羊毛战记 Part 5 The Stranded 53

　　Part 5,　　The Stranded ¹,　　53,　　• Silo 18 •,　　Marck stumbled down the great stairway, his hand sliding against the cool railing, a rifle tuckedunder his arm, his boots slipping in blood. He could barely hear the screams all around him: the wailsfrom the wounded as they were half dragged down the steps, the horrified ² cries from the curiouscrowds on every landing who witnessed their passage, or the shouts of promised violence from themen chasing him and the rest of his mechanics from level to level.,　　The ringing in his ears drowned out most of the noise. It was the blast, the god-awful blast. Notthe one that had peeled open the doors of IT—he had been ready for that one, had hunkered downwith the rest. And it wasn’t the second bomb, the one Knox had lobbed deep into the heart of theirenemy’s den ³. It was the last one, the one he didn’t see coming, the one that spilled from the hands ofthat small white-haired woman from Supply.,　　And Knox, that stout ⁴ and unmovable head of Mechanical—his boss, his good friend—gone.,　　Marck hurried down the steps, wounded and afraid. He was a long way from the safety of thedown deep—and he desperately ⁵ wanted to find his wife. He concentrated on this rather than the past,tried not to think of the explosion that had taken his friends, had wrecked ⁶ their plans, had engulfedany chance at justice.,　　 Muffled ⁷ shots rang out from above, followed by the piercing zing of bullets striking steel—onlysteel, thank God. Marck stayed away from the outer railing, away from the aim of the shooters whohounded them from the landings above with their smoothly ⁸ firing rifles. The good people ofMechanical and Supply had been running and fighting for over a dozen levels; Marck silently beggedthe men above to stop, to give them a chance to rest, but the boots and the bullets kept coming.,　　Half a level later, he caught up to three members of Supply, the one in the middle wounded andbeing carried, his arms draped over shoulders, blood dotting the backs of their yellow overalls ⁹. Heyelled at them to keep moving, couldn’t hear his own voice, could just feel it in his chest. Some ofthe blood he was slipping in was his own.,　　With his injured arm tight against his chest, his rifle cradled in the crook ¹⁰ of his elbow, Marck kepthis other hand on the railing to keep from tumbling headfirst down the steep stairwell. There were noallies behind him, none still alive. After the last shootout, he had sent the others ahead, had barelygotten away himself. And yet they kept coming, tireless. Marck would pause now and then, fumblewith the unreliable ammunition ¹¹, chamber ¹² a shot, and fire wildly up the stairwell. Just to dosomething. To slow them down.,I was stranded in the strange town without money or friends. 我困在那陌生的城市，既没有钱 ，又没有朋友。,The whole country was horrified by the killings. 全国都对这些凶杀案感到大为震惊 。