Chapter 10
Admiral Quinn had told Kimura he'd need his personalised Dendarii command suit, and she'd been right. As one of the troop leaders from the original Dendarii raid on Jackson's Whole, when he got his new armoured suit seven years ago, he'd made damn sure he had every extra he could get on the suit, having bribed the quartermaster with a few bottles of Cetan brandy. This wasn't really corruption - just educated self interest, which coincidentally protected and increased his value to the fleet. Even if it wasn't the latest technology, he was now used to the suit and it was more reliable than cutting edge equipment, specially if your were in the thick of it.
Now his enhanced sensors detected the emanations from a badly adjusted scanner as they approached the third level, so knew someone was there. He threw up his arm and halted the others behind him and set his own scanners as low as possible while he explained on the encrypted channel, "We've got someone scanning up ahead Captain, and from the readings there's more than one and they're armoured."
"You can tell that? I'm just getting vague power fluctuations!"
"They're wearing scanner shields, but that can't hide their own active scan - make sure you keep yours set to passive; I have a low power setting on mine that I'll try if I have to."
The others waited as Kimura edged up to opening on level three and knelt, then lay down on the ramp, the others behind him had their weapons on hair trigger settings, plasma arcs extended ready, so it was good that he'd be out of their line of fire! He triggered his spy eye and one of the little prehensile filament cameras slithered out from his wrist and along the floor to the corner, directed by his eye movements.
From the central ramp, Kimura could see down the east-west corridor all the way to the east boundary wall - all clear. He couldn't see much to the north side, just a big open area of office desks and rubble, with a few loose wires and ceiling tiles. Around to the south was the end of the central north-south corridor, leading towards where the creche was. The east-west corridor was clear to the west boundary wall too, past the security offices. He slowly crawled across near the corner and extended the filament camera again. Once it was in position he changed the setting, otherwise the thing would wave around wherever he looked, drawing attention to itself.
On this level the north-south corridor was blocked by the creche, it's door slightly offset. He could see movement near the door of the creche, or more likely inside - the definition wasn't very good what with the dust, smoke and flickering lights, but that should work both ways. He shifted to infra red, and adjusted to pick up movement, but the enemy suits must be heat shielded, as you'd expect; the Barrayaran's were. Even so, they'd be detected as soon as they crossed the opening if they entered the southern corridor, or crossed it to go west.
He left the camera in position and spoke quietly into his microphone, "There's someone down by the creche, I think they're inside the room, moving about but I can't see well through the smoke. Can't see any heat from bare skin though - would your agent have got the clones into armour do you think?" That would explain the scanner leakage - untrained kids and a nervous agent?
"Can't say, but I wasn't expecting her to. Would they know how to work armour? I wouldn't think Bharaputra would let them get the training."
Kimura agreed, "I don't like the idea of coming out of here in a bunch down that corridor - but we could go around the boundary wall and come at them from the east, should be able to get closer before they detect us. Or right around and from the west?"
Captain Vorpatril brought the plan up on his helmet's screen and checked, "Two possibilities - go along by the east wall and either back down the lateral corridor, and try to get close to the creche doorway, or right around by the south wall and punch through the creche's back wall and take them from the rear. If only we knew the internal situation - are the clones and agent Chenko alive under guard, or already dead? We've got to make sure one way or the other. We'll go around the outer corridor and if we can't get a better look we'll blast through from the south wall."
There were no dissenters, and time was getting short. So while Kimura kept watch they headed east down the corridor to the outer wall then turned south. As the others reached the corner, Kimura withdrew his camera and followed as quietly as possible. He joined them again where they waited before the next junction, at the east end of the corridor whose west half formed the creche's north wall.
Kimura used his little filament camera again to peek around the corner, there was a lot of background noise from the settling of the damaged structure around and above them, and through the armoured suit's headphones he couldn't hear anything very clearly - not well enough to filter out the noises of the building and recognise any quieter human sounds anyway - but there wasn't too much dust in the air, and he had a reasonably good view down the long corridor - all clear. He waved the others across.
They soon reached the south wall and turned right, checking distances with their laser sights until they were three quarters of the way along, just about at the centre of the clone creche's back wall. Kimura stopped and fixed a microphone to the wall, with a hair-thick wire running back to his enhanced helmet. After waving for them to stay quiet Kimura listened for a short time before reporting, "I'll have to drill through to get anything. Stay clear and don't jostle me, this is pretty delicate work, and I can't go very fast."
He took his gauntlets off again and rooted in his utility belt for some small tools. One was a tiny diamond tipped drill, which he used in short bursts to get through the cinder block wall, making a very small-bore hole which he then sent his filament camera through. Once he had it extended he applied a sealant around the hole to limit extraneous noise going through to the other side. Then he stood motionless for nearly a minute while the rest of them gritted their teeth with the tension before he reported back.
"There's four suited Bharaputrans in there. They seem to be searching for something, and there's four or five bodies on the floor, but they're in Bharaputran uniforms, not in armour or half armour so they look to be dead guards. There's no woman in there anyway, alive or dead - so unless the clones were dressed in guard uniforms I'd guess that these four are also looking for the clones. There's one in a different suit, plain brown and more shiny than their standard suits, might be a specialist, or an officer... I think it might be the Baron."
Vorpatril agreed that was likely.
"So, what next Captain?" Kimura asked.
"If we leave them here, then we'll have enemies behind us while we go off and look for the clones", Kimura nodded inside his helmet, "and where do we look for the clones? Suggestions please."
Werrel spoke up, "I've got a couple of demolition charges. We could throw them through the door going past or try and collapse the walls from outside, which would be trickier. A fire fight would be a lottery - five to four, so we should win but at what cost?"
Crozier agreed, "Maybe two could go ahead to scout for the clones while three of us toss in the charges and keep them pinned inside till they blow?"
Kimura suggested, "I've got a few smaller charges than Werrel's - I can set one on a timer on this wall - it'd only blow a small hole - too small for them to get out of, but enough to distract them so we can get along the cross corridor and throw the charges in - then we keep 'em pinned like Crozier says and hope Werrel's demo' charges bring the roof down. And if we get the chance, do whatever else we can to incapacitate them - don't just assume burying them will keep them pinned forever - like how we got out of the bottom of that lift shaft."
"Right. Good plan Captain Kimura. Synchronise timers and you place your small charge - we need to go quietly, so give it five minutes. Sergeant Werrel, make your preparations. I'll take Teller and scout north to the security office, and be ready to split their attention with an attack from the north if needed," Vorpatril and Teller headed west along the corridor, slowing as they neared the corner, then headed north for the security office.
The other two waited while Kimura placed his charge. He finished, replaced his gauntlets, and they followed after Ivan and Teller, rounding the corner in time to see them disappeared around the far corner to the north. Kimura's team reached the corner of the cross corridor to the clone creche and he checked his chrono, "Captain Vorpatril, we'll be starting the action in two minutes twenty seven seconds."
"Understood. We'll check the security offices as we go past. Good luck."
Kimura turned and waved his arm in his relaxed mercenary way. The other two were following Kimura along the corridor towards the creche door as Ivan reached the security office.
Bharaputra was livid! His personal guards stood back and let him have his destructive tantrum - they were getting used to his recent outbursts now, but it still set them on edge, and distracted them.
They had arrived at the creche quickly and after a cursory check along the nearby corridors for enemy troops, they'd rushed in and found the dead guards and no sign of the clones or their nanny. Bharaputra had toured the room while they examined the guards - all dead, and except for one disrupter head injury and the guard captains broken nose it looked like blunt trauma to head and neck. The armoured guards looked at Bharaputra and he looked at them, seething. Whoever had killed one guard with a disrupter, the woman could not possibly have taken out the other four armed guards and their captain by hand on her own. No, it looked like the clones must have been in on it and somehow been trained to fight.
Sergeant Verrel, heading the armoured guards knew what he wanted to do next, but by then Bharabutra's anger had taken over and he was throwing things around and pacing from one cupboard to another just pulling things out and even stamping on them; it was madness! They needed to get out of here before any further bombardment or enemy troops arrived - whether they went looking for the clones or not, staying here in this room was crazy. He sent a man to keep watch at the door, kneeling inside and part hidden, ready to fire on anyone who came down from the central ramp area. Meanwhile he and the others started a more concerted search for clues, not that he thought they'd find anything, but since they had to wait for the Baron to calm down then they might as well keep busy! They edged around, giving Bharaputra plenty of personal space.
Ivan shoved the security office door open and found a body buried under fallen rubble next to the blown out security command console - that was odd. The remains of screens, buttons and switches, some framed photos on the wall, of men posing in brown Bharaputran uniforms. Two framed certificates still on the wall and others fallen to the floor. One picture was by the dead guard's outstretched hand next to the wrecked console, as though he was reaching for it. Ivan tried not to think about that. He looked around but the place was a mess, the equipment knocked about by the damaged walls and half collapsed ceiling.
He turned to Teller and said, "Nothing much here, let's get going."
Teller didn't have room to get out of Ivan's way, so he left first and waited outside. Ivan knocked the door frame loose with the shoulder of his suit, and looked back at it accusingly.
Then they heard the sound of firing, followed by two explosions echoing down the corridor from the west corner - a bit ahead of schedule? Ivan thought. He started running and checked the mission timer, yes they'd jumped the gun by about twenty seconds. He could overhear the developing fight, though working out the details from their muffled shouts wasn't easy, he heard them scrambling away and thought how things were a lot simpler in space with a proper tactics room and com specialists to bring things to your attention when required, so you never missed things as they developed out of view.
They were building up steam mentally and physically - a contagious adrenaline rush coming through the com link as they listened to the action unfold, but before they got to halfway to the corner two armoured Bharaputran guards emerged from the central ramp, turned and headed towards them firing as they came, almost continuous plasma fire from both of them. Ivan and Teller immediately returned fire, advancing unsteadily as their suits crackled and stiffened because the shields were sucking power from the mechanical and communications systems.
Teller got a good shot in, while the enemies' aim wavered due to their own movement as they walked towards the Barrayaran officers. As the enemy got closer Ivan cried out wordlessly and dived towards them, rolling sideways and coming to rest on his back, firing upwards as the leftmost Bharaputran tried to bring his weapon to bear whilst unexpectedly slowing his pace. Ivan steadied his aim and fired up at the man's exposed right armpit, catching it perfectly. The man's shoulder ignited as the plasma punched through into the interior of the suit, turning into a furnace from which he could not escape. The end was quick for the man, Ivan told himself later, but not so quick that Ivan couldn't see his face, then and in his nightmares for months afterwards as the mouth opened in an instant of overwhelming agony before vanishing in superheated vapour, immediately followed by the power pack detonating and blasting the other Bharaputran right past Teller, knocking him from his feet. The enemy suit come to rest near the security office.
Ivan jumped up, fuelled by horror and adrenaline and pounded past Teller and before the man could recover he repeated his ploy, this time at point blank range. He looked away and had just remembered what would happen immediately after the man became cremated inside his suit... when the suit exploded, blasting Ivan straight up against the ceiling. He dropped back to the floor unconscious, unaware of the sounds coming through from Werrel and Kimura, and the beeping of his suit's low power alerts.
Lew was in the suit at last, with Guido in the other one which had a stunner, but other working weapons, hence it being left here - though it was still useful protection. Gione was checking Guido's suit while Natasha slapped the extra power pack into the rear slot of Lew's suit. She'd already checked the seals and weapons on both suits and only added the additional pack last when she was sure Guido didn't need it. There was room for three power packs on each suit as standard, but Lew's was a custom job and had the extra one for the jet pack. All the power packs were standard heavy duty high output packs with armoured casings, but that didn't protect the contacts where they slotted into the power couplings in the suit, so it was important to make sure they were well seated. Badly seated contacts could be damaged by weapons and if that caused a short out they overloaded and... Boom! There were safety options on commercial suits, but most military packs didn't have them for various reasons, including non-standardisation and certain potential glitches that could lead to power loss.
She and Gione finished the suit checks and gave the traditional slap on the arm casing, and simultaneously they heard some muffled explosions.
They looked at each other and then turned to grab their weapons and Natasha asked Lew to check for coms traffic. Meanwhile she stood still and listened for a few seconds. Good, the noise was all coming from the south side, so they might be safe to go back down a few floors without meeting the combatants.
Time for a final briefing, before Lew and Guido closed their suit's visors, "Remember to turn on the suit's shields and put them in stealth mode - but reset that if we're attacked, OK?" They both agreed, "If we meet any Bharaputran guards then Lew, you order them to go up and form a rear guard for us, OK?"
Lew nodded, then when she kept looking at him he confirmed, "Yes Natasha."
She nodded in approval, "Guido, you keep your stunner ready and if we meet any civilians, not in suits, you cover them - don't hesitate to stun them if I say, or if they try and raise the alarm, understood?"
"Yes Natasha."
"Good. Gione, you and me are their prisoners unless we meet the Barryarans, then I'll explain - and in that case, just put your hands up and surrender - unless I say otherwise, clear?"
All three confirmed agreement.
"Right, shields on, stealth on, seal up and let's move out - back the way we came and you two keep scanning to see if you can confirm if it's Barrayarans the Baron's run into, and step carefully, we don't want to make too much noise. There's no way I'm risking the Baron detecting us up here! Hopefully they'll all be too busy shooting at each other, but be alert in case someone runs our way. OK?"
Gione nodded and the other two said "Yes!" Lew too loudly though the external speaker on his suit; Guido's wasn't turned on or wasn't working.
She winced at the noise, she raised her wrist com, but realised she'd not yet retuned it.
"Turn it off!", she signalled with a sideways chopping of her hand in front of her throat, "Use hand signals like I taught you, remember? They signalled affirmative, so did Gione. She checked and tuned her wrist com to an unused com channel - she could only work out how to make it handle one channel at a time, and got the two clones to make that their main channel, and the only outgoing channel.
"Right then, follow me," she took a deep breath and gave the hand signal to follow her, and headed back through the armoury to the north exit. Just before reaching it there was a loud crash behind her and she spun, plasma rifle halfway to her shoulder before she saw Guido standing sheepishly in his suit, next to some hand weapons from a bent weapons rack; next to him Gione stood with hunched shoulders, wincing at the noise. She shook her head and turned back to the door, just about to open it when there was a much larger echoing explosion from the south side again. They all froze. Then she and Gione turned back to look and listen carefully, but it didn't sound like it had broken into the armoury area, so it must just be more fighting on the far side. Good, at least that would cover any more noise the clones might make.
She turned back and finally opened the exit door, peeked out, signalled silence again and waved the others to follow. She led them back along the aisle between desks, a few of which got bumped by the suited boys in passing, but out in the open plan office the noise coming through from the fighting on the south side was so loud she hardly noticed the clumping suits coming along behind her. As they turned left and neared the stairway at the centre of the north wall she jerked up her arm to halt them, then stepped forward and listened near the door. There was no signs other than their own foot prints, no noise that she could hear above the background noise of the fighting.
She pushed the door open and checked the stairwell, it was clear. She waved through the two suited boys, while she stood against the wall, holding the door as wide as it would go. Even so, the armoured suits were a tight squeeze - they had to stoop and slide through sideways, then they had trouble with the narrowness of the stair treads and Guido fell forward halfway down and bashed his helmet on the wall. The door had not quite shut, but the fighting over on the south side was still loud enough to cover noise of the fall.
Guido pushed himself upright again and Gione checked for damage - there was none of course, since suits were designed to protect their wearers from much heavier damage than such a short fall, though the wall was dented! Even as slow as they were Natasha decided to keep going down another floor, so they'd have more warning if Bharaputra came back down the ramp when they were on it. Lew didn't fall over, but he did loose balance twice and the metal hand rail was noticeably bent after their passage.
Two floors down they went through the exit door carefully, then across a small equipment maintenance room, between benches of disembowelled float pads and cleaning equipment - nothing of any use to them as far as Natasha could see except, "Oh!" she grabbed a small portable laser cutter in passing and stuffed inside her belt.
She got to the central shaft and as she thought the blast doors had been left open by Bharaputra - which might explain how the Barrayarans had got down to the third level. Maybe they'd just got trapped or lost and were trying for the lower exit? Well at least they were keeping Bharaputra busy!
She listened - no rush of heavy footfalls coming down the ramp yet. She waved the suited boys forward and they clumped down the ramp, back towards the garage level.
Finally the Baron's anger ran down and he stood still, watching the guards search what cupboards he hadn't already destroyed. Fools! "Stop that!" He shouted over the com link, then considered his next move, "We're going to security control and take a look at the surveillance video, see what happened here - Sergeant! Why did you not already do that? What are you waiting for! Get moving!"
The guards started moving straight away, but glanced at the sergeant. The sergeant keyed his personal link to the point man at the door, "Move out carful Orin, and stay cool. The Baron's just angry so don't let him rattle you. Keep your eyes peeled eh?"
Orin shuffled forward as the others ordered themselves behind, the Baron barely controlling his impatience. Orin checked the east corridor to the right first, then he turned and stepped left around the door frame into the corridor - Wham - he was blown backwards by a point-blank heavy plasma blast! Then the rear wall exploded, throwing cinder fragments across the room - the enemy must be trying to hit them from both sides at once - they needed to get out of this dead end!
The others had turned towards the explosion, not knowing which threat to face - even the Baron was indecisive, but Verrel knew the Baron had never been in combat. The sergeant pulled Orin back out of the doorway, then moved up to the opening himself, plasma arc and personal missile launcher fully live, and on the hair trigger. He saw the flicker of a shadow and let go a burst of plasma to rebound from the opposite wall, then stuck his right arm out and fired two short range homing missiles along the west corridor. It was a gamble because their guidance and trigger had a half second delay to prevent them detonating on launch.
The missiles exploded virtually simultaneously and Sergeant Verrel edged around the door, firing his plasma arc left again before leaning out to take a look. He was hit hard on the head by something heavy and toppled forwards into the corridor. All he got was a glimpse of armoured boots by his head, twisting away and making a run for it. He fired from his prone position at the fleeing figure, and hosed the plasma around at another suited enemy, also fleeing. Belatedly he levered himself up high enough and sent another two missiles after the enemy, but they got around the corner before the little rockets reached them; the missiles failed to make the sharp turn and detonated against the western boundary wall. From the brief glimpse he'd caught before the last two missiles exploded, it looked as though one of his first missiles had hit that wall as well, and the other had exploded against this corridor's south wall half way along.
He struggled to his feet and looked back into the room. The was confusion - Orin and Gorm were pushing the Baron ahead of them in some sort of panic. What the hell? Then the two Barrayaran heavy charges exploded and the three armoured figures were blown straight at Verrel, knocking him off his feet again, back across the corridor to then be buried by the other three suits, and half a demolished wall and ceiling.
Kimura led the two Barrayarans along the cross corridor towards the creche entrance. Werrel had his charges set and was approaching from behind, when the Bharaputran guard looked out, right at them. Kimura immediately fired at point-blank range and blew the guard back into the creche, then he stepped aside and waved Werrel forward.
Werrel was continuing towards the door when Kimura was hit by the Bharaputran return fire, bounced off the corridor wall opposite the door and fell under Werrel's feet. Werrel kept hold of the packs as he went down a few metres short of the doorway. Before he could get up again two missiles passed right over his back, one of them bounced off the opposite wall and then detonated half way down the south wall, next to Crozier, the other missile exploded against the far west wall.
Werrel got to his feet and stepped forward almost colliding with the enemy sergeant as he stuck his head out of the doorway again. Werrel used all his weight to drag the fellow forwards out of the doorway, and as he fell to the floor, Werrel jumped on his back, swung the heavy explosive packs through the door, into the group of other suited Bharaputrans inside.
He didn't wait around to see what they did about it, he just pushed off the doorframe and ran like hell, back the way they'd come. He grabbed the staggering Dendarii captain's arm and dragged him towards the corner as plasma fire washed around them, making their suit shields snap and crackle through the coms static. Crozier bounced off the west wall just ahead of them, having some difficulty controlling his armoured suit.
As the three of them got their balance again and turned the corner to head north up the side corridor after Vorpatril and Teller the wall behind them exploded and they were thrown forwards, Crozier falling on his face and Werrel and Kimura staggering past him, Werrel pushing off from Kimura's arm allowing them both to bounce off the side walls and regain their balance.
They looked back and saw the flash then heard the explosion and felt the reverberations as the two big explosive charges detonated. Then another explosion, or maybe an echo from the north. Dust and smoke billowed out of the cross corridor from the direction of the creche.
Werrel waved at Kimura, "Go join Captain Vorpatril, I'll help the Lieutenant."
But Kimura pushed back from the wall, "No sergeant. We need to go back and see if we got them. They should at least be disoriented and if that suit I saw was Bharaputra himself, we might be able to finish him off, which is our secondary objective. Besides, I don't like leaving enemies behind me!"
Werrel had pulled Crozier up onto his feet while he listened to this. The Dendarii might be a Captain, and an experienced soldier, but he wasn't in Werrel's chain of command, "Lieutenant? Lieutenant Crozier, how are you doing - what are your instructions sir? Go back or go on and join Captain Vorpatril?"
Crozier was pretty dazed, having caught most of the two plasma bursts from the Bharaputran and in between that he'd seen one missile come almost straight at his face, missing him by centimetres, then another one ricocheted off the other wall and hit right next to him, blasting his suit around like a toy, from one wall to the other and coming to rest metres back down the corridor. His ears were still ringing and the sergeant voice sounded like it was coming down a well, faint and echoing around inside his skull. Go back there again? He could ask Captain Vorpatril, but was reluctant to do so. He tried to gather his thoughts, What had Kimura said about their objectives? Primary was getting the clones, secondary was not even their team's objective, since Baron Bharaputra should be back at his main base being attacked by Fell's team, but that plan was history, so Bharaputra was a secondary objective clear enough. Yes, they had to go back. He really would rather run in the other direction, but his duty was clear. They had this one chance to get the better of the enemy while they were, hopefully buried and vulnerable. If they could be sure they'd killed Baron Bharapuutra, and Kimura had thought the shiny brown suit was the Baron, then they should do it. It wasn't a very honourable sort of war this - well, more of a skirmish than a war really. Not much glory, but it was proper fighting, real battle experience where he could show his command ability.
"We go back, quick as you can sergeant, don't wait for me I think my suit's a bit glitchy, but I'll be right behind you. As the actress said to the bishop!"
The sergeant barked a laugh out at the feeble joke and spun on his heel and started back at a lumbering jog, plasma arc held ahead as he rounded the corner reaching full pelt and leaning over he shouted, "Geronimo!" that ancient Earth battle cry.
Kimura hesitated, he felt isolated inside his helmet, with no Dendarii comrades at his back, but he started moving.
Crozier huffed after him, swallowing his pride and trying to find a good rhythm in the unaccustomed suit. He'd done all the training, but this was his first real combat and the suit was one of the new ones, and glitchy now, having a slight activator delay on the left side that was very distracting.
Kimura shook his head and muttered, "Bloody gung ho part timers!" he chuckled, "Reminds me of the Admiral - Naismith that is," he breathed heavily as he got the suits armoured legs pumping, overcoming the momentum of the heavy carapace to get his rhythm started as he followed the mad Barrayaran sergeant around the corner.
They'd dug Timmons out, and helped him out onto the corridor, where Jennings was checking some damage on his suit when the floor shook.
"Explosion below sir!" Pyrios informed Hammond.
"Right. I'll take a turn at digging while Clemens checks Lessing. How much more rubble is there?"
"Garring, take a spell watching those corridors. If you could pass it up and out sir, Jennings can pile it outside. Sounds like there's fighting going on down there. Could be the Captain and his ImpSec crew Colonel."
"You could be right Sergeant - if it is fighting and not just gas or chemicals exploding. I still can't raise anyone else. The briefing didn't mention it, but I think this facility must be shielded - which makes sense when you think about it."
Pyrios paused with a big lump of plascrete in his hand, "Secret facility, paranoid Jacksonian... I see what you mean sir."
The Colonel took the boulder from the Sergeant and the digging continued.
Teller picked himself up and looked around - well, no need to check the two Bharaputrans - they'd literally been blown to pieces! He turned to where Ivan lay face down - and inert. "Oh shit!" He walked over and bent down to turn his superior's suit over, afraid at what he might see.
Captain Vorpatril wasn't moving and there was blood smeared over the inside of the visor. Teller couldn't read the tell tales from outside the helmet, but he could see faint reflections and tried to work out which coloured glows were the important medical alerts for serious injuries including heart and brain activity and internal organ failures. He compared the positions in his own helmet, which was the same make though a different model. Well, unless they'd changed things drastically the red lights flashing were from the suit malfunction area, and the two tiny yellow flashing glows were the medical ones - so the captain was probably unconscious and hurting but not dying.
What should he do now? They had left the medic back with the main team when they dived down the utility shaft, so Colonel Hammond and the medics might all be dead by now, and he had no idea about shuttle evacuation either. Teller couldn't carry the captain alone with his suit on, and the others were still fighting Baron Bharaputra around the corner, so it wasn't a good time to take the suit off. He could stay here and listen to the others being pounded or leave Captain Vorpatril, go and help and hope one of them survived to come back and help the Captain afterwards. He hesitated another moment, looking at Ivan's battered face, slack and even in unconsciousness carrying the signs of worry.
Teller turned away and got up, took a breath and got his legs going west to the corner and south towards the others. The static had cleared now and he could hear them discussing something as he rounded the next corner and pounded forward, towards an odd melee outside the demolished creche doorway.