Someone – Butch, it sounded like – yelled “Push ’em back!” and Amos crouched down, squinting back at the Zhang Guo. The civilians were almost all on, Stokes at the back waving his arms and yelling to hurry them. Something detonated, blowing the glass out of the remaining windows. The shock wave thudded through Amos’ chest like the explosion had kicked him. He stood up, glanced through the window, and shot the nearest figure in the face. The deeper rattle came from outside, and stuttering muzzle flash brighter than the remaining lights. Holes appeared in the wall, beams of light shining through into the vast cathedral space of the hangar.
“We got to get out of here!” Scarf Boy shouted.
“Sounds good,” Amos said, and started walking backward, firing through the window. A half second later, Scarf Boy was with him. The others either noticed them or had already reached the same conclusion. Two were already on the stairs, shooting as they climbed. At this point, no one was trying to hit anything; they were just keeping the others from advancing too fast for everyone to get on board. Amos’ rifle went dry. He dropped it and jogged back to the stairs, holding his hand terminal to his ear as he went.
“How’re we doing?” he shouted.
“You’re very clever,” Peaches yelled back. “We had a power hiccup on start-up. Would have lost maneuvering thrusters.”
“We going to lose them now?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Good.”
He stopped at the base of the stairs. Scarf Boy crouched behind him, reloading his assault rifle. When he had the new magazine in, Amos plucked it out of his hands and pointed at the stairway with his chin. Scarf Boy nodded thanks and scuttled up the steps, his head low. Shadows danced on the windows, and the side door burst in with a three-person team rushing in. Amos mowed them down. Half a dozen of Erich’s people were on the stairs now, some still shooting as they climbed. One of them – Butch – stumbled as she got to the fourth step up. Blood soaked her arm and the side of her neck. Amos held the assault rifle up, spraying the walls, and knelt beside her.
“Come on,” he said. “Time to go.”
“Don’t think that’s happening,” Butch said.
Amos sighed. He put his hand terminal in his pocket, took the woman’s collar in one hand and the rifle’s grip in the other, and ran up the steps to the rattle of his own gunfire. The woman screamed and bounced. Something exploded, but Amos didn’t pause to figure out what. At the airlock, he hauled Butch through, fired one last burst down the stairway, and hit the controls to cycle the lock closed.
All around him, Erich’s people and the house servants were huddled. Some were covered in blood. He was covered in blood. He was pretty sure it was all Butch’s, but not a hundred percent. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, he missed things like getting shot. He let Butch down to the deck and pulled out his hand terminal.
“Okay,” he said. “Now would be good.”
“The exhaust’s going to kill everyone out there,” Erich said.
“Are we caring about that?” Amos shouted.
“I guess not.”
The drive roared to life. “Lay down!” Amos shouted. “We don’t have time to get to couches. Everyone lay down. You want the thrust spread out over your whole body!”
He lay down beside Butch. Her eyes were on him with something that might have been pain or anger. She didn’t speak, and neither did he. Erich’s voice came over the ship’s system, telling them to brace, and then Amos weighed a whole lot more than he had a few seconds before. A loud crunching sound rattled the deck – the Zhang Guo pushing through the hangar’s roof on her way to the sky. The ship rattled, dropped, rose again. The deck pressed into Amos’ back. If they had to make any hard turns, there were going to be at least a dozen people all mushed together in the corner where the deck met the wall.
The screen over the engineering controls flickered to life; clouds and rain falling down onto the forward cameras as the ship rose. Lightning flickered, the thunder rolling through the ship. He couldn’t remember if a standard orbital escape called for three gs or four, but whatever it was would have been a whole hell of a lot more fun in a crash couch. His jaw ached, and he had to remember to clench his arms and legs to keep from passing out. All around him, the others weren’t remembering that in time, or more likely never knew. Most of them, this was their first time up the well.
Over the course of long minutes, the rain and clouds on the screen faded. The lightning fell away behind them. Then, through the featureless gray, the first shining stars. Amos laughed and whooped, but no one joined him. Looking around, he seemed to be the only one still conscious, so instead, he lay back on the deck and waited for the thrust gravity to drop out when they hit orbit.