“Understood, sir,” she said.
“Back on watch,” Holden said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.
She walked back to the edge of the platform. Juarez watched without comment. After a respectful moment he said, “Plan, sir?”
“Naomi is trying to get the door open, but without any success. Blowing the elevator may have bought you two a couple more minutes, but maybe that’s all it bought you.”
“We’ll try to make the most of them,” the other marine said with a half smile. Juarez chuckled and slapped her on the back.
“So this is our final defensive position, then. Good cover and field of fire. If I get lucky maybe I can crack another mask. Cass, why don’t you take that right corner, Corin can keep the left, and I’ll set up here in the center. Holden can rove and back up whichever side is taking the most heat.”
He paused, nodding at Holden. “If you agree, sir.”
“I agree,” Holden said. “In fact, I’m giving you full tactical command of this position. I’m going to be trying to help Naomi with the door. Yell if you get in trouble.”
Juarez kicked off his mags, then jumped up to plant his feet on the ceiling. He straightened out, his long rifle pointed over his head, straight down the shaft. From Holden’s perspective he looked like a particularly well-armed bat hanging from the roof.
“Movement,” he said almost immediately.
“Shit,” the marine named Cass said. “They got through the barrier fast.”
“Looks like they’re not quite through, but the wall is bulging like they’re beating their way through it.”
“I have an idea,” Naomi said and walked over to the edge of the platform, then out onto the wall and over to the opposite side of the elevator shaft.
“Where are you going?” Holden asked.
“Panel,” was her only answer before she popped an access hatch off the elevator shaft bulkhead and climbed inside. It was large enough that she completely disappeared. Holden didn’t think there would be anything in there that could help them get the airlock door open, but he didn’t care. Naomi was hidden while she stayed in there. Ashford’s people might not bother to look for her. They probably didn’t have good intel on who had engaged in the assault on engineering.
“Here they come,” Juarez said, looking down the shaft through his telescopic sight. “Two left.” His muzzle flashed once. “Shit, no hit.” It flashed twice more. Cass started firing with her assault rifle on single fire, carefully aiming each shot. The bad guys were just under a kilometer away. Holden didn’t think he’d be able to hit a stationary transport shuttle at that range, much less a rapidly moving man-sized target. But after having spent some time with Bobbie Draper, Holden knew that if Cass was taking the shots, it was because she thought she had a chance to score hits. He wasn’t about to argue with her.
“Eight hundred meters,” Juarez said, his voice no different than if he’d been giving a stranger the time. “Seven-fifty.” He fired again.
Cass fired off the last of her magazine, then replaced it in one smooth motion. She had one extra left. Holden took three magazines off his own bandolier and left them floating next to her left elbow. She nodded her thanks without pausing in her firing. Juarez fired twice more, then said, “Out.” He continued sighting down the scope, calling out ranges for Cass. When he hit five hundred meters, Corin started firing as well.
It was all very brave, Holden thought. None of them were the kind of people who gave up, no matter the odds. But it was also sort of pointless. Juarez had the only gun that was even remotely a threat to troops in state-of-the-art recon armor, and he’d fired it dry and only scored one kill. So they’d throw a lot of bullets at the approaching enemy because that’s what people like them did, even when there was no chance. But in the end, Ashford would win. If he wasn’t so emotionally drained, Holden would have been pissed.
The LEDs in the elevator shaft came back on, bathing them all with white light. The two soldiers wearing their stolen power armor were flying up the corridor toward them. Before he’d had time to wonder why the power was back on, there was a thud that Holden could feel through his feet. A large section of the elevator bulkhead slid open. The backup elevator slowly moved out into the shaft on hydraulic arms, then locked into place on the wall-mounted tracks. Lights flashed on the elevator’s control panel as its systems cycled through warm-up. Then a light on the panel flashed red three times and the elevator launched down the tracks at high speed.
“Huh,” Juarez said.
The impact when the hurtling backup elevator slammed into the stationary main elevator shook the bulkheads hard enough to make Holden’s helmet ring like a bell.
“Well,” Cass said.
Corin leaned out over the edge of the platform, looking down, and yelled, “Fuck you!” through the vacuum.
A few seconds later, Naomi’s head popped back out of the open access panel. She looked up at them and waved. “Did that work?”
Holden found that he wasn’t too drained to feel relief. “I think so.”
“The armor is pretty tough,” Juarez said. “It might be okay. But at that speed, whatever’s inside it is probably a liquid now.”
Naomi walked across the elevator bulkhead and then stepped over and down onto their platform. “I’m not good with guns,” she said in an almost apologetic voice.
“No,” Juarez said, waving his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You just keep doing your thing. Warn me if I’m in the way.”
“Doesn’t solve our door problem,” Naomi added, still with a tone of apology.
Because he couldn’t kiss her in an environment suit, Holden put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to his side. “I’m happy with you solving the ‘about to be ripped to pieces’ problem.”
Corin, who’d turned to look at the airlock when Naomi mentioned it, said, “Open sesame,” and the outer airlock door slid open.
“Holy shit,” Holden said. “Did you just magic that door open?”
“The green cycle light was blinking,” Corin replied.
“Did you do that?” Holden said, turning to Naomi.
“Nope.”
“Then we should be careful.” Holden handed his rifle and his remaining magazines to Juarez, then drew his sidearm. “Juarez, when the inner door opens, you have the point.”