*It will not be easy.'

*Don't you think I know that?' Black said. *Kanto Kantoris just happens to be one of the most ruthless and ma.s.sively over-militarised dictatorships in the galaxy. They say every third person is in the pay of the secret police. Infiltration will be extremely difficult.'

*That is an understatement.'

*Very good, Envoy,' Black said off-handedly.

*Undoubtedly Anneke will endeavour to find some way to circ.u.mvent my travel interdiction.'

*She is resourceful, as a nemesis should be.'

*Please, spare me the destiny speech. Just for tonight?'

The Envoy turned on his heel and left.

Black lingered on the battlement. Above him, a meteor shower streaked across the sky. It was only when the shower suddenly changed course that he realised they were under attack.

A warning horn blared stridently.

A young sublieutenant by the name of Jinks h.e.l.ler, a Quesadan foot soldier, gave the alarm. He happened to be stationed on the eastern-most battlement in a symbolic role. Quesada had far more canny ways to detect attack than relying on human senses. Yet those cutting edge detection systems failed to identify the meteor shower as an attack by cloaked Myotan warships.

h.e.l.ler, on the battlement, put through an emergency call to Control.

*What is it?' said a lazy voice. *Insects biting tonight?'

*We're under attack! Right now! Get a priority alert out. Now!'

The voice chuckled. *Look, it's a meteor storm, okay? Didn't they teach you anything in officer school? Besides, there's nothing on our screens.'

*Listen to me, sir ... because your life depends on it. We are being attacked. If you do not send out an alert this instant, I guarantee that the new Military Capo will de-capo you.'

There was something in the man's voice, a steely sureness that unnerved the other. *If this is some kind of joke-'

*No joke. Send the alert. It's Sublieutenant Jinks h.e.l.ler. I'll take full responsibility.'

*Fine. On your head be it.'

The duty shift controller took a deep breath and sent the alert. He'd recorded the whole conversation, as per protocol. The young sublieutenant had, in all probability, dug his own grave, which was perfecdy fine with the controller.

Moments later, the first pulses struck.

By that time, Black was racing towards his personal command centre, shouting orders into his communicator as he went. The Envoy appeared from nowhere, joining Black in the command centre as he scanned reports.

*Myoto. Blast them!'

*They're using the old deathward against you to prevent the other Companies and Clans from coming to your aid. You should have bought up the kill rights yourself'

*Well, it's a litde late for that advice, don't you think?' Black snapped as another detonation rocked the entire tower. He wondered how safe they were this high up.

An urgent dispatch came through.

*What is it?'

*Myoto has landed ground troops, sir,' said the guard. *There's fighting on eight - make that nine - levels.'

*Why isn't it showing on my screens?'

*We think a disruptor virus has been introduced into the system.'

*Into the "incorruptible" system?' The dispatcher did not reply.

*How close are they to my office?'

The dispatcher gave him the coordinates, then signed off.

Black scowled. *So we can't rely on any of this.' He waved his hand at the readouts and screens. *Cleverly done. An inside job, perhaps. Well, I'll attend to that afterwards.' There was a sharp explosion near at hand. Black felt the air in the office shift. *They're coming here. For me.'

*Naturally,' the Envoy said. *One always strikes at the head of the enemy first.'

*How very rea.s.suring of you. For the record, that's sarcasm, not a compliment.'

Black went to a cabinet in the wall, and selected several weapons, including a disruptor and a vibroblade - a dagger-like instrument that would slice through almost anything.

*Shall we?' He gestured towards the door.

The Envoy bowed slightly. *It is always better to take the fight to the enemy.'

*You're just a fund of pithy little statements.'

*Sarcasm,' said the Envoy.

Black scanned the other side of the door, making sure no one lay in wait, but it appeared that the fighting was still a hundred metres off, though - by the sounds of it - coming in his direction. No doubt his foot soldiers were valiantly laying down their lives to protect their venerated leader.

More fool them.

At this thought, Black grinned as he and the Envoy moved silently and carefully down a long corridor. This was more like it. He had been thirsting for a fight; he just hadn't known it. Now he felt his heart pumping. The adrenaline shocked through his limbs like electricity.

He felt vividly alive.

The din was deafening as they reached a confused knot of combatants who were tearing at each other with fibro blades and lasers.

Black licked his lips. *The game's afoot, Watson.' Before the Envoy could query this statement, Black hurled himself around the corner and into the fray, howling an ancient war cry. Two Myotans died before they knew what was happening. The others realised they were being attacked from the rear. Some spun, the rest closed ranks, moving into a gladiatorial defensive fighting position: back-to-back, hacking at anything that came within range.

How odd, Black thought in a suspended moment of clarity. We fight with modern blasters, devices that disrupt the atomic lattice, and with weapons that replicate the oldest known instruments rif death: swords and knives.

Black turned his attention to two other Myotans who, when they realised who they were fighting, howled with glee.

*You will see h.e.l.l this day, Brown!'

The cry was taken up. The mythical reference made Black think of his destiny and in doing so he nearly lost his chance at it.

He parried a sudden undercut, sliced off the thrusting hand, and drove the vibroblade deep into the man's chest, so that for a moment they were almost nose to nose. The man coughed blood, but managed a scowl. *I will see you on the other side, Brown.'

*Maybe,' said Black. *But not today, I think.' He gave the vibroblade an extra twist and the man fell back, only to be replaced by his enraged companion. A moment later he too lay dead and Black was covered in blood, none of it his own.

The fighting continued fiercely. In the thickest and deadliest of it, Black noticed a young sublieutenant running interference for the squad. He was a fierce fighter, driving back three opponents at once, though he seemed to hesitate on the kill stroke. Not yet blooded, Black reckoned. Just out of officer school.

Well, no time like the present.

Black lunged forward, but the Envoy stepped in front of him, dragging him from the fray.

Black shook him off angrily. *What do you think you're doing?'

*My internal sensors are not as corrupted as yours. They show a large force heading for your command centre.'

Black stared. *They'll hack my personal mainframe. Follow me!'

They raced back the way they had come just in time. Managing to reach the corridor leading to Black's office by a narrow lead, they encountered a sizeable force pounding up a side pa.s.sage.

Black and the Envoy took up strategic positions. Black called for reinforcements, but there was a lack of cover there. They found an empty office and activated deflector shields. The shields were attuned to Quesadan not Myotan weapons, and although this didn't neutralise the pulse beams coming their way it turned kill shots into treatable wounds. lf they were to make it to an infirmary, which Black doubted.

*Come on,' said Black. *There's a back way.'

*No. You go. I will delay them.'

*Your choice.' Black fled, scuttling through back pa.s.sages and conjoined offices. Behind him, he could hear the hiss and vaporising sizzle of blasters and wondered if the Envoy would make it out alive. Black felt he would. And if not, what did it matter? One of the Envoy's hatchlings, with identical memories to its *parent', would turn up within a few days and resume his post, as if nothing had happened.

Nice trick that, Black reflected, wondering if it could be replicated in human beings. Might be worth investigating. Imagine, never having to die.

Black reached his office, scanned to make sure it was clear of hostiles, and entered by an emergency door. He then launched full shielding and moved the office: there was a faint rumble as gravitors seized the office suite and rotated it along with three other identical suites that sat on a huge revolving disk. By the time full shielding was in place, his command centre - still fully functional - was not where it had been, nor where any architectural plan or sensor readout said it should be.

He pinged the Envoy a special microburst code, too fast for anyone else to pick up. The Envoy would know where he was.

A moment later the entire floor rocked.

According to his sensors, his fake command centre, situated where his office had been only moments before and complete with a human biometric readout that matched his own, had just been atomised.

Black put out a call to the other clans for reinforcements. He did not expect many. This was a personal matter, a colossal duel allowed for under the rules of fatwa, and one he should have foreseen. But it would be interesting to see who came, and who did not.

Black spent the next thirty minutes coordinating the battle. At that point, storm troopers from Ekud and two other clans showed up and the tide of battle turned. Two hours later it was all but over. Mopping up squads prowled through the Quesadan complex, and repair crews, protected by fighters, had begun work.

Black called in his heads of security, demanding an explanation.

His Captain of Security, Nepth Argus, was visibly nervous. The attack had gone down on his watch. Tough luck. Another thirty minutes and it would have been someone else's shift.

Argus said, *The meteor shower was used as a cover. It worked because our system was infected with a simple-minded virus. Its sole duty was to "read" an attack coming in at a specified orbital angle as a meteor shower. It was so simple our diagnostic algorithms missed it.'

*Indeed,' said Black, eyeing the man over steepled fingers.

*And of course we thought Myoto was a spent force.' There was a slight accusatory emphasis on the word *we'. Well, the man had bra.s.s. Good for him. Argus went on: *But the orbital attack was also a cover. One we were meant to buy.'

Black leaned forward, eyes suddenly gleaming.

*They came in by jump-gate, didn't they? Let me guess. Unanch.o.r.ed portals?'

Argus nodded. *As you say, sir, unanch.o.r.ed portals.'

Such portals were theoretically possible; indeed, they had been demonstrated time and again in laboratory conditions. But not in the real world. A Dyson jump-gate opened a door into n-s.p.a.ce attuning itself to another gate, anywhere in the universe. It did not involve matter transmission: atoms were not disa.s.sembled and then put back together again. One simply stepped through a doorway bypa.s.sing a large intervening s.p.a.ce, often light years.

But it had been shown that, with enough raw power, one could use a jump-gate to open a portal almost anywhere, without the benefit of having an existing jump-gate device already there and waiting.

It was dangerous. It was foolhardy. And it was incredibly smart.

*I take it they didn't go back that way?'

*No, sir. The unanch.o.r.ed portals couldn't maintain stability for long. That's what the orbital fleet was for.'

*What was the cost? On both sides?'

*Ah, we think we took out about sixty per cent of the invading force, including some transport vessels. As for our people, we lost over four hundred, and sustained severe infrastructural damage.'

*Yes, but what was the political cost?'

*Pardon?'

Black scowled. *Never mind. Why was no alarm given?'

*Er, well, as I said, sir, the orbital shower was a fake and a feint at the same time. But one of my men did send a warning. Thanks to him we managed to mount some defence.'

*And who was this?'

*A relatively new foot soldier recruit, s1r. Sublieutenantjinks h.e.l.ler.'

*Is he here?'

*h.e.l.ler?' The young officer Black had noted earlier stepped forward and saluted. There was a fresh wound on his face, and, like many there, he was soaked in blood.

Black nodded. *Good work, h.e.l.ler.' He turned to Argus. *Captain, you're relieved of your command. I'm promoting young h.e.l.ler here. He will a.s.sume command of Security. I will decide what to do with you in due course. Dismissed.'

Argus swallowed hard. He had too much sense to argue. With any luck, events would take Brown's attention away from the personal fate of one lowly captain.

In that, he was right.

When they were alone, Black turned to the Envoy.

*I have been stupid and short-sighted,' he said. *I have allowed my obsession with the lost coordinates to blind me. I should have dealt with Myoto when I had the chance, finished them off once and for all.'

*It is not too late.'