Freedom Star

Chapter 7

Ellia took one look and touched her key to the door into the waterline service tunnel. As it slid open she grabbed Jon's wrist and almost dragged him into the corridor beyond. A narrow passage stretched away to apparent infinity on their right, but ended after only a few metres to their left. A glowtube provided a modicum of light every five metres, revealing the red-painted hot water pipe, as tall as Jon, on one side, and blank gray concrete wall on the other. Ellia closed and locked the door behind them, then glanced at Jon. "You're still limping."

"A bit," Jon said. "It's not bad as long as I don't have to carry anything."

"Well, limp fast," said Ellia. "I don't know if there are any security sensors in here or not, but either way, it won't take our friends back there long to figure out that we're not in any of the rooms around the generator, and that this is the only other way out." She set off down the corridor at a trot, and Jon jogged along behind. His rifle banged against his back, and for a moment he considered dumping it, but then thought better of it. He might be very glad to have it before long.

Every centimeter of the maintenance passage looked identical. The end of the corridor remained somewhere beyond the point where floor and ceiling seemed to meet, even after the door where they had come in had long since disappeared behind them. The dim lighting didn't help.

With the first step Jon felt the wound in his calf pulling, and the sensation slowly grew from discomfort to pain. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn't help limping, and the more he limped the slower he got and the farther behind Ellia he fell, until finally she glanced back and stopped. "Stand still a second," she ordered, and as Jon gratefully complied, knelt down and rolled up one leg of his uniform. The tattered gray bandage around his leg fell apart as she did so, revealing the ugly purpled flesh around the half-healed bullet wound. Fresh blood oozed from it and trickled down his ankle. "I haven't exactly been following doctor's orders," Jon said faintly.

Ellia rummaged in her pack and pulled out a first-aid kit, from which she drew a roll of bandage. She sprinkled something white and stinging on the wound, drawing an involuntary gasp from Jon, then quickly and efficiently bound his leg up with the clean white gauze and pulled his pant leg back down around his boot. "Once we get into Touchdown City I know a safe place or two where we can hide out while you heal up," she said. "But we've got to get there, first."

"Then shouldn't we be moving instead of talking?"

Ellia grinned. "Indeed we should." She snatched up her rifle and headed on down the corridor.

A few minutes later Jon squinted into the dim recesses ahead. Something was different—a door! They'd reached the end.

Or something, he amended a moment later, as Ellia opened the door and peered cautiously through. Looking over her head, he caught a glimpse of a vast room like a plumber's nightmare, pipes painted every colour of the spectrum lacing over and around each other like spaghetti in a bowl. "All clear," she said, and in they went.

Jon turned to close the door behind him, but Ellia stopped him. "No. I've got a little present for anybody who might be following us down that nice straight corridor." And before Jon realized what she was about to do, she raised her rifle and opened fire. An instant after that she leaped back, slammed the door shut, and yelled, "Get away from the door!" at Jon, who complied just in time; the return fire from down the corridor didn't find the thin plastic of the door much obstacle. It disintegrated in a spray of shards that stung against Jon's cheek.

"Are you crazy?" Jon yelled at Ellia.

"It will slow them down," she said. "You can bet they're bellies-to-the-floor now." She crossed in front of the shattered door, squeezing off another burst of fire down the corridor for good measure, then pointed at a ladder on the far wall of the massive, pipe-filled chamber. "That's our way out. How's the leg?"