“No response,” Allen muttered. He folded up the portable transmitter with a clatter.

“Eashy,” Riley warned. His mouth was healing from the beating at the subway station. “You ‘reak i’, we don’ have anusher one.”

“We’ve got to move. They could have a direction fix on our signal.”

“I’m sick of moving,” Bates grumbled. “It’s a helluva a lot of work, and each place is worse.”

“Noshin’ cou’ be worsh ‘an ‘ish.” The cat-and-mouse game with the rebels had driven them into a disused mine tunnel. Sealing and camouflaging the bulkhead so they could pressurize it had taken hours.

“Oh, no?” Allen challenged. “We killed unarmed civilians for the Synod. Now the Synod is killing us. The locals are killing us. Who’s left to be our friend?”

“The USNE?” Bates snorted. “Think they’ll notice a favor? Biggest fascists in history. And when they see the markings on our suits, they’ll kill us too. Hitler liked piano-wire.”

“Let’s go.”

Bates suggested Allen do the anatomically impossible, adding, “You’re not an officer!”