Iron Sunrise

Three targets, range five meters, group shots, gun to automatic. The machine pistol stuttered unevenly and the recoil pushed at her wrists, jets of hot gas belching from the reaction-control ducts around the barrel to center it on each target for precisely four shots. It was all over in a second. Steffi twitched around, hunting movement. Nothing: just three indistinct lumps of gray against a background of rectangles.

She hit the DOWN button again, then opened the doors and glanced incuriously at the bodies. Her forehead wrinkled. There was blood everywhere, leaking from two strength-through-joy types she recognized from the di

She pushed through a crew-side doorway, oriented herself on a narrow corridor, and headed for the emergency room. Instinct stopped her just short of the corner, dropping to one knee with gun raised. Company? she wondered, motionless, trying to scan a comprehensible picture through the corner wall with tiny flicks of her fingertips. Yes? No? There was something there, and it moved -

They fired simultaneously. Steffi sensed, and heard, the bullet zip past her head as her own gun went into spasm, squirting the remaining contents of its magazine through the wall in a surge of penetrator rounds. There was a damp sound from just around the corner, then a loud thud. Steffi reloaded mechanically, then made a final check and stepped out into the corridor in front of the emergency bridge, stepping over the body of the guard.

“Bridge systems. Speak to me,” she commanded. “Are you listening?”

“Authenticating — welcome, Lieutenant Grace.” The bridge door slid open to reveal empty chairs, an air of deceptive normality.

“Conversational interface, please.” Steffi slid the door shut, then dropped into the pilot’s chair and turned it to face the door, her gun at the ready. “Identify all other perso

Wednesday had walked over to the desk at the front of the evacuation assembly point as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Rachel watched with growing misgivings as she spoke quietly to the fair-haired guy and they left together through the side exit into crew country. Martin leaned close. “I hope she’ll be all right.”

Half an hour later it was their turn. The passengers were growing more restive, talking among themselves in a quiet buzz of nervous anticipation, when a woman ducked through the door. “Rachel Mansour? Martin Springfield? Please come forward!”

She gripped Martin’s hand, squeezing out a message in a private code rusty from disuse: “Rumbled.”

“Ack. Go?”

“Yes.” She pulled him forward, pushing between a yakking family group and a self-important fellow in the robe of an Umbrian merchant banker. “You want to talk?” she asked, staring at the woman.

“No, I want you both to come with me,” she said casually. “Someone else wants to talk to you.”

“Then we’ll be happy to comply,” Rachel said, forcing a smile. All this, and not even a briefing beforehand? For a moment she wished she was back in the claustrophobic tenement off the Place du Molard, waiting for the bomb squad. She tried not to notice Martin, whose nervousness was transparently obvious. “Where do you want us to go?”

“Follow me.” The woman opened the side door and motioned them through. She had a friend waiting on the other side, a big guy who held his gun openly and watched them with incurious eyes. “This way.”

She led them up a short staircase and out into a wide cargo tu

“Keep it for the boss.”

“If you say so.” Rachel tried to keep her voice light, as if this was a mystery excursion managed by the crew to keep bored passengers amused. They turned a corner onto a wider docking tu

The blond woman motioned her toward a doorway at the far side of the docking hub. Warm light shone from it. “Shit, it’s cold out here,” Martin muttered. They hurried forward without any urging on the part of their guards.

“Stop.” The one with the gun held up a hand as they neared the door. “Mathilde?”

“Yah.” The blond woman produced a bulky comm and spoke into it. “Mathilde here. The two — diplomats. Outside control. I’m sending them in.” She turned and glared at Rachel and Martin, waving at the door. “That way.”

“Where else?” Rachel looked around as she entered the room. It was brightly lit, and a whine from overhead suggested that a local aircon unit was fighting a losing battle against the chill. The man with the gun was behind them, and for a sickening moment as she saw the largely empty room, she wondered if he was meant to kill them and leave their bodies there. Then a door slid open in the wall opposite.

“Go in.” Gun-boy waved them forward. “It’s a lift.”

“Okay, I’m going, I’m going.” Rachel stepped forward. Martin followed her, with Gun-boy trailing to the rear. The doors closed and the lift began to move, sinking toward the high-gee levels of the station. It squealed as it went, long-idle wheels protesting as they clawed along toothed rails that had chilled below normal operating temperatures. They descended in silence, Rachel leaning against Martin in the far corner of the cargo lift from the guard. The guard kept his weapon on them the whole time, seemingly immune to distraction.

The lift juddered to a halt, and its door slid open on a well-lit corridor. There were more fans, humming and grating at overload. The chill was less extreme, and when the guard waved them toward an open door at the other end of the passage, Rachel couldn’t see her breath. “Where are we?” she asked.

“Waiting for the boss. Go right in.” Gun-boy looked bored and a

She read it quickly, almost trancing out — almost missing the deep pile carpet, the withered brown trees in their pots to either side of the big wood-topped desk, and the door leading into the i