By the time the gunner entered the cockpit, Ivan had taken to the wall beside the hatch, so at first the gunner would only see his captain sitting in her command seat.

"What the hell happened? Where's Delgato?"

Jordan had his sidearm out as he entered.

Good instincts, Ivan thought "Jordan," Ivan said quietly.

The gunner spun around, his gun aimed at Ivan ... who kept a steady bead on Annie's head even as he looked at the gunner.

"Captain?"

Annie took a breath. "I think it's best if you stand down, Jordan."

The gunner didn't move. Didn't flinch.

"Jordan! I said ... stand down!"

Finally, Jordan lowered his weapon.

"Good," Ivan said, reaching out and taking it from his hand. Jordan held his grip on it, not letting go for a tense second or two.

"Nice to see you both can be reasonable. Now take your seat while we get off the Road."

"Off the Road?"

"Bottes Six," Annie said quietly. "They want Ivan."

"And us?"

Annie lowered her eyes and said nothing.

"Okay, Captain Scott," Ivan said. "Get us to Bottes Six."

30.

THE TRUTH.

[PART TWO].

Annie eased the power up as the SRV hit the off-ramp.

Unlike the twisting maze of the station on Hydra Salim, this way station had a flat, straight plane converging on a small runway with a tiny control tower.

There was no sign of human activity anywhere. No one asked for their ID or was tracking their transponder or giving them landing instructions. Annie assumed that the Runners had already taken out whatever few poor bastards worked on this dismal outpost.

"They'll get you again," Annie said, pulling back and slowing down the SRV. "The World Council, I mean."

"We'll see about that," Ivan said dismissively.

"Screw the WC. I'll get you, you son of a bitch," Jordan said.

Ivan looked at him but said nothing.

He focused on the screens over their shoulders, his pulse gun aimed steadily at the back of Annie's head. Their landing on the tarmac was smooth and, on the rearview display, he saw the battle cruiser trailing behind them, lumbering like a behemoth on such a small ramp.

Annie brought the SRV to a gradual stop. Her grip on the controls tight, her knuckles white knobs.

"Okay," Ivan said. "Wait until the cruiser comes to a full stop. Then open the commlink."

Annie flipped some switches to start powering down the SRV.

And Ivan quickly shot out: "No! Leave her running."

"They'll notice if we don't power down."

"Maybe not. And you. Jordan." He had the gunner's full attention. "Don't get any last-ditch heroic ideas about shooting it out, 'kay?"

Jordan eyed him steadily, coldly sizing him up.

For a coffin, no doubt.

"All you'll accomplish is seeing your captain's brains decorating the controls. If I'm fast enough, yours as well."

"You're a son of a-"

Before he finished, the commlink chirped.

"Ivan Delgato, I'm bringing our cruiser alongside the SRV."

"In front, Commander. Move your ship directly in front of the SRV."

A pause.

Confusion perhaps?

"I'm your commanding officer," Ivan said sternly. "That's an order."

Then: "Yes, sir."

The cruiser slowly rolled past the SRV, towering over it and casting a thick wash of shadow across the tarmac as it passed before finally coming to a stop in front of them.

Piece of cake for the forward gun, Annie thought.

"You can-" the commander started to say.

"Commander." Ivan's voice was firm. In control. "Bring a squad out to take possession of this vehicle, its cargo, and its passengers."

"And do what?"

Annie shivered when she heard Ivan laugh.

"Like I said. Whatever the hell you want. But I can't stand here all day holding a gun to their heads. Get a move on."

"We're heading out even as we speak."

Then silence in the cockpit as they waited. Sweat ran down Annie's neck, and she was thinking: Is there anything, anything, Jordan and I can do?

She remembered all too well what had been done to all those people on the stations along the way. The death from the warrows. The devastation on Hydra Salim.

No question what's going to happen to us.

She thought: A last-ditch hopeless effort may be the only card I have left to play.

Jordan was thinking the same thing, she knew.

Annie tried to think through her limited possibilities.

They didn't have many ... but the SRV's engines were still running.

Ivan watched as the battle cruiser's hatch opened, a giant clamshell, slowly sliding open, wide enough to drive the SRV into its massive cargo bay.

The cruiser's commander appeared first, walking ... strutting, leading two rows of Runners-twenty soldiers in all, each one holding a pulse rifle at the ready.

Good, Ivan thought, not too many.

For a moment, he scanned their faces.

Do I know any of them? Have I led any of these Runners?

Before they turned into a paranoid homicidal organization that seemed intent on turning the Road into one endless, bloody battlefield.

But the faces were all young. Hard faces. Chiseled. Good material for the type of destruction best carried out by those who don't question orders.

Maybe Kyros had purged the ranks of any loyalists-Runners who would question this "war" against the World Council, his attempt to grab power and hold on to it with the threat of death.

"You bastard," Annie muttered as the line of Runners marched closer, their figures resolving from the heat haze.

Ivan noticed Jordan's hand drifting slowly toward the pulse cannon controls.

"I wouldn't do that."

Outside, the commander raised his right hand to the headset on his helmet.

"Prepare to be boarded."

His voice filled the cockpit.

Ivan could sense Annie and Jordan both tensing up, waiting for the order that would expose their ship-and her passengers-to whatever hell the Runner commander decided to inflict on them.

"Jordan," Ivan said, his voice mild-pleasant.

The gunner turned and glared at him.

Ivan handed his gun back over to him.

The gunner looked at his handgun, stunned-then at Ivan.

"You son of a bitch," he said as a slow smile crept across his face.

"There they are," Ivan said, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears. He wondered again if he was betraying any men who had served him so loyally.

"Look at all those Runners..." After a brief, stunned silence, Ivan said, "Do what you do best."

Jordan snatched his gun and jammed it back into his holster while, in one fluid move, he turned back to the cockpit window.

And grabbed the controls for the forward gun.

And then, with blasts rocketing out of the SRV, the line of Runners-out in the open-was exposed.

The commander spun around and fell to the ground like a discarded toy. A line of dust kicked up where the pulse cannon ripped into the sand and asphalt a few meters in front of the line of men.

Jordan's blasts swept viciously back and forth across the line.

All of the men-well-trained, Ivan noticed-hit the tarmac, flattening themselves to make the smallest targets possible. Some ran left and right, dodging for cover.

It took only a few seconds. The air filled with dust.

Only the commander lay dead on the ground, red seeping from his head into the sand.

"If I were you, I'd go for their main guns," Ivan said. "Her shields are down with the loading bay door open."

Jordan didn't need the prompt.

He was already moving his sights up from the now-pinned boarding party to the four turret guns on the front and side of the cruiser.

No fire came from any of them ... and by the time anyone could get to them and power up, each gun had been turned into a twisted, charred crater of glowing, smoking metal.

"Good eye," Ivan said, as if Jordan needed to be told. "But I noticed you didn't take out any men, except for the commander."