"Get us to the cover point, now!" Harald ordered. "Engines to full power!"

Ironfist's main drive threw out a bright fusion flame, a mile long, from four fusion-chamber mouths each 600 feet in diameter. The flame was so bright because of the secondary burn of atmosphere. Even protected by the automatic adjustment of the gravity floor, some crew staggered and others toppled over as the massive acceleration threw the million-ton hilldigger forward, as steering thrusters then turned it over, and as the belly thrusters went to maximum power to throw it up out of atmosphere. Now, Harald knew, was the most dangerous time. It would take them less than twenty minutes to reach the cover point, since they had already been heading towards it at half speed behind Franorl's Desert Wind, and if the Combine Oversight Committee could manage to get its act together within that time and order the use of their own disruptors, Ironfist would be going the way of Defence Platform Four. Harald, however, had bet on them not being able to come to a decision that quickly. He sat clutching the arms of his chair, the screens before him running a chaotic series of views and code streams because he had not meanwhile offlined his control glove.

Engine shutdown was followed by the sideways pull of steering thrusters at turnover, as the massive ship flipped over from nose to tail, the decelerating blast of the main engines now bringing them into their cover point. He glanced over at the seemingly panicked activity evident at Damage Control. It was a risky option to put the ship under this sort of strain right after using the disruptor. The recommended strategy was for a full maintenance check to be carried out, from engines to nose. Doubtless there would be hull breaches, cracks or breaks in the ship's skeleton. They would either make it or not.

"We are now in the cover point," a voice announced.

Harald unclenched his fists and smiled, more for the reassurance of those around him than because he felt any desire to. Their cover point lay close to Corisanthe Main, on a line running directly between that station and Corisanthe II. Harvester and Musket rested midway between Corisanthe II and III, whilst Wildfire's position was close to Main, on a line drawn between Main and Corisanthe III.

Here then was another weakness in Orbital Combine's defences—one they seemed not to have recognised. He surmised that Combine's gravity weapons—the ones he wasn't supposed to know about—would be sited on the main three stations. The problem with such weapons was that the gravity wave, which propagated from a spatial distortion, had substantially more range than any conventional weapon. Even using such weapons in interplanetary space, during the War itself, had been a risky option. Here, in the vicinity of Sudoria, where everything was so close, it became riskier still. Because the stations rested at the points of a narrow triangle with Main at the apex, the firing of such a weapon at the Fleet ships where they were presently positioned by any of the two Corisanthe stations closest to them risked the destruction of the station that lay closest to the weapon's target. That risk was substantially less if such a weapon was fired from Corisanthe Main aiming at Wildfire, Desert Wind or Harald's own ship, Ironfist. However, if Combine did attack, they could not fire three weapons at once since the ensuing disruption would be sure to destroy their own stations. Yet if Combine limited itself to firing at just one ship, it risked immediate retaliation from the other two.

Harald was betting the members of the Oversight Committee were too cowardly to take such a risk. However, he was not betting on his own Captains being prepared to use their gravity disruptors. He would control that option.

McCrooger

First came a rush of dizziness, then I felt the kind of high you get from sucking on pure oxygen. The sound of my heart was loud, intrusive, and my lungs ached and bubbled as I breathed. Here I was holding the station Director at gunpoint and making demands, and I wondered if I would even be able to stand upright once I was off this slab.

"Why would you, an envoy from the Polity, want me to do that?" enquired Gneiss.

"Because the Worm instigated this present conflict."

"I thought you had brought us evidence proving Fleet the guilty party?"

"Fleet is just the tool that Harald is using, and Harald himself is one of the tools the Worm is using."

"Ah," he said, taking a pace forward, "the children of Elsever Strone." He paused, a brief look of pain crossing his features. "I would like to have known Orduval, but sadly that was not to be."

My hands were sweaty, and the gun was beginning to feel rather heavy; I brought my left hand up to support the butt and concentrated on keeping the barrel on target.

"The protocols," I reminded him.

Gneiss focused back on me. "I am presuming that since you know that the protocols exist, you also know what they entail?"

I didn't know the full consequences of all the protocols, only that, after Yishna's interference with them, they would now eject all four Ozark Cylinders from the station, and that at some point those cylinders would pass beyond Corisanthe Main's shields, to where they could be destroyed.

He continued, "Do you want me to use the protocol that results in the thermal and EM sterilisation of the cylinders?"

I shook my head, mainly trying to shake off the sweat running into my eyes.

"Which, then?" Gneiss asked, mistaking my gesture.

Thinking muggily, I said, "The one that results in the ejection of a cylinder."

"But what will that achieve?"

Damn, I definitely wasn't thinking straight. "Perhaps you've forgotten, but I'm holding the gun. What will be achieved, you can leave me to worry about."

"Very well, there is one other small problem."

"Enlighten me."

"Without some sort of containment breach, I can only accede to your demand by using the system access in my office," said Gneiss.

I swung my legs off the slab while eyeing him closely, trying to read him. Sometimes he showed strong emotion but at seemingly inappropriate moments, while the rest of the time he was disconcertingly blank, perhaps because, facing him, my point of focus immediately became those odd-looking eyes. I guessed he probably had some way of alerting station security from his office, or hoped he could engineer some sort of intervention on the way there. I stood up, shakily, then stepped to one side.

"I guess you'll have to take me to your office, then," I conceded, just to see how he would respond.

"You will be seen by others," he pointed out, which threw me completely.

"Then it's up to you to find a way to get me there without being seen."

He gave a mild nod of agreement, almost as if I had posed a little puzzle for him the resolution of which he deemed of no consequence.

"Over there," he pointed, "is a locker storing bio-containment suits. They look little different from emergency survival suits, which many of the crew are now wearing since they enable greater freedom of movement than spacesuits." Peering at my gun, he added, "You will be able to conceal your weapon in the belly pocket."

I just could not make this guy out. He showed no emotional involvement in what was happening to him—in what I was forcing upon him—yet surely that could not be right, for this man was station Director of Corisanthe Main. I was also getting an impression from him of complete disregard for his own safety. Almost as if he would be prepared to take a bullet, just as an intellectual exercise.

I lowered the gun, since my arm was aching, and moved back towards the lockers he had indicated. I took hold of the handle of one and pulled and, still watching him, groped about inside. After a moment I pulled out a package, and quickly recognised a suit similar to the one I had worn on the escape-pod taking me down to Brumal.