For over half an hour the Alexis Denken teleported flecks of ice from directly underneath the bottom of the base. One sliver at a time was taken, to rematerialize in crevices and fissures across the surrounding surface, adding to the coat of slush-gravel that covered the small moon. Eventually, Paula had excavated a cavern slightly larger than the Alexis Denken. The starship teleported itself inside.

The next phase was even more delicate. Paula suited up and went outside, carrying several cases of equipment. She slowly cleared the remaining shell of ice from the bottom of the base, exposing the metal skin. Once that was clean, she applied a segment of molecular nanofilaments which began to worm their way up through the molecular bonds of the metal. The first tips which penetrated scanned round, showing her where to apply the next batch. It took five attempts in total before a set of filaments melded into one of the base's data cables, and gave the ship's smartcore unrestricted access into the network.

Paula's u-shadow assumed direct control over the basement above her, disabling the alarms and subverting the sensors. After the whole Sholapur incident she wasn't taking any chances with her personal safety. She teleported eight combatbots into the room, then materialized at the centre of them.

The chamber she emerged into was empty, and looked like it had never been used. A blank metal room with structural ribbing reinforcing the base's external skin, its floor a simple grid suspended above the curving metal. Thick conduit tubes threaded across it. The only door was a malmetal circle in the ceiling. Paula told her u-shadow to open it. Her armour suit's ingrav units lifted her through after the combatbots. The corridor she came out on to was illuminated by thin green lighting strips on their lowest setting. It ran for almost two hundred metres in both directions before ending in pressure bulkheads. Gravity at this level was a standard one gee field.

She called up schematics which the Alexis Denken's smartcore had extracted from the network. The base's staff quarters and ship facilities were clustered round the centre of the cross, with the lower levels providing utility and engineering support to the big chambers on the upper levels of all four wings. Strangely, the base's network didn't extend into those large chambers, which were linked with an independent web. There was no way of knowing what was going on inside. However, there was one compartment which the network did cover. Twelve suspension cases were inside. Three of the rooms adjoining it were given over to extensive biomedical facilities. Ten of the cases were currently occupied. The network didn't list any personal details, but her instinct gave her a really bad feeling about who they contained.

Her u-shadow swept through the network nodes in the suspension case compartment, creating neutral ghost readings in the sensor systems so she could walk about without triggering any alerts. According to the network, there were five staff at the base, none of them near the compartment. Paula and her escort teleported in.

It was dark in the suspension case compartment. A small polyphoto ball in each corner glowed an unobtrusive lime green, giving the big sarcophagi a sombre shading. The compartment was like some bizarre miniature homage to the Serious Crimes Directorate secure vault. She walked over to the first sarcophagi, and ordered her u-shadow to opaque the lid.

The Cat lay inside, her trim body contained within a silver gossamer web.

Paula stared at her hibernating adversary for a long while. 'Ho Jesus, she muttered and walked over to the next sarcophagi. Her u-shadow opaqued the lid. Another Cat lay inside. She moved on to the third.

Just as Paula looked down to confirm the seventh version of the Cat, her biononic field scan function detected a change in energy patterns at the first sarcophagi. She spun round to face it. Three combatbots deployed their proton lasers to cover the big case.

The Cat sat up on her elbows. An integral force field came on, cloaking her in a ghostly violet scintillation. A field scan swept out from her biononics, attempting to probe Paula's armour suit. 'Who are you?

'Paula Myo. Paula's u-shadow was running a review of the sarcophagi's management routines, trying to determine what had switched off the suspension.

'Ah, the Cat said, and grinned hungrily. C'est la vie.

Paula's u-shadow reported a small non-register sub-program that had been grafted on to the case's opacity routine which would terminate the whole suspension as soon as anyone looked in on the occupant. / should have guessed there'd be a trip. Typical Cat, paranoid clever. 'I'm afraid you're not negotiating from a strong position.

The second Cat sat up. 'Aren't we?

'No.

'Paula Myo herself, said the third Cat. 'We must have been doing something bad to warrant your personal attention.

'Of course we have, said the fourth.

'It is what you do, Paula admitted to them. 'But now you have to go back into suspension so the court can ascertain what to do with you.

'Been there, said the sixth.

'Done that, said the second as she slipped nimbly over the rim of the case.

'Bored with it, the fifth emphasized.

'You're interfering with my investigation, Paula warned them. Two combatbots glided into place on either side of her.

The first Cat to waken grinned her effusive grin. 'Is this supposed to be a covert mission, Paula? Are you creeping round here to try and see what's going on?

'My dears, I do believe she is, said the third.

'Shit, Paula grunted, and rolled her eyes inside her armour helmet. This was the Cat after all. All that time and effort sneaking in here...

As if they'd read her mind, all seven Cats configured their biononic energy currents to full weapons function. The combatbots opened fire. Paula teleported out. The Alexis Denken's smartcore activated its weapons systems, and hardened the fuselage force fields. Paula sat down fast in the couch. Active sensors swept out.

The fight in the suspension compartment was almost over. The Cats had lost, against the level of firepower carried by the combatbots the outcome was inevitable. But that wasn't the point, as they'd well known. The damage to the compartment and the base's surrounding structure was substantial. Emergency systems were just starting to deploy. The staff and the orbiting sentry vehicles knew their security had been breached. Paula had a good idea what they would do next. Ilanthe was just as ruthless as the Cat, and she knew the Accelerators couldn't afford to leave any evidence behind.

Sure enough, barely five seconds after the fight between the Cats and the combatbots four of the sentry vehicles were swooping down towards the ice moon at high acceleration. Their multiple sensors probed the base on high intensity, exposing the combatbots. Paula's u-shadow tried to crash the base network, but two of the staff established personal secure links to the" incoming sentries.

All of the base's protective force fields switched off. The Alexis Denken teleported above the cross of cool metal, assuming a defensive posture. Gamma lasers and disruptor pulses hammered down from the approaching sentries. Explosions ripped through the base's skin, sending huge plumes of superheated gas jetting out into space. Paula winced at the damage they'd caused, and fired three m-sinks up at the sentries. They began evasive manoeuvres, twisting and varying acceleration with an elegance she'd never witnessed before, the way they slipped fluidly through space was almost organic. Their fuselage seemed to adapt with them, distorting to absorb the constantly shifting acceleration vectors. One actually managed to elude an m-sink, driving down at forty gees. Kamikaze impact, Paula realized. The Alexis Denken rose to intercept it, firing another two m-sinks.