‘Careful,’ I say, pulling him out of sight around the corner. ‘Folk are meant to think I have the rot.’

* * *

Falco and Peg soon appear, holding an open tin of peaches and a bottle of benzene. With them are two other G’hals, both weary and travel-stained.

‘Gotta hand it to you, Doc.’ Falco smirks. ‘That’s some disguise.’ She motions the G’hals forwards. ‘Rat you know, and this is Bui. They’ve been running a protection racket at Las Cruces. We managed to get them on the tangle.’

They nod at me. I remember Rat from Falco’s bar; she’s hard to miss, a muscular woman with bright red hair and sun-pinked face tattooed with stars and swirls, covering up the three dots, one at her temple. Bui by contrast is small and slight. She eyes me suspiciously, wiping at her cheeks with the end of the dyed scarf she wears over her hair.

‘The General?’ I ask.

Silas sighs. ‘That thing was already on the tracks when we arrived. We’ve been watching, but if Gabi is here, she must already be on board.’

‘She has to be,’ Peg says. ‘Soldiers out there are Air Fleet. Never seen them out here, before. Someone high up is behind this.’

It comes back to me; Commander Aline’s face on the screen as she coolly ordered the General’s termination, the General’s expression as she looked her superior officer in the eye and blew out the camera, as if it were her brains. The back of my neck prickles.

Bui frowns. ‘If those soldiers are so flash, why isn’t the kid already dead?’

‘She is a General,’ I point out. ‘Maybe they don’t have the clearance level to do it. Either way, we need to get her off that thing.’

Falco says nothing. Thoughtfully, she fishes a slice of peach from the tin and eats it. ‘What’s in it for us?’

‘How about the fact rescuing the child is the right thing to do?’ Silas demands.

‘You haven’t been on Factus long enough, flyboy. If you had, you’d realise that everything has a price.’

I sigh, bone-weary. ‘I have nothing to pay you with, Mala.’

But Falco smiles slyly, her eye narrowed at the rail tracks, where the Iron Slug waits.

‘How many Air Line shipments would you say we’ve waylaid over the years, Peg?’ she asks.

The G’hal shrugs. ‘Fair few.’

‘And how much is top-class Accord tech going for on the market these days?’

Rat grins, showing bright blue fibreglass teeth. ‘Heard on the tangle that businesses on Delos are desperate for components.’

‘Bet that Slug has all the latest modules and boards. If it were to somehow become decoupled…’

‘What about the security?’ Silas asks, serious. ‘Those Air Fleet grunts are no joke.’

‘Only as good as their fancy peashooters,’ Bui says, flicking some dirt from her rifle.