Riggs was as excited about the armory as Savant had been about the computer area. The walls were stacked so full of weaponry he was amazed the piles weren't toppling onto their heads. Laser guns and charging packs littered one corner of the room, lending credence to his concern.

Banks picked up one of them, grinning. "Do you know how much one of these babies would be on the open market these days? I doubt the thing even works any more-- how could it?" He aimed at a tattered old target set haphazardly against the wall. The gun rumbled for a few seconds, then failed to fire. "Huh," he grunted.

"There's no charge pack in that gun, Banks," Riggs mentioned, tossing one to him. Banks reloaded, and this time the result was a smashing success.

"Oh, yeah!" all the men chimed in sing-song unison. "Soo--weet!"

"I see you've got a new toy to play with, Riggsie," said Wendy to Riggs with a cagey grin. "Guess you won't be needing me anymore."

"Don't count on it, babe," he said, and tossed the weapon he was about to try out aside to take Wendy into his arms. "The first thing we're going to have to do when we get back to the ship is find a job for you to do that makes you essential, so you don't have to go back in the freezer for the rest of this run."

"Nice of you to ask my opinion..."

"I already know your opinion," he said in her ear before he bit it. "I knew it before you did. Now quit arguing in front of the kids."

"Hey, you two," said Segal in mock chastisement. "Save that for later."

"Oh yeah!" Riggs sang, and let her go. Wendy blushed, and decided to grab a weapon of her own. She held it menacingly, tapping it against her palm as she gave Riggs a meaningful glance.

"That gun doesn't have a charge pack, Nation," he mentioned, and only pretended to toss one to her.

"Hey!" she complained. "Am I a part of this mission, or not?"

"You wanna be part of the shootin'? Well, okay, but you have to promise not to get yourself killed," said Riggs. He tossed her the charge pack, and she blasted the target into tiny bits.

"I want her in front," Segal announced, impressed.

"Hey, Wendy, you never told me you were trained for combat," Riggs said.

"I'm not," she admitted.

"Then I want you safely in the middle of the group," he insisted. "Just carry all the medical gear, and treat anybody who gets hurt, and leave the maiming and destruction to the experts. Agreed?"

"No problem here," she said, holding up her hands as if in surrender. "I'm not in any hurry to get blasted."

"Well then, if everybody is loaded up, we might as well head out," Riggs announced in a louder voice.

"Let's move!" Banks shouted, then loaded yet another weapon with a charge pack. He was decked out in three laser rifles and had a holstered pistol as well.

"Banks, you're too heavy," Riggs admonished him. "You're going to slow us down."

"Sir, I'm going to save our hides," Banks corrected him. Riggs shrugged, and the group headed for the door.

When they reached the airlocks that would lead to the inner city, Fence started to look very uneasy. He kept glancing over his shoulder and looked above them several times.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Riggs said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"There's always an ambush at the locks," Fence said. "Ain't never been here but once when somebody didn't try to take a piece out of me. Be ready for anything."

"Don't worry about us," Riggs assured him. "We may look like a ragtag group, but we've all gone through standard StarCon combat training, just in case."

"You're about to need it," Fence said.

"Open the lock," Riggs ordered Banks, and he did so. As soon as the door opened, they were accosted by about twenty thugs, and just as Fence had been expecting, at least five of them dropped on them from above.

"Hey, looks like we have visitors," said the leader. "Fence, old buddy, you know the drill. Hand over the food you gathered outside, or we'll kill the whole lot of you."

"Sorry, Widget, there's no food today," Fence said. "Just this group of StarCon soldiers."

"Blast 'em," shouted Riggs, and everyone started firing away. By the time they were done, the airlock door was full of holes, and twenty bodies lay dead or dying in a heap before them.

Wendy had blasted five of them herself, and now she was feeling decidedly bloodthirsty. When Riggs saw the look on her face, he laughed and shook his head. Then he kissed her soundly while everyone else went inside.

"Hey, Lieutenant!" Savant called. "Are you two coming or not?"

"Not at the moment, but that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Riggs said, and Wendy punched him in the arm for it.

"Let's move," Riggs called out, and he and Wendy entered the lock hand in hand.

"Sir, it looks like our best bet will be to hole up inside the sewers," Savant announced as she studied her computer-map on a palmtop she had found somewhere while everyone else had been asleep. "There's a network of interconnections that lead all the way to Outlet 431, about two miles east of our current position."

"Nobody ever goes in the sewers," Fence said nervously.

"Which is exactly why we'd be better off in there," Savant insisted, indicating the ground- level access tunnels just inside the blasted airlock. "Unless you want to get blasted by thugs all the way to the Wall. We don't have enough ammo, and we certainly don't have enough people."

"Why don't people go in there?" Wendy asked Fence.

"Don't know, really," he answered. "Just somethin' nobody's ever done in all the time since ol' Fence was birthed. That's a whole lotta years. There's gotta be a good reason if nobody's done it in all them years."

"Well, we're just going to have to risk it," Riggs decided. "Savant is right. We can't blast our way to the Wall. Come on, people. Into the sewers."

The sewer tunnels remained at ground level. Every few hundred feet, they came across a huge hole in the floor which was obviously some sort of drain. Savant checked her map when they came across the third one.

"Sir, these large holes are definitely drains," she confirmed. "They seem to be placed every three hundred yards throughout the entire network. The map says they all lead down to a main processing facility located underneath ground level, about 80 kilometers east of here. They all contain shredding mechanisms somewhere near the bottom. I don't think falling into one of these would be good for anyone's health."

"Then I'd suggest nobody falls in," Riggs answered, amused.

"Did you say `drain'?" Wendy asked nervously, eyeing the hole, which was about five feet in diameter, with a worried frown.

"Yeah," Savant answered. "Why?"

"Well, I should think that would be obvious," she said. "If that thing is a drain, wouldn't it stand to reason that it's here to drain something? And since this is the sewer, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would be draining something we probably don't want to encounter? And since it's so huge, wouldn't it stand to reason that it's expected to drain a lot of that stuff we don't want to encounter?"

"Oh, man, she's right," Riggs groaned. "How close are we to outlet 431?"

"It's just another hundred yards, sir," Savant reported.

"Does your pocket pal happen to know when that sewage is going to be heading our way again?" Riggs asked urgently.

"Sir, I don't think the question is relevant anymore," said Private Post. "Hasn't anyone else heard that rumbling sound? Like something from a distance is moving closer?"

"Something we don't want to have anything to do with," Riggs added. "Let's bust a move, people!"

They all started running as fast as they could toward the outlet. Behind them, the sound of rushing water grew from a faint rumble to a deafening roar. Brackish water started lapping at their feet , and above them they heard yet another valve opening to add more sewage to the rapid flow already on its way.

They slammed the outlet door just as the water roared past inside.

"Thank God that's over!" said Riggs, and Banks nodded his agreement.

Wendy screamed, and Savant started shouting expletives. The men turned to see what was wrong, but the women were nowhere to be found. Post and James ran to the end of the block, but they couldn't find them anywhere.

"Anything?" Riggs demanded, but they both shook their heads.

"Wendy!" he shouted with all his might. Then he fell to the ground and put his head in his hands. Fence put a hand on his shoulder, offering what little comfort he could.