Mellanie rubbed at her arms; the cool air was raising goose bumps. “I feel stupid in this,” she muttered. Her nurse’s uniform had short sleeves.
“Here.” Hoshe took off his sweater and held it out to her.
She flashed him a grateful smile. “Thank you.” It was baggy on her, but she stopped shivering.
The express slid silently into the station along its maglev track. They boarded the first-class carriage, where they had a reserved compartment.
“Which Earth station are we going to?” Mellanie asked.
“London,” Hoshe said.
“I thought you were based in Paris.”
Paula gave her an enigmatic smile. “It depends.” She told her e-butler to open one of the pouches in her belt. A Bratation spindlefly dropped out and began to scuttle up the wall. Its gossamer thread extruded behind it as Paula walked along the carriage’s narrow corridor, maintaining the secure connection. The compartment contained thick leather couches on either side of a walnut-veneered table. Mellanie flopped down into one with a hefty sigh, curling her legs up and pulling the sweater down over her knees. She had her face up close to the window, like a child peering into a shop display. Paula and Hoshe sat opposite her. The black cases arranged themselves on either side of the door.
After a couple of minutes, the express eased out of the station and began to pick up speed as it headed for the gateway.
“What happened to the lawyers?” Mellanie asked.
“Bodyloss,” Paula told her. “Our medical forensic teams will try to recover their memorycells, but given the damage level it doesn’t look good.” She checked the image she was getting from the spindlefly, which showed her a black and white fish-eye-lens view of the corridor from the ceiling. Her skin tingled as they passed through the pressure curtain. A warm salmon-pink light shone in through the compartment’s window, and the express accelerated hard across Piura’s massive station yard.
“They were the one lead I had back to the Cox,” Mellanie said.
“Yes, me, too.”
Mellanie looked surprised. “You did believe me!”
“I do now. We uncovered a Starflyer agent in my old Paris office. He’d been manipulating information for quite some time. The Cox case was one of them.”
“Did you catch him?”
“No,” Paula said. It was a heavy admission, but she’d talked to Alic Hogan before the paramedics put him under. Treetops had been worse than the Greenford Tower.
“So we still don’t have any proof that the Starflyer exists,” Mellanie said.
“The case against it is building.” Paula’s virtual vision flashed a small square of text. The management routines in the carriage arrays were shutting down all their communications functions. The spindlefly showed her the door that led through to the next first-class carriage being opened. She exchanged a glance with Hoshe, who nodded subtly.
“But not conclusive,” Mellanie said sullenly. “That’s what you’re going to say.”
“No. And we’re running out of time.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The war is not going well for the Commonwealth. Our starships were defeated at Hell’s Gateway.” A girl was walking along the carriage’s corridor toward their compartment. Paula’s heart began to speed up. A tactical grid flipped up into her virtual vision; she prepped several icons for immediate activation.
“Yeah. I guess the rich will be taking off in their lifeboats pretty soon.”
“I expect they will. More importantly, according to the Guardians, the Starflyer will leave once it has arranged for our destruction. Unless we can move against it soon, it will have gone.”
“So just stop it going back to Far Away,” Mellanie said. “Put a guard on the Boongate gateway to Half Way.”
“I would have to convince my political allies such a move was justified.” Through the spindlefly’s artificial senses, Paula saw the girl standing outside their compartment.
Mellanie took a deep breath. “I know about some more Starflyer agents, if you’ll believe me this time.”
“You are very well informed.”
A focused disruptor field hit the compartment door, which instantly shattered. Mellanie screamed in shock, flinging herself down. Paula and Hoshe activated their force field skeletons. Isabella Halgarth stepped in through the dagger shards of the door frame. A force field sparkled around her.
“It’s her,” Mellanie yelled. “It’s Isabella! She’s one of them.”
Isabella raised her right arm. The flesh on her forearm flowed, parting in several places like lipless mouths.
Paula triggered the cage. Curving force field petals sprang out of the cases on each side of Isabella, closing around her and squeezing tight. She grimaced, as if mildly puzzled. Then she tried to move, squirming inside the constricting petals. Her movements were mechanical as each boosted muscle tried to push her body free. A series of apertures opened in her skin along both arms, allowing dark stubby muzzles to protrude. She started firing ion bolts and masers.
Streamers of energy lashed across the cage, grounding out in the floor of the compartment. Smoke began to leak upward. The shimmering petals slowly brightened to a threatening azure.
“Ready?” Paula shouted above the screech of the wild discharges. She held up a dump-web, and as Hoshe nodded she slapped it against Isabella’s back. The cage petals rearranged themselves to let it through. Her face was centimeters from the girl’s, and that was when she knew with absolute certainty they were confronting some kind of alien. Isabella’s eyes looked at her with malignant fury. Whatever intelligence stared through them was studying her, and judging.
Isabella’s force field failed.
Hoshe rammed a nervejam stick against her. It slipped easily through the cage petals to press against her chest. Her imprisoned body began to shake violently. She slowly peeled her lips back to reveal a furious snarl. All of her embedded weapons fired simultaneously. Sparks burst out of the gleaming cage petals as they began to whine dangerously.
“Jesus!” Hoshe exclaimed. He twisted the nervejam stick’s trigger to full power.
Isabella suddenly looked surprised, her eyes opening wide. Her weapons stopped firing.
The cage petals held her immobile, pressing tight against the skin, freezing her posture and expression. Paula looked at the girl’s feet. They were suspended a couple of centimeters off the smoldering carpet. “Is she out?”
“I don’t know,” a sweating Hoshe said. “But I’m not taking any chances.” He continued to push the nervejam stick hard against her.
“Okay.” Paula called the rest of the team in. Vic Russell, in full armor, clumped along the corridor, leading Matthew and John King.
“You get all the fun,” Vic complained.
“Next time, it’s all yours,” Hoshe said sincerely as Vic took over the nervejam stick.
With Isabella surrounded by the three armor suits, Hoshe switched the cage petals off. The girl crumpled into John’s arms.
“Is she alive?” Paula asked.
“Heart slightly erratic, but calming,” John assured her. “She’s breathing unaided.”
“Good, get her into the suspension shell.” Paula switched off her force field skeleton and ran a hand over her brow. She wasn’t surprised to find her fingers damp with perspiration.
“Just what the fuck is going on?” Mellanie yelled.
Paula turned to face the furious, frightened girl, and blinked in surprise. Mellanie’s skin had turned almost completely silver.