The wagon rocked, ploughing on. An alarm went off, an axle screamed, and they charged down the winding alley, sparks flying along both edges, before crashing out into the narrow courtyard he’d spied from distance. Another barrier, this time made of reinforced steel bars, was ripped apart by the Bulwark’s heavy nose, before the whole vehicle slewed round, skidding across asphalt, juddering to a stop.

The doors slammed open, and the sanctioners burst out. Draj killed the engines and leapt from the cab, his maul crackling to life and throwing a blue-white glare across the darkness. Zidarov followed more clumsily, almost missing the last rung of the ladder and hitting the ground awkwardly.

Two sanctioners ran up to the shuttered entrance and clamped metal-breakers on either side, while the rest crouched in cover aiming their las-sights at it.

‘Clear!’ Draj roared, and Zidarov ducked down behind the Bulwark’s huge wheel.

The breakers went off with a sharp crack – one, two – and the doors were blown inwards off their hinges. Even before the plates had landed the sanctioners were moving – two blind grenades sailed into the gap and went off with snaps, followed by sanctioners edging up in half-crouches, autoguns swivelling, las-sights probing.

Zidarov pulled his Tzarina free and followed them, jumping over the ruins of the entrance, blinking hard to get his eye in. His heart was thudding, his body flooded with adrenaline, and he tensed to get a shot away. The sanctioners hadn’t opened fire yet, which alarmed him – the whole place should have been ablaze with hard-round impacts by now.

It was only when he ran into the chamber itself, coming up short, staring around him, that he saw why. They were standing around him, nonplussed. There were no targets. There were no people. There was nothing to hit.

He heard himself breathing hard, and worked to stop it. He saw Draj stomping around, exuding frustrated fury. He’d waved three of the sanctioners further down the long storage chamber, just in case, but they could all see almost to the far end, and there was nothing there. Another of the sanctioners went over to the lumen controls and pushed the plunger down. Cheap strip-lights flickered on, exposing a dirty, bare floor. The ventilation units kicked in – probably on the same circuit – stirring up dust.

‘Fuck,’ spat Draj, turning from one side to the other, his instincts still looking for something to hurt.

For a moment, Zidarov thought he might have made a mistake with the loc-ref. He went over to the wall, the one with the shelf where the vials and the tubes had been stored. The shelf was there, empty now. He knelt down. The floor was marked with long trails, where wheeled units had been hurriedly pulled out. He could still smell the meds – the vaguely sick-like sedatives and antisep compounds, hanging in the air like the aftermath of a bad party.