The Fringe Wars

4.3

The Fall of Rebus Station

Rebus Station, Terra

"Fall back! Shira, blow the charges in three!" Critch shouted.

"Ready!" Shira yelled hoarsely. "Three..."

Critch grabbed Luther, pulled him to his feet, and slung the wounded man over his shoulder.

"Two..."

The three torrents—the only remaining uninjured from a team of ten—fell back from the scorched wall that separated them from the squads of dromadiers blasting relentlessly at the thick stone bricks outside. Smoke curled upward from small punctures created by relentless laser fire. The storage unit smelled of charred stone and disturbed dust, and the polluted hazy air etched at the torrents' throats, causing them to cough.

Critch, Dez, and Shira wore shemaghs over their noses and mouths, but breathing bad air for the past three hours was taking its toll. If they stayed there much longer, they'd suffocate, though the droms would blast through and cut them down long before that.

A blaster shot pierced the wall and into the ground near Critch's feet. He sidestepped as heat singed his toes through the leather boot.

"One..."

Critch ran toward the only door in the building. Luther groaned but remained otherwise limp.

"Boom!" Shira's yell was immediately echoed by a thunderous explosion a bare thirty feet in front of them.

The door exploded outward, away from them. Critch shielded his face, but heat and debris stung at his skin like wasps. If Shira had made the smallest error in setting the charge, the entire team would have been lying dead in pieces on the floor by now. Stings Critch could handle.

Daylight pierced the billowing smoke. He hustled toward it, carrying Luther, wishing for the strength and stamina he'd had during the Uprising twenty years earlier. Even though he was only in his forties, he felt twice his age from being chased nonstop. He'd kill for some stims. Hell, he'd kill for water.

Unencumbered, the other two members of Critch's team reached the doorway first and began shooting, finishing off any survivors from the squad that'd been guarding their only escape route. There was no bloodthirst in how Critch's team killed the droms—it was simply a matter of killing their enemy before their enemy killed them.

Critch jumped over a dead dromadier rather than weave around, even though the action made Luther feel twice as heavy on his shoulder. But he couldn't slow down. He knew they had only a few seconds before the squads on the other side of the building made their way around to finish off the ragged rebels.

He could already hear shouts in the distance, but he didn't look back. If the droms reached his team out in the open, there was nothing he could do. After two days of running, he no longer cared if he was shot in the chest or in the back. The way he saw it, either way he'd be dead.

Dez led them quickly to the much larger building next door. Shira leveled her rifle on the sidewalk behind Critch while he scrambled inside and out of the open daylight. She followed behind and closed the door. The sudden silence made Critch's panting sound all the louder.

Shira held out a hand. "Here, I can help carry him."

"No," Critch said. "I need you covering our six."

She didn't argue and aimed her rifle at the door.

Just because the droms couldn't see Critch's team didn't mean they couldn't find them. The droms had heat scanners, which they'd been using to peck away at Critch's team since they'd flushed the torrents out of the tunnels that crisscrossed the ground below Rebus Station.