Man O' War

thought. They did not have the right to waste any more of it. Not theirs, and certainly not that of the rest of the group.
"I don't want to sound the same old horn," Gerald whispered as they walked. "But you know none of them had the units to pay for passage. No one's ever earned enough to get back to the Skyhook, let alone all the way down to Earth. Not working in the mines. Not in the factories. Not anywhere on the whole stinking planet."
"Please," asked Marta. "Let's leave it for now, all right?" She was just as wearied by the conversation as her husband. And just as frightened.
Rounding the last corner of their route in silence, they came to an old pressure doorway. The door itself had been removed long before. Metal was too precious to waste. But the frame had been built into the walls. To dig it out might have caused a cave-in, and so it had been stripped to its barest and left behind. In the larger hollow on the other side, the pair reached their goal.
"Finally," came one voice from the small crowd within. "We thought you'd decided to work another shift."
A number of those gathered chuckled. Gerald entered nodding his head in agreement. He switched his poor lamp off. There was already one light burning in the room. And it was turned up too bright. Wasteful.
"I had thought about it," Gerald answered, somehow finding the energy to generate a weak smile. "After all, who wants to sit around in an old, cold tunnel when he can keep warm in a nice, steamy bore tube, eh?"
"Making lots of money," shouted Samuels. "Right?"
More voices joined in the bitter laughter. Gerald moved his head, locking eyes with a number of people around the room as he said, "Right you are. There's money to be made anywhere here."
"Why, it's practically growing on trees."
"I'm sure if we had trees," added Renker in mock seriousness, "it would be."
"Who needs money trees?" asked a woman standing against the back wall. "Not me. Not when there are so many units to be had watching the pressure in the sponge/ mush vats, or running checks on a stapling unit, or stacking bar metal, or reeling conduit wiring, or . . ."
One of the men in the rear raised his left arm. He kept his right at its regular station, resting on the heavy black lever built into the back wall. He was laughing as hard as anyone else, but he waved his arm frantically, crying out over the voices of the others, "Enough. We can't risk the time. We've got to get on with things and get out of here."
"Fennel is right. What's the word? Do we have everything we need, or don't we?"
"It's all right here," answered Gerald. Pulling an old message tube from beneath his innermost layer of clothing, he held it up for everyone to see—proof they were not risking their own and their children's lives for nothing.
"Every encodement we have copied, every file we have accessed, every single scrap of information we have been able to gather to show what they are doing to us—what we know they will continue to do to us, and to our children and our grandchildren. . . ."
Tears suddenly pooled in Gerald's eyes. He was surprised, not that he could grow so emotional, but that his body could spare the water. And then, before he could continue, someone in the crowd asked, "What was that?"
Everyone went still. Their single light was clicked off. As they strained to listen, all present heard the same noise: a steady, heavy tread out in the hall. Panic filled the room. Some grabbed for their lights. Others stumbled toward any of the three exits, groping their way through the thick darkness. Several pulled out the feeble weapons they had brought: clubs or homemade knives.
Gerald simply sat down amid the flailing commotion, waiting for the inevitability he had been dreading. Marta joined him, somehow knowing what he was doing. They held each other tight, not trying to talk over the screams and cries all around them.
"It's security!" someone shouted through the darkness.
Instantly Fennel depressed the heavy lever. Homemade shock mines embedded along the right side of the access tunnels blew outward. Tightly packed metal, glass, and rock scraps tore through the air with devastating force. Eight of the invading figures went down under the violent barrage, torn to shreds. Unfortunately, that was not enough.
The gunfire began immediately after. It came in wide, inescapable patterns, guided by harsh white light, cutting down everything in its path. Expanding sprays of bearing shot slammed through bodies, throwing them against the dusty walls and into each other.
Men and women ran forward with their clubs and blades, screaming their rage. Thoseclosest to the exits took the full brunt of blasts and were cut in two. Blood arced wildly, spinning in the air as the bodies fell. Most of those behind were only wounded.
"Cease."
The single word rang electronically through the sealed helmets of the gunmen. Any other type of signal would have been impossible to hear over the firing. The echoes of their attack in the enclosed space had almost completely deafened those still alive.
Walking into the room, the apparent leader of the attack surveyed those who remained, using the harsh rifle lights that still panned across the chamber. He was satisfied. His people had efficiently expended as few shells as possible. Most of the laborers who had chosen the name the Resolute were dead, their movement crushed before it even began.
The only exceptions were the two sitting in the center of the room. Ironically, by accepting their fate, they had been spared—momentarily. The commander moved up to them, preparing to bring that moment to an end.
"Gerald Cobber . . . and wife."
The man's voice came out of his darkened helmet through an electronic filter. Obviously he knew the couple, but they did not recognize him. His helmet did enhance his voice just enough