‘Hit it! Hit it!’ Cormac heard the sergeant yell. Then Aiden came flashing in from the side and hit Crane with the force of an out-of-control AGC. Both of them hit the ground and slid about three metres. But even as they slid, they exchanged blows with frenetic speed. The sound of combat was like that of a log-chipping machine. Suddenly they were on their feet, apart, then slammed together again. Shreds of clothing and syntheflesh fell as they hit at each other. Cormac turned to movement at his left. Cento came from the trees at an erratic run. The syntheflesh was burnt from the upper half of his body to expose blackened metal. One of his arms was missing. He seemed to be blind and navigating on hearing alone. In a moment he leapt into the fight. Cormac saw him wrap his legs around the android and his remaining arm around its neck. Aiden proceeded to take it apart.

‘As far as you go, Agent!’

Cormac turned. Pelter stepped out from behind a tree, and raised a Devcon assault rifle. Cormac reached for his thin-gun as the rifle fired. A whirring, as a steel hornet shot towards him. Slower than a normal bullet, but fast enough for Cormac to know he was dead. But in that moment, that fraction of fatal seconds, there came another whirring. An explosion rattled fragments of metal against Cormac’s helmet. The seeker bullet was gone.

Shuriken hung in the air before him, flexing its chainglass blades.

‘Fuck you, Cormac!’

Pelter fired the remainder of the clip from the Devcon. Shuriken blurred through the air and took out those five seeker bullets in a chain of explosions. Pulse-fire hit the trees, but Pelter was gone, the Devcon abandoned on the smoking ground. Cormac stood where he was for a moment, too stunned yet to take in what had happened. He stared at the ground and wondered how the hell a small rubber dog came to be lying there. Then he shook himself and looked round. Cento and Aiden stood over the dismembered android. Cormac turned back to shuriken and hit the recall on its holster. Shuriken continued to bristle its chipped blades in the air for a moment, before returning to its home with a fractured hum.

‘Thank you, Tenkian,’ Cormac said, and headed for the trees.

* * *

Ultraviolet. A huge burst of ultraviolet. There was only one sort of weapon that kicked out that much, and Jarvellis had last seen one in the hold of the Lyric. If John was still alive, he would be there. If John was dead, then Pelter would be there. She tilted the ion engines of the shuttle and put her foot down. It leapt from its recent approach vector and arced towards the distant lights.

‘Lunatic shuttle pilot. I suppose I would be wasting my breath in telling you that you’re heading for an area that has recently become restricted to all air traffic.’