I could get used to this, she thought.

  There was literally nothing for her or the other Marines to do except lounge on the orange and brown sofas. It would be a while yet before this rogue elevator came up from the surface but even then it would just be a case of lining up and looking mean because sometimes, that was all it took.

  Webster had ordered the two outdoor checkpoints to be shut down at eleven pm before moving everyone inside the terminal building. They’d left station security to patrol the outer perimeter – they couldn’t be trusted to operate the checkpoints on their own. But that was fine. It was nearly midnight, station time, and the flood of people arriving at the terminal had slowed to a trickle.

  The last elevator bound for the planet’s surface had gone off half an hour earlier with only two thousand people on board. Once they were away, the Marines had wasted no time making themselves comfortable, the bulk of them camping down in the departure lounge.

  Webster had left five men behind in the check-in area down on Level 1. While this wasn’t a wholly adequate number to protect their rear it would be enough to give the platoon plenty of warning if anyone should try to storm the outer gates. Military history was littered with examples of otherwise competent commanders who had neglected to cover their backs, thereby destroying their careers and Webster was not keen to join their ranks.

  The boarding gates were on Level 3 and could be accessed either by the central elevators or the two staircases either side. Passengers gathered on the wide concourse before negotiating a short ramp which led to the individual gates.

  That was where they would deploy to just before the elevator arrived. They were to be split into five rows of eight troopers each. Only forty of them but Webster wanted the people on-board the elevator to see them and assume that they were the vanguard for a much larger force waiting below. Hopefully, that would be enough to dissuade them from trying this again.

  Bigger battles than this had been won using simpler ruses than this.

  It was a good plan. A clear demonstration of military force and it would work – just so long as the passengers didn’t look too closely at the weapons the Marines were carrying.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LaCruz was in the second row of Marines as they had formed up but would have preferred to have been in the rear. They’d moved into position ten minutes ago and were standing fifteen meters back from the boarding gates themselves. When the elevator arrived, she’d be able to see the refugees through the observation windows and the thought of that was making her uneasy.

  She’d always found the most difficult aspect of peace-keeping work to be working with children. She found their presence disquieting. Working with civilians was problematic enough but once you added children to the mix that’s when LaCruz started to feel uneasy. Her own childhood had been tough enough. She’d grown up on Juarez a colony which had always had a difficult relationship with the Confederation. The Confederation soldiers she saw on the streets were over-bearing and officious, yet there was no way of avoiding them either in the form of street patrols or simply passing through their checkpoints on the way to school. She and her brother Andre were the youngest of seven children, their older siblings were all engaged in some kind of employment, however dubious, and had little time for their younger siblings.

  It was only natural then that it fell to her to watch out for her brother. Their mother was always telling her not to let him out of her sight but Andre was a sweet child and far too trusting of strangers.

  On one occasion they’d been walking home from school together. LaCruz had been talking with Naisha, a very attractive girl who she didn’t particularly like but who she was always trying to impress. Andre was hanging back with Aleez, Naisha’s teenage brother, when a street patrol passed them in their APC. The children hadn’t gone more than a hundred meters along the road when there was a huge explosion and the APC came juddering to a halt.

  Everyone just stopped where they were, the sound of the explosion ringing in their ears. No one moved as they watched the flames start to lick around the vehicles underside.

  And then the APCs rear machine gun opened fire and they all dived for cover. She and Naisha squeezed themselves into a shop doorway as rounds slammed into the walls all around them, the reverberations strong enough to make her teeth hurt. They had no idea what had happened to the boys but were too terrified to try and investigate. All the time, LaCruz was going over in her head what she would tell her mother if she had to return home alone.

  After forty minutes, with no further gunfire they came out to find that the APC had been completely burned out, the crew preferring to stay inside rather than risk venturing outside and being captured. The street was thick with a heavy, greasy odour which hung in the air.

  Andre, at least, was unharmed. In his haste to escape, he’d tripped and fallen through a sheet of plywood. The plywood had been covering a large manhole and, when he hit the bottom he’d been too small to clamber out on his own.

  Aleez had not been so fortunate. He had been shot through both legs and, since no one could get to him, had simply lain there until he’d bled to death.

  LaCruz only saw Naisha a couple of times after that. The girl had lost so much weight the next time she saw her that LaCruz didn’t recognise her. Then Naisha’s beautiful long hair had started falling out and very soon she just stopped coming to school altogether.

  Neither she nor Andre ever spoke about what had happened that afternoon but it bound them both together in a way that neither of them could explain. The fear that they might have lost one another that day made them inseparable, with each of them becoming anxious if they were parted from one another for too long.

  Now here she was, light years away in the Allegra system, not having seen her brother in five years, yet experiencing that self-same anxiety she felt all those years ago. LaCruz couldn’t explain it for, while she didn’t feel an affection for any one child in particular it seemed that, collectively, she cared a great deal about all of them. They engendered in her a sense of responsibility which didn’t reconcile itself easily with her current role.

  Still, she stood her ground. She was a Marine and her presence here was, after all, more important than anything else she might have been called to do in her life.

  Or, as her mother had been fond of saying: you play the hand you’re dealt.

  LaCruz took a sip of water and readied herself, the others dealing with the tension in their own way. Some made tiny adjustments to their weapons, while others shifted their weight back and forth or simply chatted nonsense for everyone else to hear.

  That was as it should be. Everything was fine. Everything was under control.

  When the elevator did arrive its doors would remain closed. A safety feature meant that the door mechanism could not be operated from inside the elevator itself. This was in case the station itself had lost atmosphere – an unlikely scenario though not an impossible one. Sergeant Markham, in one of his few interchanges with the troopers, had made that point abundantly clear.

  The elevator had been designed as an autonomous construct, meaning that it would still operate effectively even if every electrical system on Blackthorn failed simultaneously. The worst that could happen in such an instance was that the fail-safes would kick in and the elevator would automatically return itself to the planet below.

  There was nothing that the passengers could do about it. They might decide to take out their frustrations on the elevator’s amenities as there were numerous restaurants and fast-food outlets inside. It also had a large children’s activity centre, countless fashionable boutiques, a cinema and its own casino. But, any damage they might decide to inflict would be largely cosmetic – the elevator would be up and running again in a matter of hours. After it had deposited them back on the surface it would return for a fresh batch of refugees.

  All the Marines had to do was stand their ground for a little while longer.

  Meanwhile, Markham passed between them, patting an arm here, squeezing a shoulder there. Reassuring them. Urging them to maintain their united front.

  If only the passengers knew the truth, LaCruz mused. If they could see how compromised the Marines really were: a skeleton crew backed up by a security force which they in no way trusted.

  The Marines only loyalty, beyond themselves, lay with their captain. In their eyes, Faulkner, who had been at the sharp end of operations on more than one occasion, could do no wrong. But that level of respect didn’t necessarily extend to his second-in-command.

  It was nothing personal. The Marines’ distrust extended to everyone, including the workers who normally oversaw the procedures around the elevators. They had only allowed one staff member through into the boarding area. A little barrel of a man named Henenlotter. He was the Chief Supervisor for the whole set-up but today he had a Marine corporal with him scrutinising his every move. One step out of line and he’d regret it. Webster was taking no chances.

  A proximity alert sounded, informing everyone that the elevator was approaching. It travelled at an average speed of 2km per minute so its braking systems were activated as soon as it came within ten kilometers of the station.

  “Okay, everyone,” Markham shouted over the whine of the machinery. “Let’s stay focussed until this docking process is complete.”

  A nervous looking Henenlotter moved over to a side console, closely followed by his guard.

  Webster was talking on an open comms channel. “Corporal Ruiz, are you there?”

  Ruiz was head of the five-man team back at the main check-in area on level one.

  “I’m here, sir,” Ruiz said. “Everything’s under control. We have a couple of ground crew milling about but that’s all.”

  “Good. Hope it stays that way,” Webster said. “If we all keep our wits about us, everything should be fine.”

  Everyone’s eyes switched to the digital display on the far wall which told them that the elevator was six kilometers, or approximately three minutes, away. They continued to watch as the read-out slowly counted down towards zero.

  “Everything under control, Mr Henenlotter?” Markham asked.

  Henenlotter didn’t reply, he was too busy doing his checks. The corporal standing beside him didn’t appear unduly concerned.

  “Mr Henenlotter?”

  The man held up a hand while still looking at his screen. “Just a moment, I’m trying to …”

  Without warning, he reached across and hit one of the red buttons mounted on the wall. The corporal struck him with the butt of his weapon and the man fell to the ground.

  A klaxon sounded and the next thing the whole place was bathed in a harsh red light.

  It was Webster who got to Henenlotter first, the corporal covering him with his weapon.

  “What did you just do?” Webster demanded.

  The man looked up sheepishly.

  “I was alerting the fire crew. There’s a fire on-board the elevator.”

  LaCruz unclipped the charging arm on her weapon and fired it up. All around her, she could hear the other troopers doing the same.

  *

  Webster said, “What do you mean: fire crew?”

  Henenlotter was kneeling on the floor, the back of his head matted with blood. He looked up at Webster with thinly disguised contempt.

  “Like I said, there’s a fire on the in-bound elevator. We need to get a fire crew in there as soon as possible. Standard procedure.”

  Webster looked back at Markham who so far hadn’t reacted.

  Webster said, “How can you be sure it’s a real fire? What if it’s a trick?”

  “The sensors are reading three fires in three separate locations: two restaurants and a big one at the back of the food hall. That one’s had plenty of time to take hold.”

  “You think they were started deliberately?”

  “What difference does it make? A fire’s a fire.”

  “Okay,” Webster said. “Show me where.”

  Henenlotter struggled to his feet and went over to a bank of screens. He started running through the various live feeds. Webster wasn’t always sure exactly what he was looking at although on one shot he could see people leaving a restaurant as black smoke billowed out of a doorway.

  “Don’t they have their own fire-fighting capabilities?” Webster asked.

  “They have their own sprinkler systems but it looks like someone’s disabled them.”

  The boarding area was filled with a loud clanging sound as the elevator came into view. He could see lights behind the shuttered observation windows.

  Webster looked over at the corporal, saw that his name was Booth. “Okay, corporal, I want you to take a couple of men. Wait until the fire crew turns up then, when they do, I want you to hold them there ‘til I gave the go-ahead. Don’t let them through under any other circumstances, understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can’t do that!” Henenlotter spluttered. “We have to follow procedure: we have to get these doors open, get the passengers off and then deal with the fire.”

  Webster shook his head. “We’re not opening those doors.”

  The internal airlock had been secured. He could see movement on the other side, people were pressing forward, preparing to come out.

  Webster indicated for Markham to come over and join him. The pair moved away from the main operating area.

  Markham’s face was solemn. “What are your intending to do, sir?”

  “I’m not sure. This is clearly a ploy to get us to open those doors but I’m damned if I’m going to roll over that easily.”

  “You don’t think the fires are genuine?”

  “They could have set those fires in a couple of oil drums. They’d give off the same amount of heat and smoke. They’re just trying to force our hand. Who would be crazy enough to set a fire from which they had no means of escape?”

  “Except they do have a means of escape,” Markham inclined his head towards the large metal doors. “The question is: are you going to be the one who opens them?”

  Webster tried to imagine Ardent’s reaction if she found out that he’d stood by and allowed four hundred civilians to burn to death. Regardless, he felt as though he was being played for a fool and his natural reaction was to stand firm.

  “What about detaining them over there?” Markham asked, indicating the boarding hall behind them. “It’ll easily hold four hundred, if we could somehow secure the escalators, the stairs? Then, once we’ve dealt with the fire we can move them back inside. The platoon is more than capable.”

  “I’m still not liking the numbers here, sergeant. If we had another platoon as back-up then I might consider it.”

  “What about the station’s own security people?”

  Webster’s ear bead buzzed.

  It was Corporal Beech. “Fire crew’s here, sir.”

  “That was fast. Where are you now?”

  “Top of the stairs on level two. Do you want that I should let them up?”

  “No. Hold them there for the time being.”

  Webster picked up the sound of the fire crew’s protests before the feed was cut.

  “Heay! What’s he doing?” someone behind him was shouting.

  Webster looked across to see Henenlotter had left his place at the station and was heading for the main door. Through the glass, he could see the passengers on the other side, pointing at something on the wall.

  The emergency release button was mounted inside a sealed red box. Henenlotter punched in a code and waited for the cover to slide open revealing the button inside. He looked straight at someone on the other side of the glass before pressing it.

  Warning amber lights started to flash immediately. Webster felt the rumble through his boots as the massive elevator doors started to open. A gust of warm air hit him then, carrying with it a bitter burning smell.

  A solid wall of smoke suddenly obscured their view. Behind him, he could hear Markham barking orders but Webster’s eyes were trying to pick out the figures moving through the smoke. It was impossible to tell how many there were but everywhere he looked he saw movement.

  Not good.

  A man stepped forward, holding something and Webster raised a hand, in an attempt to get his attention. If both sides were sensible then all this could be resolved without resorting to violence, he reasoned. The new arrivals would have to agree to being held there until they could be returned to planet side. His main concern was that this could be accomplished without anyone getting hurt, he was particularly sensitive to the possibility that the newcomers might have children with them. He flanked across at Henenlotter who was looking particularly pleased with himself.

  “Everyone’s come to the party,” he said.

  Webster tried not to rise to the jibe. He’d been a fool to send Corporal Booth off to deal with the fire crew. Leaving Henenlotter unattended had been his first big mistake.

  “Hold your fire!” Webster shouted.

  One by one, figures started to appear through the smoke. But these weren’t miners with their families. There was a lot of them, far more than he’d anticipated, and they clearly hadn’t enjoyed being cooped up inside for so long.

  Plus, they were armed. All of them. And not with the improvised knives and clubs Webster had been anticipating.

  This didn’t add up. No sooner had the people stepped clear of the smoke than they were raising their weapons.

  And that was when he realised who it was that they were facing.

  These were the mercenaries who worked for Parnashikan protecting the interests of the corporations down on Iscaria. Multi-billion-dollar interests guaranteed the mercenaries a healthy paycheque just so long as they kept the mining operations running smoothly.

  As far as Webster could tell, there were only two reasons why these men would choose to return to Blackthorn at this moment. Either they were looking for a way off the planet or they had been ordered to come.

  From the look of them, the latter case looked most likely.

  Webster stepped forward, hands raised as if trying to calm an excitable animal.