Their lasguns were stacked by the doorway. Lieutenant Petr kicked the pile over as he stormed inside. There was a furious stand-off as the air hissed with stitched lasgun rounds. Grenades were thrown and kicked away. It was close quarters fighting, a desperate dash forward. Petr’s chainsword roared as he plunged it into the chest of a stumbling warrior.

‘That’s it!’ Minka pointed as they came around the ridge.

There was a large bastion fifty feet to their left, built into the mountainside. There were three levels to it, and an open parapet on top, reinforced with sandbags.

Coming from the embrasures they could see the puffs of fyceline smoke as big guns fired from within.

‘We’ve got to get inside,’ she said.

The parapet had been blown away by a shell blast, but the traitors had tied a knotted guide rope across. Minka held it one-handed as she hurried over. Rocks skittered away down the cliff face. The others followed. Someone shot at them as they crossed. Minka saw the flash of red in the corner of her eye.

Blanchez pumped off three quick shots in response and forced the shooter back into hiding. They scrambled forward. ‘You all right?’ Orugi said once they’d reached the shadow of the bastion.

‘Fine,’ she said.

He checked. The shot had skimmed the side of her helmet.

There was no time for any more chatter. The bastion had a thick, heavy door, reinforced with steel bands. It was locked.

She signalled Orugi forward. ‘Stand back!’ he said, as he checked the settings on the fusion core, then hefted the weapon up. ‘You never can tell what mood a plasma gun is in,’ he said and winked at Minka. She’d heard the same joke many times.

‘Just fire,’ she said.

He did. Two shots in rapid succession. Once the glare had subsided there was a hole where the locking mechanism had been, surrounded by heat-discoloured steel. Drops of metal had fallen to the ground.

Orugi kicked the door open and led them inside. There were war cries from within. Someone shot at him and Orugi fell. Yedrin stepped over his body, flames already jetting out from his gun. He hosed back and forth for nearly ten seconds.

Minka pulled him back. ‘Save some!’ she said. It took twenty seconds for the flames to die down enough for her to get inside.

Orugi had taken a las-bolt to his thigh. It was only a glancing shot but it had scored a nasty groove a hand’s width across. ‘Get that wrapped up,’ she said and tossed him some stimms.

He bit the cap off, spat it out and plunged the needle into the middle of the wound, then pressed the syringe with his thumb.