answered, and everyone relaxed; somebody sighed.  “Come on in!” Charlie called, and the activity panel lit next to the airlock door.  It turned green and opened; two tall men strode in.  “What’s this about Spindrift?” Trail demanded. 

            “Dead.”  Charlie stood up, holstering his laser. 

            “We saw it.”  Skurly stood up too.  “We all did.  Ambush.”

            “You all saw?”  Trail raked them with a glance.

            “All,” Kit confirmed.  “No question—we need revenge.”

            “Do and the governor will see the Rangers kill you or lock you up for life,” Trail said.  “We’ll make the law work for us.”

            “The law, for us?”  Jessie’s lip curled.  “How?”

            “That’s why we have a lawyer.”  Swayne nodded.  “Your sled cameras were on and recording, weren’t they?”

A ragged chorus of “yeahs” answered him.  Then the drovers looked at one another, realization dawning.  “Evidence!” Charlie said.  “Even better than eye-witnesses!”

Swayne nodded, grim-faced.  “With those and six eyewitnesses, the verdict’s certain.”

            “We’re going to Ceres,” Trail said, “to tell the governor.  The Rangers will be on our side—you’ll see.”

            Kit frowned at him, troubled.  She wanted to believe him, but the law had never been on her side, not even when that ape had tried to jump her back on Mars.  There was one other thing she knew very well.  “They won’t even let you in to see the governor, Mr. Trail.  Not ordinary working folks like us.”

            “Oh, he’ll see me.”  Trail’s smile was sure.  “What he does about it will depend on you six.”

            Swayne nodded.  “Eyewitness testimony from six honest, law-abiding drovers will go a long way.”

            “So stay here,” Trail said, “and stay out of trouble.”

            “The law won’t take our side!” Kit burst out.  “It never has, not once in my life!”

            “Oh, the law will,” Trail said.  “It’s the people who enforce it that you can’t be sure of.  That’s why I’m talking to the governor.”

            “He’ll only listen to Flanagan,” Agatha protested.  “He’s rich.”

            “I’m not exactly poor myself,” Trail said.  “Who was in Flanagan’s burro-boat?”

            They looked at one another, startled.  “Had to have been Pepper,” Charlie said.

Kit nodded.  “Saw him through the porthole, but he was out of range.  Why…”

            “Was his camera running?”

            “I… I suppose…”

            “So was Spindrift’s.”  Jessie’s eyes moistened.  “Gone now.  Vaporized.  It’s anchored outside, with as much of his plasma as we could collect.”

“We couldn’t leave him alone out there.”  Kit felt the tears overflow, tried to ignore them.

            “DNA,” Swayne said.  “More proof.”

“Find the camera’s memory,” Trail ordered.  “Make three separate copies and leave them in three separate places—one in here, so they’ll think they have it when they impound this asteroid—and don’t try to stop them; we want them to think they’ve destroyed the only evidence.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Trail!”

“Good,” Trail said.  “We’re going.  Remember, stay alive—and stay out of trouble.”

The airlock door hissed shut behind them. 

“It won’t work,” Kit said.  “You can’t trust the law—it’s too easy to twist.”  But she put on her helmet and started after them.

“Now, hold on!” Charlie said.  “If it’s so useless, why the hurry?”

“Because if Mr. Trail isn’t right, nobody is,” Kit answered.  “We’ve got to try it his way—at least at first.”  She hit the patch, and the door hissed open.

 Lucky frowned, confused.  “If he’s wrong, Flanagan’s drovers are going to bushwhack you somewhere out there!”

“Then I’ll have to kill them before they kill me,” Kit said.  “I’m gonna go catch some boulders.”

“We,” Skurly snapped, “not you alone.  You’re not facing this by yourself, Kit.”  He twisted his helmet on as he limped into the lock.

With a shout, they all crowded in.

Air hissed out of the lock; the patch turned green and the hatch opened.  They tumbled out, and the first thing they saw was the flaming pencil of the burro-boat’s torch, a mile away already, carrying Trail and Swayne to Ceres.

The second thing was a laser beam stabbing down at the airlock, just behind Agatha.

            Kit gave a shout of warning.  Agatha sprang aside, then dove behind a bulge in the rock.  A laser beam melted ice where she’d been standing. 

            “Fools still can’t shoot worth a damn!”  Kit set her back against the airlock, laser up as she scanned the darkness all around, looking for the telltale reflection off a helmet’s faceplate.  Each of the others found some kind of cover for their backs, but they couldn’t hide completely when the enemy could have been anywhere around them.

            “There!”  Charlie’s beam snapped out.  Where it scored the ice, a jet of steam shot up and froze, and a drover dove from it over the curve of the asteroid—Doyle, by his helmet pattern—but all in eerie silence, no sound of explosion, no cry of pain.  Kit toggled her radio to “all frequencies.”  Even if Pepper’s boys encrypted their signals, she’d still hear static.

            “Inside,” Charlie shouted.  “The bunkhouse is mirror-walled!  Inside!”

            Nobody moved.  Everyone waited for Flanagan’s drovers to strike.  They’d had plenty of time to find cover and good shooting lines, after all.

            “There!”  A ruby beam snapped down to Agatha’s hummock—but her answering green beam came from a different iceball, a dozen yards to the side.  Her shot scored the rock and a jet of vapor shot up with a burst of static—somebody screaming.  Agatha had punctured his suit.

            Then, one second after another, five more green beams lanced out from the Regulators.  Three scored vapor jets—air escaping from holes in suits, with bursts of static from howls of anger and pain.  A rocket sled shot away from their asteroid, then another and another—Pepper’s hands in full retreat.

            “After me!” Kit cried.

            “No!” Charlie called.  “They’ll draw us out, cut us off from each other, and beam us down!  Everybody back inside, quick!”

            Reluctantly, they complied.  It griped them, but they knew Charlie was right.

            As they came back into the bunkhouse, Jessie took off her helmet and said, “So much for waiting for the law.”

            “Give it time,” Charlie said.  “Mr. Trail couldn’t have gotten to Ceres yet.”

            “He’s just starting out,” Kit added.

            “So what do we do?” Skurly snapped.  “Hole up here and wait for Flanagan’s hands to cut their way in and kill us all?”

            “We do our job,” Charlie answered, his face grim.  “We bring in asteroids.”

 

*                       *                       *

 

            They weren’t very productive.  Six drovers couldn’t bring in very many boulders when four of them had to stand sentry-duty.  Every now and then, though, their radars did show blips that weren’t nickel-iron asteroids, and a sentry loosed a bolt from his sled’s laser—or used his tractor beam to send an asteroid spinning at a Flanagan drover’s sled.  No one was killed or even hurt, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

            At the end of the week, though, a blip showed up that swelled too rapidly to be a sled.  “Burro boat coming in at ten o’clock!” Skurly called from his seat in Spindrift’s boat.

            “Guard him!” Charlie shouted, and shot away toward the speck of light with the other four close behind him. 

As it gathered speed, though, the tubby little spaceship passed them and reached the incoming boat first with Skurly calling over the comm laser, “Stranger burro-boat!  Identify yourself!”

            They all heard the answer—Swayne’s voice, taut with strain.  “Relax, Mr. Skurly.  It’s only me, Swayne!”

            Each of the drovers felt the relaxation of relief.  Then Kit frowned.  “That’s awful quick for Ceres and back.”

            “You’re so suspicious, Kit!” Agatha scolded.

            “But right, in this case,” Swayne’s voice said wearily.  “Flanagan seems to have friends everywhere.  We stopped for the night at Drovers’ Rest, and the Navy Police were waiting for us with a warrant.”

            “Warrant?  From where?”

            “A magistrate who served in the Navy with Flanagan.”

            “They arrested Mr. Trail?” Jessie cried, and Kit demanded, “What charge?”

            “They didn’t want to tell us that,” Swayne said with a sigh.  “Permission to dock and enter?  I’m intolerably weary.”

            “Oh, of course!” 

The drovers escorted the burro boat in.  Sunlight gleamed off a faceplate in the distance, but no one sought to stop them.

            “I’ll stand sentry in the burro-boat, squire,” Skurly said.

            Swayne looked up in surprise, the nodded.  “Yes, we do have to be on our guard, don’t we?  Please stay with the craft, Mr. Skurly.”

            Once inside and protected by the stone walls of the drovers’ house, Swayne sat at the table and accepted a dram of rum. 

            “What charge?” Kit repeated.

            “I suppose it will be aiding and abetting obstruction of trade.”  Swayne’s face twisted with derision.  “The trade, of course, is Flanagan’s.  The sector legislature seems to have developed a novel justification for monopoly.”

            Kit frowned, not understanding half the words but getting the gist.  “That’s wrong.  Let’s break him out.”

            “The Navy Police rather outnumber us,” Swayne said.  “Flanagan found a legal excuse to jail him; I have to find a legal excuse to free him.”

            “Speaking of excuses and break-outs,” Charlie said with a frown, “how’d you get loose?”

            “I registered my credentials with the sector government on Ceres,” Swayne said.  “They managed an excuse to hold me overnight, claiming they had to check with the central data banks, but they found I actually am an officer of the court, so they dared not hold me without better grounds.”

            “They just let you go?”

            “No lawyer will allow another lawyer to be held without good reason,” Swayne said.  “The precedent might be used against him.”

            “Go wary, Squire,” Kit said.  “Flanagan doesn’t know you have friends on Ceres.  He might tell his drovers to shoot you anyway.”

            The airlock chimed.  Everyone froze; then Charlie said, “Who’s there?”

            Skurly appeared on the screen, gauntlets holding each arm.  “They took me out of the boat, Charlie.  They say it belongs to Flanagan now.”

            Someone jostled him off the screen, and Pepper’s face appeared through his faceplate.  “Open in the name of the law, Charlie.”  He held up his gauntlet, displaying a badge.  “I’m the proctor now.”

They all bristled.  “Says who?” Charlie demanded.

“Says Judge Clovis,” Pepper answered.

“Well, enjoy it while you can,” Charlie told him.  “Trail’s gone to Ceres to sic the court on Flanagan.”

“Trail’s in jail at Drovers’ Rest,” Pepper returned.  “Didn’t anybody tell you?  Oh, and his tame lawyer Swayne, too.  Open up, Brewer—Clovis says that everything that was Spindrift’s is Flanagan’s now, because he obtained it by illegal means.”

Swayne spat a word in a foreign language, but the meaning was clear by the tone.  He came over to the screen.  “Excuse me, Charles.  Mr. Pepper, I’m afraid your information is rather out of date.  I’m here, and as an officer of the court, I am informing you that such a warrant as you possess is not valid.”

“Not valid?  Clovis signed it!”

“But it has to be served,” Swayne pointed out, “and the defendant named in it is not here to receive it.”

“Not here?  He’s dead!  There isn’t even a corpse!”

“Then it must be served on his heirs and assigns.”

“Who the hell are his heirs and assigns?”

“That is the first thing you must determine,” Swayne said.  “Once you have done that, you must travel to their location and serve them with the papers.”

“But he might have come from Earth!”

“Then you will have to travel to Earth and return with evidence of service.  Until you do, you cannot take possession of my client’s estate.”

Pepper turned red.  “I’ve had it with your lawyer’s double-talk!  Open that door or we’ll blast our way in!”

The drovers arranged themselves around the airlock hatch in an ambush—except for Lucky, who turned to watch the curve of the other three-quarters.

“Charles,” Swayne said, “summon the Rangers.”

Charlie grinned.  “Yes sir, Mr. Swayne.  Right away, sir.”

Pepper squalled outrage.  “I’m the proctor, blast you!”

“A proctor engaged in an illegal act,” Swayne said, “and therefore subordinate to the Belt Rangers, and liable to criminal charges.”

Pepper bellowed, and the airlock latch began to glow as his laser started to burn through.

The drovers leveled their weapons.  A crash, and the back wall caved in.  A drover started through it, and met Lucky’s laser beam, right in his breast bone.  He crumpled, wedged in the hole.  His fellows wrenched furiously at his corpse, trying to free a way in.  Kit sailed over and twisted the dead man’s helmet free, his air supply with it.

Agatha turned toward the back wall beside Lucky, their lasers lancing green.  The rest held aim on the airlock as it burst open.

Pepper threw Skurly in first, but his friends recognized his helmet-pattern and held their fire until two more of Flanagan’s men cycled through, then started firing as the air rushed out of the bunkhouse, and Kit grabbed a spare helmet, buckled it around Swayne’s head, then opened the air valve and tossed him the space suit that went with it.  She turned to the air lock and started firing.

Jessie and Agatha dived behind furniture and snapped shots at the invaders coming through the back wall.  A body slammed into the airlock hatch and it burst open.  Kit loosed a shot; so did Charlie.  Screams tore though the public channel and bodies tumbled into the bunkhouse.  “They’re dead!  You killed ‘em!” Pepper shouted.  “Deputies, get in there and fry ‘em!”

“Deputies?” Kit cried in outrage.

“They have no more legitimacy than the man who appointed them,” Swayne called.

Kit reached out and yanked Swayne’s leg.  “Get down, Squire!”

The lawyer fell just as a ruby beam lanced through the place where his head had been.

            “I said, get in there!” Pepper bawled.

            “No way,” a strange voice called back.  “We didn’t sign up to walk into a death-trap!”

            “I’ll pay you shares, same as Flanagan pays me!”

            “Flanagan?” Swayne cried in outrage.  “The proctor is paid by the citizens!”

            “So one citizen pays me more than the others,” Pepper snarled.  “What’s the difference?”

            “He killed Spindrift!” Kit yelled.  “Burn the louse!”

            Shouts of outrage filled her helmet as green arrows of light converged, moving toward Pepper.  He dove back out through the ruined airlock just as a man screamed, hoarse and raw, at the hole in the back.

            “It’s Coe!” Pepper shouted.  “You killed Rick Coe!  I’ll hang you for that!”

            “Not if you’re dead, you won’t.”  Charlie dove out of cover to the airlock and, kneeling behind the jamb, snapped a shot outside.  Agatha and Jessie joined him, their bolts lighting up the icescape around them.

“Get back!  Get back to the boat!” Pepper shouted. 

“But they can’t come out without getting clear shots at us!” a strange voice objected.

“Pepper’s hiring more hands,” Charlie noted.

“Has to.”  Kit grinned.  “We killed off one of his.”

“Two, now,” Agatha said, “if we really got Coe.”

“They don’t have to come out, fool,” Pepper said.  “This is a habitation—they’ve likely got food in there for a week, and water’s all around.”

“They killed Coe!”  Hindmann’s voice said.  “We can’t just walk away and let them go!”

“They’re going to leave us stranded!” Jessie hissed.

Even Kit shivered at the thought.  Marooned on an ice asteroid!  What would they do when the food ran out?  And the air?  ”You can’t do that!”

“Can’t we just?” Pepper asked.  “Put those sleds inside the boat and get out of here.  Like I said, they’ve got food enough for a week.”

“Pepper,” Tom Hill said, “you’re breaking the one law that all the cops honor, Navy and Ranger alike.”

“I’m a proctor, ain’t I?  And they killed one of ours!  That’s justice enough!”

“It’s homicide.  I won’t be no accessory.”

“Homicide?  What do you think they’re doing, y’ blasted fool?”

“Self-defense,” the strange voice snapped, “same as it is in any shoot-out—and if you think I’m a fool, you won’t want me on your side.”  The voice faded and a sled started up.  “You can pay me when we get back to Port Alice.”

“All right, they can keep one sled!” Pepper snarled.  “Let ‘em get back to Port Alice on that!”

There was a pause; then the stranger's voice said, “All right, one of ‘em can get to port and bring back help—if he can live through the journey.”

“He’ll have his chance,” Hindmann said.

There was a pause; then the strange voice said, “That’s good enough—a one-sled chance.”

“One too many,” Pepper groused, “but it’ll keep us inside the law.  Come on, mount up and get back to the Store.”  Then, as an afterthought, “Throw that fool in with ‘em.  No gimp can shoot worth a damn anyway.”

Skurly came barreling through the hole in the back wall, stumbled, and fell.  Kit ran to help him up, then suddenly felt danger and leaped back as a laser beam stabbed the ice next to Skurly.  “Bastards!” she shouted, and loosed a shot through the back hole at random.  Someone screamed, and someone else snarled, “Come on, let’s get out of here.  They got too much cover.”

Drovers grumbled, sleds roared, then the whole symphony faded anyway.

The Regulators knelt in place for several minutes, until Charlie stood up, holstering his laser.  “We all here?  Lucky?  Jessie?  Agatha?”

Voices answered: “Yeah.” 

“I’m walking.”  Kit said, “They didn’t get me yet.”

“Maybe I can’t walk so good no more,” Skurly said, “but I can still shoot.  Bastards are fools if they think I can’t.”

“We know that.  They’ll find out too, if you get near ‘em with a burro boat.”

“I won’t sleep again,” Skurly promised, “not if I’m the only one aboard.”

“Okay, you can take the sled back to Port Alice.”

“No he can’t,” Kit said quickly.  “I’ll go.  I’m the lightest, got the least mass.”

The others were quiet a moment; then Charlie said, “It’s dangerous.  I’ll go.”

“No you won’t,” Kit said.  “You mass at least twice as much as I do.  You’d run out of fuel and air before you got halfway there—and how’re you going to make oxygen without the splitting plant in a burro boat?”

They were quiet again; then Swayne said, “She’s right.  Much as I’d rather go myself, she’s right.”  He turned to Kit.  “There’s money in the account.  Tell the sled-seller to bill it to First Base.”

Kit’s face clouded at the reminder of Spindrift, but she nodded.

“Cover her,” Charlie said.  “Pepper will have left at least two shooters ready to ambush whoever comes out.”

“If I can get twenty feet away, they won’t hit me,” Kit said.

“We’ll buy you that twenty feet,” Charlie promised.

“The gimp will make sure of that,” Skurly said.  “They’ll know I can shoot by the holes in ‘em.  Flamers took my laser, though.  Anybody got a spare?”

“Use this one.”  Swayne held out the dead man’s laser.  “I couldn’t hit this igloo if I were standing right in front of it.”

There was a short, embarrassed silence—everyone stunned that a person should admit such a failing.  But they were also floored by his honesty, especially when it mattered for survival.

“Okay, places,” Charlie said.  “Three of us by the back hole, two by what’s left of the airlock.”

They knelt behind the furniture again, Swayne crouching behind the block of ice that had fallen from the roof during the fight.

Kit peered out the hole and saw the sled waiting for her, right in front and ten feet away, perfectly placed.

Too perfectly.

“Okay, go!” Charlie snapped.

Kit drew her laser and dove out the hole.

 

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