Читаем Nemesis Games полностью

The first marine fired three rounds in fast succession, and the attackers’ laughter followed it. Alex couldn’t be sure, but he thought the people firing at him were wearing Martian military uniforms and light armor.

“Hey!” Alex called. “We’re not going to be any good to you dead, right?”

There was a lull, like a moment of surprise. “Hoy, bist tu Kamal?”

“Um,” Alex said. “My name’s Kamal.”

“Knuckles’ pilot, yeah?”

“Who’s Knuckles?”

“Pinché traitor’s who,” the voice said. “You get to hell, tell her Salo sent you.”

“Grenade incoming,” the slushy-voiced marine said, his voice weirdly calm. “Employing countermeasures.”

Alex turned his face to the wall and pressed his hands to his ears. The shock of the explosion was like being slapped all across his side. He fought to breathe. Flecks of something like snow swirled through the air, and the stink of plastic and spent explosive was thick enough to choke. The stutter of gunfire seemed to come from far away.

“Grenade mitigated,” the marine shouted. “But we could use some backup here.”

The prime minister had a bright line of red across the backs of his hands, blood soaking into the white of his cuffs and floating in tiny dots through the air of the hallway. Alex felt the wall shudder under his hand as something on the ship detonated too far away to hear. Someone at the head of the corridor was laughing and whooping something in Belter chatter too fast to follow. Alex ducked his head out and back again, trying to get a glimpse of the corridor ahead. A crackle of gunfire drove him back into his shallow cover.

The laughter ahead of them turned to screams, the sharp, flat reports of gunfire into something deeper and more threatening. The marines opened fire, and the corridor rose to pandemonium. A body cartwheeled by, limp and dead, its uniform sopping up blood from a dozen wounds. Alex couldn’t tell which side the fighter had belonged to.

The gunfire stopped. Alex waited a long moment, ducked his head out and back again. Then leaned out for a longer look. The intersection where the enemy had been was misty with smoke and blood and the anti-grenade countermeasure. Two bodies floated in the middle space, one dead in light combat armor, the other in full marine recon gear. The power-armored figure lifted its hand in the sign for all clear.

“We cleaned that up for you,” Bobbie called, her voice seeming to come from miles away and with all the treble stripped out. “You can come on up. Might want to hold your breath through here, though. There’s some particulates.”

Alex pulled himself forward, the prime minister following close behind. They passed Bobbie and four new marines that swelled their escort to six. He hadn’t seen Bobbie in armor since the fight on Io. With the other marines around her, the massive armor adding to her normal bulk, she seemed at home. And more than that, she seemed wistful, knowing that it was an illusion.

“Looks good on you, Draper,” Alex called as he passed. Half-deafened by the firefight, he only felt the words in his throat. Bobbie’s smile told him that she’d heard them.

In the hangar, the Razorback hung in clamps built to accommodate ships much larger than she was. It was like seeing an industrial lathe with a toothpick in it. The flight crew hung on to handholds around it, gesturing Alex and Bobbie and the prime minister on. By the time Alex got to the ship, the massive hangar doors were already starting their opening cycle. The flight chief was pushing a vacuum suit at him and shouting so he could hear her.

“We’re coordinating with fire control. The PDCs’ll try to get you a clear run, but be careful. You run into our own rounds, and that’d just be sad.”

“Understood,” Alex said.

She gestured toward the hangar doors with her chin. “We’re not taking the time to evacuate the bay completely, but we’ll get you down to maybe half an atmosphere. Little bit of a pop, but you shouldn’t spring a leak.”

“And if I do?”

She held out the environment suit again. “You’ll have some bottled air to suck on while you figure something out.”

“Well, not a great plan, but it’s a plan.”

“Imperfect circumstances,” the flight chief agreed.

Alex shrugged the suit on as the prime minister, already wearing his, slipped into the pinnace and toward the back bunk. The Razorback was a yacht. A hot rod, made for zipping around outside an atmosphere, the philosophical descendant of ships that didn’t lose sight of the shore. And more than that, she was old. The girl who’d first flown her had been dead or something stranger for years, and the ship had been old before she went. Now they were going to fly it through an active battle zone.

He checked the last of the seals on his suit, and started for the Razorback. Bobbie was in the entry, looking in. When she spoke, it was through the suit radio.

“We’ve got a little problem, Alex.”