Huddling low, Marten ran for a nearby girder, taking advantage of the fact that the aliens' attentions were still directed toward the airlock of his ship. Naturally, they wouldn't notice a figure running from the rear.
He took a position behind the girder and, aiming carefully, picked off four more of the aliens. He tried to put his shot just back of the oversized, toad-like heads of the Flesso, though it didn't matter much where the beam landed. The result was the same.
The survivors were conferring hissingly and evincing great confusion. Apparently they still thought the fire was coming from somewhere within the ship, but they were unable to figure out where.
There were eight of them left. Marten picked off one of them with his ninth charge, then held fire. He had one charge left, and then there would be a thirty-second delay while the Spaulding's recharged themselves. He didn't want to leave himself defenseless even for thirty seconds.
He counted off. Ten, fifteen, twenty—one gun was charged. He raised it, readied to fire, when he heard a sudden tell-tale hiss from behind him.
He whirled, but it was too late. A searing beam of energy cracked into him, hurling him backward. He clung to consciousness an instant, then blacked out as the beam shorted his neural circuits.
When he awoke, Marten opened his eyes, blinked, closed them again.
"Ugh," he said.
He felt a savage poke in the stomach. "Open your eyes!"