'Shit! Seeker bullets!'

'Heat flares!' shouted Cormac.

Like the finale of a fireworks display, orange flares shot in every direction amongst the buildings. The buzzing continued. Two flares went out and a nearby explosion rained flakes of rubble down on Cormac's head. The dracoman pulled him lower and he swore at it. Another stuttering pulse of light.

'They're back to the lasers,' said Arn.

'Where are you, Cento? Aiden?'

'Moving clear,' they replied simultaneously.

Then Aiden said, 'There's one to the left of the carrier operating a mortar. Can't get a clear shot from here.'

'Got him,' replied Thorn.

There was a purple flash and loud crack. A white explosion split in two a tree with a trunk a metre thick. Subliminally Cormac saw something, which might have been a man, blacken, disappear.

'There's one just beyond that burning tent - no, the dracoman's on him.'

The scream was horrible. Cormac saw two shadows grappling. One shadow folded the other to the ground. He was sure he could hear bones breaking.

'Only one left, I take it,' said Cormac acidly.

'Up and running,' said Aiden. 'Dracoman's after him. You want me to get him?'

'Leave it,' said Cormac, and let out a tight breath. He looked over the wall at the spirals of smoke. Over to his right someone was talking in a low monotone. To his left there was a sudden stuttering of pulse-gun fire. He swore and dropped back down.

'I said leave it,' he said into his comunit.

'Something in the trees,' came Goff's reply.

'Aiden, you getting anything?'

'Nothing now, but there was a trace just then. Moved too fast to be a bird,' the Golem replied.

'Surveillance drone?'

'Possible.'

'Any other traces?'

'Nothing:'

On that last word the second dracoman released Cormac's arm. He pulled away, dropped his comunit in his top pocket, and then turned on the dracoman.

'Do that again and I cut your rucking hand off,' he said.

The dracoman showed its teeth. It could have been a smile.

Cormac left it and went to find out who had died.

Two of the regulars were dead. Seeker bullets had ripped through their body armour and the pressure vessels they contained had exploded with messy results. Cormac was told one of them was the soldier Cheng. Cormac had what remained of the men scooped up and put in body-bags, then shallow-buried at the perimeter of the camp. The three recoverable bodies - the men the dracoman had killed - were brought in and laid out. Cormac recognized none of them. He turned to Stanton, just behind whom stood Thorn and Sergeant Arn.

'Locally hired,' he said.

'Yes, but Pelter has four you know with him,' Stanton replied.

Cormac looked at him questioningly.

Stanton went on. 'Corlackis and his brother, Svent and Dusache.'

'When will they come in? Soon?'

'No, Pelter won't want it over that quickly'

Cormac nodded, then looked at the sergeant. 'Take him into the carrier, strip-search him, then tie him up.'

The sergeant obeyed wiui a kind of grim relish. Cormac wondered if he expected entertainment in repayment for the deaths of his two men. He would be disappointed. He noticed that Stanton went without protest. The man seemed broken, grieving. He'd have to get the full story from him later. Right now he wanted everything organized, precise. Much as he was inclined to believe what Stanton had told him, he still was not prepared to relax defences here. With Thorn at his back he walked towards Aiden, who was crouching by the wreckage of what had been a tree before Thorn's attentions.

'That dracoman back yet?' he asked.

Aiden glanced up and said, 'No, but we have an AGC coming in directly.'

'Scatter!'

The men ran for cover. Cormac turned to Thorn. 'Get in the carrier. If it fires on us, use the turret weapons.'

Thorn nodded and ran for the carrier. Cormac watched the Sparkind leap Stanton, who was now facedown on the ground, with Arn tying his wrist behind him. That was covered, then. Cormac jogged over to Aiden, thinking to take cover behind the wrecked branches of the tree. The familiar pad of feet behind him abrogated that intention for the moment. He turned and drew his shuriken as the remaining dracoman came trotting in.

The dracoman halted.

'One step closer. Go on - just one.'

The dracoman seemed to find this amusing, then boring. It looked up at the sky for a moment, then turned and trotted away. Cormac ran for the tree and dived down beside Aiden. He looked about and saw that everyone else was concealed.

'The AGC is coming right in,' said Aiden.

Cormac looked up into the red night and saw that the car had its running lights on. It was an Aston Martin replica, but with its underside constructed like the hull of a speedboat. Whoever was driving it seemed to be having some problem with the controls. It swayed to a halt above the camp, then slowly started to descend. That descent speeded at the last moment and it slammed down in the middle of the camp. Cormac had shuriken in his hand, even though he knew that plenty of other weapons were pointed at the AGC. The door clicked open and the missing dracoman stepped out. Cormac swore, stood up and walked over to it. Had the other one known?

As he drew close, Cormac saw blood on the inside of the car's windows. A glance inside revealed to him a body slumped in the back seat with its head nearly ripped off. He went closer and saw it was a woman, a great mass of tangled hair spread about her, soaking up the blood. It was no one he recognized. She had to be the one that escaped. He would have to ask Stanton. He turned to the dracoman.

'We could call him Scar now,' said Thorn, from behind him.

Cormac studied the dracoman's face and saw it had been opened from one nostril to just underneath its eye. Its blood was the colour and consistency of mustard.

'And what do we call the other one?' asked Cormac.

'Nonscar?'

'Yeah, good. Now let's get this mess cleared up and a rota set up,' he said. He looked up at the sky. 'How long till dawn?'

'Ten hours, solstan,' Thorn replied.

'We'll sleep in groups of four in the carrier. Let the ES ones go first. We shouldn't be any less secure than we were. Oh, I want someone at that turret gun at all times.'

It took an hour to clear the camp and set up further covert defences. Aiden and Cento acted as guards, since they needed no sleep.

'We'll need to take out that turret gun. When he finds out you're not amongst the dead, he'll know it was just a probe. There won't be a trap next time,' said Corlackis.

'Of course,' said Pelter, his eyes still glued to the screen stuck to the framework of the missile launcher.

'So really it's just that and the two Golem.'

Pelter glanced aside and waved to Svent to take them down. Svent nodded, and fiddled with the old guide-ball control of the transporter. Slowly it started to drop down into the trees. In the shadow the thick photoactive paint on it slowly changed from a deep red to greenish black. Corlackis tapped at the controls on the minicon-sole he was holding, then dropped it into his pocket.

'What about those two lizard men?' asked Dusache.

'Don't concern yourself,' said Pelter. 'You'll be on this platform operating the launcher. You take out the carrier. Myself, Mr Crane, Mennecken and Corlackis will be going in on the ground.'

'Crane will be able to handle the Golem?' Corlackis asked.

'He will handle them,' said Pelter. 'Remember that arrogant bitch on Huma? No, we go in and we flatten them. Of course none of you hits Cormac - not even by accident. He is mine.'

Branches broke and flicked round the transporter, and large leaves spiralled down with it. Svent landed it by the private AGC that was already on the ground.

'When do we hit them?' Mennecken asked.