“We’re not going to have much time to get out,” Jacqueline Couteur said.
Perez, who had come into Maynard Khanna’s body a few minutes earlier, was struggling to keep his thoughts flowing lucidly under a torrent of pain firing in from every part of his new frame. He managed to focus on some of the most badly damaged zones, seeing the blood dry up and torn discoloured flesh return to a more healthy aspect. “
“Taught him not to be so stubborn,” Jacqueline said emotionlessly.
He winced as he raised himself up onto his elbows. Despite his most ardent wishes, his damaged leg felt as if fireworms were burrowing through it. He could
“Not much,” she admitted. “But we have to look for some kind of advantage. We’re at the very centre of the Confederation’s resistance to us. There must be something we can do to help Capone and the others. I had hoped we could locate their nuclear weapons. The destruction of this base would be a significant blow to the Confederation.”
“Forget that; those marines were good,” Lennart said grudgingly. He was standing in front of the judge’s bench, one hand pulling on his chin as he gazed intently at the floor. “You know, there’s some kind of room or corridor about twenty metres straight down.” The tiling started to flow away from his feet in fast ripples, exposing the naked rock below. “It won’t take long if we break this rock together.”
“Maybe,” Jacqueline said. “But they’ll know we’re doing it. Gilmore will have surrounded us with sensors by now.”
“What then?” asked one of the others they’d brought back. “For Christ’s sake, we can’t stay in here and wait for the Confederation Marines to bust down the door. I’ve only just returned. I’m not giving this body up after only ten minutes. I couldn’t stand that.”
“Christ?” Jacqueline queried bitingly.
“You might have to anyway,” Perez said. “We all might wind up back there in the beyond.”
“Oh, why?” Jacqueline asked.
“This Khanna knows of an ambush the Confederation Navy is planning against Capone. He is confident they will destroy the Organization fleet. Without Capone to crack new star systems open, we’re going to be stalled. Khanna is convinced the quarantine will prevent possession from spreading to any new worlds.”
“Then we must tell Capone,” Jacqueline said. “All of us together must shout this news into the beyond.”
“Fine,” Nena said. “Do that. But what about us? How are we going to get out of here?”
“That is a secondary concern for us now.”
“Not for me it bloody well isn’t.”
When Jacqueline scowled at her, she saw beads of sweat pricking the woman’s brow. Nena was swaying slightly, too. Some of the others looked as if they were exhausted, their eyes glazing over. Even Jacqueline was aware her body had grown heavier than before. She sniffed the air suspiciously, finding it contaminated with the slightly clammy ozone taint of air-conditioning.
“What exactly is the navy planning to do to Capone?” she asked.
“They know he’s going to attack Toi-Hoi. They’re going to hide a fleet at Tranquillity, and intercept him when they know he’s on the way.”
“We must remember that,” Jacqueline said firmly, fixing each of them in turn with a compelling stare. “Capone must be told. Get through to him.” She ignored everything else but the wish that the air in the courtroom was pure and fresh, blown down straight from some virgin mountain range. She could smell a weak scent of pine.
One of the possessed sat down heavily. The others were all panting.
“What’s happening?” someone asked.
“Radiation, I expect,” Jacqueline said. “They’re probably bombarding us with gamma rays so they don’t have to come in to deal with us.”
“Blast a door open,” Lennart said. “Charge them. A few of us might get through.”
“Good idea,” Jacqueline said.
He pointed a finger at the door behind the judge’s bench, its tip wavering about drunkenly. A weak crackle of white fire licked out. It managed to stain the door with a splatter of soot, but nothing more. “Help me. Come on, together!”
Jacqueline closed her eyes, imagining all the clean air in the courtroom gathering around her and her alone. A light breeze ruffled her suit.
“I don’t want to go back,” Perez wailed. “Not there!”
“You must,” Jacqueline said. Her breathing was easier now. “Capone will find you a body. He’ll welcome you. I envy you for that.”
Two more of the possessed toppled over. Lennart sagged to his knees, hands clutching at his throat.
“The navy must never know what we discovered,” Jacqueline said thickly.
Perez looked up at her, too weak to plead. It wouldn’t have been any use, he realized, not against that mind tone.
The shaped electron explosive charge sliced clean through the courtroom door with a lightning-bolt flash. There was very little blowback against the marine squad crouched fifteen metres away down the corridor. Captain Peyton yelled “Go!” at the same time as the charge was triggered. His armour suit’s communications block was switched to audio, just in case the possessed were still active.
Ten sense-overload ordnance rounds were fired through the opening as the wrecked door spun around like a dropped coin. A ferocious blast of light and sound surged back along the corridor. The squad rushed forward into the deluge.
It was a synchronized assault. All three doors into the courtroom were blown at the same time. Three sets of sense-overload ordnance punched in. Three marine squads.
Dr Gilmore was still hooked into Peyton’s neural nanonics, receiving the image direct from the captain’s shell helmet sensors. The scene which greeted him took a while to interpret. Dimming flares were sinking slowly through the air as tight beams of light from each suit formed a crazy jumping crisscross pattern above the wrecked fittings. Bodies lay everywhere. Some were victims of the earlier fight. Ten of them had been executed. There was no other explanation. Each of the ten had been killed by a bolt of white fire through the brain.
Peyton was pushing his way through a ring of nearly twenty marines that had formed in the middle of the courtroom. Jacqueline Couteur stood at the centre, her shape blurred by a grey twister that had formed around her. It looked as if she’d been cocooned by solid strands of air. The twister was making a high-pitched whining sound as it undulated gently from side to side.
Jacqueline Couteur’s hands were in the air. She gazed at the guns levelled against her with an almost sublime composure. “Okay,” she said. “You win. And I think I may need my lawyer again.”
Chapter 10
There were nearly three thousand people in the crowd which assembled outside the starscraper lobby. Most of them looked fairly pissed at being summoned, but nobody actually argued with Bonney’s deputies when they came calling. They wanted a quiet life. On a planet they could have just walked away into the wilderness; here that option did not exist.
Part of the lobby’s gently arching roof had crumpled, a remnant of an early battle during their takeover of the habitat. Bonney started to walk up the pile of rubble. She held a processor block in one hand, turning it so she could see the screen.
