companions shot on sight.
'I don't mind saying, Cap'n, I don't feel too great about this,' said Malvery, as he stepped over the corpse of another refinery worker. 'They've got a fair grievance, after all. He really is selling to the Sammies. Ain't we fighting on the wrong side?'
'Hey, I'm all for the peaceful exit, Doc. They're the ones who want to shoot us,' said Frey. 'Far as I'm concerned, we're just getting our retaliation in first.'
'I suppose so,' said Malvery with a sigh. He fired at some kid at the end of the aisle, who threw down his weapon and went scrambling away. 'Think I'm just emotional right now. Been getting that way lately, when I'm hungover.'
'Uh-huh,' said Frey, not really listening.
'Maybe I should lay off the swabbing alcohol and go back to grog.'
'Maybe.'
They found the elevator soon after. It was little more than a small box with a folding gate, set inside a caged passage that rose up into the darkness. It was waiting at ground level, so Frey pulled it open and ushered everyone in. He could hear running footsteps approaching. The noise and the darkness made it hard to tell where they were coming from. The Samarlan hesitated, obviously considering the prospect of being crammed in there with so many people. This time it was Trinica who shoved him inside.
Frey pulled the gate closed and Roke hit the button. The elevator clanked and squealed and began to rise, just as a group of refinery workers ran into view. They were slow to react - it took them a few moments to spot Roke among the passengers - but when they did, they were furious. One of them pounded the button that called the elevator, but to no avail. Finally some of them started shooting, but by that time the elevator had moved high up into the darkness, and their shots only ricocheted off the protective cage.
The refinery fell away beneath them. As they rose over the machines, Frey could see more fires starting at the far end. Vats glowed with heat; troughs of molten rock were overflowing; steam engines were pumping at a distressing rate. One massive piston arm came loose and went spinning across the room to crash into a set of pipes on the other side. As predicted, the refinery was ripping itself apart.
I hope you know what you're doing, Samandra, he thought.
Then the refinery disappeared beneath them, and they were travelling through a short passage of concrete, with grey daylight at the top. A doorway to the roof. The elevator had almost made it when they shuddered to a halt.
'I reckon they found your master override switch, then,' Malvery said. 'Never doubt the Century Knights, that's what I say.' He eyed the gap between the top of the elevator and the bottom of the doorway, which was barely large enough for a man of Malvery's bulk to squeeze through. 'We cut it a little fine, though.'
There were gates across the doorway, which Frey pulled aside. Malvery gave him a boost and he crawled out on to the flat roof. Black chimneys rose all around him. Cold air chilled his cheeks, nose and forehead. He heard engines, and looked up to see the Ketty Jay approaching through the snowy sky.
'Right on time, Cap'n,' Jez said in his ear. 'Not like you to be so punctual.'
'I'm full of surprises these days,' Frey said, giving her a wave.
They were safe up here. The Century Knights would have their hands full defending the staff of Gradmuth Operations from their irate employees. And better still, he had Roke, a man who claimed to know where Grist was. In fact, when you thought about it, he'd done pretty bloody well. Trinica had better be impressed with that.
Frey walked to the edge of the roof as the others climbed out of the elevator and the Ketty Jay eased in to land between the chimneys. There was gunfire from below. Workers and mercs battling in the courtyard, taking cover behind anything they could find. From up here, the conflict seemed a lot less urgent than it had when he was down among it. Let them fight it out; it wasn't his affair. He had more important things to deal with.
He heard a commotion behind him and turned around to see that the Samarlan had started up on Silo again. Damn it, this was getting out of hand. He strode over there. Silo was walking awray, his head down and his fists clenched, but the Samarlan was following him, yelling at him in his own strange language.
'What happened now?' Frey asked Trinica as he came closer.
'The Samarlan's annoyed because Silo got out of the elevator before he did,' said Trinica. 'It's not done, apparently.' Trinica looked up at him. 'Darian, I don't know how much more your man's going to take of this. That Samarlan seems to still think he's a—'
She never finished, because at that moment the Samarlan, angered that Silo was ignoring him, slapped him round the back of the head. Frey groaned and put his hand over his face.
'That's done it,' he said.
Silo rounded on the Samarlan, stared at him a moment, then smashed the butt of his shotgun into his mouth. The Samarlan staggered back, clutching his bleeding face, his eyes wide. He was making incoherent gasping noises, as if he couldn't catch his breath. Silo descended on him, his expression furious. He grabbed the Samarlan by his shoulders and began dragging him towards the edge of the roof.
'Stop him!' Roke cried in alarm. 'Unharmed! That was the deal!'
Malvery looked to Frey expectantly, waiting for the signal to intervene. But Frey had had enough of asking Silo to take the Samarlan's abuse, just so he could get some information. He'd been putting Harvin Grist before the needs of his crew for too long now.
'Sorry, Roke,' he said. 'Your mate's got it coming.'
'Bloody right,' muttered Malvery, with an approving nod.
The Samarlan didn't even resist as Silo pulled him along. No doubt he was still too shocked at being struck. He probably never even entertained the thought that Silo would throw him off the roof, until he was airborne.
They listened to his shrill scream all the way down. It was cut short with a faint thump. Silo walked back towards Frey, and stood before him.
'Feel better?' Frey inquired.
'Sorry71 did that, Cap'n,' he said, but his head was held high and he looked prouder than Frey had ever seen him.
'No, it's me who should be sorry,' said Frey. 'You're a free man on my crew. You shouldn't have had to suffer that.'
He held out his hand. Silo took it and shook.
Roke was gaping in disbelief. 'You killed . . . you just . . . !' He took a step back from Silo, as if from a madman. 'The deal's off! You hear?'
He got another step before he heard the click of a pistol hammer being cocked, and felt the muzzle of a gun in the back of his head. Trinica was on the other end of it.
'You gave it a good try,' said Trinica to Frey. 'But that's enough of being nice. Let's do this quick and easy.' And she shot Roke in the back of the knee.
Roke dropped to the ground, trying to scream but unable to make a noise. Blood steamed on the snow- covered roof. Trinica walked round to stand over him. Frey and the others had instinctively stepped back. Suddenly, all his romantic thoughts of his old sweetheart had disappeared. This was the Trinica who'd robbed and killed and plundered her way across Vardia. Even without her make-up and attire, he could see it in her manner. Utterly cold. Utterly ruthless. No one was getting in her way.
'Now,' she said to Roke. 'Grist. Where?'
Roke just gasped at her. She shot him in the hand, pulverising it into a bloody mash of tendon and shattered bone. He found his voice then.
'He's in Sakkan! Two hundred kloms north-west of Marduk! Warehouse complex on the east edge of the city! That's where we always hid out. He moves his drugs through it. Heavily guarded! He's got his own hangar there and everything! Big enough for the Storm Dog!'
Trinica shrugged at Frey. 'That's where he is,' she said, and she shifted her aim to Roke's forehead.
'Trinica!' said Frey sharply. She looked over at him. He shook his head slowly.
'Whyever not?' she asked. 'This way he can't talk to anyone else.'
The stark logic in her voice chilled him more than the freezing air. Over the past month he'd almost begun to believe this side of her had faded away, and a new tenderness had replaced her steely brutality. The fact that he'd been mistaken came as unpleasant shock.
'Don't be like this, Trinica,' he said.
