The bullet bounced off the steel plate that protected the lock mechanism, hit the wall next to my shoulder, and whined up the stairwell. I hoped it would hit a corpie and knew that kind of luck had been reserved for someone else. My ears rang as Sasha brought the gun down for another try. I told her what to do.

“Ebertok asu nabledock!”

Sasha frowned and her finger tightened on the trigger.

I tried again. “Aim for the keypad instead!”

She nodded and corrected her aim.

I turned and was watching the stairs when she fired the next shot. It was as loud as the first. A few more of those and I’d be deaf.

“Maxon! Look!”

I looked. The slug had transformed the keypad into a mass of shattered plastic and tangled wires. Sparks sputtered and a tendril of smoke drifted away. I kicked the door and it swung inwards. We entered together. I saw a corridor and a second door. There was no sign of a lock. Good. Sasha gestured to the corner next to the door. “Stay here and slow ’ em down. I ’ll scout ahead.”

Who the hell had died and left her in charge? I started to ask, but she was gone before I could organize the necessary words. So I stayed where I was, watched the stairs, and fired when I saw legs. They retreated upwards in a hurry. The corpies yelled something, tried to draw me out, and I ignored them. I heard the now-familiar boom of the.44.

“Maxon! Come on!”

I wished there was some way to lock the door, couldn’t think of one, and backed away. Sasha held a second door open and gestured with the.44. The bore looked big enough to drive a truck through. I made a note to teach her something about gun safety. Assuming we lived long enough to make the effort worthwhile, that is.

I moved through the door and out onto a concrete jetty. Dark water lapped all around. There was a variety of equipment, including a pair of light-duty cranes, fuel pumps, cargo modules, and a high-speed launch that sat on a cradle. The line of bullet holes just above the heavily stained waterline gave mute testimony to what had happened. That, plus the fact that the security station resembled a small-scale fortress, hinted at unseen dangers.

The apparent dangers, both naked from the waist down, stood with their hands behind their heads. The woman had nice legs and an attitude to go with them. Her nudity didn’t bother her in the least. She looked at me and smiled. The man kept his eyes on the deck. Sasha was pleased with herself. “They were busy playing hide the submarine when I surprised them.”

I frowned to demonstrate my disapproval of her unladylike analogy and gave thanks for the human sex drive. Assuming that our pursuers had called ahead, this pair had been too busy to notice. “I heard a shot.”

“Oh, that,” Sasha said nonchalantly. “I fired a round to get their attention.”

Sasha seemed to be of the opinion that ammo grew on trees. I scowled at the guards and gestured towards a cargo module. “Climb to the top and sit on your hands.”

The man hurried to obey. The woman followed, and so did my eyes. My lust was rather short-lived, however, since the corpies chose that particular moment to arrive, firing as they came. The fact that they were shooting at Sasha, and not at me, should have set some thoughts in motion but didn’t.

Sasha brought her cannon up and squeezed the trigger. A rent-a-cop was plucked off his feet and thrown backwards into the crowd. I grabbed the girl’s wrist with my left hand and towed her towards the far end of the jetty. The.38 bucked and corpies dove for cover.

A man, hidden until now, appeared from our right. He wore mechanic’s overalls and held a wrench in his hand. Sasha swung the.44 in his direction and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell on an empty casing. I shot the man through the thigh and lectured Sasha as he fell. “This ain’t no movie, kid…you gotta count your rounds.”

She looked ashamed, and it was then that I noticed the bloody footprints. Sasha had come down who knows how many stairs in her bare feet and cut them to shreds. All without a whimper. I felt like the biggest sonofabitch in the world and wished I could take the comment back. Her attention was elsewhere. “Maxon, look!”

I looked in the direction of her pointing finger. The boat appeared to be about twenty-five feet long, had lots of lights, and, judging from the shape of its hull, had been designed for speed rather than cargo capacity. Just the thing for harried executives or fugitives like ourselves. I shoved Sasha in that direction. “Jump! I’ll cast off.”

“You know how to drive one of these things?”

“Of course,” I lied. “Now jump.” She jumped. The boat bobbed slightly as she landed.

I ran to the point where the forward line had been wrapped around a bollard, found that someone had used a double-reverse-something-or-other-knot to secure it, and swore as my fingers strained to undo it. A rent-a-cop opened up with a submachine gun, and Sasha’s words were nearly inaudible. “I dumped the other line! Come on!”

Bullets whipped past Sasha’s head as I ran towards the boat, jumped the ever-widening gap, and tumbled into the cockpit. I was still sorting myself out when the starter whined, the engine caught, and the boat surged forward. The bow hit the jetty a glancing blow, bounced off, and roared away. Corpies ran the length of the jetty. Fire flickered from the muzzles of their guns as empty casings arced through the air. A piece of side glass shattered, tiny bits of fiberglass peppered my face, and an invisible hand tugged at my sleeve.

I fought my way forward, shouldered Sasha out of the way, and assumed control in time to avoid a head-on collision with a support column. She seemed happy to relinquish command.

Someone fired a scope-mounted rifle. The windscreen shattered, and miniature geysers erupted all around us as he or she emptied a clip.

I didn’t think of it then, but would eventually realize that the sniper could have hit me had he or she really wanted to, and had missed on purpose. Then we were gone, beyond the range of the rifle, and hidden by almost total darkness. My heart beat a mile a minute as I remembered the columns that held everything up, searched for the right pictograph, and flicked the appropriate switch.

The spotlights were mounted on a bar over the flying bridge. Some had been shot out, but a dozen or so remained. They illuminated a row of concrete pillars that marched off into the distance and disturbed hundreds of bats. The miserable little bastards swooped down, sailed through the lights, and flapped away. An unexpected waterfall poured from above, spattered across the bow, and ran the length of the boat. Drainage from the spaceport? A broken pipe? There was no way to know.

I looked back to where our wake broke white against concrete columns and the lights from the jetty seemed to wink off and on. I glanced at Sasha as I turned towards the bow. Her hair blew straight back, and she reminded me of someone else, though I didn’t know who. Had that thought passed through my mind before? I strained but couldn’t remember. “Did you see another boat?”

She shook her head. “Just the one that had been hauled out for repairs.”

I nodded. “Do us both a favor. Go below and look for holes.”

Sasha frowned, as if disappointed that she hadn’t thought of that, and backed down a short ladder. I basked in my moment of brilliance, edged towards the exact center of the channel, and wondered where the hell we were going. Well, we’d get there pretty damned fast, that was for sure. The wind pressed against my face, and the pillars whipped by like pylons in a race. Sasha reappeared at my elbow. “You were right, Maxon.”

“The name’s Max.”

She looked impatient. “Max, schmax. We’re taking water. Lots of it.”

“How fast is it coming in? Could we plug the holes?”

Sasha looked doubtful. “I don’t think so. It’s half a foot deep and rising fast.”