She couldn’t see it from this window, but a third of the way round the docking ledge, that little nerd Emmet Mordden was trying to rebuild one of the nutrient fluid refineries that she’d disabled. If he succeeded, then she was going to lose, and lose badly. One voice, pathetically eager to please, told her that at least one squadron of voidhawks had perished in the awesome explosion.

“Fuck it!” Kiera stormed. She refused to acknowledge any more of the insidious incorporeal babble. “I didn’t know he was cooking this up.”

Her two senior co-conspirators, Luigi Balsamo and Hudson Proctor, gave each other a look. They knew how dangerous life became when she was in this kind of mood.

“Me neither,” Luigi said. He was sitting on one of the long settees, drinking some excellent coffee and watching her carefully. “Al used a quantity of antimatter for a secret project a while back. I never guessed it was for anything like this. Gotta give him credit, this is going to skyrocket his credibility among the crews.”

“That barbarian wouldn’t have the intelligence to plan this out by himself,” she snapped. “I bet I know who put the idea in his head. Little whore!”

“Smart for a whore,” Hudson Proctor said.

“Too smart,” Kiera said. “For her own good. I shall enjoy telling her that some day soon.”

“It’s going to make life difficult for us though,” Luigi said. “We’ve been getting through to a lot of people recently. There was plenty of support for all of us heading down to the planet.”

“There still is,” Kiera said. “How long is this triumph going to last for him? A week? Two? Ultimately, it changes nothing. He has nothing else to offer. I’ll take the Organization with me to New California, and Capone and his whore can freeze their asses off up here until the remainder of the Confederation Navy comes knocking. See how he likes that.”

“We’ll keep plugging away,” Luigi promised.

“I might be able to turn this to our favour,” Kiera said thoughtfully. “If the crews can be made to see that it’s mainly a propaganda stroke, one that’s got the remaining ninety-nine per cent of the Confederation Navy badly pissed off with us.”

“And are likely to come and settle the score,” Hudson finished excitedly.

“Exactly. And there’s only one place we’ll be truly safe from that retaliation.”

A bleep escaped from an AV pillar on the glass table in front of the settee. Kiera walked over to it in annoyance and keyed an acknowledgement. It was Patricia Mangano, calling to tell them, if they hadn’t already heard, the fabulous news about Trafalgar. And they were all invited to the victory party Al was throwing that evening.

“We’ll be there,” Kiera replied sweetly, and switched off.

“We’re going?” a startled Hudson Proctor asked.

“Oh yes,” Kiera said. Her smile upgraded to pure malice. “This is the perfect alibi.”

Mindori swooped in round the counter-rotating spindle and dropped on the pedestal which Hudson Proctor had assigned it. Rocio didn’t fold in the hellhawk’s distortion field immediately; there was some activity farther up around the rocky ledge that he found interesting. Several non-possessed were in spacesuits, concentrated round a section of machinery that was pinned to the vertical cliff.

How long has that been going on for?he asked pran soo in singular engagement mode.

Two days now.

Anyone know what they’re doing?

No. But it’s nothing to do with Kiera.

Really? The only systems on the ledge are connected with voidhawk and blackhawk maintenance and service.

Gaining the ability to provide us with nutrients is an obvious move for Capone,pran soo said. It would appear our options are finally starting to open up.

Not for me,rocio said. Capone only wants us to compliment the Organization fleet. No doubt he will offer better terms than Kiera’s ever done, but we will still be drawn into the conflict. My goal remains achieving complete autonomy for all of us.

There are now fifteen of us who will provide whatever covert assistance we can. If the Almaden equipment can be made to function, we believe most of the others will join us. With a few noticeable exceptions.

Ah yes, where is Etchells?

I don’t know. He still hasn’t returned.

We can’t have gotten that lucky. Did you check with Monterey’s net to see if the electronics we require are in stock?

Yes. Everything is there. But I don’t understand how we can get them out. We’ll have to ask the Organization direct. Are you going to negotiate with the Organization? The fleet still needs us to patrol local space around the planet; it is not a combat duty.

No. Capone won’t take kindly to my deal with Almaden; we’ll be depriving him of their industrial capability. I believe I can obtain the electronics without the assistance of outside groups.

Rocio used the bitek processors in Mindori ’s life support cabin to establish a link with Monterey’s communication net. Last time he had just accessed visual sensors to locate the food storage facilities for Jed. That had been simple enough; this task had an altogether different level of complexity. With Pran Soo’s help he gained access to the maintenance files, and tracked down the physical location of the components they wanted. That information wasn’t restricted, although they used a false log-on code to make sure there were no incriminating bytes that could ever link them to the components in question. After that, Rocio loaded in a requisition for the items. The spares allocation procedure which Emmet Mordden had erected around Monterey’s stock of components had several integral security protocols. Rocio had to bring the hellhawk’s on-board processor array into the loop to circumvent the safeguards with a powerful codebuster program. Once they were in the system, he ordered the electronics to be delivered to a maintenance shop outside the section of the spaceport which was under Kiera’s physical jurisdiction.

Very good,pran soo said. Now what?

Simple. Just walk in and collect them.

Jed studied the route Rocio had devised, trying to spot any flaws. So far, he’d found the depressing number of zero. The hellhawk’s possessor was using the big screen in the lounge to display it, though it would also be loaded into the spacesuit’s processor. Jed could call it up on the visor’s graphics overlay so that this time he wouldn’t be reliant on Rocio calling out a stream of directions. He would have to walk about a kilometre along the ledge to reach the designated airlock. No complaints about that, despite having to wear a ballcrusher again. The possessed couldn’t use spacesuits, so as long as he was outside there wouldn’t be any of the buggers near him. It was inside when his troubles would begin. Again!

“There is a large celebration party due to begin in another fifty minutes,” Rocio said, his face taking up a small square on the top right corner of the screen. “That is when you should perform this mission. Most of the possessed will be there, it will minimize the chance of discovery.”

“Fine,” Jed mumbled. It was hard to concentrate: as well as sitting next to Beth on the couch, he had Gerald pacing up and down behind him, muttering gibberish to himself.

“Half of the components have been delivered to the maintenance shop already,” Rocio said. “That’s the beauty of a heavily automated system like Monterey. The freight mechanoids don’t start asking questions when there’s no one there in the shop to receive them. They just dump them and go back for the next batch.”

“Yeah, we know,” Beth said. “You’re a bloody genius.”

“Not everyone could pull this off so stylishly.”

Jed and Beth shared a look; her hand went across his thigh and squeezed. “Fifty minutes,” she murmured.