Both groups hesitated momentarily, then went for their guns. Ogron pups scattered into the ratholes in the ship's walls, as Jack got off the first shot, pitching an Ogron into a pile of spare deck plating.

Ogrons bundled Sha'ol behind cover, and a heavy weight slammed into Frobisher. It was Chat, taking him out the path of a shot that blew metal shards from the wall where his head was an instant ago.

Sha'ol ducked as shots ricocheted around his head, missing him by what felt like millimetres. Ducking behind a large atmospheric pump that had been removed from the freighter the Ogrons had captured earlier, he was relieved to see that Karthakh had also made it to a safe spot.

He activated his subcutaneous communicator with one spindly hand, while filing his disruptor blindly round the corner of the pump with the other. 'All Ogrons report to the factory floor. I repeat, all Ogrons report to the factory floor...'

Liang had abandoned his disguise, since it was only intended to fool stray Ogrons, not a war party led by the two bounty hunters. Frobisher had also reverted to his favoured penguin shape, if nothing else, Jack supposed, it was small enough to make better use of available cover.

There was plenty of that, what with chunks of the stripped freighter, and the gigantic cogs and chains that were part of the old asteroid-mining set-up.

Jack calmly shot down an Ogron, not willing to let their returned fire distract him. It wasn't that he didn't feel any fear or confusion, but he knew that feelings were only there as a guideline. If a plasma shot hit him he would die, regardless of what he did or didn't do.

Liang pointed through the rapidly thinning group of Ogrons, to where a large portal leading into the next section was set into the wall. That was the section where auxiliary engineering was. 'If we try for that door, we'll be sitting ducks.'

'If we don't, the Doc'll be trapped,' Dibber reminded them.

'Better him than us,' Jack muttered, but then shook his head. He must be nuts, he told himself, but he had an idea.

'Lay down covering fire, and I'll see if I can make it down to the door. Frobisher -' He frowned. The penguin had vanished.

'Where the hell is he?'

The Doctor and Monty exchanged glances. 'They've stopped,'

Monty said. 'Think they're on to the others? Or trying to draw us out?'

'Could be either,' the Doctor said slowly. 'Ogrons haven't developed much intelligence yet, but they do have an efficient animal cunning... Only one way to find out!' Before Monty could stop him, the Doctor unlocked the door, and went out, closing the door behind him. Monty was touched by that.

There were no sounds of violence from immediately outside, so he went out too. The Doctor was standing in the middle of the auxiliary engineering floor, listening to gunfire. 'They are are on to Frobisher and the others!' he exclaimed. He started running, multicoloured coat-tails flapping behind him. on to Frobisher and the others!' he exclaimed. He started running, multicoloured coat-tails flapping behind him.

Monty followed at a more sedate pace. In a few moments, he found the Doctor pressed against the wall, peering round the edge of the doorway into the factory floor. Both sides were now well entrenched, Monty saw, but the Ogrons were the ones who could afford to wait.

Sha'ol had been under fire before, so he knew how to cope with the strain, and Karthakh was much the same. However, being trapped while the very environment was being destroyed was quite a different matter; tactically, they were in a very dangerous position.

By now the dead and dying lay between his group of Ogrons, and the escaped prisoners. Luckily he still had control over the emergency doors between sections. 'Pull back,' he hissed to the nearest Ogron. 'We will trap them here.'

'Wrong,' the Ogron said cheerily, and put a gun to Sha'ol's head. He shifted back into penguin form, but the gun remained steady. The Whifferdill looked at Karthakh, who was covering him with a KEM rifle. 'Put it down, or I add to the endangered-species list.' Karthakh grudgingly obeyed.

'OK, Jack, we're all done here,' Frobisher called out.

In seconds, Sha'ol and Karthakh were surrounded by their enemies, and swiftly disarmed. As a strategist and planner, Sha'ol also knew when a battle was lost.

'Well done, Frobisher!' the Doctor proclaimed loudly. Then he glared at Jack. "There are a lot of dead Ogrons here,' he said darkly.

'And no dead humans or Whifferdills.' Jack met the Doctor's gaze evenly. Frobisher didn't want another battle to start, this time between the pair of them, so he tugged on the Doctor's sleeve with one flipper.

'Look.' Frobisher pointed to both bounty hunters' left wrists, where they wore coppery bracers.

'So that's it!' the Doctor exclaimed. He eased the bracers off each wrist.

'What?'

The Doctor held out the bracers, and Frobisher could now see the complex pattern inlaid into them. It was a strange mixture of swirling circuitry and an infinity symbol. Time rings. That's how they got into the TARDIS.'

'You mean these are Time Lord technology as well?'

'Exactly.'

'But where did they get them?'

'I should have thought that was obvious - from their employer.'

'A Time Lord?'

'Or Time Lords.'

'Why?'

'There are two possible reasons. For one thing, the dismissal of charges at my trial wasn't universally appreciated. I don't doubt for a moment that there are some members of the High Council and the Celestial Intervention Agency who consider me something of an embarrassment.'

'And the other thing?'

'This.' The Doctor brandished the circuit he had taken from the Thor Facility's time dams. 'It's a rather neat copy of some Gallifreyan technology.'

'I thought it came from Dronid?'

'I'm sure it did. But Dronid was once home to a rival faction who left Gallifrey. And I strongly suspect we'll find that this so-called Chronodyne Industries is actually a front for the Celestial Intervention Agency. Someone has been selling off Time Lord technology to other races for their own purposes.

Probably the same someone who supplied that ratty little scientist with the details on how to make vraxoin. The secret's been lost for centuries, but a Time Lord could always pop back and collect it.'

That made sense to Frobisher, as much as anything the Doctor said. 'But why draw attention to themselves here?'

'Because infinite age and power doesn't necessarily lead to infinite common sense - a trait most other Time Lords are rather lacking in.' Frobisher wasn't so sure about that 'other'

business. 'Apart from that, if they've been keeping an eye on Mandell's plan, they'd know that both Glitz and the Veltrochni know me of old. Presumably they thought there was too much risk that one or other might contact me and send me in the direction of the time dams that they built for Mandell.'

'Shouldn't we tell the Time Lords, then?'

'No need, Frobisher. Everything that I or the TARDIS experience is fed into the Matrix. By now, the authorities on Gallifrey know everything that we know.'

'So we're finally safe?'

'Absolutely.'

A dark and spiky-looking ship hurtled through space on an intercept course.

The tactical computers and navigational equipment clicked rapidly, running through simulated strategies that posited every possible type of resistance that the Hornet Hornet might encounter from the might encounter from the Speculator Speculator and its fugitives. It wasn't so much the colony ship that scared Cronan, though, as the gunship that was on board. It was fast and highly manoeuvrable. It was definitely a match for this converted yacht. Even with the yacht's illegal weapons and engine upgrades, it would be a close-run thing. and its fugitives. It wasn't so much the colony ship that scared Cronan, though, as the gunship that was on board. It was fast and highly manoeuvrable. It was definitely a match for this converted yacht. Even with the yacht's illegal weapons and engine upgrades, it would be a close-run thing.

'The ship with the Doctor and the bounty hunters is in range,' he told Wei.

'Good. Are you ready?'

'Of course.' He sounded offended at the question. Cronan sounded offended a lot of the time, because he took offence at the slightest little thing. Cronan pulled himself upright; he imagined that there was a certain standard of decorum to be maintained when approaching battle. An image that he felt it necessary to uphold, going by the holovids he had seen about space combat. 'Let's kill these interfering scum.'

Chapter Nineteen.

The Doctor, Frobisher and the others conferred in the Speculator's Speculator's navigation room, once Sha'ol, Karthakh and Gorrak were securely locked in the late matriarch's little nest. navigation room, once Sha'ol, Karthakh and Gorrak were securely locked in the late matriarch's little nest.

It had been a slow journey back up there, the group gathered in a circle, but the guns at their leaders' heads had sent a clearer message to the surviving Ogrons than any words could have.

Luckily most of the survivors were the females who did the manual work, and the Ogron pups who fought each other among the disused mechanisms aboard. Neither group showed much interest in trying to rescue their leaders.

'What now?' Frobisher asked, when the Doctor had taken the Core back into his possession.

Jack cleared his throat. 'How about this: we turn this ship around, head for Andromeda, and sell the Core to the highest bidder. Then we all say our goodbyes and retire for a life of luxury.'

'No,' the Doctor said severely. 'The right thing to do is return the Data Core to its rightful owners.

Chat nodded from the doorway. 'The Doctor's right. If the Veltrochni did contact Vandor Prime about getting it back, they'll pay up anyway, and if that story was one of Mandell's lies, there will probably still be a reward for returning their stolen property. Not what we'd get on the open market, but enough to cover all our expenses.'

'There are more important things at stake than profit here.

Justice, for one thing.'

'Fine. Ever hear of a little thing called compensation?

Punitive damages?'

'I have,' Liang answered. Without warning, he flowed in to the form of a gorilla, and lunged for the Doctor. Jack and Dibber tried to pull him away, while everybody else yelped in surprise.

Frobisher reacted next, wrapping himself around the gorilla as an oversized python, but Liang then blurred into a large insect of some alien kind, which leapt for the ceiling.

'Another Whifferdill?' the Doctor asked of anyone who was listening.

The insect extended an unnaturally long arm to snatch a gun from Monty. 'Oskar, at your service. Did you really think Mandell trusted you enough to leave you unwatched?'

Chat went white. 'How long -'

'Since your late brother failed to escape from the Thor Facility.' He formed Liang's face, with a malevolent grin. 'I think I played the part rather well.'

'But you're dead!' Jack protested.

'Evidently not. Actors of my calibre never really die, they just play other roles.'

This hadn't been that much of a challenging role, of course.

Merely holding a shape was simple enough. Since Liang spoke so rarely anyway, Oskar had less need to think about how to play his voice.

'Actor?' the Doctor echoed. 'I wouldn't have called it that.

What is it you want?'

'To return the Core to Mandell,' Oskar answered. 'D'you really think he would trust you lot to keep to your side of the deal? Mandell may be crazy, but he isn't stupid.'

'So you've been keeping an eye on us for him, is that it?'

'It's a living.' If you could call it that. His whole reputation had been a fraud, since he had never used a disguise in life, but merely pretended to do so.

Perhaps if that hooker hadn't OD'd in his motel room, he might have a more artistic career, but he disliked dwelling on the past. Mandell's payments kept him alive, and his name out of the scandal vids, so the change in role wasn't too hard for him to accept.

And if nothing else, it gave him a genuine ire to vent on the targets that Mandell selected.