Chapter 16 · Don't Let It Dock

The guns on Iron Gate's wall swung toward us.

Not Hammer's guns. Ours.

Leah stopped so fast her shoulder hit mine. Her fingers closed around the rifle she had stolen back from the guard post, but she didn't raise it. Smart. Fifty rifles were aimed down at us, and none of those soldiers looked calm enough to care who started the shooting.

"Evie," Mara barked from somewhere behind the wall. "Step away from the tower. Now."

"Your people are aiming at me."

"Because the tower has you marked as hostile. Move!"

The northeast railway tower stood twenty yards ahead, its lower door hanging open. Inside, red warning lights flashed over a bank of old control panels. The switch that controlled the rail points was in there. So was the bastard who had hijacked the fort's defense grid.

And beyond the tower, something huge screamed over the tracks.

The supply train.

It had come early. Too early. Its headlamp punched through the dust beyond the eastern cut, growing brighter by the second. Hammer had the signal system.