The secs came while the Kylians were still struggling out of the sludge pipe, a wave of men in bright red and orange jackets, with the standard decked out bolt-action rifles, this time with ridiculously long bayonets. They rushed the dock's counter-spinward entrance, screaming, as if this was a movie set of some crudmunching historical action vid.

  Riina's guards, three teens who'd volunteered, fled. The secs clumped together near the entrance. One of them lifted his rifle to the shoulder.

  I shot him with a three-round burst from the Chimer, hitting him in the arm where his armor didn't protect him. Moments later, two sub-machine guns clattered beside me, and the front line of secs fell, screaming and cursing. Most pulled back, or were dragged by their friends, but two remained on the white floor, staining it red.

  I flicked on a clock on my com readout, setting a timer. This was only the beginning.

  "How long until we're clear?" I asked Riina, who stood by the broken pipe, directing exhausted Kylians.

  "Ten, maybe twelve minutes," she replied through a rolled up scarf, then stuck her head down into the pipe again, shouting something.

  Twelve minutes. It might as well have been twelve years. The cold clarity that had given me strength was fading, replaced by a grim determination.

  This was where I made my stand, protecting a broken sewage pipe and a derelict hull. I almost laughed. Not the end I had in mind when I ran from the Academy. But we don't get to choose every fight. Some fights choose us, and all we get to choose is whether to step up or crawl and hide.

  I was done with hiding. I could see the same determination on the faces of the Kylians around me. They, too, had been hiding, losing their lives by the day. Now they were fighting, and scared, and at the end of their cord.

  Still better than hiding. I got down into cover behind a moth-balled electric truck near the airlock. Its white, aluminum sides were thin, useless as cover, but the battery pack was a solid, meter-thick lump beneath its wheels, and it was situated where I could fire at both entrances.

  I glanced at my com. Two minutes out of Riina's twelve. Every second that passed was another few Kylians out the pipe and into safety.

  The second wave of secs came a minute later, in the grey-white-and-black camouflage jackets of the masecs. This time, they didn't scream and charge, but cowered around the entrance, firing at the lines of running Kylians. We drove them off with quick bursts of sub-machinegun fire.

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  The third wave was worse, sixty or so men carrying a steel gangplank as cover, with riflemen around the edges.

  Behind me came the heavy boom of my M3, and a sec jerked, fell. The others crowded into cover behind the gangplank.

  I shot their feet out, aimed single shots from the Chimer, felling three men before the rest figured out what was going on. The gangplank hit the floor with a clang, the men behind it keeping it upright.

  Crudmunching voidmuckers.

  Someone behind me fired at it, bullets clanging into the steel. They made small dents. Useless. The gangplank scraped forward, a wail of steel on steel, a moving bunker. We needed to stop it before it got into a position where the secs could fire into the Belithain.

  Our guns couldn't do it. Only wards could.

  I patted down my pockets, my hands slipping in slimy sludge, looking for something I could throw, imprinting a final flame ward on it before I fainted and the secs overran us.

  I didn't get the chance. Someone shouted behind me, then a clatter of sub-machine gun fire. Boot-steps banged against the steel floor.

  Maiko. Running past me in an all-out sprint, his sub-machine gun held low and to the side.

  A suicide charge, void-loving crazy. Brave voidmunger.

  A head popped up behind the gangplank, and I shot two quick bursts from my Chimer, forcing it down. Maiko didn't waver, heading for the side of the gangplank.

  He fired the second he rounded it, a long, side-ways, point-blank burst, emptying the magazine as he rushed past.

  The gangplank teetered as secs let it go, dying or going for their rifles.

  The SMG fell silent, its chamber empty. Maiko tried to reverse, to get into cover, his boots skidding on the steel floor. Bullets tore into him, rocking him sideways. He fell, still skidding.

  With a crash that felt like a punch to my ears, the gangplank fell, exposing the secs.

  I fired. Our remaining sub-machine guns fired. Secs died.

  More kept firing into Maiko, his body twitching. I started forward, to haul him back, when a bullet found his throat, ripping it out in a spray of blood.

  It stopped me, out in the open, five steps toward him. Bullets flew past me, in both directions, before the few secs remaining ran, leaving their friends on the floor, crying, calling for help, begging for mercy.

  Maiko didn't move. Too late for him to cry.

  "Last!" someone shouted behind me. "Last out of the pipe!"

  I turned, sprinting back to my cover, then past it. One of Maiko's bodyguards, SMG smoking in his hands, its bolt forward.

  Empty. Like I was feeling. I kept seeing Maiko rushing past me, the bullets ripping into him.

  Brave munger.

  Maybe I'd have done the same in his place. Maybe not. No way of knowing.

  I grabbed the bodyguard as I rushed past him, dragging him with me.

  "He's dead," I said. "You live."

  He was younger than I'd thought, a thin fuzz of a beard on his chin. I yanked on his arm and he turned, sprinting with me to the Belithain, where the last Kylians were entering.

  Bangs behind us. Bullets flying. More bangs.

  Crudmunching secs. Crudmunching Rimont station.

  I reached the Belithain, shoving the kid before me and hitting the airlock keypad.

  With a squeal that cut past even the high-pitched, post-battle ringing in my ears, the airlock closed, locking us in the hulk.