ew his attention to the pitched battle he had just left and which

was raging less than a hundred yards upriver of the lead wagons. The

Trail Boss pulled the empty magazine from his rifle, threw it aside,

clipped in a new one then checked the reserve air pressure.

The short bayonet fixed under the barrel was smeared with fresh

blood.

'These lump-heads are a bunch of real ballsy guys,' he breathed

hoarsely.

Barber's fingers flexed nervously around his own rifle. 'Is Moore

going to be able to hold them?"

Buck McDonnell replied with a grim smile 'If he doesn't, we may end up

with stiff necks."

This grisly reference to the Mute's habit of carrying the severed heads

of defeated Trackers on stakes wasn't really the kind of thing the

First Engineer wanted to hear.

Looking back downriver, Barber and McDonnell saw Clay's men on either

bank launch a counter-attack against a Mute force that was hidden from

the wagon train by a bend in the river. They saw the orange flash from

exploding flame-grenades and the rising plumes of black, oily smoke.

Three wounded linemen stumbled back up the muddy river bed towards The

Lady. One of them sank to his knees and pitched forward face-down in a

shallow pool. The Trail Boss tapped three men and led them downstream,

covering them while they picked up the prostrate lineman by the arms

and legs and ran him back towards the cover of the train.

As they reached the rear command car, a Mute warrior leapt into view on

the right bank, sighting down his crossbow. McDonnell, his reflexes

honed by twelve years of overground combat, whirled round and dropped

the Mute with a single triple volley. When the wounded had been passed

up through an emergency escape hatch into the hands of The Lady's

paramedics, McDonnell rejoined Barber in the shadow one of the huge

wheels. 'I had a feeling when I woke up this morning that it was going

to be one of those days."

Barber was not in a mood to take things so lightly. 'This is murder.

What are we going to do?"

'Well, these guys shouldn't be sitting here on their asses, that's for

sure,' growled the Trail Boss.

'But we can't clear this shit while we're under fire,' protested

Barber. 'It's impossible!" McDonnell shook his head. 'Not

impossible.

Just difficult. If we can free this tail end back to the flight

section, we can roll right over these bastards." He pointed to the

small excavator that had run driverless halfway up the steep slope of

the right-hand bank before stalling and slapped Barber on the back.

'You drive, I'll ride shotgun."

Lieutenant Commander Barber swallowed hard, tightened his grip on his

rifle, and doubled across to the excavator with McDonnell on his

tail.

They climbed aboard, the big Trail Boss bracing himself behind the

driver's seat, rifle at the ready. Barber brought the excavator's

motor back to life and reversed down the slope.

The tracks churned up the mud as he worked the levers to bring the

machine round to face The Lady. It took him a couple of minutes to get

his act together then he lowered the shovel and trundled forward to

clear another load of sawn tree sections and boulders.

McDonnell raised his visor as they neared the wagon train and waved

vigorously at the linemen crouching underneath.

'Okay, come on! Everybody back to work!" he bellowed.

'Let's put some life in this Lady!" Responding to their example, the

linemen laid aside their rifles, picked up crowbars, shovels, machetes

and chainsaws and set about clearing the rest of the debris.

Up in the saddle, Hartmann, the wagon master, fought a silent battle to

clear the mental sludge that had clogged his brain since rising at

dawn. He had no doubt about the ultimate outcome of the battle. The

Lady would emerge the victor even if she lost most of the linemen now