He reached his arm under his comrade and struggled to get up, lifting Garavick back over his shoulder. He felt waves of pain, soreness, exhaustion. But he trudged forward. It was a long way back to the refuge, but with no one chasing him down he was sure he could make it.

*   *   *

“Almost done, Corporal. Another five minutes, and we’ll be ready to go.” Rivera was hunched over, reaching down to affix explosives to one of the cooling pipes.

“The sooner the better. We’ve been lucky so far, but it ain’t gonna last.” Plinth was standing next to the door with his rifle in his hands, ready for anything. He’d already pulled off the wadded piece of cloth he’d shoved on his shoulder and cleaned the wound the best he could. He’d reflexively shuddered as he took his coat off, and then his shirt, but then the expected wave of cold hadn’t come. The room was heated, indeed, in more normal times he’d have been uncomfortably hot. But now he savored every degree of warmth he could get.

“I’ll try to make it three minutes. Is that good en…” Rivera’s sentence cut off. There was noise in the hallway outside, and they’d all heard it.

“Get down behind something,” Plinth said, his voice hushed. The Marine moved swiftly across the room, swinging around the edge of a small console. His had snapped around toward the techs. “Down, I said…now!”

The techs slipped behind the machinery near where they had been taping the explosives to the heavy lengths of pipe. The refinery’s cooling system was vast, and they’d only managed to get half the bombs in place.

The main door opened. Then nothing happened. For at least ten seconds, Plinth crouched down, ready to open fire on anything that came through. But nothing did.

Then something flew through the air, tossed in from outside.

“Grenade!” the Marine shouted, ducking down lower under the console, and hoping the civilians had the good sense to do the same.

Then an explosion. Loud. Deafening. He felt a wave of shock, and he struggled to maintain his composure.

A flashbang. A stunner. That means…

He saw the shadowy images moving through the doorway, and he heard the sounds of their assault rifles firing.

…they’re coming.

He swung to the side, bringing his rifle around the edge of the console. He flipped the switch to full auto, and his finger tightened.

He saw one of the figures drop. Then another. And then he pulled himself back as a blast of fire hit the front of the console.

He twisted himself around, moving toward the other end of the workstation. As he went, he reached behind his back—he was sure he had a grenade left, but his hand had trouble finding it. The pain in his shoulder was brutal, and despite his best attempts to ignore it, it slowed him down.