Something worse. A high, pained sound that cut through the basement walls and straight into my chest.
“Turnip!”
I grabbed my rifle and ran.
The north wall was gone. Just gone. Rubble and dust and cold night air pouring through.
Three men stood in the gap. One of them was reloading something bulky, a launcher of some kind. The other two had their weapons trained on Turnip.
He was down. Not flat, not yet, but his back legs weren’t working right and there was blood on his side, dark and spreading. He was still trying to stand. Still trying to get between them and the basement stairs.
Still trying to protect me.
One of them raised his weapon, aiming for the kill shot.
I shot him in the face.
The second one turned toward me. I fired again. Missed. Fired again. He dropped.
The third one, the one with the launcher, was already swinging it toward me.
Turnip surged up on his front legs. Tusks low. He couldn’t stand, but he could lunge. He caught the man’s thigh and tore.
The launcher discharged into the ceiling.
I killed the man while he was screaming.
Then I was on my knees beside Turnip, rifle abandoned, hands running over his side.
“Hey. Hey, you stupid pig. Don’t you die on me.”
The wound was bad. Shrapnel, probably, from whatever they’d used on the wall. His side was torn up, blood matting the coarse hair, and when I pressed down, he made that sound again. That hurt sound.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
His eyes found mine. Dark and small and so damn trusting. He’d followed me since he was small enough to carry. He’d slept at the foot of my bed. He’d killed for me, bled for me, and now he was lying on my kitchen floor with his back legs not working.
“You’re going to be fine,” I told him. My voice cracked. I didn’t try to fix it. “You hear me? You’re going to be fine. You’re too mean to die.”
He grunted. A weak sound, but there.
I put my forehead against his. Felt his breath, shallow and fast.
“I have to go back down,” I said. “The sequence needs me. I can’t stay.”
A rough exhale. Acknowledgment, maybe. Or just pain.
“I’ll come back. I promise.” I pulled away, made myself stand. My hands were covered in his blood. “Just don’t die, okay? I can’t do this if you die.”
He blinked at me. Tried to lift his head.
I left him there, bleeding on the floor of my kitchen, surrounded by the bodies of the men we’d killed together, and descended into the basement to finish what Torek had started.
The console was screaming.
Warning lights everywhere. Pressure building in the primary manifold, in the secondary, in systems I didn’t even have namesfor. The readings had spiked while I was upstairs, and now they were approaching critical.
Hour Five. The crisis hour.
