THEIR MASTER

"What's the fastest way to the shuttle dock?"

"With human atmosphere all the way?"

Rance looked at the crowd of women. None of them had suits. "It'll have to be."

"Okay, you take these elevators to level 1. That's directly under the surface. At the elevator head you take the corridor to the right for two sections. After that, you use the lat tu

"So we'd have to secure two sections of corridor and the passage."

"As well as the dock itself." "Damn."

"None of it is that well guarded. There's never been an attack from inside. One thing, though, we ought to get as many breathing masks as we can. It's possible for the lanteres to breach the tu

"Are there masks?"

"Theoretically there should be a mask for every woman in the emergency dispensers. How good they are is another matter. They haven't been used in years."

Rance shouted to Conchela. "Have your people break out all the breathing masks they can find. We may need them."

He turned back to the squad leader.

"One more thing. I need a technician to rig the elevators so they can only be controlled from here."

The squad leader beckoned to one of her women. "Hey, Jacka, get up here. Move it."

With the elevators gimmicked, the great move to the surface began. The armored men went first. The others waited until the route to the shuttles was secured. As he rode up on the first elevator, Rance gave his last-minute instructions.

"While we're in here, were bottled up. If we can't break out immediately, we're dead. There may well be lanteres waiting for us at the top. I want a firing line right inside the door. Directly the doors open, start blasting and move out. The lanteres may be big, but they're slow. That's our main advantage."

The men arranged themselves accordingly. The elevator seemed to be rising painfully slowly. It eased to a halt. The front line tensed. The doors started to roll back. The MEWs opened up. There were lanteres.

Everyone pressed forward. Hark, who was positioned right behind Rance, found himself yet again caught up in the confusion and isolation of combat. No matter how many times he went through it, he never lost the jagged sense of fear and breathless excitement. He was in among the huge crustaceans, pumping his weapon at anything that presented itself. One of them loomed over him, bringing around a posica

They were in the right-hand corridor, and for the moment, there was no more opposition. The half dozen lanteres that had been guarding the elevator head had been overcome with no human losses. More men were coming from the elevator cages. Rance moved them forward, leaving detachments at each crucial point along the way. Hark noticed that among the men from the Anah 5 there were also shore patroL and even civilian women wearing facemasks and carrying improvised weapons. Two were lugging one of the heavy posica

Hark, along with Renchett and Dyrkin, was in the advance party. They reached the first corridor intersection without incident. There was the sound of firing from behind them. Something was happening back at the elevators. Dyrkin waved the party to a halt.

"If we get too far ahead, we'll be cut off." He spoke into his communicator. "Rance, can you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"What's happening back there?"

"More lanteres, but we're holding the bastards. I'm going to start bringing up the women."

"We're at the first intersection, but we need more men to hold it before we can go on."

"They're on their way."

At that moment, a number of human figures appeared in one of the side corridors. They wore the tabards of field police and carried MEWs.

"Hurry it up, Rance. We got company."

A headhunter voice was in their helmets on the general frequency. "Drop your weapons or we open fire!"

The men of the Anah 5 didn't need an order. Their response was instant and deadly. The burned down the field police with something close to relish. The e-vac fields on. JD4, and the scars that went with them, were still fresh in their memories. Troopers were coining up from behind to reinforce the corridor. The two women with the posica

"Let's move up."

Again they made the intersection without incident, and once again they had to wait as more troops came up to hold the position. Now there was just the bypass tu

"Get your redscopes on!"

A heavyweight energy weapon had been set up at the far end of the tu

"What the hell do we do?"

"We can't rush that thing."

Rance was on the communicator. "I'm moving the women up into the corridor."

"You can't do that! We're pi

"Can you do anything about it?"

"Not a damn thing. We'd have to rush down a straight tu

Rance sounded desperate. "I've got to start moving these people up into the corridors. We're being pressed too hard here at the elevators. We're stretched too thin."

"You got any ideas?"

"What's ma

"Hold on… Renchett, take a look at what's firing that thing."

"Stick your own goddamn head out." "Don't screw around, man!" "Okay."

Renchett craned forward. Fire burst above his head, and he jerked back. "Dauquoi."

"At least they won't be rushing us in a hurry. They squirm too slow."

"So what's the story, Rance?"

"Wait a minute, we might have something back here." More fire hit the wall. Molten rock spattered their armor.

"You better make it fast."

"I've got six shores here with their servo suits. They figure they could rush this gun nest. They might pull it off. They've got the speed and they've got the armor. They'll be coming at a power-assist run, so don't get in their way."

"We'll be here."

There was a lull in the firing. The dauquoi seemed willing to wait out the humans. After a couple of minutes, the men in the tu

"Get in behind them."

The servos' armor seemed to be withstanding all of the dauquoi fire. Then a cascade of sparks fountamed from the leg of the lead machine. It reeled like a drunken man as the operator lost control, staggered a few paces, then fell headlong. The others didn't hesitate, however. They kept on going. A second servo was hit. Smoke streamed from the upper half of its torso. It lurched off course and smashed into the tu