The tiny dermal scales began to contract and expand in response to the sequence she keyed in, performing their minute adjustments to her baseline facial expression so that she appeared perpetually intrigued and trusting. Skin texture softened to a young, healthy glow. Twenty-one all over again.

Jezzibella went over to the angled mirrors on the dressing table to check herself over. The eyes weren’t right; they were too rigid, insufficiently awed and excited by the beautiful mysterious world they explored. A little piece of the tough executive persona hanging on past its sell-by date. She scowled at the offending patches; the dermal scales were degenerating again. It was always the areas around the eyes which wore out first. Her supply of replacements was none too high, either. Not even a planet could make up that shortfall; her stocks had always come straight from Tropicana, the one Adamist world with relaxed bitek laws.

“Libby,” she shouted. “Libby, get in here and bring that package with you.”

The old dear had worked wonders recently, patiently reapplying the scales with a true artisan’s touch to gloss over the reduced coverage. But even her magic couldn’t last forever without new scales. Jezzibella didn’t want to consider that.

“Libby, get your arthritic ass in here right now!”

Kiera, Hudson Proctor, and three goons stepped into the bedroom, passing straight through the door without opening it as if the clanwood panels were nothing more than coloured air. All five of them were cradling static bullet machine guns.

“Showing our age, are we?” Kiera asked silkily.

Jezzibella clamped down on her shock and budding fear. Kiera would be able to see that, and she wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Her mind slipped directly into the cool empress persona without any help from her crashed neural nanonics. “Here for some beauty tips, Kiera?”

“This body doesn’t need any. It’s a natural. Unlike yours.”

“Pity you don’t know how to use it properly. With breasts like those I could have ruled the galaxy. All you have is twenty male morons whose hard-ons have drained the blood from their brains. You can’t inspire them, you’re just their whore. What a force not to be reckoned with that makes.”

Kiera took a step froward, her serenity cooling rapidly. “That mouth of yours has always been a problem for me.”

“Wrong again, it’s the smarter brain behind it which beats you every time.”

“Kill the slut,” Hudson Proctor barked. “We don’t have the time for this. We’ve got to find him.”

Kiera lifted her machine gun up and touched the tip of the barrel lightly against the base of Jezzibella’s neck. Watching closely for a reaction, she slid the barrel down, teasing open the thick white robe. “Oh no,” she murmured. “If we kill her, she’ll just come back as our equal. Won’t you?”

“I’d have to lower myself a long way before I reached that point.”

Kiera had to put an arm out to restrain Hudson Proctor. “Now look what you’ve done,” she chided Jezzibella. “These are my friends you’re upsetting.”

Jezzibella’s expression was of complete amusement. She didn’t even have to speak.

Kiera nodded a reluctant submission to the private sparring. She gently shifted the towelling robe back to its original state. “Where is he?”

“Oh, please. At least threaten me.”

“Very well. I will not allow you to die. And I do have that power. How’s that?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hudson Proctor said. “Give her to me. I’ll find out where he’s gone.”

Kiera gave him a pitying glance. “Really? Will you gang bang her into capitulation, or simply keep on hitting her until she tells you?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“Tell him,” Kiera said.

“If I thought you could win, I would have joined you at the start,” Jezzibella said simply. “You can’t, so I didn’t.”

“The game has changed,” Kiera said. “The Confederation Navy has destroyed our ships at Arnstat. They’re coming here. New California has to leave, with us on it. And the only thing stopping that is Capone.”

“Life’s a bitch, death’s a tragedy, then you meet me.”

“One of your better lyrics. Too bad you won’t be remembered for it.”

The processor block Jezzibella had left on the dressing table began to shrill an alarm.

“Right on time,” Kiera said. “That’ll be my team dealing with Capone’s refinery. I’m covering my back in case he subverts any of my hellhawks. Not that I actually have to blast him back into the beyond in person. One of my sympathisers has already been given that job. But I was so looking forward to being there. So once again, you’ve spoilt my fun.” She held a finger up. A long yellow flame flared from the tip, dancing in front of Jezzibella’s stoic face. “Let’s see if I was wrong about being unable to force you, shall we? After all this effort I think I deserve some kind of payoff.” The flame turned blue, shrinking until it was a small fiercely hot jet.

Life in Emmet Mordden’s office had suddenly become very hectic. One set of screens was covering the explosion in the nutrient fluid refinery, providing images from surviving cameras and sensors along with a general schematic of the section. Whoever placed the bomb knew what they were doing. It had taken out a huge segment of the outer wall, crumpling the internal machinery and cutting power and data cables. Depressurisation had damaged the refinery still further, rupturing pipes and synthesiser modules. At least there were no fires, the vacuum made sure of that.

Emmet was busy coordinating with the project manager, trying to ensure that everyone who’d withstood the blast was safe behind pressure doors or in emergency igloos, as well as doing a body count. Medical teams were on their way.

The SD sensor grid was splashed across the largest screen, with a full tactical overlay. It showed the long range sensor focus sweeping the high-orbit vectors which the hellhawks were supposed to be patrolling. Six were missing. The scans had also revealed two voidhawks swallowing in to take advantage of the gaps.

His analysis of the virus in Bernhard’s block was still running, filling one holographic screen with cubist alphanumerics. He didn’t even have time to suspend that.

Several questors from his desktop block were running through the asteroid’s memory cores, hunting down references on Tyrathca military history and the Orion Nebula. Al had wanted to read up on them. So far they’d produced very few files. All of them on the soldier caste. None of which he’d accessed.

Kiera’s face was smiling complacently out of another, her refined voice booming round the room, telling the fleet that they should turn their backs on Capone and emigrate down to the planet with her. The screen next to her was flipping through the asteroid’s communication circuits, running a program to track down which antenna she was using and where her input entered the network.

The SD sensor network flashed up a priority-one alert. The Swabia had disengaged from its docking bay cradle and initiated a jump immediately. The assholes hadn’t even cleared the rim!

His desktop block bleeped urgently. “What?” Emmet yelled.

“Emmet, this is Silvano. I’ve got a message from the boss.”

“I’m a little busy right now.” He squinted at the display of the communication circuits. Sections were dropping out. Viral warnings started to appear.

“Get in to the control centre and make sure the fleet stays on duty. Anyone starts heading for the surface, nuke the fuckers with the SD weapons. Got that?”

“But . . .”

“Now, you pissant little mother.” The block went dead. Emmet snarled at it, the closest he’d ever come to showing disrespect to Al’s chilling enforcer. He took the time to load a couple of orders in the desktop to run a virus scan through the office hardware, and went out at a run.

The thick door to the control centre slid open. Jagged lines of white fire ripped through the air centimetres in front of Emmet. Alarms were screaming as red strobes burned down his optic nerves. Layers of smoke lashed out down the corridor. He squealed in panic and dived behind one of the consoles as he hardened a bubble of air around himself. Two fireballs burst open against its boundary. Instinctively he sent white fire of his own back along the direction they’d come from. It sizzled sharply in the torrent of purple retardant foam spraying out of the ceiling nozzles.