There were nine of them pressed up against each other in rows of three, thick evercrete walls between topped with interlinked galleries where spectators could stand at the rail and watch the panthers rip each other apart at a safe distance below. Steel mesh spectator walkways were laid corner to corner of each pit to provide much-needed extra space for popular fights. On more than one occasion, I’d seen the galleries packed five deep all around and the cross gantries creaking with the weight of crowds craning to see a death.

The overall honeycomb structure the nine pits formed rose about five metres out of the shallow waters of the Expanse and backed onto the low lying bubbles of the wet bunker complex at one side. Adjacent to this edge of the pits and criss-crossed with more gantried service walkways, were the rows of smaller feeding pens and long rectangular exercise runs that Impaler had smashed through on her way into the farm. As near as I could make out, it was from the edge of this mangled wreckage that the blaster had fired.

“You hear me Rad, you piece of shit?”

The blaster crashed again. The beam scorched past me, and I hit the evercrete floor, splashing water. Segesvar’s voice rolled past overhead.

“That’s close enough, I think, Tak.”

“Suit yourself,” I shouted back. “It’s all over bar the cleaning up anyway.”

“Really? Not got much faith in yourself, have you? He’s over on the new dock side right now, repelling your pirate friends. He’ll throw them back into the Expanse or feed them to the panthers. Can’t you hear?”

I listened and caught the sounds of battle again. Blasterfire and the odd agonised scream. Impossible to know how it was going for anyone, but my own misgivings about Vlad and his meth-head crew came back to me. I grimaced.

“Quite smitten, aren’t we!” I yelled. “What’s the matter, you and him been spending time down in the grav gym? Been poking either end of your favourite whore together?”

“Fuck you, Kovacs. At least he still knows how to have fun.”

His voice sounded close, even in the storm. I raised myself slightly and started to crawl along the gallery floor. Get a little closer.

“Right. And that was worth selling me out for?”

“I haven’t sold you out.” The trawler winch laugh rattled out at me. “I’ve traded you in on a better version. I’m going to do what’s right by this guy instead of you. Because this fucking guy still remembers where he’s from.”

A little closer. Drag yourself a metre at a time through the hammering rain and three centimetres of standing water on the walkways. Away from one pit, around a second. Stay low. Don’t let the hate and anger put you on your feet just yet. Try to push him into making a mistake.