Page 60 of Warrior’s Mate

"Give me the local sensor feed."

The officer transferred it. Maelis studied the movement patterns. Six heat sources clustered at the top of the shaft. Too still. A seventh moved away and returned in a repeated line.

Scanning.

"Keep it sealed," she said. "And move everyone past this junction now."

The officer hesitated only a fraction of a second. "Understood." Maelis sent a warning to the rear marshal. The evacuation column compressed, then accelerated. Thirty seconds later something struck the eastern access door hard enough to bow the metal inward.

A woman screamed.

"Keep moving," Maelis shouted.

The second impact tore one hinge loose.

Security teams formed a firing line while civilians poured toward the freight cut. Maelis moved with them, counting household groups as they passed—seventy-two, then eighty-three, then ninety-one.

The door burst open at ninety-seven. The Sargan scout through the gap fired immediately. A security officer fell.

The tunnel erupted. Maelis dropped behind a cargo barrier as weapons fire turned the junction white. The remaining security team returned fire in disciplined bursts, but more movement appeared in the shaft.

"Collapse the access," one officer shouted.

"Charges are on the wrong side!"

Maelis looked up. Old processing level. Old sorting machines.

Old grain dump.

"No," she said, already moving.

She ran to the legacy control station, slapped dust from the manual panel, and forced the cover open. The system had no power. Of course it had no power.

"Portable cell!" she shouted.

One of the med technicians threw her a battery pack. Maelis caught it against her chest, nearly dropped it, then jammed the leads into the emergency contacts. The control panel flickered alive.

A security officer fired over the barrier. "Whatever you're doing, do it faster."

"That advice has been remarkably popular today."

She found the dump-gate controls. The overhead storage bins were empty of usable grain, but they were not empty.

Years of chaff, husks, processing dust, and maintenance debris remained in the upper collectors. Tons of it. Maelis opened every gate above Junction Seven. The first cascade hit like a landslide.

Dry husks and grain dust poured through the old processing chutes, filling the eastern shaft and burying the broken access door. The Sargan nearest the opening vanished beneath it. Another fired blindly before the weight drove him backward.

"Move!" Maelis yelled.

The remaining civilians ran.

The security teams withdrew by sections while the grain waste continued falling. It would not hold forever. It did not need to.

Maelis was the last civilian out of the junction. They had almost reached the freight cut when the world bucked beneath her feet. This explosion was not above them.

It was inside the tunnel network.

The floor rose. The ceiling split. Maelis saw the security officer in front of her turn, mouth open in warning, and then darkness slammed sideways.