The next rank of droids advanced. Fi was firing in short bursts; Niner picked off whatever was still standing. Hot metal shrapnel continued to rain down on them. At the E-Web’s rate of fire he was going to run out if he simply hosed them, and they were only minutes into the engagement. They’d dropped around twenty droids. That meant twenty more inside the fa­cility, at least. Then the tinnies stopped coming.

The field fell silent, and it rang in Niner’s ears as loudly as the cacophony of battle.

“I hate it when they work out what’s happening,” Fi said. He was panting from the effort.

“They’ll sit tight.”

“If it’s just twenty or so in there, I say we go in now.”

“Let’s make sure we haven’t got guests arriving.” Niner opened the long-range comlink. “Majestic, Omega here, over. Majestic–”

“Receiving you, Omega. That was some fireworks display. Got trade for us?”

“’Majestic, extra target for you. Have you got a visual be­tween targets Greenwood and Boffin?”

“If you’ve got a remote you can patch us into.”

Niner slipped off his pack and took out a remote, releasing it into the air. “Droids, estimated strength no more than fifty. If they’re heading toward us, do me a favor and spoil their day, will you?”

“Copy that, Omega. Sitrep?”

“We’ve breached the facility and we’ve got twenty or thirty droids and an unknown number of wets holed up in there.”

“Say again?”

“Two of our squad are inside. Ingress via the drainage sys­tem.”

“You guys are off your repulsors.”

“The thought did cross our minds.”

“Okay, some fireworks coming your way, Omega. Be ad­vised we still have a Techno Union vessel standing off, and we’re expecting a response when we train the lasers.”

“Watch how you go,” Niner said. “Omega out.”

Apart from the ticking of cooling metal, it was silent. Even the chatter and whistling of Qiilura’s nocturnal species had stopped. Smoke was billowing across the field from the wrecked barn.

“You okay, ma’am?” Fi said.

Niner glanced around and expected to see Etain in some state of distress, but she wasn’t. She was kneeling in the grass, alert, as if listening to something. Then another huge explosion shook the ground to their north.

She closed her eyes.

“Ma’am?”

She gave a little shake of her head as if loosening stiff neck muscles.

“It’s fine,” she said. “It just took more out of me than I imagined.”

“What did?”

“Diverting all this debris. Droids make a terrible mess when they explode.”

Niner hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. It was only when he turned around that he saw the meter-long jagged sheet of metal right behind him. It had almost given him an unwanted haircut. Etain managed a grin.

“Can you open doors as well, ma’am?” Niner asked.

Darman and Atin looked around the plastoid-lined cham­ber and decided not to remove their helmets.

“This is one way to find out if a nanovirus can breach our filtration masks,” Atin said.

Darman checked the cupboards, looking for booby traps and other surprises. “I don’t feel dead yet. Anyway, they don’t leave this stuff lying around. It’ll probably be sealed in something.”

He checked the room. It was exactly like a medic’s station on Kamino, except it was completely constructed from plastoid ceramic. Some of the cupboards had transparent fronts; he could see racks of vials in them. In the middle of the room there was a separate sealed booth, running floor-to-ceiling, with a glove box in it. It was empty. There was also a refrig­erated cabinet full of flasks and small boxes. He had no idea what might be live virus and what might be the lab techni­cian’s lunch, and he wasn’t going to open everything to find out. This was another case of using P for plenty.

“Seeing as they’re not helpful enough to label this stuff with a skull and crossbones, I’m going to set an implosion device in every room, to be on the safe side.” He ran his hands over the walls, testing for signs of metal substructures that might block his signal. The HUD showed zero from his glove sensors. He checked his comlink to be sure that he could get a signal outside. “Darman here. Anyone receiving, over?”

“Fi here.”

“The inner chamber’s clear. I’m setting charges and then we’re going to move out into the rest of the building.”

“We’re approaching the front. It’s gone quiet out here and we think you’ve still got up to thirty tinnies for company.”

“Is that you shaking the ground?”

“Majestic.”

“Good to know the navy’s here.”

“Leaving the helmet comlink channel, by the way. Make sure you leave us your visual feed.”

“We’ll let you know if it spoils our concentration. Darman out.”

He gave Atin a dubious thumbs-up and took the implosion charges out of his pack. He could improvise most devices, but these were special, guaranteed to create such a high-temperature fireball and shock wave that they would destroy not only everything standing in a half-klick radius, but also every microorganism and virus as well. They were disap­pointingly small for such massively destructive power, a lit­tle smaller than the average remote.

Darman still had two. It was overkill, and overkill made him feel safer. He picked up the lidded boxes in the refrigeration unit and tested each for weight—very carefully—before finding a lighter one that suggested it was half empty. He set it on the table, held his breath, and eased the lid off.

It held a few metal tubes with sealed caps, and enough space for one of the devices. He placed the thermal carefully inside and replaced the container.

“Go careful,” Atin said, indicating the boxes.

“I will.” He found another lightweight box and peered in­side. “There. And if they get to searching, they might even stop after they find one device.” He closed the refrigerator door.

“That won’t reduce the blast any, will it?” Atin asked.

“Not so you’d notice, believe me.”

“Time for the tour of the building, then.”

There were status panels to the right of the door, set to warn some monitoring system if the chamber was opened, and a hand-sized button marked emergency close, a smart precaution if you were handling deadly viruses. Opening the door would advertise the fact that they had gained entry to the building. Atin moved in and carefully unclipped the con­trol plate. He took out a disruptive device about the size of a stylus and held it just clear of the exposed circuits. It was much the same technology as a mini EMP, only with a less powerful electromagnetic pulse. Nobody wanted a full-strength EMP going off a few centimeters from their HUD, hardened or not.

“Next big bang,” Atin said. “Then they might think they’ve just taken a hit.”

The ground shook again, and Atin touched the mini EMP against the control panel. Status lights winked out; the door gave a sigh as it lost its safety vacuum seal. A thin vertical gap opened in the smooth ceramic. Sound now filtered in from outside: explosions, shouts from officers, the occa­sional monotone responses of tinnies. He stood back and gestured to Darman.

The gap was big enough to admit a flat endoscope, as well as the claws of the ram. He slid the probe cautiously through and checked the image it was receiving. The corridor lights were flickering. There was no movement.

“I’ll force the doors and you stand by. I’ll be ready to lob in an EMP grenade and a flash-bang.”

“Both?” Atin said.

“Yeah, I don’t want to waste any, either, but we’ve got wets and tinnies out there somewhere.”

Darman wedged the ram’s claws into the gap and locked the bars in place. It was more awkward to configure it as a spreader than as a simple ram, but he didn’t want to blow it open. He pumped the ratchet handle furiously. An eight-metric-ton force slowly pushed the doors apart.