And closed my fist.

For just a moment, I thought my luck had run out. Luck that had seen me through removing the monofilament without major vascular damage, that had let me get to the interface plate without severing any useful tendons. Luck that had no one watching Lamont’s screens. Luck like that had to run dry at some point and as the inhib unit shifted under my blood-slippery grip I felt the whole teetering structure of Envoy control start to come down.

Fuck

The interface plate—user locked, hostile to any uncoded circuitry in direct contact—bucked in my ripped palm and something shorted out behind my head.

The inhibitor died with a short electronic squeal.

I grunted, then let the pain come up through gritted teeth as I reached back with my damaged arm and began to unflex the thing’s grip on my neck. Reaction was setting in now, a muted trembling racing up my limbs and a spreading numbness in my wounds.

“Vongsavath,” I said as I worked the inhibitor loose. “I want you to go out there, find Tony Loemanako.”

“Who?”

“The noncom who came to collect us last night.” There was no longer any need to suppress emotion, but I found the Envoy systems were doing it anyway. Even while Sutjiadi’s colossal agony scraped and raked along my nerve endings, I seemed to have discovered an inhuman depth of patience to balance against it. “His name is Loemanako. You’ll probably find him down by the execution slab. Tell him I need to talk to him. No, wait. Better just tell him I said I need him. Those words exactly. No reasons, just that. I need him right now. That should bring him.”

Vongsavath looked to the closed flap of the bubblefab. It barely muffled Sutjiadi’s uncontrolled shrieking.

“Out there,” she said.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” I finally got the inhib unit off. “I’d go myself, but it’d be harder to sell, that way. And you’re still wearing one of these.”

I examined the carapace of the inhibitor. There was no outward sign of the damage the interface plate’s counterintrusion systems had done, but the unit was inert, tentacles spasmed stiff and clawed.

The pilot officer got up unsteadily. “Alright. I’m going.”

“And Vongsavath.”

“Yeah?”

“Take it easy out there.” I held up the murdered inhibitor. “Try not to get excited about anything.”

It appeared I was smiling again. Vongsavath stared at me for a moment, then fled. Sutjiadi’s screams blistered through in her wake for a moment, and then the flap fell back again.

I turned my attention to the drugs in front of me.

Loemanako came at speed. He ducked through the flap ahead of Vongsavath—another momentary lift in Sutjiadi’s agony—and strode down the centre aisle of the bubblefab to where I lay curled up on the end bed, shivering.

“Sorry about the noise,” he said, leaning over me. One hand touched my shoulder gently. “Lieutenant, are you—”

I struck upward, into the exposed throat.

Five rapid-dump dermals of tetrameth from the strip my right hand had stolen the previous night, laid directly across major blood vessels. If I’d been wearing an unconditioned sleeve, I’d be cramped up and dying now. If I’d had less conditioning of my own, I’d be cramped up and dying now.

I hadn’t dared dose myself with less.

The blow ripped open Loemanako’s windpipe, and tore it across. Blood gushed, warm over the back of my hand. He staggered backwards, face working, eyes child-like with disbelieving hurt. I came off the bed after him—

—something in the wolf splice weeps in me at the betrayal—

—and finished it.

He toppled and lay still.

I stood over the corpse, thrumming inside with the pulse of the tetrameth. My feet shifted unsteadily under me. Muscle tremors skipped down one side of my face.

Outside, Sutjiadi’s screams modulated upward into something new and worse.

“Get the mobility suit off him,” I said harshly.

No response. I glanced around and realised I was talking to myself. Deprez and Wardani were both slumped against their beds, stunned. Vongsavath was struggling to rise, but could not coordinate her limbs. Too much excitement—the inhibitors had tasted it in their blood and bitten accordingly.

“Fuck.”

I moved between them, clenching my mutilated hand around the spider units and tearing them loose as they spasmed. Against the shift and slide of the tetrameth, it was almost impossible to be more gentle. Deprez and Wardani both grunted with shock as their inhibitors died. Vongsavath’s went harder, sparking sharply and scorching my opened palm. The pilot vomited bile, and thrashed. I knelt beside her and got fingers into her throat, pinning her tongue until the spasm passed.

“You o—”

Sutjiadi shrieked across it.

“—kay?”

She nodded weakly.

“Then help me get this mob suit off. We don’t have a lot of time ‘til he’s missed.”

Loemanako was armed with an interface pistol of his own, a standard blaster and the vibroknife he’d loaned to Carrera the night before. I cut his clothes off and went to work on the mob suit beneath. It was combat spec—it powered down and peeled at battlefield speed. Fifteen seconds and Vongsavath’s shaky assistance were enough to shut off the dorsal and limb drives and unzip the frame. Loemanako’s corpse lay throat open, limbs spread, outlined in an array of upward-jutting flex-alloy fibre spines that reminded me fleetingly of bottleback corpses butchered and half-filleted for barbecue meat on Hirata beach.

“Help me roll him out of—”

Behind me, someone retched. I glanced back and saw Deprez propping himself upright. He blinked a couple of times and managed to focus on me.

“Kovacs. Did you—” His gaze fell on Loemanako. “That’s good. Now, do you want to share your plans for a change?”

I gave Loemanako’s corpse a final shove and rolled it clear of the unwrapped mob suit. “Plan’s simple, Luc. I’m going to kill Sutjiadi and everyone else out there. While that’s going on, I need you to get inside the ‘Chandra and check for crew or conscientious objectors to the entertainment. Probably be a few of each. Here, take this.” I kicked the blaster across to him. “Think you’ll need anything else?”

He shook his head muzzily. “You spare the knife? And drugs. Where are those fucking tetrameth.”

“My bed. Under the quilt.” I lay on the suit without bothering to undress and began to pull the support struts closed across my chest and stomach. Not ideal, but I didn’t have the time. Ought to be OK—Loemanako was bigger framed than my sleeve, and the servoamp uptake pads are supposed to work through clothing at a push. “We’ll go together—I figure it’s worth the risk of a run to the polalloy shed before we start.”

“I’m coming,” said Vongsavath grimly.

“No, you’re fucking not.” I closed the last of the body struts and started on the arms. “I need you in one piece; you’re the only person can fly the battlewagon. Don’t argue, it’s the only way any of us get out of here. Your job is to stay here and stay alive. Get the legs.”

Sutjiadi’s screams had damped down to semi-conscious moans. I felt a scribble of alarm run up my spine. If the machine saw fit to back off and leave its victim to recover for any length of time, those in the back rows of the audience might start to drift away for an interval cigarette. I hit the drives while Vongsavath was still fastening the last of the ankle joint struts and felt more than heard the servos murmur to life. I flexed my arms—jag of unwatched pain in the broken elbow, twinges in the ruined hand—and felt the power.

Hospital mob suits are designed and programmed to approximate normal human strength and motion while cushioning areas of trauma and ensuring that no part of the body is strained beyond its convalescent limits. In most cases the parameters are hardwired in to stop stupid little fucks from overriding what’s good for them.