The ceiling of the underground depot groaned under the pooling heat stress of the fire-powder breaching charges.
High above the central narrow high walkway, the magnesium timers on the three charges burned down to their final ten seconds. It hissed like angry vipers and spat white-hot sparks against the iron roof beams. The main methane fuel line, a four-foot-wide steel channel carrying high-pressure gas to the heavy-duty boilers, was already glowing cherry red beneath the intense heat, its rivets weeping molten solder.
Arthur Vance stood at the southern threshold of the depot narrow high walkway, his boots braced against the iron tread.
“Squad escape,” Arthur commanded, his voice slicing through the clockwork scream of the failing air-flow turbines. “Titus, take the rear defile. Form the ceiling collapse baffle. Grimm, Vesper, on my flanks.”
Beside him, Vesper was already a silver blur of motion. She bounded lightly from handrail to load-bearing girder, her razor-thin claws slicing through the control cables of the suspended freight cranes to drop tons of counterweighted steel across the walkway, sealing the hall against any surviving chimeras.
At the far end of the chamber, Houndmaster Vane lay pinned beneath the crumpled wreckage of the command console, his clockwork jaw clattering in sheer panic. “You’re insane! If you breach the methane line in an enclosed underground pocket, the bone-shaking excess pressure will collapse the entire freight yard! You’ll bury yourself alive!”
