Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [220]
"Yeah," the medic decided. His jaw tightened, behind his visor.
"If you hurry, you might even get there ahead of Captain Quinn," said Mark. He still held the medic's helmet. There were no more sounds from overhead. Should he run after Quinn's moving fire-fight, or stay and try to help guide and guard the float-pallet? He was not sure if he was more afraid of Quinn, or of the Bharaputran fire her party drew. Either way he'd probably be safer with the cryo-chamber.
He took a deep breath. "You . . . keep my helmet. I'll take yours." The medic and the trooper were both glowering at him with disfavor, repellingly. "I'll go after Quinn and the clones." His clones. Would Quinn have any regard at all for their lives?
"Go, then," said the medic. He and the trooper aimed the float-pallet out the doors, and didn't look back. They obviously had him pegged as more of a liability than an asset, and felt well-rid of him.
Grimly, he climbed the ladder back up the lift tube. He peeked cautiously across the foyer floor, as it came to his eye level. A lot of property damage. A sprinkler system had added steam to the choking smoke. One brown-clad body lay prone, unmoving. The floor was wet and slippery. He swung out of the tube and darted skittishly out the corridor the Dendarii company must have taken, if they were sticking to their planned route. More plasma arc damage assured him he was on the right track.
He rounded a corner, skidded to a halt, and flung himself backward, out of sight. The Bharaputrans hadn't seen him; they'd been facing the other way. He retreated back down the corridor while awkwardly keying through the channels of the unfamiliar helmet till he made contact with Quinn.
"Captain Quinn? Uh, Mark here."
"Where the hell are you, where's Norwood?"
"He's got my helmet. He's taking the cryo-chamber through by another route. I'm behind you, but I can't close up. There are at least four Bharaputrans in full space armor between us, coming up on your rear. Watch out."
"Hell, now we're outgunned. That tears it." Quinn paused. "No. I can take care of them. Mark, get the hell away, follow Norwood. Run!"
"What are you going to do?"
"Drop the roof on those bastards. Lotta good space armor'll do 'em then. Run!"
He ran, realizing what she was planning. At the first lift tube he came to, he took to the ladder, climbing wildly, regardless of where it led. He didn't want to be any further underground than he had to when—
It was like an earthquake. He clung as the tube cracked and buckled, and the felt sound beat through his body. It was over in a moment, but for an echoing rumble, and he resumed his climb. Daylight ahead, reflecting silver down a tube entrance.
He came out on the ground floor of a building furnished like a fancy office. Its windows were cracked and starred. He knocked a hole in one and climbed through, and flipped up his infra-red visor. To his right, half of another building had fallen away into an enormous crater. Dust still rose in choking clouds. The Bharaputrans in their sturdy, deadly space armor were possibly still alive, under all that, but it would take an excavation crew hours to dig them out. He grinned despite his terror, panting in the daylight.
The medic's helmet did not have nearly the eavesdropping capacity of the command headset, but he found Quinn again. "All right, Norwood, keep on going," she was saying. "Go like hell! Framingham! Got that? Lock on Norwood. Start pulling in your perimeter people. Lift as soon as Norwood and Tonkin are aboard. Kimura! You in the air?" A pause; Mark could not get Kimura's reply, whoever and wherever he was. But he could fill in the sense of it from Quinn's continuation. "Well, we've just made you a new drop zone. It's a bit