*Are you getting anything?' he asked.

The Envoy eyed him, unreadable as ever.

*Whispers.'

Black sighed. *And what do the whispers say?'

*They say we should leave this place while we can.' Black stared at him. That was the last thing he'd expected to hear. *Can you identify the source?'

*They are not those kind of whispers.'

*Then for G.o.d's sake, what kind are they?'

*The voices of the dead.'

Black snorted, then realised the Envoy was being perfectly serious. *Tell me you're joking.'

*My species never developed a sense of humour.' Black sobered instantly. *Must've been a fun place you came from. So let me get this straight. You're talking to the dead?'

*No.'

*Explain.'

*The dead are talking to me.'

*Excuse me. Silly of me to get that wrong.'

*Your scepticism is puzzling. The Mercator Equations prove the existence of an afterlife, of the continuation of the soul after death.'

As far as Black was concerned, the Mercator Equations - an alien mathematics as strange as the Envoy himself - were highly questionable. But he never got the chance to say so because two things happened at once.

The planetary shields went offiine.

And the two ships alongside Black's command vessel suddenly ceased to exist. One second they were there, the next they were gone.

Black glanced at the Envoy. The alien bent over the console and ran a scan. *They were not destroyed. But I do detect traces of n-s.p.a.ce radiation.'

Black stared. *They transported two entire ships?'

*It would appear so.'

Black regained his composure. He would have to give some thought to this phenomenon when the mission was over. If Dyson's scientists could move ships ton-s.p.a.ce, Black needed to know how. But not right now ...

*Order the attack.'

*It is done,' said the Envoy, straightening from the console.

Within moments, all remaining ships were plunging down towards the planet, taking fire from surface defences - but it could have been much worse. The dependency on protective field harmonics was also a weakness.

A group of ships broke away from the main body to pursue individual objectives. The rest barged through the main hot zone of anti-ship fire, losing only one vessel. They landed at a large industrial docking complex. Black's schematics told him it was undefended, and recently redundant.

From there, sixteen squads streamed into the industrial bays, cracking through defensive metallic barriers - weapons set on stun. Black had no wish to anger the age-old neutrality of this world. Should it come to a courts-general, he might have to stand before the a.s.sembled Federation of Trading Worlds, or before the semi-defunct RIM. He wanted to show good faith in driving off the Myotan privateers, as if doing a galactic favour.

Against the Envoy's advice, Black was leading a squad. This had a galvanising effect on his squad's morale and on the entire operation. Few of the troopers, even grizzled old veterans, could remember a high-ranking officer picking up a weapon and joining them in the field. The prestige this gave Black was not lost on him.

To placate the Envoy, he'd added as an afterthought, *I'll try not to get myself killed.'

It was a pointless joke lost on the ever-humourless creature.

Black immediately took his squad of sixty troopers into the east side of the main conurbation on Dyson's Drop, known as Kobol. The priority mission for his group was to secure Government House, a symbolic move, but one that sometimes brought an early cessation to hostilities. While this was happening, other squads would be interdicting the main Dyson army corps; taking control of the primary transportation Hub, from where all roads, pa.s.sages, thoroughfares and drop tubes were operated; shutting off power and environmental controls, effectively threatening everyone with asphyxiation; and arresting key government personnel.

Elsewhere, at key stock exchanges in nearby systems, certain economic strategies were being put in place.

Black was hoping for a simple by-the-book victory, but had enough experience to doubt such victories existed in the recent history of warfare.

He was right.

At first, they moved quickly, without hindrance. Seemingly, the surprise attack had been a reasonable success. Even the attack on the shields had not given Dyson's militia enough time to deploy all defences. Black was pleased, but something nagged him. Too easy. Maybe the Dysonian forces didn't need to deploy ...

He was digesting this through his brain's parallel processor when they were hit from both sides at once. Later, he would be suspicious of the timing of this attack, as if someone had been reading his thoughts. Which wasn't possible. He knew that.

They were moving through a long multi-storey foyer at the double. Sensor readings said the area was clear of potential hostiles. Then a pulse beam lanced down from the mezzanine level above and one of his men fell with a cry.

*Take cover,' Black yelled. *Return fire!' All of which made him an instant target.

He snap-rolled aside as a bolt blasted the spot where he'd been standing and tumbled behind a large marble cube.

Then, as if they'd been testing them before now, the real onslaught began. A hail of pulse beams rained down on all sides. Those without cover were hit - though not seriously. Either the armour and personal deflector fields were holding up or the attackers were using stun beams only. How civilised. It meant that the defenders were Dysonians rather than Myotans. Myotans would shoot to kill every time.

They were being pinned down. This meant only one thing.

*Lay down a suppression fire,' he ordered Sub-squad B over internal radio. *Everyone else, pull back to the courthouse.'

Sub-squad B unloaded an impressive barrage against the attackers above and forward of their position, ionising the air with pulse weapons. The rest made it to the courthouse with only one minor wound. They then defended Sub-squad B's retreat.

Once all there, Black led them through a rear entrance, taking turns at random to avoid creating discernible patterns for the hunters.

After twenty minutes he'd circled around back onto their original heading. They reached Government House in good time with no further opposition and quickly seized the building, deploying an array of shield defences.

Definitely too easy.

Black sent out a coded n-s.p.a.ce message to the other squads, indicating the completion of their mission. When finished, he made his way to the northwest corner of the building where a small AI Hub had been found. He was almost there when everything disappeared.

Something was blinking.

A long slow blink.

The next moment he was somewhere else. An unanch.o.r.ed portal, he thought at once. They've scooped me up and sent me somewhere. But where?

The walls were made of a white pearly material, vaguely soft to the touch. His sensors could not scan through it. He re-calibrated them to read the open s.p.a.ces, giving him a local map.

A slow business. When he finally got his answer, he did not like it.

He appeared to be in a maze. Was this a test? A form of torture? There was only one way to find out. Facing a long pa.s.sageway, he immediately headed down the opposite pathways. After a few moments, he reached an intersection with three new pathways. His sensors didn't help. There were no distinguishing marks, nothing to rate one path over the others.

So he didn't try. He went on gut feeling instead.

He turned left. Then left again after two hundred metres, then right, then left, then three more rights. His internal sense of direction gave him the pattern of moves. He was going in a wide open circle, but that wasn't necessarily bad. The exit from the maze could just as easily be in the centre as on the periphery.

After a while, he noticed a pattern, if you could call it that.

Every so often, a right-hand turn came up that was one or two degrees off the perfect right angle of the other turns. By following these, he found occasional left turns off by double the discrepancy of the right hand ones. He had no idea what this meant but it was definitely a pattern.

He used it.

And came to a place he would never forget.

Elsewhere on Dyson's Drop, and particularly in Kobol, the attacking squads encountered resistance but, all in all, nothing they could not handle. Pardy because Anneke (under the guise of Captain h.e.l.ler) and her security squad had done their work well.

When Anneke's vessel had been hit, she had struggled to get the craft down in one piece. The alt.i.tude controls had gone out and the main deflector fields, required to maintain flight, were collapsing with s...o...b..ll effect. In under a minute the Chast.i.ty had the aerodynamics of a brick.

Anneke saw the docking bay rushing towards her.

She had one chance and one chance only to get her craft down. It needed all the brazen boldness she could muster.

Yosira had come forward into the c.o.c.kpit, dragging Kuder from the co-pilot's seat. She had taken his place, ignoring the blood sprayed across the seat and the controls.

*What should I do?' she asked. Anneke was impressed by her composure.

*Re-calibrate the field harmonics. Red line them.'

*What?'

*You heard me. Push them into the red.'

*They'll blow out, we won't have anything to cushion our landing ...'

Anneke was wrestling the controls, her new body soaked in sweat. The bay was coming up fast. There was no time to argue. just do it, Yosira.'

Yosira's fingers flew over the control panel. Anneke heard the telltale high-pitched whine as the fields built dangerously towards overload. Over the noise, she heard Yosira gulp and mutter a prayer.

Anneke lined up the shuttle, flaring the body of the vessel slightly.

*When I give the word,' Anneke said rapidly, *push it over the edge.'

Yosira nodded. *I hope you know what you're doing. You're acting awful strange.'

*Authority does that,' Anneke said. This was one h.e.l.luva time to see through her guise.

Then the ship moved above the bay, travelling too fast, with no more room to manoeuvre, to stop, to do anything but crash, killing them all.

*Now,' shouted Anneke.

Yosira rammed the field inductors to full strength. A terrible scream of abrading fields. .h.i.t Anneke's ears, then a weird silent explosion as the deflector fields mushroomed out beneath the ship, momentarily cushioning and slowing the craft dramatically both vertically and horizontally.

Then the field collapsed and the Chast.i.ty dropped, hitting the docking platform.

A mere seven-metre fall. Practically nothing.

The following silence was deafening. Anneke heard her heart beating in her chest, and thought she could hear Yosira's as well. They exchanged looks.

*Slick,' said Yosira, nodding and licking her lips.

*Very slick. I'll ride with you any time, Captain.' Then they both burst out laughing.

From the troop bay behind them came the usual groans and sarcastic remarks. *Call that a landing?' and, nybody see my teeth?'

Anneke rallied them off the stricken ship and into the industrial complex they'd crashed outside of. They met no resistance, though Anneke had the impression they were being watched.

Becoming increasingly uneasy, Anneke hurried her squad through the corridors, their plan tattooed into their memories.

That's when people started disappearing. One by one.

Her squad lost its points first, then its flanks, then its rear guard.

After forty-five minutes they were down to eight spooked men and women. Anneke explained what was happening. *They're using unanch.o.r.ed portals to pick us off. Your buddies aren't necessarily dead. Consider them POWs until we know differently.'

Coign, a man in his thirties, was visibly shaken.

Yin't there somethin' we can do *bout it?'

Anneke paused for thought. Maybe there was.

*It's a long shot,' she said. *Try scrambling your dampening fields. Overlap them, keep rotating them. It might upset whatever signal they're using.'

*I hate scrambling fields,' Coign complained.

*Makes my skin itch.'

*Well, at least you're someplace you can scratch it,' said Yosira. This received a chuckle.

Anneke didn't know if the scrambling had worked, or if the silent kidnappers had another agenda, but the disappearances ceased.

They made it to the target Hub without sighting a single enemy combatant. Anneke was aware how odd this was. Obviously, it was a big planet with many ships in orbit trying to overload the planetary shields, but even so ...

Black was reliving his childhood. And it was safe to say, n.o.body should ever have to live Black's childhood even once, let alone twice.

It was the scene from the AI Hub on the Orbital Engineering Platform: his mother, his father, his baby sister and himself - as a six-year-old - were in a small room with the sound of bombardment outside. His father was saying he should go find out what was happening but Black knew what was going on.