“What?” she tried to say, but it came out as a slushy “bluh” sound.
“Christ, Red, I thought you were cooked there,” a familiar voice replied. Rough but friendly. Amos. “I hated to think I broke my promise.”
Anna opened her eyes again, careful not to move her head. She was floating in the center of what had been the studio space. Okju floated next to her, her foot tucked into Anna’s armpit. Anna extricated her legs from the two office chairs they were twisted up in, and pushed the ficus away from her face.
More firecrackers went off in long, staccato bursts. It took Anna’s muddled brain a few seconds to realize the sound was gunfire. Across the room, Amos was leaning against the wall next to the front door, taking a magazine out of his gun and replacing it with the smooth motion of long practice. On the other side of the door one of the UN soldiers they’d picked up was firing at someone outside. Answering gunfire blew chunks of molded fiberglass out of the back wall just a few meters from where Anna floated.
“If you aren’t dead,” Amos said, then paused to lean around the corner and fire off a short burst. “Then you’ll probably want to get out of the middle of the room.”
“Okju,” Anna said, tugging on the woman’s arm. “Wake up. We need to move.”
Okju’s arm flopped bonelessly when she pulled it, and the woman started slowly rotating in the air. Anna saw that her head was tilted at an acute angle to her shoulders, and her face was slack and her eyes stared at nothing. Anna recoiled involuntarily, the lizard living at the base of her spine telling her to get away from the dead person as quickly as possible. She yelped and pushed against Okju’s body with her feet, sending it and herself floating away in opposite directions. When she hit the wall she grabbed on to an LED sconce and held on with all her strength. The pain in her neck and head was a constant percussive throb.
The sounds of gunfire didn’t stop. Amos and his small, mixed band of defenders were firing out through every opening in the office space, several of which had been cut as gun ports.
They were under attack. Ashford had sent his people to stop them. Anna’s memories of the last few moments came back in a rush. The terrible screeching sound, being hurled sideways at the wall.
Ashford must have shut down the drum to stop them so that his gunmen could finish them off. But if Okju had been killed as a result of the sudden stoppage, then that same effect would have been repeated dozens, maybe hundreds of times throughout the makeshift community on the Behemoth. Ashford was willing to kill them all to get his own way. Anna felt a growing rage, and was glad that no one had thought to give her a gun.
“Are we still broadcasting?” she yelled at Amos over the gunfire.
“Dunno, Red. Monica’s in the radio room.”
Anna pulled herself across the wall to the closet where they’d placed their broadcasting gear. The door was ajar, and she could see Monica floating inside, checking the equipment. The space wasn’t large enough for both of them, so Anna just pushed the door open a little farther and said, “Are we still broadcasting? Can we get back on the air?”
Monica gave a humorless laugh but didn’t turn around. “I thought you were dead.”
“No, but Okju is. I think she broke her neck. I’ll take the camera if you need me to. Where’s Clip?”
“Clip was helping Amos, and he was shot in the hip. He’s bleeding out in a side office. Tilly is helping him.”
Anna pushed her way into the small room and put a hand on Monica’s shoulder. “We have to get back on the air. We have to keep up the broadcast or this is all for nothing. Tell me what to do.”
Monica laughed again, then turned around and swatted Anna’s hand off of her arm. “What do you think is happening here? Ashford has men outside trying to break in and kill us. Bull and his people have lost the engine room, and Juarez says Bull’s been killed. Who knows how many people he—”
Anna planted her feet against the doorjamb, grabbed Monica by the shoulders, and slammed the reporter up against the wall. “Does the broadcasting equipment still work?” She was amazed at how steady her voice sounded.
“It got banged around some, but—”
“Does. It. Work.”
“Yes,” Monica said. It came out as a frightened squeak.
“Get me on the channel the assault team was using, and give me a headset,” Anna said, then let go of Monica’s shoulders. Monica did as she asked, moving quickly and only occasionally giving her a frightened look. I’ve become frightening, Anna thought. Tasting the idea, and finding it less unpleasant than she’d expect. These were frightening times.
“Fuck!” Amos yelled from the other room. When Anna looked out, she saw one of the young Martian officers floating in the middle of the room spraying small globes of red blood into the air around him. Her friend Chris launched across the room by pushing off with his one good leg and grabbed the injured man with his one arm, then pulled him into cover.
“We’re running out of time,” Anna said to Monica. “Work faster.”
Monica’s reply was to hand her a headset with a microphone.
“Hello? This is Anna Volovodov at Radio Free Slow Zone. Is anyone left on this channel?”
Someone replied, but they were impossible to hear over the nearby gunfire. Anna turned the volume up to the maximum and said, “Repeat that, please.”
“We’re here,” James Holden said at deafening levels.
“How many are left, and what’s the situation?”
“Well,” Holden said, then paused and grunted as though exerting himself for several seconds. He sounded out of breath when he continued. “We’re holed up in the port elevator shaft just outside the command deck airlock. There are three of us at this position. Bull and the remaining marines are fighting the counterassault team at a position further down the shaft. I have no idea how that’s going. We’ve run out of room to retreat, so unless someone decides to open the hatch and let us onto the bridge, we’re sort of out of options.”
The last part of his sentence was almost drowned out by a massive wave of incoming gunfire in her office. Amos and his group were hunkered down, leaning against the reinforced armor they’d attached to the walls. The reports of the shots and the sound of bullets hitting metal was deafening. When the fire lessened, a pair of men in Behemoth security armor rushed the room, spraying automatic weapons fire as they came. Two of Amos’ team were hit, and more globes of red flew into the air. Amos grabbed the second man through the door and yanked him up off his magnetic hold to the floor, then threw him at his partner. They tumbled off across the room together and then Amos fired a long burst from his weapon into both as they spun. The air was filled with so many floating red orbs of various sizes that it became difficult to see. The rest of Amos’ team opened fire, and whatever attack Ashford’s people had launched was apparently driven back, as no more soldiers charged through the door.