Charlotte Fielder staggered forwards as the grip around her neck and arm was relinquished. She twisted to look at the maid's body, lying with limbs akimbo on the decking. The eyes had rolled back, leaving only the whites showing.

Charlotte Fielder groaned, looking as if she was about to be sick. Then she found Fabian Whitehurst who was staring numbly at the body. They moved into each other's arms, and locked like magnets.

Internal camera, aft fuselage access way. The four tekmercs of Frank's squad had begun to climb the transverse frame ladder up to the midsection of the engineering bay. Eighteen maintenance drones were lined up along the side of the ladder. Another two glided down their rails and stopped.

Julia organized twenty separate drone-handling subroutines inside the lightware crunchers, loaded them with instructions, and plugged each of them into a maintenance drone.

The last tekmerc started up the ladder. The first was still twenty rungs from the midsection walkway.

Tekmerc squad inter-suit radio communication.

Tekmerc three: What is it with these drones?"

Tekmerc seven: "Lacey, hey, Lacey, they're in love with you." Kissing sound.

Tekmerc three, identified, Lacey: "Go suck it cold."

Frank: "Come on, let's show some discipline here."

Tekmerc seven: "Hey, this one's moving."

Julia's primary routine initiated the attack, handing over individual drone direction to the assembled subroutines. Welding lasers fired at the muscle armour suits' photon amps. Strut-repair waldos reached out and began drilling through the armour with monolattice carbon bits, aiming for wrist, elbow, ankle, and knee joints. Riveting guns punched metal pins into the jetpacks.

Internal camera, aft fuselage access way. A scene of terrorized chaos; machine versus machine. Metallic humanoids fighting vulpine robotic insects. The tekmercs thrashed and kicked as the drills penetrated; all the while desperately clinging to the ladder. Every time an armour boot hit a drone it would crumple the casing, smashing the hardware and hydraulic systems. Violent movement dislodged the waldos, but they would reach out again instantly, monolattice stingers blurring with speed.

Blood began to seep out of the drill holes, running down the outside of the dark armour. It mingled with hydraulic fluid, slicking the ladder.

The tekmerc below the leader lost his grip, dropping down a metre. He was halted momentarily by three waldos that had punctured the armour, but the force of the jolt ripped their drills free. He fell, rebounding off the fuselage framework, arms and legs flailing madly. Then he hit a clear section of the solar cell envelope head on, tearing straight through.

External camera, aft fuselage keel. The tekmerc was a black pinwheeling doll against the calm blue ocean. Shrinking rapidly. He must have tried to activate his jetpack. Whatever damage the maintenance drones had inflicted, it was drastic. The jetpack erupted into a shower of minute slivers, dismembering the rest of the muscle armour suit.

Tekmerc squad inter-suit radio communication.

Tekmerc seven: Continuous unintelligible shout.

Frank: "Leol—the drones, the fucking drones. They've gone mad."

Leol Reiger: "What's happening?"

Frank: Screams. Shouting, "Help us for Christ's sake. It's the drones. They're killing us. Blind. They've blinded me. Can't hold. Oh God, my hands—" Screams.

Tekmerc five: "Holy shit, listen to them, it's likely they're being eaten alive."

Leol Reiger: "Shut up. Everybody, drones are hazards, shoot on sight. That goes for any other piece of mobile hardware. Ian, Keith, Denny, get up to that MHD chamber. Someone doesn't want us there. Help Frank if you can."

Tekmerc eight: "Jesus, Leol."

Leol Reiger: "Just flicking do it. Right? Snuff anything and everybody in your way, but do it. Now move."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charlotte Fielder really was astonishingly pretty. She was the first thing Greg saw when he came into the MHD chamber after Suzi, all dark-gold skin and tight white cotton. Nothing else registered at the same level, it was as though the background had suddenly become monochrome.

She and Fabian Whitehurst were clinging to each other. Greg reckoned a muscle armour suit would be hard pushed to prise them apart. They both stared at Suzi in trepidation.

"Don't piss yourselves," Suzi told them, lowering her Browning. "I'm one of the good guys. Right, Julia?"

"Yes," Julia said, her voice booming out of speaker stacks. "Greg and Suzi won't hurt you, Charlotte, nor you, Fabian, they work for me."

Greg looked down at Nia Korovilla's body. She looked so tranquil in her prim maid's uniform. Hard to imagine her as any kind of hazard. Maybe Suzi had been right, after all. It irked him to think that she knew him better than he knew himself. But she certainly hadn't hesitated to shoot.

Nia Korovilla's presence kicked off a whole cascade of trepidation in his mind. Julia had squirted her data profile into his cybofax; according to that she had served on the Colonel Maitland for eight years. It meant she was a sleeper, a watcher keeping tabs on Jason Whitehurst. Which made no sense to Greg; if she'd been feeding someone with snatched bytes of Jason Whitehurst's trading deals for eight solid years, then the old boy would have known. So if she hadn't been doing that, what was she on board for?

"Leol Reiger has dispatched three more tekmercs up here," Julia said. Her face was replicated in six flatscreens, dominating one wall of the den. "I won't be able to delay them, not now they have been warned about the drones being under my command."

Greg glanced hurriedly round the MHD chamber. It reminded him of home, the kind of grotesque merger of gear and pets that the kids slapped together as various interests went through nova bursts of intense devotion, only to be abandoned a week or month later. It was an archaeological record of a boy's development. So much for his intuition telling him there was something out of phase about Fabian Whitehurst.

He tried to look at the MHD chamber from a tactical point of view. There was only the one door, and the walls behind the panels were solid alolithum. The tekmercs' rip guns could break through that easily enough. Suzi was prowling along the line of gear consoles below the flatscreens.

"Tell you, we can't stay in here," Greg said. "You got us a hidey-hole ready, Julia?"

"Not exactly, but I think I can keep you and the tekmercs apart until my crash team arrives. There's a lot of volume in this airship."

Greg glanced at Suzi, who gave him a shrug.

"Sure thing," she said. "This is all so fluid."

"Come on, Charlotte," Greg said. "We'll get you out of here."

Charlotte and Fabian actually managed to hold each other even tighter.

"No," Charlotte said. She was sweating profusely.

Greg noticed the discoloration on her hand. The skin around two fingers was swelling, puffy with blood.

"Charlotte, please, the tekmercs that are coming for you make Nia here look tame."

She stroked Fabian's hair with her good hand. The boy's eye had swollen shut, blood was drying on his lips and chin. "What's happening?" she asked. "Please, I don't understand any of this."

"Julia," Greg called.

Julia's face vanished from the largest flatscreen, replaced by a view of the Colonel Maitland's landing pad with the gutted wreck of the Pegasus still smoking. Charlotte gasped.

"That's the plane we came in," Greg said. "There were four people on board when it was hit by the tekmercs. That's your alternative. Now will you please come with us."