Crudmucking slavers didn’t realize they were dead. Tried to stem the flood of escaping slaves with bullets.

  I ran, following the bangs, the thud of bullets striking flesh. Four grunts in combat armor, same cheap-looking assault rifles, standing at the far end of the corridor, across the airlock from us.

  Dead and dying people littered the ground on our side.

  I up-tuned my wards, pressing the raging ripstone into the steel wall to hold my foil steady, grabbed my assault rifle, sank to one knee.

  My first bullet took a grunt in the face, jerking him backward. The others returned fire.

  Ward shattered. I didn’t feel it. My mind was cold and hard and impenetrable.

  I took my time, aiming. One, two. First in the eye, second in the mouth. The last grunt fled, thudding down the corridor away from the airlock.

  I shot him in the back, raking a burst across his unprotected legs. He went down on his belly, the no-slip floor coating jerking him to a sudden stop, and I put a round in beneath his armor.

  “Run,” I yelled at the people around me. Some were already moving. Most headed for the airlock. A few went past it, going for the guns.

  Good for them.

  “You,” I said, grabbing an older man as he stumbled past, “you know of any small cells? Anywhere they take slaves who misbehave? Riot?”

  He pointed down the corridor.

  “The holes,” he said.

  That was all I needed. I grabbed Hao, withdrew my foil, slashed open the hinges to the last door, turned left.

  Another two grunts with guns, another slaughter.

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  One bullet struck my armor, cracking the plate. Going through my wards.

  I’d taken a lot of bullets. The wards were almost gone.

  “Hao,” I said. “Get in front.”

  She did, and I followed. The next crossing, shots came from the left. She twisted, pressing the trigger on the Tornado.

  The gun buckled in her arms, jumping wildly, rounds going up, to the sides, clanging against the bulkheads.

  We pushed past the crossing, found doors close together. Cells.

  First one was a slave, a man electrocuted bloody, his eyes swollen holes, his teeth jagged stumps protruding past his lips. The second was an old woman, huddled in the corner.

  The third was Young Voice, tied to a chair.

  He looked none the worse for wear, until I cut the door open and he looked up. Broken nose, pointing off to the side, dry blood covering his chin, running down the front of his jacket. He looked half-dead already. My cold-ice rage wavered.

  “Don’t you dare die,” I said. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  He mumbled something as I cut him loose.

  “Say again?” I said.

  Young Voice lifted his head.

  “Couldn’t you have brought the pretty one?” he whispered.

  Good. Crudmucker wasn’t about to die. A part of my mind whispered that he didn’t have any wards.

  “Crud,” I said, struggling out of my coat. I wrapped it around Young Voice. “You’re in the lead for good now,” I told Hao. She was bleeding from a cut above her eyebrow. Not good. Her wards must have been cracked by the burst in the crossing. “Don’t get shot,” I said, and she nodded grimly, wiping away blood that dripped into her right eye.

  I should have been scared, but the ice filled me, my mind frozen over. I wondered if this was the way you felt before you died, the world clear, cold, static.

  “Move,” I said, hauling on Young Voice, his arm over my shoulder. He stumbled, and I wanted to punch him.

  Stupid. That was the crudmunging killing mind talking. Fight it. Push it away. Young Voice was why we’d come.

  I kept my hold on him, staggering forward. We reached the crossing, Hao glancing around the corner, drawing fire. High-caliber rounds banged against the bulkhead, shattering her wards. The guns were so close their muzzle flames lit up the corridor.

  “Crud,” I growled, pushing Young Voice forward, pushing force into my ripstone.

  It shone like a star, a glare that burned into my eyes. I directed the flow away from me, toward the slaver grunts.

  Yells, fear, bullets. Something stabbed me in the leg, something more hit my shoulder.

  I sank my foil into the chest of a trooper, spearing the man behind him. The rest ran. I kicked a body off my foil. In the distance, someone yelled.

  That someone was me.

  I stomped forward, pursuing the running troopers, Young Voice still hanging on my shoulder, half-conscious. More slavers rounded the corner.

  They jerked back, bullets splattering into them.

  The Raist marines had arrived.