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kill off Relli, Lars and Donna individually or just working on a way to sink
the whole damn ekranoplan with all of them still aboard. The explosions she
had felt didn t seem big enough to be demolition charges, so they were
probably grenades from the Escher. Donna prayed that however much of a fool
Relli was, he hadn t shown Shallej the self-destruct button or the plug or
whatever else would send the craft and its contents to the bottom of the sump
quickly and easily. The fact she was still alive told her that he probably
hadn t.
A shadow moved in the doorway. Donna fired her las through the gap and
charged. Someone cursed and Donna saw the silhouetted head and shoulders of a
man appear before being dazzled by a muzzle flash from something in his hands.
An autogun chattered wildly, firing wide of her and smashing one of Relli s
holo shutters into a cloud of tinkling shards.
Donna heard the clip run dry on the Dog Soldier s autogun at the same instant
she cannoned into the door and sent him staggering back from the threshold.
Seventy-six swept down with a hungry snarl but the Goliath blocked it with his
gun. The rotating teeth seemed to scream in frustration as they scrabbled at
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the metal barrier between them and soft flesh. Donna flicked her wrist and
sent the chain blade skipping down the gun at the Dog Soldier s fingers. He
desperately threw the weapon at her and took his chance to jump backwards as
she batted it aside.
Donna heard shouts from down below on the floor of the atrium, followed by a
shot. The Goliath flinched back as a chunk of railing vapourised beside him.
Oi! Watchit ya numbties! he yelled. Donna risked a sideways glance to see
whom he was shouting at.
Two pit slaves were crouching in the lower doorway with stub guns drawn. Two
more stub rounds clipped the railing marginally closer to Donna than the
Goliath. The little frikkers didn t care who they hit, she concluded.
Apparently reaching the same conclusion, the Dog Soldier jumped as far back
from the railing as he could. She put a las-shot into him and clipped his
shoulder, barely slowing him as he pulled out an autopistol.
Donna dived down the stairs just as he let rip. The Goliath swung a crescent
of hot lead around himself with no aim whatsoever, spraying bullet-pocked arcs
across the atrium and various objets d art with raucous abandon. Donna snapped
off a las-shot in return but had her own problems as she fought to keep from
going headlong down the stairs and breaking her neck. Another couple of stub
rounds smacked into the wall near her, almost unnoticeable in the chatter of
autofire but quite distinct because they were vaguely accurate.
Donna snapped off a couple more shots at the doorway and sent the pit slaves
scurrying for cover. The autofire stopped and she heard the Dog Soldier
changing clips. He was out of sight from her now. Donna decided it was time to
start the revolution early.
Why the hell are you shooting at me you pricks! Relli is dead! You re free!
She shouted to the pit slaves. Okay one little white lie Relli wasn t dead,
yet.
Thass bullshit, don lissen boys! The Goliath s angry bellow came over the
balcony. At least she had an idea of where he was standing now, and he seemed
a bit too quick to respond to be sure about pit slaves loyalties.
Like we should believe you, Dog Soldier! one of the slaves was plucky enough
to shout back. What if she s right?
Yous little frikas! the Dog Soldier snarled. Gerrout an fight or I ll
kills you mehself!
Yes, what if I m right? Donna taunted. No more free dinners, fatboy! She
creased the balcony with a couple more las-shots.
That was all it took to push the Goliath into a murderous rage. He appeared at
the balcony and sprayed the doorway with bullets. One of the pit slaves
screamed in pain. The other one ducked back out of sight again. Donna bounced
up and unleashed a fusillade of shots at the Goliath. Chunks of railing
disintegrated under her volley and the Goliath retreated. Her angle was bad
here, but going back up on the balcony gave the Dog Soldier an odds-on chance
of turning her into a sieve.
Stub gun rounds snapped out from the doorway. Not at her, bless, but at the
Goliath. She used the distraction to run back up the stairs and onto the
balcony. Auto rounds whipped past her head the instant she came in view. Donna
dived and rolled, blasting shots back almost at random. One of her las-bolts
caught the Goliath in the thigh, spinning him around. He clung onto the
shot-scarred railing for support and levelled his autopistol at her. She put
two shots just past his ear and then had to run for cover, still cursing at
her inaccuracy as he opened fire again. Bullets pelted around her, ricocheting
wildly. Something hit her heel and made her stagger. She spun and snapped off
a shot at the towering Goliath another clean miss. He was struggling upright
and pulling out a knife with his offhand, the giant cousin of the one she had
tried to use earlier.
A huge red splotch suddenly masked half the Goliath s face, the autopistol
dropped from his nerveless fingers and he toppled slowly over the railing to
hit the floor of the atrium with a wet thud. A stub round had taken him in the
back of the head, a hundred-to-one shot at least score one for the revolution.
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She ran down to the doorway below before the pit slaves got a chance to change
their minds. She found both of them still there, one cradling the head of the
other as his life leaked out of the holes stitched across his chest by an
autopistol burst. There was something tragic and pathetic about the slaves.
The crude amputations and mismatched bionics couldn t disguise their very
human suffering. Donna had intended to waste them both to make sure they
couldn t shoot her when her back was turned. Pity stayed her hand.
You should get out of here, she told the survivor softly. He looked up at
her desolately.
Frikking guilders. Friking Hive City. Friking planet. There were tears in
the slave s eyes. The ownership stud in his forehead winked in silent mockery
of his pain. Why do we have to frik things up all the time?
Donna shrugged. It s the natural order of things. Frikked up. For what it s
worth, I m sorry.
The guilder s not really dead, is he?
Soon, Donna crooned soothingly. Soon.
Donna left the slave to his misery and ran along the maze of narrow corridors.
They had caught her here before, but now it was quiet except for gunfire
echoing eerily down from the deck above. She came across a freshly
bullet-scarred corner it had been hit when she had been chased through
earlier. Looking about her, she found a trail of destruction left by the
pursuit and used it to find her way back to the outer hatch through which she
had entered. She edged it open carefully and peered out onto the deck.
Flames and strobing muzzle flashes lit the dark surface of the sump outside.
Hard black shadows flickered and danced across the deck in time to bursts.
Donna could see little of the deck but it looked empty beyond the hatch. With
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