Skater silently agreed. Tilting Archangel's head back to make sure her breathing passages were clear. Skater clamped his lips to hers and started artificial respiration. Another few breaths and she was breathing on her own, though still unconscious.

"Stay with her," Skater told Trey.

"You got it," Trey said, stooping down to cradle the decker's head and shoulders gently.

Skater moved. Any time a decker rode a flaming board down, there was the chance of permanent neural damage. He'd met burned-out cowboy deckers who were worse than paraplegics.

Hunkering down beside the hole he'd cut into the floor, he palmed a flash from a pocket and pointed the hard yellow beam down into the bowels of the freighter. Support struts crisscrossed in a maze below him.

"Elvis," Skater said. "You take Archangel."

"Sure." Elvis slipped an arm almost tenderly under the unconscious elf. "Going to be some climbing, eh?"

"And that's the easy part," Skater admitted. It took another two slashes with the monofilament sword to make the hole big enough for the troll and the elf together. "Cullen, take the lead with your flash. Go all the way to the bottom and forward. Till you can't go anymore."

Trey dropped without a word, sinking through the maze of crisscrossed struts. Elvis followed. Archangel draped over one huge shoulder.

Taking out his Predator and checking that its magazine was full. Skater raced to the door blocking the companion-way. Duran fired two rounds, then withdrew his shotgun long enough to thumb fresh shells into it.

"Go," Skater told Shiva.

"So we can take a chance on drowning?" she demanded. Blood seeped from scratches along her right cheek.

"Up to you if you want to live long enough to get out of here."

"You think you can pull this one off?" The harshness had gone out of her voice.

Skater had never quite gotten used to the mercurial changes in Shiva's temperament. "I've got a plan."