“Edmund, you’ve got to kill that generator.” Another fusillade from an enhanced energy area denial cluster made him fling himself down. Blue flame sealed off the top of the ditch. Steaming water gurgled around his armor. “We can’t get you out.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do it, I’m safe here.”

A repetitive drumming sounded through the roar of retreating flame. Jim was firing his rotary launcher. The air was split by a whistling shriek as hypervelocity kinetics zipped overhead. A moment’s pause, and another of the bad guy vehicles was reduced to flaming scrap metal.

“You can’t stay there,” Alic said; he was near to pleading now. “Tarlo will keep the force field on permanently. He doesn’t want any attempt to follow the Starflyer. That means you won’t be able to join the exodus. This planet will be abandoned. You’ll die in there, Edmund. Nobody will ever find your memorycell for re-life.”

“Oh, Christ, I don’t want this.”

Alic resumed crawling forward. “None of us asked for this war. Your part won’t take more than five minutes. Get to that generator, let us in. We’ll take care of Tarlo and the escort vehicles.”

“I’ll see if I can get there.”

“That’s fine, Edmund. Go for it, now, eh?” Alic accessed two of Matthew’s sneekbots as they scuttled over the hostile landscape, trying to triangulate on another vehicle.

“Which one is launching those bloody area denial clusters?” Vic asked.

“Not sure,” Matthew said. “They took out five sneekbots last time.”

Alic’s e-butler told him it was picking up a localized secure call from Paula Myo. “Localized?” he queried.

“Yes.”

“Thank Christ, put her through.”

“Commander, is that you engaging the vehicles outside the force field?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, stand by, we’ll take them out for you. We need you a minimum one hundred meters away from them.”

“We are. What have you got?”

“The Guardians tell me they have zone killers.”

“Guardians? You’re with the Guardians?” He didn’t know why he was surprised; the universe wasn’t operating logically today.

“I am. We’re in pursuit of the Starflyer. Stay down.”

“Trust me, I’m down a long way.” He and Vic were clinging to the bottom of the ditch. He strengthened his force field to maximum.

“Do you still have a contact inside the Far Away section?” Paula asked.

“Yeah. He’s proving reluctant to shut off the force field generator.”

“Why? We need the force field down.”

“He knows. I think he’s finally doing something about it.”

“Good. Heads down, here it comes.”

The sneekbots showed Alic something like a man-sized jet-propelled moth descending on the cluster of vehicles. There was a dazzling green flash, and every sneekbot signal vanished. Vivid green light flowed into the bottom of the ditch like a pervasive liquid. Then the ground thumped Alic upward as if he’d been caught in an earthquake. A prolonged thunderclap howl reverberated across the land. Alic could feel it through the suit’s insulation.

“Clear,” Paula said.

Alic slowly clambered up out of the ditch. Each of the remaining escort vehicles was lost inside a thick swirl of flame. He watched a big Ables ND47 approaching down the same track the Starflyer’s train had used. It was braking hard, with sparks zipping out from the huge wheels.

“Now that’s what I call making an entrance,” Vic said.

The Ables ND47 came to a halt. A small door opened in the side of the first wagon.

“Get in, please,” Paula said.

Alic and his arrest team sprinted across the blackened land. He noticed the zone killer had left the rails intact. Up on the front of the engine, a couple of dark cylinders twice the size of his armor suit were extending ponderously from the bodywork on malmetal stalks. He didn’t recognize the type of weapon, but he knew he didn’t want to be close by when they went off.

There were several bright flashes from above the engine’s chrome intake grille, accompanied by a crack. Something like a black nebula swirled across the gap between train and force field. A broad arc on the force field’s surface started to glow a gentle copper; static flames thrashed about close to the ground, raising a pack of small dense dust devils.

Alic jumped up into the dark wagon. Outside, there was a terrific boom as the weapons fired.

Edmund hit the outside door running. Behind him, the administration block’s network was crashing from the disruptor software he’d loaded in. The sensors couldn’t see him; but Tarlo would know for sure someone was inside the force field. Someone who was trying to sabotage the Starflyer’s return. It didn’t take a tactical genius to work out what the next stage had to be.

The building housing the force field generator was an elongated geodesic hall of pearl-gray composite. He could see it protruding over a warehouse on the other side of the parking lot. Once he was there, this nightmare would be over.

His parked Honda came to life as soon as he loaded in the drive orders. It accelerated hard, wheels spinning on the damp concrete, and headed out toward the main road. As a distraction it should gain him a few seconds—so the Paris tactical experts claimed. Edmund sprinted in the opposite direction; if he could just make it to the cover of the warehouse he should be okay.

The turbid gray sky above the parking lot flared brilliant white. A terrifyingly loud screech echoed around the inside of the force field. Edmund lost his footing and went sprawling painfully on the concrete. He gawped up at the force field, where scarlet lightning was now scrabbling furiously against it. The vivid streamers slithered up into the air to strike the bottom of the station force field.

White light blazed again, and the horrendous noise ripped across the Far Away section. This time he understood: someone was shooting at the force field with incredibly powerful weapons, trying to break through. He made himself get up. Blood was soaking into his shirt sleeve where he’d landed on his elbow. Wincing at the pain, and cowering as another energy blast struck the force field, he ran for the warehouse.

By the time he made it around the corner he was breathing heavily. The geodesic hall was only a hundred eighty meters away now. He dashed for it as fast as he could, ignoring the awesome burns of light overhead as they alternated between dazzling white and lurid crimson. The punishing noise trapped under the force field was just about constant. His ears were ringing badly.

He was short of breath and unsteady on his feet when he finally arrived at the door to the geodesic hall. It was open, which he didn’t expect. He took a quick glance inside. Nothing was moving. Edmund pulled down a ragged breath and went in.

The generator was a large cluster of metal and plastic shapes laid out along the floor, as big as a house. White and red light took turns to fluoresce the composite arching overhead. The stentorian roaring was muted inside. He identified the power injection points, and put his hand down to his holster.

“Shit!” The shock stabbed through him as his fingers closed on empty leather. There was no pistol; it must have dropped out when he fell. “Oh, fuck. Fuck!” He stared helplessly at the bulky generator. He had no idea where the control console was—that’s if there even was a control console. His head twisted from side to side, searching for something he could use to smash a section of casing. That would be as much use as screaming at it to switch off, he decided. There was nothing else for it; he’d have to go back for the ion pistol.

The interior of the hall flared with blue-white light. An ion pulse ripped through the air, and struck the generator casing. A dazzling purple discharge seethed down the dark metallic composite, partially obscured by a fountain of smoldering plastic droplets.