She and Jordan were back to back, looking around, turning, firing as fast as they could as the circle of warrows tightened.

"How's your charge?" she asked.

"Below fifty percent."

The numbers were overwhelming.

Had to be only minutes-seconds-before the sheer weight of the surging beasts would break through the wall of pulse blasts and rip into them.

"Steady. Aim," Jordan said as he fired repeatedly, every shot wounding if not killing.

He didn't mean Annie, she knew. He was talking to the others. Encouraging them.

"Make every shot count."

Annie fired as fast as she could, knowing that all the good aiming in the world wasn't going to turn this tide.

Ivan hurried into the building.

He had heard screeches, blasts, weird ululating howls.

Someone's alive. Jordan, Annie ... but maybe not for long.

He raised the gun to shoulder-level as he raced into the main corridor of the building.

Right into a line of huge animals ahead- Warrows. He recognized them from his time in the Janus System.

They were running-surging-up the stairs.

Scrambling over each other.

Ready to swarm anyone who was up on that balcony, up near the offices where, Ivan guessed, the people from the SRV were trapped.

21.

ESCAPE.

Ivan stopped.

Before he took another step, he fired four quick blasts at the column of warrows, madly scrambling to get to the top of the dead escalator.

Two shots sent the warrows at the head of the column tumbling backward, crushing the ones behind them. More blasts, and soon the room was filled with howls and screams.

Wounded ... and they don't like it.

But the shots achieved his real purpose.

It drew the attention of the creatures, who halted their mad charge and turned to see where the shots were coming from. Their bloodlust was still high. They had been going in for the kill, but now there was new danger from below.

The ones at the bottom of the dead escalator turned. Their snarls echoed in the empty hallway.

Ivan stood out in the open, exposed.

Easy prey.

Eight or ten of the creatures climbed over the wounded and dead, moving swiftly toward Ivan.

Sometimes, he thought, you get exactly what you wish for.

He dropped to one knee and, with the warrows closing in, sucked in a deep breath, took careful aim at a spot between the eyes of the lead beast, and squeezed the trigger.

As a black fountain of blood and brains exploded into the air, he had already taken two more shots.

Annie backed up and bumped into Jordan, their backs touching, almost, she thought, as if we're one person.

So far, Annie and Jordan, backed by Nahara and Rodriguez, had been able to keep the creatures at bay.

But for how long?

But next to Jordan stood Rodriguez, who Annie could actually hear whimpering, moaning between the steady thump of the pulse blasts and the howling yelps of wounded warrows.

She didn't take a moment to look down at her gun to see how charged it was.

It wasn't a damn assault weapon. Not designed for a goddamned standoff.

At least Nahara-next to her-seemed to be taking some kind of aim and shooting with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

But then one warrow leaped in close and swiped at Nahara's gun hand. His pulse gun flew from his grip as Jordan blew the creature's face into a bloody mess.

"Shit," Nahara said.

Right, thought Annie. Shit, indeed.

Nahara responded by pressing himself tighter against the defenders, now with only two reliable shooters and Nahara, unarmed and exposed.

Fruit ripe for the plucking.

The steady punching sound of a pulse gun filled the air.

There were more blasts coming from somewhere down below ... louder sounds, too.

Not some puny pea shooter, not the handguns they had, but something much more powerful.

More warrow screams echoed from down below. Wild snarls and thrashing sounds.

Is this the cavalry arriving?

Someone helping them. Someone who survived the initial onslaught? A security guard who had maybe been in hiding and who had come out now and was going to save them from this massacre?

A nearby warrow swung its head toward her. Mouth wide. Teeth gleaming as it went for her arm.

But Annie was able to tilt the gun in time so those jagged teeth met her gun barrel-and in that contact, with her finger pulling back on the trigger, the beast's head disappeared.

Buying seconds.

Any real hope, she knew, was riding on their savior, down below.

The last of the charging warrows fell inches away from Ivan, like a long-distance runner who simply couldn't go the distance.

No time to examine the things, since he could still see huge, dark shapes bobbing up and down on the balcony.

He lowered the gun, and bolted.

He made his way through the piles of bodies, most of them dead, but a few were writhing on the ground, some trying to turn their heads and catch him in their jaws as he raced by and up the escalator.

To the top of the stairs.

To see the four people from the SRV.

And even as his gun came up, he wondered if he was in time to save them, because the creatures had them surrounded and were closing in, their jaws wide ... hungry for flesh and blood.

Annie saw him through a break in the circle of creatures.

Gage.

Gun up.

Shooting.

A surge of hope, but at the same time wondering: How the hell did he get here ... with a gun?

Only seconds ago, she had accepted the hopelessness-the simple, dark, grim fact of their impending death.

Now ... suddenly things looked different.

But in that hopeful moment, one of the creatures leaped forward and pulled Nahara out of the protective huddle.

Its claws closed on the man's midsection.

Nahara's trapped body swiveled, his eyes wide, turning. His mouth was open; he was screaming, but no sound came out.

He was being dragged away to where the warrows could feast in private.

Annie spotted other beasts crouched down low, avoiding the gunfire and creeping up on them, using whatever cover they could find.

But-a decision-she used her next shot to drill a smoking hole through the throat of the warrow that was about to eat Nahara.

Its traplike jaws didn't let him go.

Maybe a reflex action, an instantaneous rigor mortis that kept the man held in its grip.

Only then did Annie turn to shoot at the closest warrow who was crawling toward her.

She turned, almost too late.

This time, her gun wasn't coming up fast enough. She thought for sure she was dead.

Which is when she heard another one of those cannonading blasts, and the creature fell, sprawling on the floor, inches from Annie.

Gage's blast had taken it down, and behind her she heard Jordan shooting. Rodriguez kept making noises.

But ahead, Gage said-yelled-over the mayhem: "You gotta move ... now!"

Between him and Jordan, the rest of the pack was either dead or dying. Savage snarls and howls filled the air.

Seeing a break, Annie hurried over to Nahara, freeing him from the clamped jaws and hearing Jordan right there behind her.

"Let me help."

Gage stood there, gun up, scouring the area, firing at anything that moved. Then, quickly, he waved them over to the dead escalator and down through the piles of warrow bodies to the floor below.

22.

GETTING OUT.

Ivan stayed back until the others started down the gore-drenched staircase. The carnage was terrible.

But Jordan ran up beside him.