“What are you shooting at?” Elvi asked.
Amos shrugged. “Nothing in particular. Just thought, you know, loud.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Captain! You out there? Holden!”
“Are we sure he’s in here?” Fayez said.
“Nope,” Amos said, then went back to shouting. “Captain!”
A figure stepped from behind a massive machine, fifty meters in front of them. It was the size and shape of a human, and Elvi felt a moment’s disorientation at how utterly out of place it seemed. Amos took a fresh grip on the shotgun and angled toward it. The figure stood, feet shoulder width apart, hands at its sides, as the cart approached. When they were within ten meters, Amos shut the generator down.
“Hey there,” he said, his voice open and friendly and insincere.
“Hey yourself,” Wei answered, lifting her chin.
Amos dropped from the side of the cart, his shotgun in his hand almost as if he’d forgotten it was there. Elvi looked at Fayez, who shrugged. She slid down to the ground, moving forward slowly. She kept her hand against the front tire, the tread warm against her palm, but cooling.
“What’re you up to?” Amos asked.
“Work,” Wei said, nodding to the vast structure all around them. “RCE’s got a claim on all of this. I’m just making sure no one infringes on it.”
“Meaning the cap’n.”
“Meaning anyone,” Wei said. Her voice was harder now.
“Well, it’s a fucking ugly place if you ask me.”
“It is.”
“We really going to do this? Because I think it’d be a hell of a lot more fun for me to get Holden and you to get Murtry and we all see if there’s not some way for the doc back there to find something with alcohol in it on this mudball.”
“Yeah, that does sound like fun,” Wei said. “But I’m on duty.”
Fayez came up from behind Elvi, his arms crossed over his chest. His eyebrows were pulled together in distress.
“So thing is?” Amos said. “Yeah, Holden’s in there someplace, and I’m figuring Murtry’s in there looking for him.”
“Could be.”
“So when I get back up there and drive on by —”
“You don’t want to do that, Amos. My orders are no one goes in. Hop back on and head the other way, you and me have no problems. Try to infringe further on RCE property, and I’m going to have to shoot you.”
Amos rubbed his scalp with his left hand. The shotgun in his right seemed larger somehow. Like the threat of violence gave it significance and the significance gave it weight. Elvi found herself breathing in quick, short gasps and thought for a moment that something had changed about the air itself. But it was only fear.
“Captain’s in there trying to get the reactors back on,” Amos said.
“Then he’s trespassing and he’ll need to leave.” Wei’s stance softened for a moment, and when she spoke there was something like sorrow in her voice. Not the thing itself, but like it. “When it’s time to go, there’s worse ways than dying at your post.”
Amos sighed, and Elvi could see his shoulders slump. “Your call,” he said, raising the shotgun.
The report came from behind them, and Amos pitched forward.
“Down!” Murtry shouted at their backs, and Elvi hunched as automatically as a reflex. Fayez was pressed against her on one side, the massive tire on the other. The shotgun boomed at the same time as a sharp crack of a pistol sounded. Elvi looked out, and Wei was on the ground, her arms thrown out at her sides. Amos was struggling to his knees. His back was to her, and there was blood on the back of his neck, but she couldn’t see where it was coming from. Murtry strode past her, firing his pistol, two, three, four times. She could see Amos’ armored back quiver with every shot. Murtry wasn’t missing. Her own scream sounded high and oddly undignified.
Murtry rounded the cart as Amos turned with a roar, the shotgun fired three times, the concussions beating at the air. Murtry stumbled back, but didn’t fall. His next shot drew a small fountain of blood from Amos’ thigh, and the big man collapsed. Murtry lowered his gun and coughed.
“Doctor Okoye. Doctor Sarkis,” he said. The armor over his chest was shredded. If he hadn’t been wearing it, Amos’ blast would have blown the man’s heart back out through his spine. “I have to say I’m disappointed by your decision to come here. And your choice of company.”
Amos was gasping, his breath ragged. Murtry stepped delicately across to him and shoved the shotgun away. The metal hissed against the strange chitinous flooring.
“You shot him,” Fayez said.
“Of course I did. He was threatening the life of one of my team,” Murtry said, walking over to Wei. He sighed. “My only regret is that I was unable to save Sergeant Wei.”
Tears filled Elvi’s eyes. She felt sobs shaking her. Amos lifted a hand. The thumb and forefinger were missing, and bright pink bone showed through the blood. She looked away.
“What are you talking about?” Fayez said. His voice was shaking.
“Doctor Sarkis? You have something you’d like to add?” Murtry said, slipping a fresh magazine into his pistol.
“You set this up. You set all of this up. You put her there to distract Amos and you shot him from behind. This isn’t just something that happened and you did the best you could and poor fucking Wei. You did this!”
“If Mister Burton here had done as he was asked and left the site —”
“He was trying to save us!” Fayez shouted. His face was red and he stepped forward. His hands were in fists at his sides. Murtry looked up, something a little less than polite interest in his eyes. “He and Holden are trying to save us! You and me and Elvi and everyone. What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m protecting the assets, rights, and claims of Royal Charter Energy,” Murtry said. “What I’m not doing, and I hope you understand this, is running around in a circle with my dick in my hand whining about how nothing matters because we’re all going to die. We all knew when we got on the Edward Israel that we might not make it back. That was a risk you were willing to take because it meant you could do your job. I’m no different.”
“You got Wei killed!” Fayez shouted. Elvi put her hand on his shoulder and he shrugged if off. “She’s dead because of you!”
“Her turn now, my turn later,” Murtry said. “But there are some things I need to get done before that.”