Her right arm was on fire, shoulder shrieking with pain, as more gunfire came from above. The deep boom of Conner’s hand cannon was instantly recognizable; the buzz of a high-velocity projectile whined in return. Another explosion mushroomed into the sky shrouded by black smoke. She clawed upward with her left hand, desperate for grip, and failed. Her right wouldn’t hold much longer. She swung up again, and her left grabbed a hook projecting from the handrail. She jerked her right hand to the next rung, then the next, to haul herself up inch by inch. Her boots slid for purchase, tips skittering across the wet metal, until she toppled over the handrail to crash onto the platform. The reek of burning flesh was sickening as she forced herself upright and tore at the jacket’s zipper; it moved a few inches and stuck, a wide disk of melted composites blocking its progress. Heat came from the damage in waves: in her face, her eyes. She grabbed the jacket’s collar and pulled it over her head and away before collapsing to the platform, spent.