The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped suddenly.

  Yamada continued. “Roberts here thinks that it’s this little feller who’s the real killer.”

  Roberts stepped forward, her face impossibly young and earnest. “It may not have the destructive capabilities of Big Daddy, sir, but that doesn’t matter. The result will be exactly the same.”

  But as she attempted to activate the final animation, Faulkner held up a hand.

  “Enough. How long do we have?”

  “Before Big Daddy arrives?” Yamada asked. “Twenty-two hours, at best.”

  Less than a day, then. For some reason, he found that the most disturbing thing about this whole presentation.

  “And the other one?”

  “Twenty-six hours according to what we’ve seen so far.”

  “And you’re suggesting that we refrain from firing on Big Daddy in order to give us a clear shot at Tom Thumb.”

  Yamada winced. “Ensign Roberts has a theory about that, also, sir.”

  “Tom Thumb lacks the mass of its bigger brother so we reckon he must have a whole host of things up his sleeve that we haven’t seen yet. Some kind of boost capability perhaps. It’ll probably wait until the last moment before triggering that though.”

  “But you think that we can shoot down Tom Thumb before taking out Big Daddy.”

  Yamada said, “It’s going to be tight but we should be able to pull it off.”

  Faulkner looked from Yamada to Roberts and back again.

  “Okay. I’ve got a long list of things to do here – where do you suggest I start?”

  “Governor Ardent,” Yamada said pointedly. “She’s the kingmaker here. It’s vital that you get her on side with this.”

  “By persuading her not to shoot down the one thing that’s threatening to destroy her station.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. But it’s the only way.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Webster would have collapsed if it hadn’t been for the two men holding him up. After the first few exchanges of fire, they’d dragged him over to the emergency exit. Henenlotter was lying slumped on the floor, virtually unrecognisable from the man who’d double crossed them earlier. The mercs had beaten him so badly that his eyes had been compressed to two thin slits, his nose and lips ballooning to twice their normal size. Webster was concerned about the man’s ability to breathe.

  “Can’t you just lay him on his side?” Webster asked the man holding his right arm.

  “He’ll be fine?” the man said. “Don’t worry about him. You’re the one who should be worrying.”

  Another man stood in front of the big, red emergency exit. He using the butt of his gun in an attempt to force the door open – but without success. The gun was ancient, it looked like the sort of thing that still fired cased ammunition.

  The man struck the door again, giving it three hard hits. On his third attempt, he mistimed his blow and over-extended his reaching, catching his knuckles against the frame.

  The door remained resolutely locked.

  Webster looked over in Henenlotter’s direction. He had started bleeding from the ear and was clearly in a bad way.

  “I thought he was meant to be on your side. He was the one that let you in, after all.”

  “He was holding out on us,” the man to his right said. “Told us he had the access codes to the rest of the building. But now, even these doors are locked.”

  Webster looked around. A steady stream of mercenaries was squirming out of the elevator behind him. They’d somehow managed to jam something in the doors to prevent them from shutting completely. It was a narrow gap but most of them seemed to be getting through. There was something disconcerting about them: they looked dirty and desperate. Clearly, being cooped up in the elevator with all that smoke swirling around had taken something out of them. Webster had lost count of the number who’d dropped to their knees upon getting clear, struggling for breath. After the initial exchange there had been a lull while the mercenaries took stock of their situation.

  He had, at first, thought that the fires had been a carefully controlled ruse but now, looking at their wild eyes, he wasn’t so sure. He could smell the smoke on all of them. They hadn’t known whether they were getting out of there alive or not.

  In fact, if it hadn’t been for Henenlotter, they’d still be in there.

  Webster’s vision started to blur because of the smoke and he realised he was on the brink of collapse. He’d been hit twice and, while his chest armour had taken most of the impact, the pain in his side suggested that he might have broken a rib or two. The two men holding him up struggled to keep him upright, his head lolling to one side.

  The man by the door was becoming impatient. He stepped forward, driving the barrel of his rifle hard into Webster’s shoulder. The pain was sharp and intense but gave Webster’s legs a newfound strength.

  “Okay,” the man to his right said. “Let’s get him over here.”

  Webster grimaced as they pushed him over towards one of the stand-alone consoles. It felt like his sternum was cracked, making even the simple act of drawing breath painful. He’d hit his face when he’d been hit and could still taste the blood in his mouth. But he was still alive and that was the main thing.

  “Right, let’s see if you can make sense of this,” the guy on his right came round to study the console. He was losing his hair on top and had grown it long so that he could pull it into a ponytail.

  He repeatedly jabbed at the console screen.

  “It’s not coming up,” he looked at Webster. “Why’s it not coming up?”

  Webster had no idea what the man was talking about but thought it best not to antagonise him.

  “Why don’t you let me take a look?”

  The guy with the ponytail eyed him suspiciously but indicated that he be allowed to approach. “Go on then. Find out why all these doors are locked. We need them open – now!”

  Webster took a deep breath and tried to focus, the icons on the screen were swimming before his eyes. He must be concussed, he realised. He found himself staring at a diagram of the boarding terminal. All the doors were flashing red.

  He kept dabbing at the screen, leaving bloody fingerprints everywhere. Everything he tried to do brought him back to the same screen. Then he pressed an icon at the top.

  Lockdown Authorised.

  “It’s not responding. Keeps de-faulting back to this automated response.”

  The other man grabbed Webster by the throat and squeezed. “I can see that. But you’re the guy in charge. Tell them it’s an emergency. We need these doors open.”

  Webster pretended to work at the console, hoping that this would buy him enough time to think. The station would have an extremely sophisticated set of security protocols to deal with emergencies like this. They had a similar set-up back on the Mantis, programmed to isolate a specific section of the ship as soon as its integrity became compromised. Henenlotter must have triggered the mechanism unwittingly when he’d opened the main doors.

  The station’s default would have assumed there was a risk of the elevator fire spreading and sealed the doors accordingly. There would be no way of leaving this section until those protocols had been overturned.

  They were effectively trapped here together.

  There should be some way of contacting the people in the control room but Webster was damned if he knew how. He could feel the group around him becoming more and more fractious.

  Mr Ponytail put a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Either you know what you’re doing or you’re playing me for a fool. Whichever it is, I’m going to count to ten and if these doors aren’t open, Marley here is going to put a bullet in you. Understand?”

  *

  The Marines had retreated down to Level 2, thereby succeeding in isolating the mercenaries at the top of the stairs. There were two escalators running down the centre but neither of them was working - the power must have gone off when the doors had been sealed. This left the mercenaries in a difficult position: if they did decide to risk the escalators or the stairs, they’d leave themselves completely exposed. The Boomers might not be the most effective of weapons but if they caught you as you were negotiating the stairs, you were going to take one hell of a tumble.

  Also, there was no advantage to be gained for the mercenaries in pressing their advantage if all the doors were sealed, but that didn’t stop a few of them from trying their luck. But they were easy targets and none of them had, so far, succeeded in making it all the way to the bottom.

  Before the mercs had a chance to re-group and try again, Markham had set LaCruz up on the roof of one of the concession stands. From there, she had a clear shot across at anyone trying to sneak down from the topflight. She had to her surprise found herself becoming more adept at firing the weapon, the dull low-pitched discharges sending a tremor down her back. Her main concern now was that she would run out of charge before she was done.

  Just as she was starting to think about this, Grimes had pulled himself over the edge of the roof, dragging two more Boomers with him. Both were fully charged.

  Regardless of how many weapons she had, LaCruz knew that it was only a matter of time before the mercenaries made a concerted effort to overwhelm them. They certainly seemed to have the numbers. The Marines had lost three troopers so far but that was to be expected considering the disparity in their weapons.

  If the Mercs had been properly organised and a little more willing to take casualties then they could make their obvious advantages count. As it was, they seemed wary of fully committing themselves, turning their superior numbers and firepower to their advantage. But that state of affairs would soon change, she was certain of it.

  *

  Webster sat with his back pressed against the wall. He was concentrating hard on not blacking out. Matters were reaching a critical stage now and if he was to have any hope of influencing them he was going to have to stay upright.

  He’d taken one hell of a beating from Mr Ponytail and the boys once they’d realised he couldn’t get those main doors open but he still thought he’d been lucky. The Mercs had only used their fists and their feet on him and, when he’d hit the ground, they’d quickly lost interest – although not before someone had managed to kick him in the face.

  That accounted for how his nose had been broken. The kick had also opened up a nasty cut in his eyebrow, which explained where all the blood was coming from. At first, he’d tried pressing a roll of cloth against it but, when it failed to stop the bleeding, he’d just given up and let it bleed.

  He had no way of knowing how long he’d been sitting like that but it was long enough for the blood to start to congeal. It made it difficult for him to open his eyes after a while so he just sat there with his eyes closed, listening to the sounds echoing around him.

  Every once in a while he would lean across to check that Henenlotter was still breathing. He’d long since lost consciousness and his pulse was weak but, Webster figured, if he could keep the man alive for the next couple of hours then some good might yet come out of this.

  He had no idea what had happened to Ponytail and the others. They certainly hadn’t been back to the console since he’d been sitting there. He’d briefly considered trying to stand but had quickly decided against it. He was safe where he was for the moment – no point turning himself into a target.

  Things were coming to a head – that much at least was clear. From the snippets of conversation he’d overheard, it had become obvious that the mercenaries were forming themselves into separate factions. It was also clear that these guys didn’t represent the very best that the mercenary world had to offer, which was something of a relief. Most of their conversations, at least those that he could understand, involved one group bad mouthing the other. They clearly weren’t happy with the current situation and there was a lot of talk about the ‘the deal that’s on the table’. They used a lot of Merc-speak, the meaning of which Webster could only wonder at but all the conversations seemed to revolve about how much money they expecting to get out of this so he guessed that they weren’t looking to book a place on the next transport out of there. Parnashikan’s name came up a number of times, but then again, so did Ardent’s.

  In fact, he was listening to someone bad-mouthing Ardent’s reign as governor when the shooting started again. The earlier gunfire had been largely sporadic punctuated only by the Woompf sound of the Boomers. Now the interchanges were heavier and more sustained and he slowly became aware that the area where he was sitting had suddenly become much busier.

  The Mercs appeared to be firing down on the lower level where the Marines had chosen to re-group. The Mercs’ weapons might not be state-of-the-art but they still had enough punch to put a man down and, when stacked up against the Marines’ non-lethal weaponry, it provided them with a significant edge.

  He kept his head down when a small group, led by a woman with tattoos on her face, came over and made another attempt to breach the emergency exit. There was a newfound desperation in their actions. Something about the place had changed and it wasn’t for the better.

  “Is that him, over there?” someone said and Webster immediately knew they were talking about him.

  He tried to clear the blood from his right eye but it was completely gummed up.

  “Alright, get him on his feet.”

  One of them came over and grabbed him under the armpits. He kept his head down, pretending to be out of it but it didn’t stop them getting him up.

  Then another voice, a little shriller than the others, said, “They said not to touch him.”

  “Am I speaking to you?”

  Someone grabbed him under the chin before dousing him with fresh water.

  “Keep him here. I’m goin’ to have a word.”

  Webster managed to open one eye. The man standing over him was holding a particularly vicious looking hunting knife. He figured that he must have looked truly pathetic because the man didn’t even bother to threaten him with it. They just assumed that he’d conform.

  “What’s Reinhart trying to do anyway?”

  “Trying to organise some deal. Guy’s got a way about him. Anyone’s gonna talk ‘em round, it’s him.”

  “So what’s he doing now?”

  “Trying to get their attention.”

  The crack of a high-powered gunshot echoed off the walls followed by a collection of outraged voices.

  “Oh, Jesus, what a mess!”

  “What are we supposed to do now?”

  A second gunshot, this one sounding much closer, made Webster flinch. A fine spray of mist covered his exposed skin as the man on his right went down in a heap.

  Everyone turned to look at what had happened to him. Webster managed to get one eye open. He was able to make out the shape of someone lying on the floor but it was difficult to identify them as they were missing their head.

  When a third shot rang out, Webster instinctively cowered down, while his would-be captors attempted to make a break for it.

  After a minute or two, he became aware of movement over to his left-hand side and when he chanced to glance across, he saw three heavily armed Marines making their way in his direction. As they came closer, they eyed him suspiciously, their guns gripped tight in readiness for any response.

  “Commander Webster, sir, is that you?” the lead Marine asked.

  Webster looked down at himself. His tunic was black with blood.

  “I guess so.”

  The man looked relieved. “Then would you mind assuming the position, sir?”

  Webster didn’t understand.

  The Marine indicated the floor. “Face down, if you please. We need to check you for booby traps.”

  Webster carefully did as they asked. The lead Marine came over and quickly patted him down.

  “That was quite some shooting you did back there, trooper.”

  “That wasn’t us, sir,” the man replied. “That was Corporal Jackson. She’d just been re-united with her with her Koningsburg P-8. That’s just her way of saying thank you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Faulkner had called the meeting in his state room. That had been Morton’s idea. Faulkner had contacted her immediately after watching Yamada and Roberts’ little presentation ostensibly to discuss how he was going to approach the subject with Governor Ardent. But Ardent was the least of his worries. While she might oppose him about the way in which Blackthorn needed to be policed, on matters involving the alien threat she was much more likely to defer to him.

  While that gave him a certain amount of leeway as far as strategic planning was concerned, it also gave him pause to consider if what he was planning was, strategically speaking, the right thing to do. He had to acknowledge that he trusted Yamada’s findings on the two alien ‘vessels’ largely because he trusted Yamada. Would he have been quite so receptive to the same idea if it had come from Bertran, for example? Certainly, if Ensign Roberts had tried to approach him personally, as seemed to have been the case with Alex Webster, he’d have had her on a disciplinary.

  And that could have proved catastrophic.

  He remembered he’d been told once that they estimated that only thirty percent of all Military Intelligence was accurate.

  The problem was determining which thirty percent.

  After explaining the situation to Governor Ardent, Faulkner’s first thought had been to go down to Engineering and have it out with Davitz face to face. It was imperative that the engines were in good shape before they could even think about anything else and he felt that Davitz was dragging his feet on the issue. It was Morton who had talked him out of it. There was every likelihood - that in the heated environment of the Engine Room - things might get out of hand. She insisted that they all needed level heads if they were going to come up with a solution to their current crisis.

  Morton argued that having a full meeting of all the senior officers would be the best way to deal with the situation while, at the same time, reminding Davitz of his place within the command structure. Faulkner didn’t want to argue with the man, he just wanted to find out what the state of play was with his engines. They wouldn’t be able to deal with any threat if they were stuck in a dock.