‘And Major Ellis let you go?’ enquired Commander Hay. ‘Alone?’

‘Er . . . yes.’ She could feel the blush starting.

‘Why?’

‘Er . . . toilet, ma’am.’

‘You can’t tell me an experienced officer let a suspect go off alone?’

‘I don’t think he regarded us as suspects, ma’am.’

Even Major Callen looked surprised. ‘He was in it with you?’

Commander Hay intervened. ‘Shall we let Lockland continue? Go on, Lockland.’

‘I . . . um . . . emerged from the bushes and heard a shot. Quite close to me. Very close, actually. I looked and Grint . . .’

‘That’s Lt Grint,’ said Grint, wearily.

Max grinned at him. ‘You do know they can’t hear you out there, don’t you?’

‘. . . and Anders were rolling around on the ground.’

‘She’s lying,’ shouted Anders. ‘She shot Ellis and then attacked Grint when he tried to stop her.’

Commander Hay rounded on him. ‘One more word, Anders, and I’ll have you removed.’

He was beside himself with rage. And fear, thought Jane.

‘You’ll have me removed? She’s the criminal. Remove her.’

Heads were nodding, Jane noticed, but perhaps not as many as before.

‘Go on, Lockland.’

‘I . . . um . . . I picked up a piece of wood and started to hit them.’

‘Which one?’

‘Both of them.’

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t know which one had fired the shot. It seemed the safest thing to do.’

‘And?’

‘They rolled into me and knocked me down.’

‘Which of them had the gun?’

‘Well, at that point, me.’

‘How?’

‘It fell on my head.’

‘Which of them relinquished it?’

‘I didn’t see. It was dark.’

‘And then?’

‘Anders pulled himself free, and ran away.’

This was too much for Anders, who snatched a gun from an inattentive officer and raised it in Jane’s direction. ‘I did not run away.’

‘Shit,’ said Luke, heading for the door, but someone else had the situation well in hand.

36

36

Pods are complex machines, made up of many parts. Some of them quite small. These, in turn, as any mech will explain, often at tedious length, are held in place by even smaller parts, many of which, during maintenance sessions, will frequently roll across the floor into some alternate dimension, never to be seen again.

At some point, a more than normally frustrated mechanic had hit upon the brilliant idea of magnetising metal trays. Of varying sizes and shapes, these could be utilised in any area, and used to keep tiny screws and seemingly irrelevant pieces of metal from being lost or falling into the machinery where they could do disproportionate amounts of damage. There were any number of these trays stacked around the Pod Bay, some holding various bits and pieces for future use, but most empty. Useful pieces of kit, as anyone would testify. Multi-purpose, even.