Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres [44]
Trin nodded automatically.
‘The grain silos are flaming,’ another voice joined Seb Malocchi’s in his hood. ‘The truck is already there. So are we—almost. Can barely see the sky for merda .. .’
The TerV jerked to a stop. Trin waited inside, handing the kits out to the line of fire-suited men emerging from the other vehicles. When he had passed out the last one he hesitated, suddenly not wanting to leave the safety of the truck.
Outside, the sky had blackened as if overtaken by an eclipse, and despite the flash-hood’s extractor poisonous fumes crawled into Trin’s airways. A babble of voices competed over the transceiver but Christian cut across them all. ‘Anyone not on a pump, there’s someone injured over by the processor. Take your FR kit and get to it.’
‘No one is free, Capitano,’ replied another.
‘Pellegrini!’ Seb Malocchi motioned to him.
The rush of excitement Trin had felt back at the compound evaporated as he forced himself out of the TerV.
Fierce gouts of waxen smoke unfurled into the air from three silos. Groups of Carabinere battled with their tiny, ineffectual cold-foam tanks and nozzles to keep three more from doing the same. Flakes of hot polymer rained on the mask of Trin’s flash hood, melting dints in the heat-resistant goggles. The ambient heat sent his suit temperature soaring dangerously.
‘Follow me,’ shouted Malocchi.
Trin sucked on the fluid tube and peered through the hot plastic rain for the processor. There. A tall frame at the end of the row of silos housing smaller bins and an elaborate loop system for grain separation.
Trin shouldered his kit, following Malocchi slowly. The might of the flames mesmerised him, as did the AiV that flew tight circles around them, spurting cold-foam from its belly tank.
What foolishness . . .
Without warning the flames plumed outwards, engulfing the AiV. It disintegrated, sparking a series of miniature explosions. Trin ran for the cover of the processor and flung himself full length under a bin housing.
Malocchi was already underneath the same bin, bent over a collapsed figure. He beckoned Trin over, pointing at his kit.
Trin rolled to his knees, suppressing his urge to flee back to the TerV. There was no safe place in the vicinity of the silos, he told himself. Safety was in the Palazzo back on Mount Pell. He thrust the kit at Seb Malocchi.
The man threw open the lid, rifling through the contents until he found the burn-gel. Trin stared down at the injured ‘esque. Pieces of blackened clothing had been seared into his body tissue where skin should have been. Trin turned away from the charred head.
Dios! No hair, no lips.
Sickness rose in his throat and disgorged itself. His flash hood suctioned away the worst of the vomit so he could still breathe, but it could not neutralise the stink of his own weakness and fear.
The ‘esque spasmed once, twice, and them became still.
Mercy.
Malocchi took a valve mask from the kit and laid it across the ‘esque’s blood-black face. He fitted the valve onto his own air supply and began a pointless attempt at resuscitation.
Then a fourth silo exploded as if birthing a universe. Panicked, Trin scrambled from underneath the bin housing. He would not die here.
Malocchi saw his intention and abandoned his task. He ran after Trin but became tangled in the resuscitation hose still attached to his air supply. It tripped him and he fell heavily, twisting his leg underneath his body.
Every instinct shrieked at Trin not to wait, not to turn back for him: from the corner of his eye he could see the flames leaping to the fifth silo. If it reached the final one it would engulf them both.
‘Wind shift. . . fall back.’ Christian’s order was a distant crackle. ‘Evacuate . . .’
Trin could see the TerVs already pulling out. ‘Montforte!’ he screamed into his pickup.
‘Pellegrini…where . . . you?’
Another thunderous crack and the bottom fell out of the flaming silo, sending an avalanche of smoke rolling down the tarmac. It swallowed Trin and obscured his line of sight to the remaining vehicles. ‘Near the processor,