Gavin lay to one side, a crude bandage wrapped around his waist already clotted with blood. His breathing was ragged. Beyond, a short passage in one direction opened into the cargo hold, while the other way led to two cabins, both with their doors already broken open. The corpse of a Patriot Guard was sprawled behind one of them, a bloody hole where one eye should have been.

Marcus turned into the hold. Viera was at one end of it, adjusting something, while Brask stood looking down at a massive wooden crate. Marcus joined him, and found one of the huge steel tablets nestled within, packed in straw like wine bottles ready for shipment.

“This is what we came for, isn’t it?” Brask said.

Marcus hesitated, then nodded. They hadn’t told the volunteers the whole story, of course, only that the mission was important to stopping Maurisk. Brask frowned, then made the sign of the double circle across his chest.

“Good,” he said. “Glad we’re destroying this heathen stuff. Gives me the creeps just to look at.”

Good enough. “Viera, how long?”

“A couple of minutes,” Viera said, not looking up.

“Brask, get Gavin up on deck,” Marcus said. The wounded Leatherback probably wouldn’t make it, but they owed it to him to at least try to get him to a cutter. “I’ll get the boats ready.”

“Got it,” Brask growled.

Up above, the fire from the pier had slowed down. Marcus suspected the Patriot Guards were low on ammunition, and in any case their own smoke cloud was so thick now they were essentially firing at random. Andy fired back periodically, just to reassure them someone was still there, but Raesinia and Nell had moved back from the rail.

“Nearly there,” Marcus said. He ran a quick mental count in his head. “We’ll leave one of the boats. George, get the one we came in. Walnut, you take the one at the stern. It’ll be a little crowded, but we’ll get clear.”

“I don’t think Zim will leave Maple,” Walnut said.

“Carry her,” Marcus said. “We haven’t got time. Then help Brask with Gavin. He’s hit pretty badly.”

“Right.”

Walnut strode across the deck and grabbed the shrieking Zimona around the waist, pulling her off the prone body of her sister. He carried her to the stern, without apparent effort. George, hampered somewhat by his namesake gut, was lowering himself back down the rope ladder to the other boat.

We’re going to pull it off, Marcus thought. It had been bloodier than he’d wanted—he’d hoped to avoid a fight altogether—but the Patriots were out of options. They can’t rush us, and they don’t have the angle to pick us off. They could blow us out of the water with the guns, but that would defeat the whole—