Janice Okwembu picks herself up off the floor of the bridge.
As the bullets tore through the walls, she threw herself behind the thick map table, skidding across the floor. There was nothing she could do but put her hands over her ears, and wait for it to be over.
Slowly, she gets to her feet. She’s unsteady, her ears ringing. She isn’t injured–the table was thick enough and low enough to protect her–but her face and the backs of her hands are scratched and bloody.
The interior of the bridge is a sparking, smoking mess, as if what they saw on the cameras earlier has come through the screens, exploding into life around them. The windows are gone, smashed apart. Part of the roof has collapsed, opening the bridge up to the sky. The banks of screens have disappeared. There’s thick, white smoke everywhere, and the wall behind Okwembu is completely shredded.
But not as shredded as the bodies.
Mercifully, most of the men and women on the bridge are dead. But there are still a few moaning in pain, pulling themselves across the floor, their camouflage fatigues stained black with blood. Okwembu sees Prophet, lying face down. His left arm is almost gone, ripped off at the shoulder. As Okwembu watches, his body twitches slightly.
She tells herself to help him. But there’s no point–he’s dead, whatever she does. Instead, she finds herself stumbling over to the space where the windows used to be, pushing her way past the destroyed screens. A part of her knows she should stay behind cover. Hale might have more bullets, might be waiting for her to show herself.
She ignores the impulse, reaching the gap, looking out across the deck. The Phalanx gun is still shrouded with thick smoke, and several small fires have started among the ruins of the planes.
There’s a flash of movement. Okwembu looks down, just in time to see Riley Hale sprinting towards the base of the bridge tower. In an instant, she’s gone.
Anger, hot and bright, fills every space in Okwembu’s body.
She turns, and almost immediately sees what she’s looking for. There’s a narrow metal support, up against the wall. It’s been blown in half: a four-foot segment has come loose, attached to the bottom part of the support by a tiny shred of metal. It reminds her of Prophet’s arm, but she doesn’t dwell on the thought.
With a strength she didn’t know she had, Okwembu grabs the displaced segment, trying to wrench it loose. But she can’t get it free from the strand connecting it to the main body. She casts around, finds another chunk of metal, something hot and misshapen, and hammers it against the support. It snaps free, the metal giving a tortured shriek.
Okwembu discards the debris, then hefts the support, testing its weight. She strides over to the door, positioning herself along the wall to its left, and waits for Riley Hale to walk through.