Quinn paid no attention, scarcely seeming to care about the results of her order. She knelt by Miles's side, her shaking hands outspread, hesitating. Then they dove and pulled off Miles's command helmet. She flung her own squad leader's helmet to the floor and replaced it on her smooth gray hood with Miles's. Her lips moved, establishing contact, checking channels. The helmet was undamaged, apparently. She yelled orders to perimeter-people, queries to the drop shuttle, and one other. "Norwood, get back here, get back here. Yes, bring it, bring it now. On the double, Norwood!" Her head swiveled away from Miles only long enough to shout, "Taura, get this building secured!" From above, the sergeant in turn bellowed orders to her scurrying troopers.

Quinn pulled a vibra-knife from her belt sheath and began cutting away Miles's fatigues, ripping through belts and the nerve-disruptor shield-suit, tossing the bloody fragments aside. Mark looked up, following her glance, to see the medic with the float pallet returning, hauling his burden across the concrete. The float pallet counteracted gravity, but not mass; the inertia of the heavy cryochamber fought his attempts to run, and fought him again as he braked and lowered the pallet to the floor near his dead commander. Half a dozen confused clones followed the medic like baby ducks, clustering together and staring around in horror at the ghastly aftermath of the brief sharp firefight.

The medic looked back and forth from Miles's body to the loaded cryochamber. "Captain Quinn, it's no good. It won't hold two."

"The hell it's not." Quinn staggered to her feet, her voice grating like gravel. She seemed unaware of the tears running down her face, tracking pinkly through the spatter. "The hell it's not." She stared bleakly at the gleaming cryochamber. "Dump her."

"Quinn, I can't!"

"On my order. On my hands."

"Quinn . . ." The medic's voice was anguished. "Would he have ordered this?"

"He just lost his damn vote. All right." She took a deep breath. "I'll do it. You start prepping him."

Teeth clenched, the medic moved to obey. He flipped open a door at the end of the chamber and removed a tray of equipment. It was all in disarray, having been used once already and hastily repacked. He rolled out some big insulated bottles.