"Men and nuyen."

"Gonna kill the golden goose?"

"Aye!"

"Aye!"

"No," said Chief Captain, hitting the reverb button on the arm of his throne, making his words thunder over their telecoms. "The golden goose, as Covert Ops said, has already turned and bitten us in the hoop. We know these corporate gleebs have been hiring yabos and mercs and shadowrunners to find our HQ so they can pressure us to renegotiate the deal. Threaten to expose us to Atlantic Security for smaller tribute, or none at all! Well, that's a fair dare. If we're not strong enough to protect ourselves, we should go down to Davy."

A muttered chorus of agreement.

Chief Captain slammed a fist onto the arm of the chair. "Only now they're moving openly against us. And why, I ask you, why?"

"Okay," rumbled Intelligence in a surly manner. "Tell us why."

Chief Captain stared at them for a full three ticks. "Because he said a forbidden word."

"What?"

A forbidden word?

Codes went pale as her scars. "Jesus, Buddah, and Zeus, Harvin must have some kind of military secret she's terrified we might discover."

"A new weapon," said Master Engineer, then he shouted, "they've invented a new fragging weapon!"

"Aye, makes sense," agreed Covert Ops. "But was this merely a slip? Or is it a trap to lure us in and burn our fleet?" A thick silence.

"What's your opinion, Tactics?" asked Port Defense, looking to his left.

On Chief Captain's right, a voluptuous blonde norm cracked her knuckles thoughtfully. "I think it's a slip," she decided. "And unless we move fast, they'll be ready for us and kick our combined hoops all the way to the Straits of Magellan."

Pensive murmurs.

Scratching under a breast, Tactics continued, "I say we strike with a retaliatory fleet of, say, five ships. Just to teach 'em a lesson." A slow grimace took her features. "Unless they do have a special surprise for us, then we hit them with everything we've got. Attack from both sides and blow 'em to Davy! Then loot the ruins!"

"The whole fleet?" asked Recon.

"That takes a formal vote," decried Base Defense.

"I didn't wake ya to ogle your pretty faces," stated Chief Captain gruffly. "I second the motion for a full strike. So hit the buttons and decide. Should we ignore this affront to our authority and wait for more rebellion. Or teach them, once and for fragging all, that nobody frags with IronHell!"

Grim faces turned away from their screens to talk with aides or to check the current battle simulation to see what would be the theoretical result of a surprise attack by IronHell on Old Dome using the full resources of the pirate fleet, both outside the bubblecity and within. In staggered steps, the red lights on every telecom blinked green, and the submonitor in the arm of Rore's chair showed the results. It was as expected.

"Okay, mateys, drop your dips and grab your chips," he said, standing up. "Cause this is Old Dome's day in the barrel. We're going to war!"

30.

Stabbing out from other rooftops, four searing stilettos of shimmering light stretched across the skyline of Low Dome, converging on a big water tank set on the roof of the oil refinery. The beams pierced the macroplas effortlessly, shifting slightly in a carefully orchestrated arc. Then the top of the tank came off, the bowed plas dangling from a tow chain. Instantly, armed Guards charged out of the doorway in the roof to surround the tank, while dozens more rapelled down from other locations. Most landed around the container, and a handful landed directly inside, in a real-life strike so perfectly coordinated it could have been a computer simulation.

"Drek!" cursed a major, standing in knee-deep water. The flash clipped under the barrel of his SMG played over the vacant tank. "They're not here!" Four other troopers were stationed about him in a two on two pattern, their weapons constantly moving about, fingers on triggers as they hungrily looked for targets.

"But they were, sir," stated a trooper, freezing her shoulder lights. In the cone of illumination, a catwalk ringing the inside of the tank was visible.

"Thermograph shows residual heat signatures of four, maybe five people, within the hour," announced a Guard, his face shield down, numbers and text scrolling on the visor. He turned slowly in a circle, scanning everything, his left hand holding a Predator, his right hand operating a miniature keypad on his left forearm. "No molecular traces of plastique or powder. No booby traps."

"Thank Ghu," whispered a Guard, wiping his brow.

"But we missed them!" cursed a sergeant, splashing closer. "How the frag did they do this?"

"Maybe there's a mole in City Defense?"

"Ha! That'll be the day."

"Or one of them is a freaking mage," grumbled the major, tightening the grip on his SMG. "And they got a freaking elemental helping them."

A burst of machine gun fire from outside.

"Report!" subvocalized the major, deep in his throat. "Nothing to report. A misfire, sir," said a familiar voice over the radio in his helmet. "Just one of the badges kinda nervous capping at thin air."

"Maybe he thought they were invisible," scoffed a trooper in the tank.

"God Two, report!" barked the major.

"Negative on invisible perps," stated a voice. "Infrared and proximity both show clear."

"I want immediate ID on the gleeb who fired!" barked the major suspiciously.

His radio crackled. "Who, me, sir? Shield 79160, Corporal Buckley."

"That's a confirm, sir," said a computerized VOX in his helmet. "Carrier sig, vocal patterns, and serial number match for Buckley, John J., Corporal."

"Acknowledged," said the major. "Buckley, you're demoted to trooper pending further actions. Random firing of auto weapons in a combat situation is strictly forbidden, general order 975."

A handful of ticks. "Aye . . . aye, sir."

"You, report." The major pointed at another trooper as he waded over to the group of soldiers clustered on the catwalk.

"Sir, it looks like they've been bouncing a radio wave off the dome," said a trooper holding a crude assembly of parts and fiber-op wiring. "Trying to access the city mainframe, bypassing the telecom circuits and jackports. The althropic plas is a perfect reflector."

"Explains why we couldn't track 'em by triangulation," said another Guard.

"Sir, could they be in contact with the U-boys?" asked a lieutenant intently, SMG held ready in both gloved hands.

Motioning the woman closer, the major raised his visor and turned off his radio. "Make friends with Buckley," he said, "because you're demoted too. Executive Order 5 states we are never to mention the Underground in front of the troops."

"But, sir, I. . ."

"Dismissed," the major said, slapping his visor down and turning away. He subvocalized, "God One, give me general broadcast, scrambled and coded."

"Hot and tight, sir."

"All right, hoopholes, download this," the major rasped. "It's been six hours since these pirates invaded Old Dome, and they're still running around loose doing tox knows what! Until further notice all leaves are cancelled, all vacations are cancelled, personnel on sick leave will be recalled, and everybody will do double shifts until we find these motherfraggers and blow 'em to Davy!"

Triggering his SMG, the major fired a long burst into the air. "Dead! Do ya hear me! I want 'em dead, and I mean now! As in yesterday!"

Everybody resolutely chorused in military affirmatives, nobody foolish enough to mention their commanding officer's random firing of automatic weaponry in a combat situation. Rank did have its little privileges.

"Sir, shouldn't we do a perimeter search of the area?" asked a Guard, snapping a salute.

"Already taken care of, Corporal," said the major, returning the salute. "We have other teams handling that job"

A macroplas grill in the street alongside the curb was judiciously lifted by a huge hand and a bald head peeked out.

"Clear," whispered Thumbs, and he forced the grillwork aside to crawl out. After helping the rest of the team out of the hole, he kicked the grill back into place and they moved off into an alleyway, keeping low and dodging across several streets before allowing themselves to slow to a walk.

"Where the frag are we?" asked Silver. Low buildings stretched off in either direction, curving out of sight. Before and above them was the transparent dome of the city, a faint chill radiating from its surface. And only a block away was the granite wall they'd seen from the mountaintop outside.

"This must be the part they call Beyond the Wall," said Moonfeather.

"Every city's gotta have a junkyard," said Thumbs philosophically. "Might as well use it for insulation."

"We're out of that sewer, that's all I care about," said Delphia.

Coming to a corner, they paused briefly then spread out, checking the other side to make sure it was clear of hostiles before continuing on.

"And that wasn't a sewer," corrected Silver. "It was a storm drain. And that huge machine we traversed was a pumping station. If the dome ever cracks or gets a leak, that'll return the water back outside and keep the bubblecity from flooding."

"Is that what it was?" asked Thumbs, arching one eyebrow. "We crawled through the heart of a giant pump?"

"Hey, nobody sane would follow us." Moonfeather gave a rueful laugh. "Or even believe we did it."

"I did it and I can't believe it."

"See? We're safe."

"Yar, arctic."

Half a block later, Delphia called a halt near a broken wall, the angled ruins offering excellent coverage. Everybody put their back to the wall and spread out a few steps so no single blast could geek them all in one shot.

"No rats," said Thumbs, glancing at the rubble and refuse piled high about them. "Garbage, but no rats."

"Hadn't noticed," said Delphia, checking the setting on the PocketDoc strapped to his hip. "But you're right. No bugs, no rodents, not even any crabs."

Silver nodded. "There'll be nothing down here the Gunderson Corporation didn't specifically import for its own private use."

"Except us," said Moonfeather with a grin. She was sitting crosslegged on the granite slab that was the ground here in the bubbletown. The unyielding nature of the material seemed not to bother her in the least.

"Check. And they do wish to correct that mistake, don't they?"

"Check and mate."

"So, where are we?" said Delphia, taking a seat on a chunk of ferrocrete. "Accessing the Gunderson mainframe via radio didn't work."

"Only one thing to do now," said Silver, also sitting down. Easing off her sodden shoes, she poured out the water acquired by diving down the pipe in the floor of the tank, then slid the shoes back on. "We gotta try to find some allies."

Thumbs reached into a pocket of his vest and brought out a pack of smokes soggy as forgotten breakfast cereal. "Any ideas how we do that?" he sighed, tossing them away over a shoulder.

"There have to be a few dissatisfied citizens in this place. Would you want to be trapped for life under the ocean working as a drone for some corp?" said Delphia. "Maybe we can hit some bars or brothels, and see who comes out of the woodwork."

"Not bad." Thumbs looked impressed. "Gotta say, Mr. D, you got cojones."

Delphia stared at the troll for a long hard minute. Slowly his gun hand relaxed. "Thank you," he said softly. "Thank you very much, sir."

Then he stood up. "Time to book, my friends."

"Yar, let's go find another sewer," rumbled Thumbs. "Storm drain!" said Silver.

"Whatever."

An hour later, the group was creeping through piles of bricks and glass toward The Wall. Several of the street lamps in this area were broken, and the dim shadows generated by the ghostly luminescence of the dome itself cloaked the street. They saw that a tunnel passed through the granite barricade at this point, the truck-sized opening sealed shut with rusty doors of riveted iron. There was a sign bolted to door, its lettering long gone to ferric oxidation.

"Old," whispered Silver, hefting her Seco. "Real old." Delphia touched his ear. "Anything?"

Thumbs shook his head no. "All clear. Can't hear a sound on this side except for us."

Bracelets jingling softly, Moonfeather stood. "Good."

"Stay on guard," said Delphia. "This place is tailor-made for a trap."

Weapons at the ready, the team looked around them for any suspicious movements. There were none.

Directly in front of the tunnel was a water-filled pit, an impressive pothole. Razor wire and the crumbling remains of a kiosk were strewn about. In contrast to these ancient guards erected against unauthorized intruders was a very modern underwater keypad on the side of the imposing iron barrier.

"Probably there for City Guards or suits who might get trapped on this side," rationalized Thumbs, unfolding the stock on his Mossberg CMDT. "Can you ramjam it, Silver?"

"Cake," she snorted. "The ThunderClub in Overtown has better locks in the ladies room."

"Thanks for sharing that."