I turned, pulled it free and threw myself through it as a blizzard of shots impacted along the access-way wall.
On the other side of the shutter, I found a narrow inspection tunnel for the airgate's main docking mechanisms. The floor was metal grille, and the tight walls were thick with networks of cables and plumper hydraulic hoses. At the end, a bare metal ladder dropped down through a floor-well or up into an inspection shaft.
There was no time to climb either way. The first trooper was pushing through the shutter and raising his weapon. I shot down the length of the tunnel and blew out his chest-plate, and then jumped off the grille into the ladder well.
Five metres down, I slammed into a cage-platform. There was only red auxiliary light down here. The troopers' visors had vision amplifiers.
I was down in the guts of the vast docking clamp now, crawling between huge greased pistons and hydraulic rams the size of mature bluewood firs. Gases vented and lubricant fluids drizzled amid dangling loops of chain. The throb of heavy-duty compressors and atmosphere regulators filled the air.
I got into cover. All four red tell-tale lights on the stubber's grip were showing. I ejected the disposable plastic clip and slid the fresh one into place. Four green lights lit up in place of the red ones.
There was noise from the ladder-well. Two bulky dark shapes were moving down, backlit by the light from above.
Their visors had heat-enhancement too. That was clear the moment they both started firing at my position. I buried myself behind a piston unit but a round ricocheted off the oily metal and slammed into my right shoulder, driving me forward against the deck. My face hit the grille, and it reopened the gash in my cheek, popping out several of the butterfly clips that were just beginning to get the torn flesh to knit back together.
More shots rattled off the scant metal cover. Another ricochet hit the toe of my boot, and another punched into my arm, smashing my hand back against the wall behind me.
The impact kicked the stubber from my grip. It bounced away across the floor, just out of reach, the four green lights taunting me.
There were at least three of them out there now, moving through the confined space between machinery, firing bursts my way. I crawled on hands and knees along behind a horizontal clamp piston, low-velocity rounds pinking off the wall behind and above me.
I thought about using the will, but I had no chance of getting line of sight to try any sophisticated mind trick.
At the back end of the massive clamp, I found cover by the arrestor baffles and giant kinetic dampers that soften the impact of another ship against the docking arms. Greenish light filtered from a small control panel mounted in the wall between the dampers. The panel had a toughened plastic hood over it like a public vox-booth, and a glance showed me it was a test-reset terminal for docking array maintenance. I tried punching several icons, but the small, oval plate displayed the message Terminal locked out. Automatic safety measures were in place because a ship – the naval security troopers' pinnace – was in the docking clamp, mated to the airgate on the deck above.
I could hear scrambling above the ambient noise. The first of the troopers was clambering down the side of the clamp, following my route back to the dampers.
I took out my inquisitorial rosette. It is a badge of office and a great deal more besides. A press of my thumb deployed the micro multi-key from its recess, and I slid it into the terminal's socket. It engaged. The screen blanked. My rosette had up to magenta level Imperial clearance. I prayed Maxilla had not encoded his entire ship with personal encryptions.
The screen flashed again. I tapped a release order into the terminal.
'Dock array in active use,' it told me in blunt green letters.
I hit override.
With a tumultuous grinding, the docking clamp disengaged. Dampers roared. Steam vented explosively. Alarms started wailing.
There was an agonised scream as the trooper on my heels was gripped and then crashed from the waist down by ten tonnes of expanding piston-sleeve.
