Sharrow listened to the sound of the plane’s jets, echoing distantly among the mountains. She put the missile-launcher back to standby.

“Where’d it go?” Miz said.

“Think it went down the fjord,” Dloan said. Sharrow turned to see Dloan in the hatch of the stationary leading AT, its nose stuck into the trees. He was pointing the cannon over their heads at where the plane had been.

“See any markings?” Sharrow asked Zefla.

Zefla shook her head. “Didn’t look like a Franchise ship to me.”

“I saw one of those old things in Quay Beagh,” Dloan said. “While we were negotiating for the sub.”

“Think it could be another private operator?” Miz asked. They heard him grunt as the leading AT rocked fractionally back, then attempted to plough forward again, only to be resisted once more by the flexing trunks of the trees. “Now that’s what I call contempt for the Areas Laws,” he said, sounding almost amused. “Barrelling right in with an antique that belongs in a museum of flight. Shit, we could have used ACVs after all.”

“Whatever,” Sharrow said, “it might be back. Let’s head along the coast and find somewhere better to hole up.”

“We are kind of hidden here,” Zefla pointed out.

“Only kind of,” Miz said. “And if anybody’s going to look for us, that hull’s where they’re going to start.”

“Our brave captain said something about scuttling the hulls,” Zefla said.

“Yeah, but the one on the beach isn’t going to sink too far.”

“Zef?” Sharrow said. “What do you think; did the plane see us?”

Zefla shrugged. “On balance, probably… yes.”

“So let’s go,” Sharrow said.

They reversed the two ATs out of the forest. The grounded submarine hull had settled by the stern; its cavernous open mouth towered over the little beach like an expression of silent surprise. The jettisoned hull had rolled over onto its back, rocking back and forth as it sank slowly into the dark water.

The two All-Terrains picked their way along the jumbled rock and tattered grass line between the water and the trees.

The plane had left a faint line of exhaust smoke a hundred metres or so above the centre of the broad fjord. Zefla stayed on watch; Sharrow sat back in her seat with the missile-launcher on her lap. She looked over at Feril, sitting with apparent unconcern as it guided their AT after Miz and Dloan’s.

“Sorry about all this,” she said.

“Please, don’t be,” the android said, turning its head to her for a moment. “This is highly exciting.”

Sharrow shook her head, smiling. “Could get more exciting yet if we can’t find a place to hide.”

“Oh well,” Feril said, and turned from her to look around at the fjord to their right and the steeply forested mountains on either side. “Still,” it said as its hands worked the wheel of the AT, picking its way between the boulders littering the stony shore. “This is quite beautiful scenery, don’t you think?”

Sharrow grinned, briefly shaking her head at the android. Then she tried to relax, and took a slow, deliberate look round at the liquid silence of the calm black waters, the pitched abundance of the enfolding forests and the rippling, half-hidden morphology of the tree-smothered slopes, jagged-rimmed against the pale wastes of sky.

“Yes,” she sighed, and nodded. “Yes, it is beautiful.”

They had gone less than a kilometre down the side of the fjord and found no breaks in the trees, no fallen boulders large enough to hide behind and no other form of cover, when Zefla shouted.

“It’s back!”

The flying boat appeared, a grey dot against the dark mountains towards the head of the fjord.

“Hell’s teeth,” Miz growled.

Sharrow watched the flying boat tilt and turn until it was heading straight towards them. She shook her head. “This is no good-”

“Firing!” yelled Zefla. Two bursts of smoke curled from under the wing roots of the plane.

“Stop!” Sharrow told the android. She grabbed her satchel from beneath the seat. “All out!”

“Shit,” Miz said. Both ATs skidded to a stop.

“Head for the fucking trees,” Zefla muttered, dropping from the hatch, bouncing on her seat and kicking the door open. She jumped to the ground holding a small back-pack, followed by Feril. Sharrow jumped from the other door. Miz leapt from the AT in front and ran for the trees as well.

“Out, Man!” Sharrow yelled. She was heading for some large rocks near the water’s edge. She clicked the safety off the missile-launcher.

Dloan stood in the hatch of the front AT, sighting the cannon at the plane; the two missiles were bright points at the end of smoky trails, racing closer over the black, still water. “Dloan!” she yelled. She threw herself down between two rocks and sighted the missile-launcher.

The missiles zipped in; they missed the two ATs and screamed overhead, detonating in the forest fifty metres behind them. Dloan started firing the cannon; she could see each tracered eighth shell arcing up and out across the water, falling a hundred metres short of the plane in distant, tiny white splashes. She fired the missile; there was a bang as the tube juddered against her shoulder, then a flash and a clap of noise when the missile ignited and a whoosh as it raced away.

The plane flew lazily on up the centre of the fjord, maybe two thousand metres away now; the missile lanced out on an intercept course.

Dloan had stopped firing the cannon.

The missile was a kilometre away, then five hundred metres.

“Oh well,” Sharrow said to herself. “Just ignore it then, assholes.”

Light glittered around the nose of the flying boat.

The missile blew up; it flashed and disintegrated in the air, creating a thick black paw of smoke from which dozens of little dark claws trailed out and down, falling into the water in a flurry of tail splashes.

“Son of a bitch,” Sharrow breathed. The plane tipped towards them once more.

Dloan fired the cannon again, sparks arcing high towards the plane. The plane flew through the rising bulb of smoke left by their intercepted missile. It fired another two of its own.

Sharrow glanced at the AT. “Dloan!” she screamed. She saw him crouch down a little behind the cannon. He fired a last burst of shells, then sprang out of the hatch and ran along the top of the AT’s roof. Sharrow could have sworn he had a great big smile on his face.

Dloan jumped the three metres to the ground, rolled and dived into light cover a half second before the pair of missiles screamed into the ATs and blew them both to smithereens.

She must have ducked. She lifted her head to the smoke and the flame. Both vehicles had been obliterated. Hers lay on its back, burning fiercely. The other AT still seemed to be the right way up, but its body had been torn half off, lifted so that the three engines lay exposed between the flayed, burning tyres. What was left of it shook, crackling with secondary detonations; she ducked down again and watched the sea plane fly past a half-kilometre out and curving away from them again.

A line of black smoke curled from its starboard engine. It was losing height and it sounded rough and clattery. Somebody whooped from the trees.

She looked at her left hand, resting on the ground. It hurt. She pulled it away, peering at the blood, then shook it, cleaning earth away from the cut. It didn’t look serious.

“Yee-ha!” whooped the same voice from the trees. Dloan.

The flying boat laboured on through the air for another kilometre, gaining height; then it tipped and banked, turning and heading back down the fjord again, this time angling for the far shore as the black smoke behind it thickened and it dropped closer and closer to the water.

The air cracked and rang as more explosions sounded in the two wrecked ATs; smoke piled into the sky.

“Sharrow?” Miz shouted during a lull.

“Here!” she shouted. “I’m all right.”