‘Your first watch?’ Anderson suggested.

Still clutching the gun he had drawn, Tergal eventually nodded. Anderson shook out his blankets, to be sure they had not acquired unwelcome guests, before lying down with his head resting on one of his packs. Through half-closed eyes, he watched Tergal light a smoky candle, and immediately the smell of repellent invaded the air — keeping away smaller denizens that might crawl under the wire. The boy then bowed his head and listened to the sounds of hard limbs rasping against sandy surfaces. Anderson closed his eyes fully and allowed sleep to take him. Tergal would not be robbing anyone tonight—he had other things to occupy his attention.

The first view showed the world only lightly crusted with black, with frequent cracks and volcanic eyes appearing and fading constantly. With his hand inside a projected virtual control, Cormac doubled the magnification, and now saw plumes of gas, ash and magma spewing into the poisonous atmosphere. It was hell—with all the sulphur and fire you could want—but until only a month ago had been lacking in devils. Then two had arrived.

‘Show me the carrier shell,’ he said.

A square appeared, picking out a dot, and the magnification increased to show the wrecked shell poised above the inferno.

Ticking slowly while standing beside Cormac’s chair as if to keep an eye on the virtual control the AI had loaned, Jack’s automaton intoned, ‘Cento urges that we leave him and go at once to the coordinates he has given us. He does have a point. We shall achieve nothing by this rescue that cannot be achieved by the other ships on their way here.’

‘Try to think like a human,’ said Gant, lolling in one of the club chairs.

‘Why should I restrict myself so severely? Cento has told us everything, and logically there is no reason for delay,’ said the ship’s AI.

‘But Cento is still Cento,’ Cormac supplied, and then left Gant to cobble together the explanation he himself could not be bothered trying to verbalize. He just knew it was right to have Cento along with them.

‘Yes, he’s told us everything,’ said Gant. ‘And from what he has told us we know that Skellor will assume Cento was utterly destroyed. That’s an advantage, since in some situations his presence might pause Skellor for half a second, and that could mean the difference between life and death.’

‘The same rules apply to Aphran,’ Cormac added.

‘More advantage might be gained by not wasting hours picking up a Golem android who would be picked up anyway,’ observed Jack.

Cormac relented and explained, ‘It’s about weapons, Jack. In you we have everything we need in the way of bombs and missiles, but that might not be enough.’

‘You’re rationalizing,’ said Jack.

‘Attempting to rationalize something I feel instinctively—and it has been trusting such feelings that has kept me alive, and has made me as successful as I have been.’

‘Granted,’ said Jack.

The sun was a blue boiling giant glimpsed after thaw-up, as the Jack Ketch entered this barren system.

Now it was out of view, for they were approaching in the planet’s shadow so as not to overheat the ship. The carrier shell, since Skellor had hit it with a kinetic missile of some kind, had lost its geostationary position and, as Cento explained, was now orbiting the planet. Over the next hour they drew even closer, and Cormac saw that parts of the shell were still glowing red hot. They reached it just as it was coming back into the sun’s actinic glare and, through niters, Cormac observed grapples—towing braided monofilament cables—fired across from each of the attack ship’s nacelles. Closing by hydraulics these ceramal claws drove sharp fingers into the charred hull. Then came a droning as the Ketch’s engines took up the strain and dragged the shell back into the planetary shadow.

‘I have apprised Cento of our position, and he is now making his way to where I will place the airlock,’ Jack informed them.

Cormac observed the docking tunnel extruding towards the shell. He noted that it was heading towards bare hull, and surmised that this was an injector lock — for inserting troops, probes, war drones, or even poison gas, into a hostile ship. He saw it contact, and the flare around its rim as it cut into the hull.

‘Come on,’ he said to Gant.

As they entered the dropshaft, and it shifted them to their destination, Cormac had to wonder if this was the only shaft the Jack Ketch contained, as he had yet to discover any other. He and Gant moved into a short corridor decorated with metallic Greek statues and with reed matting on the floor. This took them to the chamber preceding an airlock—also lined with statues but with a bare metal floor. Shortly the displays on the exterior touch panels showed that the lock was cycling. Within a minute the inner door whoomphed open. Leaning on one hand, what remained of Cento looked up at them.

‘Touch of bother?’ Gant enquired.

The four guarding the corridor were ensconced behind an APW cannon. Skellor did not even need to scan to know they were in constant communication with their fellows—their terrified expressions told that tale. As he stepped past the cannon—and over the woman crouching down connecting a large energy canister to the weapon—he noted the one over by the wall stare in his direction, his expression puzzled. But then the man returned his attention to the proximity grenade he was setting. Skellor moved on, glad not to have to kill these four, for that would alert Nalen, who was still fleeing towards the runcible.

Past the men, Skellor accelerated to a speed that only Mr Crane or a Polity Golem could match. He wanted to intercept Nalen as soon as possible—did not want him to get within the defences of the runcible Al; did not want that level of confrontation yet. It occurred to him to wonder what the AI’s reaction would be to the commotion behind. Certainly there would be a reaction of some kind.

A dropshaft, disabled, then up the ladder, just touching on the rungs in nil gee, changing course with a hand slapping against the exit portal, bending metal, then into another corridor opening out into an arboretum similar to the one below. Ahead, a gleam in his virtual vision, at the centre of an unstable web of light. In the real world he saw a man spherically fat running as energetically as the two guards alongside him. There was a doubling of image: yes, the man was fat, but scales did not really cover him—that was illusion. Closer, and Skellor began to feel the link that dropped away from this man and this station and out into space. He slammed into Nalen’s back and, looping an arm around the man’s greasy neck, dragged him down the corridor. Slapping the flat of his hand against Nalen’s aug, which appeared utterly fused to his head, he transmitted the virus down penetrating Jain filaments. Nalen began to shriek.

Skellor glanced back and saw the two guards, weapons drawn, staring about themselves in bewilderment, for to their eyes their charge had simply disappeared. Then both of them jerked as, through Nalen, the virus hit their augs. One staggered back against the wall and slid down to the floor, blood bubbling from his ear. The other shrieked, clawed at his aug and managed to tear it from his head like a reptilian scab. Still shrieking he ran towards the sabotaged dropshaft.

No matter—Skellor had control now.

Crane had killed many of them, and many more were fleeing. Gazing through the eyes of those on the run, Skellor saw ECS uniforms. Nalen’s people were going down all around, under fire from riot guns. Golem were bringing down others, and easily securing them in ankle and wrist cuffs. Skellor had not expected ECS to react so quickly. He immediately realized that the AI must have been aware of the Dracocorp network, and been preparing to deal with it. He had very little time.