Prador Moon

The armoured vessel drew close and showed no sign of diverting from its course. Scan returns showed its hull still negatively charged for repelling an anion particle beam. Amusing, really. Immanence noted the net charge of his own vessel to be highly positive, enough so that there was a measurable attraction between the two ships. He redirected his particle ca

Standing at the junction of four corridors, Jebel flexed his gleaming fingers and touched their tips together, amazed at the illusion of sensation he felt. The ceramal fingertips possessed no artificial nerves, but pressure sensors in each intricately constructed joint partially served the same purpose. However, when he swapped his weapon to that hand, the difference became evident. Despite the knurled i

"Some of you have already been in fire fights, the rest of you listen hard: these fuckers carry a lot of firepower and they do not die easily," said the Sparkind placed in charge of them. "Take off a man's arm," she shot a glance at Jebel, "and he's out of play for a while. I saw one of them stripped down to its carapace only, yet it still managed to bite off the foot of someone who stepped too close. Be warned."

Helen, the Sparkind, was a tough-looking woman with either snakeform cosmetic alteration or full ophidaption—her skin glinted with small scales and whenever she got a bit excited her fangs dropped into biting position. She became slightly aerated when told to take command of those from station security and the ECS regulars who were experienced in zero-gee combat. The other three members of her Sparkind unit—a man and two state-of-the-art Golem—had been placed in command of other groups. It was a necessary adaptation to circumstances, now that the Prador had cut the power to the grav-plates in the area they controlled. The area where Cirrella's apartment lay.

She continued: "The pincams are all out and the Prador are jamming scan. Our augs won't function there either and com is limited. We go in, kill anything in a shell, and reinstate cams and grav so the backup teams can follow." She surveyed the group, noting the rank badges of each individual. "You ECS regulars, you know what to do. Take corridors 12A and B and go through to the meeting point. You have to check accommodation units, as the smaller Prador can get through the doors. And check your targets. There are still people hiding in there—any you find, send them back this way." The four station security perso

The other units headed away to their entry points, while Helen led the way to the access stairs down into an autofactory.

"You, Urbanus, will take first lead with me, along with you two." She stabbed a finger alternately at two of Jebel's men. "The plates are operating on this side of the factory so until we hit the nil-gee area we use simple four-by-four cover." Helen glanced at Jebel. "I intend to run a search pattern through there, so we won't be going in a straight line to the other side. I do not want one of those bastards behind us. When we hit nil gee we go to an axis advance: one by the floor, one by the ceiling, and the other two left and right. Any questions?"

Jebel guessed she had it covered. He glanced at one of his perso

The stair ended at a corridor, one side glassed, ru

"They'll probably have that covered," Jebel noted, perhaps stating the obvious.

"Com check," Helen said, her voice also audible in Jebel's earpiece. She gestured back to the chainglass window and took a small decoder mine from her belt. "Six metre drop. I'm okay with that and, of course, so is Urbanus. We'll go that way, and I'll let you know when the rest of you can use the door."

Jean glanced at Jebel and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged in reply. Obviously these Sparkind were trained to a level he'd never encountered before. He did not know of any humans, even boosted, who could take a six metre drop in their stride.

Helen slapped the decoder mine against the glass. Immediately it activated, initiating the disintegration of the molecular chains in the glass. The entire window turned white, crazed, then collapsed into a falling curtain of glittery powder. Helen vaulted through, swiftly followed by Urbanus. He heard a muffled «Bollocks» from below and made a slight reassessment of Helen's superhuman abilities. Minutes dragged by, then, "Okay, you're clear."

They moved quickly down the stairs, the first two covering the rest as they moved into the shut-down factory. Helen took her three to the first monolithic machine—an enormous powder forge—then moved on to track along beside a conveyer. Jebel brought his three to the forge and they took up cover positions. And so it continued through aisles between moulding machines with micrometrically adjustable moulds, more conveyors, rollers, presses, welding and general-purpose assembler robots. As they moved it became necessary to scan and cover much above floor level as well, because this factory's production lines did not only run in two dimensions. That half the grav-plates were active in here was unusual as such factories were normally zero gee with the machines working in three dimensions. A cage-work extended from floor to ceiling, supporting further machines, robots, conveyers, all the panoply of high-tech, high-speed production. Entering such a place when it was in operation would not have been a clever idea. The AI ru

Halfway across the alloy floor, Helen was one moment walking, then she launched herself into the air, diving upwards to thump against an extruder caught mid-belch of rows of coppery pipes. Urbanus remained at floor level while the other two jumped up and to either side to roughly form the axis pattern Helen required of them as they advanced. When Jebel reached the deactivated grav-plates, he signalled for Jean Klars to remain at floor level, the other two to take the sides, while he launched himself for the ceiling. Almost the moment he stopped himself against the underside of a large crane arm, the firing started.