A thunderous roar swamped the control centre. A possessed body ignited, forcing Emmet to clamp his hand over his eyes. The mental and vocal shriek of the vanquished soul grated down his skin like needles of ice. A second body erupted, then another. The air was clogged with stifling heat and a vomitous stench of incinerated meat as they belched out thick fumes.

After a long time the bodies burnt out, returning the light level to normal. The awful fetor remained. The roaring had stopped.

A loud metallic snik sounded across the chamber. To Emmet’s ears it sounded mechanical, and very weapons orientated. Footsteps squelched through the foam.

“You’ve pissed yourself,” a voice told him.

Emmet twisted his head out of the foetal position. A gaunt man in a grubby one-piece suit was looking down at him, holding a peculiar machine gun, its warm barrel pointing directly at Emmet’s forehead. A canvas satchel was slung over his shoulder, packed full of magazines.

“I was scared,” Emmet said. “I’m not part of the Organization’s muscle.”

The man’s features vanished for a second, replaced by a woman’s. If anything, her expression was even more forbidding. Emmet could sense the energistic power circulating through the body. It rivalled Al’s strength.

Survivors from the Organization faction were peering nervously over the top of their trashed consoles.

“Who are you?” Emmet stammered.

“We are the Skibbows.”

“Uh, right. Are you on Kiera’s side?”

“No. But we’d really like to know where she is.” The machine gun’s safety catch was released. “Now, please.”

Mickey Pileggi had learned the hard way not to try and storm Kiera and her goons. Three of his soldiers had wound up burning like miniature suns when they all charged into the Nixon suite. Mickey had entertained visions of lavish praise and unlimited privileges heaped upon him by Al for rescuing Jezzibella from Kiera’s hands. That dream had quickly turned into a crock of shit. The guns she was armed with had caused havoc amongst the gangsters. Those screams would echo through the air around Mickey for eternity.

He’d ordered them to fall back to the hallway outside, taking up shielded positions in the twin stairwells and disabling the elevators with strategic blasts of white fire. They were at the bottom of the tower. She wasn’t going anywhere. Now he just had to explain to Al how he’d fouled up.

Another spray of static bullets hammered out from the splintered doors of the Nixon suite. All the gangsters ducked, thickening the local air.

“We should seal this floor off,” one of them said. “Blow the windows out and see how she likes eating vacuum.”

“Great idea,” Mickey grumbled. “Are you gonna tell Al we did to Jezzibella what they did to Brown-nose Bernhard?”

“Guess not.”

“Okay. Now come on, guys. Let’s concentrate on making those doors evaporate. Keep them occupied defending themselves while our reinforcements arrive.”

“If any do.”

Mickey shot the man a furious glare. “Nobody’s deserting Al, not after what he’s done for us.”

“For you.”

Mickey didn’t see who said that, but let the sharp anger show amid his thoughts as a warning. He focused on the door, and punched it with the force of his mind. Bullets pulverised a line in the marble wall above his head. Tiny tendrils of electricity scrabbled across the surface. Everyone flinched down fast.

His processor block bleeped. He dusted hot marble chips from his hair and pulled it out of his pocket, amazed the thing was working with so much machismo energistic power buzzing about.

“Mickey?” Emmet implored. “Mickey, you got any idea where Kiera is?”

“Pretty sure, yeah. She’s like ten yards away from me.” Mickey gave the block an infuriated look as Emmet abruptly cut the call. “Okay guys, let’s hit the doors together this time. On three. One. Two—”

The office door shut behind Skibbow, and Emmet let out a huge gasp of relief. There was a real monster of a problem torturing that wacko possessed, and Emmet was enormously glad he didn’t share any part of it. He let his body calm for a few precious moments more, then called Al.

“Whatcha got for me, Emmet?”

“We had a problem in the SD control centre, Al. Kiera’s people tried to knock out the orbital platforms.”

“And?”

“They’re sleeping with the fish.” He held his breath, worried Al could sense half-truths along the communication circuit.

“I owe you one, Emmet. I won’t forget what you did.”

Emmet’s fingers were skidding fast over his desktop keyboard, re-routing the SD network’s main command channels. Symbols blinked up on the tactical display, showing him what he was in charge of. He smiled uneasily at the power he’d assumed. Lord of the sky, admiral of the fleet, enforcer of order across a whole planet. “The place is pretty much a bombsite, Al, but I’ve still got control of the major hardware.”

“What’s the fleet doing, Emmet? Are the guys staying put?”

“Pretty much. Eight frigates are heading down to low orbit, I guess the rest are waiting to hear what you’ve got to say. But Al, I count seventeen hellhawks missing.”

“Je-zus, Emmet, first chunk of good news I’ve had today. You keep watching everybody, make sure they don’t move. I got some business to clear up, then I’ll be right back with you.”

“Sure thing, Al.” He blinked, and squinted at the tactical display. It wasn’t supposed to be shown on such a small scale; this was a format designed to showcase across a hundred metre screen in front of admirals and defence chiefs. From what he could make out, two miniaturised symbols were moving very close to Monterey itself.

The Varrad skimmed above the wrinkled rock, keeping a constant fifty-metre separation from the pumice-like terrain, lifting and sinking in perfect curving parallels with the craters and ridges beneath its metallic lower hull. Pran Soo was pursuing the Hilton tower as it slid across the stars, closing on it like an atmospheric fighter on a low-visibility strike run. Along with all the other hellhawks, she’d been monitoring what communications she could access since Kiera’s revolt had started. And Mickey Pileggi had spent fifteen minutes yelling across the net at his fellow Organization lieutenants for help to deal with Kiera and her dangerous weapons.

Are you sure about this?rocio asked.

Absolutely. We know a possessed body is incapable of defending itself against a starship weapon. The power level is simply too great, even if they know they’re being targeted. I can eliminate Kiera with one shot, and this time there will be no comeback from the Organization. We will truly be free.

Capone’s girlfriend is in that hotel suite.

He will find another. We will never have an opportunity like this again.

Very well, but try to keep the destruction to a minimum. We may yet have to cut a deal with the Organization.

Not if the Confederation Navy gets here first.

Let me see what’s happening. The rock is blocking my distortion field.

Pran Soo opened her affinity, allowing him to borrow the sights revealed to her bitek sensor blisters, showing him the rock rushing past her hull. Her other principal sense, the Varrad ’s distortion field, was reduced to a hemispherical shape, its usual bloated coverage curtailed by the giant asteroid.

The Monterey Hilton swung towards her, sticking out proud from the rock. Visually, a pillar of tough carbon-reinforced titanium riddled with thick, multi-layered windows. Inside the distortion field it emerged as a coagulation of thin sheets of matter, threaded with a filigree of minute power cables whose electrons were imbued with a delicate spectral sheen.

She matched her vector with the asteroid’s rotation. Electronic pods on her hull flowered, thrusting out sensors. They swept across the lower floors of the tower.