"What I need is a ship," said Cormac, returning his attention to Stanton. "I can see where it landed but, 'ware shields or not, it certainly isn't there now."

Stanton, with his hands clasped on top of his head, remained stubbornly silent. Eldene noted the complete lack of warmth in Cormac's expression, and feared he was about to pull the trigger. Then abruptly the agent stepped back, holstering his own weapon, then moved around Stanton to face him. Weighing the prisoner's heavy gun in his hand for a moment, he abruptly tossed it to him. Stanton's hand snapped down, caught it and aimed it in one movement. Now Eldene thought it was Cormac's turn to die.

"It's like this, John. You shoot me and everyone dies. If I get up there in a ship, meaning your ship, everyone still has a chance to live. Of course, you can get to that ship yourself, and escape, but I don't think you'll do that."

Stanton abruptly concealed the gun. "Jarv will have taken it to a prearranged spot. We can be there in an hour or so."

Cormac gestured towards the menacing shape of the Occam Razor poised in the morning sky like a diseased eye. "Well, let's go before we get seen. Now is not the time for that to happen." He turned to Fethan. "Get these two down into the caverns. Calloraptors or not, that'll still be the safest place for a while." He reached out and squeezed Apis's shoulder. "Mika will probably find you, and I think she's going to be pleased about that — we all thought you and Eldene had died."

Eldene wondered if that was the most human emotion the man could ever show. She herself was glad of Fethan's arm across her shoulders, and Apis close at her side, as they watched Cormac and Stanton take the aerofan up into the air, then back along the course of the river. She shivered. It was cold, very cold that morning.

The workshop door was no longer recognizable as such, and Gant threw the grinding machine into the mass of calloraptors that were jammed together in their eagerness to get through. Using their APWs at the lowest setting, Gant and Thorn fired into the winged mass until the creatures did break through, then strategically brought down the ones that would impede the rest. But they still had to keep moving back, and in the little workshop there wasn't room to retreat.

"I'm not dying here in a fucking cupboard!" Thorn yelled.

"Can you make it to the main cavern door up there?" Gant slammed a raptor to the ground with the butt of his weapon, then burnt its head off when it began to rise again.

"I can make it — so long as that pulse-cannon doesn't start up again!"

"Now then!"

Both of them upped the setting on their APWs, and the air thumped with the detonations. Violet fire tore through a wall of alien bodies, and black smoke exploded in every direction. Firing repeatedly they advanced, breaking into the main tunnel, swarming with the calloraptors. Thorn now realized that the pulse-cannon would not start up again, because the creatures had somehow torn it from the wall and smashed it. Firing into the cavern to try and clear a path, Thorn began his painful advance, Gant staying right beside him. They made twenty paces.

"Oh fuck," Thorn managed as his weapon died on him and its displays went out. Still heaving himself along, he jammed the weapon's barrel into the mouth of his nearest attacker, then drove his fist into the throat of another as it dropped towards him. It felt like thumping a tree.

"Here!"

Gant threw his own APW across to Thorn, and unshouldered his pulse-rifle. Thorn caught it and fired upwards, clearing the air above them. They now moved back-to-back, only Thorn's shooting being really effective. Gant emptied his rifle and had to resort to his Golem strength — tearing the assailants apart as they came in. Soon they ended up with their backs to the wall.

"Double fuck," muttered Thorn, as the second APW also spat its last and faded out.

Then they heard something like an inhalation, as the calloraptors drew back from them and ceased their onslaught.

"You do know that fucker Skellor is watching us through them," said Gant.

After the chaos that had preceded, the sudden silence almost made Thorn's ears ring. Then he noticed a strange whuckering sound as of an unbalanced aerofan. As the calloraptors suddenly stormed forwards as one, Thorn knew he was about to die. But something flashed across in front, and with a triple thud and sprays of pink liquid, the three leading calloraptors fell out of the air in pieces. Further flashes were followed by more creatures disintegrating. Their attack stuttered to a halt and they drew back. Shuriken dropped into view in front of Gant and Thorn, flexing its chainglass blades to slice away pieces of raptor flesh.

The two of them just stared at each other, then along the tunnel to where the raptors had now broken into the main cavern. That was why they were no longer under direct attack, but these few seconds Shuriken had given them might prove the difference between life and death. They watched in silence as the creatures just flew on past them now, simply ignoring them. They watched as partially burnt raptors approached from further back in the tunnel, following their flying brethren — the whole crowd cramming towards the chaos of gunfire by the cavern door. Still without saying anything, they simultaneously moved over to crouch behind the wrecked aerofan lying nearby, though the creatures continued to ignore them. Shuriken hovered over them for a second or two longer, until Thorn held out his hand. The killing device hesitated for a moment, flexing its blades in and out in agitation, then abruptly closed them up and dropped into his palm.

"I'll return it to Cormac when I see him next," he explained.

"Yeah, you do that," muttered Gant.

Jarvellis felt a sudden surge of gladness immediately tempered by fear when she saw who accompanied John Stanton on the aerofan. She watched carefully as the machine came in to land on the patch of wilted rhubarbs beside the river. As the two stepped out from it, neither had their weapons drawn, but that meant little since perhaps John was wearing an explosive collar and the agent's finger was on some remote trigger. No matter how much John had come to terms with the Polity, after the previous crimes he had committed, it would never accept him.

"Lyric, use the laser to target that man with John," she instructed.

On one of the subscreens she watched as a close-up picture of Cormac was overlaid by a grid; the square covering the man's head blanked out as the picture froze for a moment, then the picture started to shift again, as the grid faded to leave a single targeting frame centred on the agent's forehead. Of course, if John was wearing an explosive collar, it was likely Cormac carried a dead man's switch for it, so Jarvellis restrained herself from killing the agent right then. Also John was unlikely to have led his captor here… Dammit! Jarvellis thumbed the control for the external speakers.

"John… is everything all right?" she asked.

The two men paused. John seemed to gaze straight at her, though there was no way he could yet see Lyric II. He grinned and reached up to pull down the uniform shirt collar he wore, to expose his neck. Sometimes she just hated the way he seemed to get inside her head.

"What's happened, John? Why is he here?"

Moving again, Stanton replied, "He wants to save the world, and to do that he needs our ship."

As the two of them entered the 'ware field Jarvellis hesitated to operate the airlock control. What the hell could this ship achieve against a Polity dreadnought, and was she really prepared to risk so much?

"Jarv, the door," said Stanton.

Swearing again, she thumbed the control, then stood up and headed back into the cargo area. Clumping aboard, the two men seemed to fill the small space.