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menacingly.
Then the door stopped, jammed open.
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Chapter Thirteen
The gap was about the width of a man's shoulders, but to Jim's horrified eyes
it looked as though a truck could be driven through it.
There was the boom of a gun, and he ducked away as lead starred out, mostly
hitting the steel door with a crunching blow.
"Get the bastards!" The voice from the corridor had a chilling, murderous
quality.
Mac, at Jim's elbow, jabbed again and again at the button to close the door.
"Close, you son of a bitch!" he screamed.
There was the crackle of small arms, underlaid with the deeper sound of
shotguns.
Several rounds sliced through the gap, exploding against one of the walls of
the lobby, over the heads of the
Aquila's crew.
A number of high-velocity bullets struck the door, ringing like a gong. Their
collective impact made the whole structure shudder, jarring the jammed gears
and freeing the powerful hydraulic mechanism so that it began to close again.
"Keep down!" yelled Jim Hilton, seeing that Pete and Jed were about to get up.
The indecision had gone, and he could feel the adrenaline surging through his
body. His hand ached with the desire to hold a pistol and return fire at the
butchers gathered outside the door.
The gap shrank to a few inches, and then vanished to nothing.
"There's a locking control," said Carrie, sounding amazingly calm. "Red lever
on the right."
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Mac threw it down, and the sign above flashed "Manual control operated."
It was suddenly silent. Two more shots rang off the other side of the door,
but the noise was strangely muffled, like the tolling of a bell far under the
sea.
"Is there another entrance?" Jeff Thomas was on his feet, grinning like a
maniac, fresh blood seeping from the deep gash across his cheek. "Come on& you
guys know this fucking warren better than I do. Is there another way in or
out?"
Jim answered him. "Emergency exit. We're fifty feet under the base here.
There's an air lock and ladder to a heavy steel cover. Hand-operated ring lock
on it. Be almost impossible to break in that way unless you nuked it."
"So we're safe. For a while."
Jim nodded. "Yeah, for a while. Might as well make the most of what we got
while we're in here. Looks like none of the raiders made it inside. The
generator's still doing its stuff. We got light and heat, fresh air and water.
Should be plenty of processed food. Baths. Beds."
Jeff Thomas gave Steve Romero a high five. "All right!"
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"Guns?" asked Pete Turner. "Don't remember seeing any around."
Jim nodded slowly. "Had my own automatic in my locker. If it's still safe
there.
But it won't carry us very far against a dozen men with rifles and 10-gauge
shotguns."
"Least they can't break in here after us." Mac said.
Jim nodded. "Just for a few hours, I'd settle for being where we are. Think
about crossing any bridges later."
AFTER THEY'D TAKEN BATHS, they dug into the living quarters. Each of
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clothes and other items that they hadn't seen for over two years.
Jim looked around at the shocked and strained expressions on everyone's faces.
"Listen up. We all got small cabins. Take what you got and get some privacy.
Then we can meet up again in the dining section in an hour."
Each of them found the process of going through their possessions almost
overwhelmingly painful. Normally, after a mission, it would have been sheer
delight, a pleasure to come across the souvenirs of family and friends,
knowing that they would soon be seen again.
But after the spilled-blood look of the planet when they'd broken through into
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