Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [40]
'Medic,' bellowed Old Sam.
Lambada got free of her harness and worked her way over to Dogface. Her lips pursed when she saw the extent of the injury. 'We'll have to cut him out,' she said. Old Sam nodded and ducked back into the rear compartment. Lambada looked over at Blondie. 'Medical kit,' she said.
Blondie took a deep breath to calm himself and slapped the strap release. This time the harness slithered off his shoulders back into its holding reels. The first-aid kit was a big beige case marked with a red crescent. There wasn't anywhere to put it down so Blondie cradled it in his arms as Lambada opened the lid. Inside were stacked trays of neatly wrapped packages. Lambada pulled the biggest package out and ripped off its organic cellophane wrapping to reveal a sustainment collar. An unnaturally calm voice speaking Arabic started giving precise fitting instructions. It took Blondie a moment to realize that the voice was coming from the case.
Dogface's head lolled, making it difficult to fit the collar on his neck. His face was grey and blood continued to seep from his mouth. There was hardly any blood where the spike had penetrated his sternum; the skin was ripped and folded in around the shaft. Blondie tried not to look at it; instead his eyes tracked along the spike and out the ragged hole in the nose.
It was attached to the nastiest-looking tunnel board Blondie had ever seen. The board was being pushed along the friction field ahead of the train.
'Lambada,' said Blondie.
Lambada was concentrating on the Arabic instructions, placing derms and staunching foam around the wound. The floor of the cab where she knelt was littered with crumpled cellophane and blood.
'Lambada!'
'What?'
'We're moving,' said Blondie.
Fat Mama was slowly gliding down the length of the station.
With the friction field underneath there was only wind resistance to slow them down, and it wasn't going to be enough. They were thirty metres from the tunnel gateway, if they went through without shielding the torque effects would shred them.
Sam came back into the cab with an Azanian laser torch.
Before Blondie could speak he shook his head and put his finger to his lips. When Sam was sure of their silence he pointed at the ceiling.
Small scrabbling sounds from above, just audible over the coughing syllables of medical Arabic. Somebody moving about on Fat Mama's roof. Lambada caught Old Sam's eye and pointed towards the gateway. The veteran thought for a moment and drew his handgun left handed. It made a sinister whispering sound as it left the holster. Blondie stared at the gun looming butt first towards him.
'Go outside,' said Old Sam, 'and shoot them off the roof.'
The warvids always made a big thing out of the Paris Rock. The classic Violet Sky ran its opening credits over a sustained shot of the asteroid up in the barren spaces above the elliptic, tumbling slowly so that the ideograms blasted into its surface caught the sunlight one after another. The Martians knew that the ideograms would be spotted in the final terminal phase; for them it was a statement, a warning not to pursue a war of retribution against them. The dumb green bastards didn't know who they were dealing with.
The gun was an army surplus Browning recoilless semiautomatic with an airtight locking action chambered for fifteen-millimetre 'Martian' rounds for vacuum firing. It was heavy, the weight dragging at Blondie's arm as he crouched beside the right side emergency hatch. His left hand was wrapped around a big red handle surmounted by the pictogram for DANGER in Cantonese.
Johny Ray played the grunt who couldn't in Violet Sky. Extended close-ups of his sweaty face with the battle action reflected on the visor of his helmet. Freezing up in the sudden firefight when the Greenies came bubbling up through a camouflaged