‘He’s not from around here,’ one of the younger men informed the old man, before turning to Saul. ‘Amid doesn’t like technology, but you can speak to me. You’re from Earth, right?’

Saul nodded, glad that at least one of them had active translation enabled in his contacts. ‘I was at the other end of town, doing some business, and now I’m just trying to find my way to the Array, so I can get back home.’

Amid’s younger companion nodded thoughtfully. ‘Must have been quite some business to get yourself knocked about like that.’ He gestured towards Saul’s bruised face. ‘You’ll have a hard time getting anywhere near the Array, I can tell you. Haven’t you heard? We’re being invaded.’

‘By the Coalition?’

Amid started at mention of the word, then spat out a string of invectives that Saul’s contacts struggled to comprehend.

‘Their tanks came through just over a day ago,’ said one of them. ‘Soldiers, too, appearing like ants out of an anthill. They took over the Legislature, and now there’s fighting on the streets all around the colonial government building, with Al Hurr taking on Black Dogs and drones.’ Maz shook his head. ‘A lot of dead people already.’

Sudden shouting from nearby was followed by gunshots, and then an explosion that shook the ground beneath their feet. Several men with scarves or T-shirts covering their faces came running along the street. One of them carried an assault rifle, while another brandished a rusty-looking axe. They soon disappeared around a corner, followed a minute later by a heavily armed drone.

‘I’m not hanging around out here any longer,’ said one of the men, disappearing back inside the shuttered premises, as smoke started drifting above the rooftops of a neighbouring street. ‘You’ll all get your heads blown off if you stay out here.’

His companions followed him inside, the old man giving Saul an angry glance, as if he were somehow responsible.

Saul continued in the direction the fighters had emerged from, abandoning the trike now it seemed likely to draw too much attention. He soon came to an intersection, where a truck lay on its side, with broken bodies scattered all around. The rear of the vehicle still smouldered, while every window in the surrounding buildings appeared to have been shattered.

A targeted hit, Saul guessed, almost certainly from the drone that had passed by just a few minutes before. He started moving again, then froze when he heard that familiar buzz-saw rattle from behind. He turned to hear a mechanized voice shouting at him in Arabic.

A drone hovered just a few metres away, its central rotor scattering a blizzard of dust and debris outwards from beneath it. Twin gun turrets were mounted on either side of its primary sensors.