“We shall see.” Mulch grinned like a man holding five aces. He waggled his gun at me. “I have you. As soon as my colleagues get access to the ship, we’ll be leaving.”

My hand still hovered a few centimetres from the butt of my pistol. I could almost touch it with my index finger.

I heard a loud snap from the street outside. Somebody had fired a pistol in front of the saloon. Two further shots followed, and were answered by a fusillade of small arms fire from the far end of the street.

Frowning, Mulch stepped over to the window, putting himself directly between the barman and me. Taking the opportunity to act unobserved, I quickly dropped my hand to my jacket pocket and wrapped my fingers around the handle of my gun. I didn’t bother drawing it, just squeezed the trigger, firing through the material. I put two bullets into Mulch. His knees wobbled out from under him and he fell. As he went down, I fired again and again, punching a line of holes through the wooden bar. Splinters flew. I caught the barman before he quite knew what was happening. The slugs hit him in the lower body—in the stomach or abdomen, I couldn’t see exactly which—and he staggered back. As he fell against the wall, his hands jerked and the shotgun fired.

The noise was deafening.

The pain was worse.

Something punched me just below the ribs and I bent forward, clutching my left side. Even with the numbing effect of the combat conditioning, it felt as if a burning spear had skewered me. Beside me, Laura let out a yelp. She put her hands to her leg.

In slow motion, I heard the barman work another round into the chamber.

Cha-chunk.

I wanted to shoot him, but I was lying on the arm holding my gun, and the gun itself was still trapped in the pocket of my jacket.

The shotgun barrel turned towards me and, for a terrified instant, I looked Death squarely in the eye.

Then a tall, dreadlocked woman crashed through the bar’s front door. Bullets blew splinters from the doorframe behind her. The windows shattered. Startled, the barman tried to swing his shotgun towards her, but she was faster, and already held an Archipelago pistol in her outstretched hand. As he wheeled on her, she fired. There was a muffled thud and his head blew apart in a vibrant splatter of blood, brains and bone. Loosed from his fingers, the shotgun rattled across the counter and crashed to the floor.