Galaxy's Game

By Gareth D Jones

Part IV: Chinese Chequers

Chapter 1: One Hour

I stood in stunned silence. Fine particles of grey ash drifted down and settled on the major's spotless uniform.

"Wha …?" was the only reply I could manage.

"You are under arrest," Major Bragg repeated, "for the following charges." He nodded at Lieutenant Keef. She pulled a slim infopad from a pocket of her jacket and began reading.

"Entering Anto without a tourist visa, resisting arrest, criminal damage, aiding a fleeing criminal, endangering the public, consorting with anti-government activists, destroying police property. On Coray IV, resisting arrest, kidnap, breaking and entering a space-going vessel, stowing away. On Balan VIII, breaking curfew."

Nirf, Drew, and I all tried to protest our innocence and the general unfairness of the charges. We were cut off by the major's sharp voice.

"You also seem to be involved in the destruction of this building."

"He was trying to kill us!" I protested.

"It belongs to Kralo Zur!" Jereane explained.

"We are well aware of who it belongs to," Major Bragg said. "However, Kralo Zur has just left orbit and is currently heading out of the system."

"No!" Jereane said.

"After all this!" I said in frustration.

"Can't you stop him?" Drew asked.

"Unfortunately not," Major Bragg said. "He has seven armed merchant ships with him, while I have only my own single frigate. Until my backup arrives from Duterr I can't go after him." He turned to Lieutenant Keef. "How long until they arrive?"

"Almost exactly one hour," she replied, consulting her wrist watch.

"Meanwhile," Bragg continued, "I'll take care of those I can go after. Namely your group, and some of Zur's underlings." He gestured over his shoulder. I felt myself slump in defeat.

"We estimate a dozen remaining in the building," Lieutenant Keef said.

"How long will they take to round up, lieutenant?"

"Almost an hour," she replied. The conversation had a slightly unreal quality to it, as though it had been rehearsed.

"And do we have enough personnel to hold this group at the same time?"

"I'm, afraid not, sir." I couldn't be sure, but I thought Lieutenant Keef winked at me at this point.

"Well," said Major Bragg, looking back at me, "it seems my troops will be busy for an hour. As I don't believe you to be dangerous criminals and, off the record, I believe at least some of the charges against you to be spurious, I'm going to have to ask you to wait here while we deal with more pressing matters." My hopes began to lift as I started to understand what I thought was being said.

"I suggest they wait in the alley where it will be safer," Lieutenant Keef said.

"Good idea, lieutenant." He gestured to the alley. "Remember. One hour." And with that they turned their backs on us.

Jereane and I grabbed Anok beneath the shoulders and dragged our way through the dust into the alley.

"Did I hear right?" Drew asked.

"It seems we have been given a chance," Nirf said.

"We need to rush," Drew said. "Drop that and let's go!"

"Droids are very useful!" I protested. "We might need it."

"We don't have time to drag it!"

"Can you do anything, Nirf?" I asked.

"Give me two minutes."

"I'll go and hail a rickshaw," Drew said, looking exasperated, and jogged off toward the main street. Behind us orders were barked and the sounds of gunfire resumed. Nirf attended to the task of getting Anok operational.

It was slightly longer than two minutes before Anok was able to walk again, but I didn't want to leave such a valuable droid behind. Nirf flew ahead while Jereane and I still had to support the lurching droid to the front of the Moon Rock Casino.

A small crowd watched the excitement as several firebots sprayed foam through open windows. Drew stood beside a pair of auto-rickshaws, looking around nervously.

"I don't know why I'm so worried," he complained, as we bundled Anok into a seat. "I wasn't even with you on those planets."

"Me neither," said Jereane, as she hopped up into the second vehicle. "But I'm still determined to go after Zur."

"Let's not waste our time, then," I said, leaving Drew to finish securing Anok while I climbed into the seat beside Jereane. Drew glared at me, but I pretended not to notice as I got the vehicle going.

My mind was a whir as we drove along. Have you ever played the game Chinese chequers? It's played on a board shaped like a six-pointed star. Each player's pieces start in one of the points and have to make their way across to the opposite point. The complication arises in that everyone else is trying to make their way across too. The more players, the more complicated it gets. My life was beginning to feel just like that. I was still intent on capturing Kralo Zur. GalPol were also after him, but now they were after me, too. In the background the glossies were still active. One of them seemed to be working for Zur, but I was sure they had their own agenda, and I still wanted to know what that was. I had no idea whether GalPol knew anything about the glossies at all.

It took almost twenty-five minutes to make our way back to the spaceport. The rickshaws travelled at a maximum of twenty kilometres an hour, and that was severely limited by the constant crowds of pedestrians, inconveniently placed ponds, and inconsiderate hovaped drivers. We also discovered that rickshaws would not enter the spaceport grounds, so we had to disembark and catch a lift across the landing field on a trundle truck.

"I began a one hour countdown from Lieutenant Keef's time check," Anok informed us. "We now have twenty-seven minutes."

Another couple of minutes were wasted as the driver decided to jump down and do a few stretching exercises before continuing, and then attempted the world record for the longest time to do up a seat belt. We finally chugged across the field and came to a stop beside Drew's ship, Excalibur IV.

"Can we avoid GalPol in this?" I asked doubtfully. It looked to be a rather ageing craft.

"It shouldn't be a problem," Drew replied as the hatch slid open and the embarking ramp extended. "They'll be looking for your ship, not mine."

"Good point," I said as we helped Anok out of the trundle truck.

"Then perhaps we should file a flight plan," Jereane suggested, "so as not to draw any unwanted attention."

"An excellent suggestion," Nirf said. "We could also use the True As An Arrow as a diversion."

Jereane headed across to the admin building while Drew and Nirf loaded Anok and got Excalibur IV ready. I ran across to the True. It was quicker than waiting for another truck.

In the cockpit of the True, I flicked through the navigation and flight control computer. Most of the time a ship is in space it flies under automatic control, and even during take-off and landings a lot of automatic routines are used. Ships aren't usually intended to take off by themselves, but a small courier like the True, intended for a crew of only one or two, was more automated than most. I had spent some time flicking through the control options during our previous flight, so I knew a computer-controlled take-off was possible. It took a couple of minutes to remember where I had seen the option, then I hit the initialising icon.

There was a hum of power as the True came to life, and the control boards lit up with information. Behind me the hatch sealed shut. I quickly shut the procedure down and spent another minute looking for the time-delay sequence. I set a five minute delay and sprinted back across the landing apron, leaving the True As An Arrow for the last time.

"Thirteen minutes," Anok announced helpfully, as I arrived in the cockpit of Excalibur IV.

"All set?" I asked.

"Just waiting for Jereane," Drew replied tensely. I went back to the hatch to look out for her. A moment later the radio sprang to life.

"Control to Excalibur IV, you have a twenty minute clearance window for take-off from this message."

"Thank you, control," Drew replied. Outside there was the loud whine of a small craft approaching, and a GalPol shuttle shot down to the landing field, lowering itself into a vacant spot nearby. Jereane emerged from the admin building and paused at the sight of the shuttle.

"They're early!" I protested.

"It's not Bragg's shuttle," Drew said. "Different markings. His reinforcements are ahead of schedule."

A landtank dropped to the ground and the shuttle slowly ascended and crept across the field. Right on queue the True As An Arrow came to life. Green running lights began to flash along its side, and the hum of its engine powering up could be heard across the field. The landtank turned to face it. They were presumably trying to contact it by radio. Jereane began to run.

Oblivious to any commands it may have been receiving, the True rose into the air, slowly at first, but then shot away skyward. The GalPol shuttle roared away in pursuit.

Drew had brought our engines on line, and this now caught the attention of the landtank that had been left with nothing to do. It turned towards us, its large gun turret taking aim.

"This is the Galactic Police." The powerful voice came both over the intercom and across the field from a loudspeaker. "Power down your craft."

"Drew?" I called.

"Don't worry, they won't shoot. They're not even supposed to be here."

As if to confirm his judgement the landtank hatches opened and a dozen GalPol troopers charged out. Most headed for us, but two made a beeline for Jereane. Our ship raised itself slightly on its repulsors and Drew angled us gently round so the hatch was away from the landtank. We crept forward toward the running figure of Jereane.

"Come on, Drew!" I urged. There was a gap between the two nearest ships, but it didn't look wide enough for us to squeeze through. The sound of small arms fire intruded on my concentration. The troopers were firing at us, but that hardly mattered as Jereane was grabbed roughly by the two who had gone after her.

"Jereane!" I called desperately. A warning light was buzzing furiously for me to close the hatch, but I could only watch helplessly as Jereane was handcuffed. Three troopers appeared before me, making a dash for the hatch. I dropped to the floor as one fired at me, then slid to the side and hit the close switch. One particularly heroic trooper grabbed for the ramp as it was retracted and was pulled up with it until he could grab the door frame. Like all good safety doors, this meant the hatch would not close. I tried to kick him off, but the well-trained trooper grabbed my ankle and held on tight. I felt myself slipping toward the hatch as Drew began to slowly increase our speed and altitude.

The trooper didn't seem to care at all that we were in such a dangerous position. I held on desperately, trying to get a better grip to pull myself back inside. The trooper decided to quit while he was ahead, and dropped the three meters to the floor where he rolled over and over behind me. I knew that I was not going to land so well. Suddenly several tentacles wrapped themselves around my arms and Nirf heaved me back over the threshold. Another tendril snaked out and hit the button to seal the hatch.

"Clear!" he shouted. I felt the ship surge as we rocketed away from the spaceport. Nirf went forward to the cockpit, leaving me slumped against the hull.

I knew that Jereane would be all right. She had done nothing wrong, and there was no reason for GalPol to hold her. In fact, she could probably get back to fighting her cause in the Balan system. But I knew it would be impossible for me to see her again for a long time.

Chapter 2: Earth At Last

I made my miserable way forward to the cockpit, rubbing my face with the heels of my hands. We were breaking orbit as I threw myself into the technician's seat.

"One minute," Anok announced pointlessly. Drew glanced back over his shoulder at me.

"There was nothing we could do. And you know she'll be fine."

"I know!" I snapped back at him. He turned back to his pilot's console and concentrated on flying in silence. Nirf was studying the scanner and navigation displays from his position in the co-pilot's seat.

"The shuttle is still pursuing the True As An Arrow," he said. "Our course takes us away from them." He flicked tendrils over the controls, adjusting them minutely. "Major Bragg's ship, the Alert, is in low stationary orbit. Two twenty-thousand-cubic-metre cruisers are in a high orbit, currently adjusting to the True's course." He brought the computer's ID flags up on the main view screen to show us their relevant positions. The two cruisers, Anaconda and Apollo, did not seem to be reacting to us.

"What about Zur's ships?" Drew asked.

"They have already departed the system," Nirf said, but continued before I had chance to feel even more depressed. "However, as there were seven of them, we should be able to detect the cumulative distortion from their entry to hyperspace."

Nirf went back to his controls while I sat in glum silence for several minutes, fingering the worn edges of my padded chair. At last, Nirf finished his search and brought a galactograph up on the screen. A green line extended from the Sosh system, heading galactic southwest.

"I cannot be entirely accurate," Nirf apologised, "But this is roughly the direction Zur's ships departed in. The declination is slightly low, so the possible course includes Earth and Zrsectipar, and maybe even as far as Antorashus."

"The Kropask home world!" Drew exclaimed. "Makes sense for Zur, but I don't fancy going there!"

"I suggest we head for Earth," Nirf said. "It is the closest."

"Doesn't seem a likely place for Zur to go," I said, rousing myself from inactivity. "It's the closest though, so we may as well go there first. Besides, we could find Hanlo while we're there."

"Earth it is," Nirf agreed, and set the course. We accelerated away from Sosh II and slipped into hyper space.

*

The journey from Sosh II back to Earth took forty hours. This time there was at least a decent amount of room to exist in. Although Excalibur IV, at one thousand cubic metres, was only twice as big as the True As An Arrow, there was actually three times the living space. I don't know how much you know of starship designs, but the Star Drive itself does not increase significantly with the size of the ship. This means that the engine compartment took up almost the same room on both ships, leaving the rest for other facilities.

The bridge on Excalibur IV had three seats, with room to walk between them. A narrow corridor from the bridge ran down the left-hand side of the ship to the engine compartment. I can never remember whether that makes it the port or starboard. The rest of the ship was taken up by a central lounge of six by five metres that included kitchen and recreation facilities. There were bunk rooms and bathroom facilities off either side. With six bunks altogether, the ship would have been rather crowded if they were all filled. Nirf is quite small though, and Anok didn't need a bunk, so that left only Drew and I to take up most of the space.

We whiled away the hours discussing Kralo Zur, playing dominoes and other games supplied in the lounge's recreation locker, and fretting about Jereane. Nirf was on watch on the bridge when we emerged from hyperspace and began the approach to Earth. We all joined him there as Excalibur IV swooped into a descending orbit and received clearance to land back at Liverpool.

Saint John Lennon Spaceport is a huge facility. Unlike the scheduled flight that I had departed on quite a few days earlier, our ship was assigned to one of the outer docking berths, almost two kilometres from the main building. We walked down the exit ramp and I paused to take a deep breath. There's nothing quite like the air of your home planet, and I savoured the indefinable cocktail of Earth's atmosphere for a moment while we waited for the approaching hovabus.

A smiling human in a squashed grey cap and matching wrinkled uniform greeted us as we stepped aboard.

"Welcome to Earth," he said. They were words I had been waiting to hear for a long time indeed.

*

It wasn't long before we were stepping out of a cab in front of the Terran Galactic Trading headquarters building in one of Liverpool's busy commercial districts. It's a very old building made of cream stone, pitted now by the effects of age and the former ravages of acid rain. Inside, the building has been thoroughly modernised, and the impressively large foyer looked like the very epitome of modern business, all black marble and tinted blue glass. A massive iron-grey hawk emblem spread its wings across the expansive floor.

I looked around and nodded in appreciation. It was nice to take a trip away from the office every now and then, but this time it was definitely a relief to be back at work.

"Well," said Drew. "That's it, then. Finally got you back here. Several days later than the crystals, but who's counting?"

"I'm glad we had you with us," I smiled. Drew put out his hand.

"I'll be off to my office then," he said. I shook his hand slowly.

"Are you not coming with us, to follow Zur?"

"I'd love to," he said. "But the agency probably already has another assignment waiting for me."

It was a bit of a blow. Drew was only a hired guard, really, but he'd become so involved in our chaotic journey that his status had become secondary. I had really expected him to drop everything and join my crusade. I suppose that wasn't very realistic, though.

Nirf and I bade our goodbyes to Drew, and he promised to forward any information his agency had about Kralo Zur. I suddenly felt at a bit of a loss.

"I will ask at reception about Hanlo," Nirf announced, and floated off across the foyer. I tailed behind him, my mind slowly churning through possible courses of action.

"Mr Nirf, Mr Hawkes, nice to see you, sirs," the receptionist said.

I smiled. They always call him Mr Nirf.

"Thank you, Doris," I said. We like to have real people on reception at TGT. It's so much more welcoming than having a droid greet you in its impersonal voice. Doris looked a bit like Jereane, and a strange pain shot through my chest at the comparison.

"Mr Hanrahan is in the visitors' lounge," Doris said.

"You didn't put him up in a hotel?" I asked in alarm, thinking of the endless days he must have waited while I went to Zyg, on to Sosh II and then back to Earth.

"Well, I didn't think it necessary, sir," Doris said, looking rather surprised. "Mr Hanrahan wasn't expecting to wait long."

I rushed off to the visitors lounge, wondering what state Hanlo would be in after living on vending machine coffee all week. I practically burst through the door into the lounge, Nirf following in my wake for a change. A smartly dressed executive looked up from behind her newspad and frowned at the disturbance. In another corner sat Hanlo, flicking through a glossy magazine. It's funny how I can't look at a magazine any more without thinking about the glossies.

"Hanlo!" I exclaimed.

"Hi," he said, standing smoothly and dropping the magazine face down so that I couldn't see what he had been reading.

"I'm so sorry we left you waiting so long!"

"Well, it wasn't thatlong. I had lunch in the visitors' dining room. It was very nice, too."

"But you must have been here for days!" I said.

It turned out he had not been there for days. I had completely forgotten that the shuttle from Rosch II to Earth had not been due to leave until two days after we had departed on the True As An Arrow. Hanlo's flight had then been delayed another three hours. It had then taken him an extra hour to get through immigration at SJL spaceport because they wouldn't believe his date of birth. All of that meant that, contrary to my fears, Hanlo had only been waiting at TGT for two hours. Doesn't time fly?

I was kept busy for the rest of the day, first of all telling Hanlo all about our encounters with Kralo Zur. He was not very impressed that we had lost Jereane. I still had to complete the documentation to go with the crystals from Zrsectipar, and of course there were plenty of other messages waiting for me, too. Hanlo had a look round TGT and I arranged a hotel room for him to stay in while he decided what else he'd like to do while on Earth.

Going home to my own apartment that night seemed like the ultimate luxury after the many and varied places I had slept over the previous few days. Late at night, just before going to bed, I gazed out across the wide-ranging view from my penthouse above TGT. It was a comforting, familiar view. I was glad to be back on Earth, at last.

Chapter 3: Robot Revolution

It was mid-morning the following day before I had managed to finish working my way through the daunting queue of messages that awaited me. A cup of tea sat on the desk, steaming gently as I sat back and flexed my shoulders. I smiled in satisfaction at my empty in-box, and took a well-deserved sip of the refreshing beverage. The deskcom buzzed.

"Mr Nelson of Galactic Security Services would like to see you, sir," came the melodious voice of my admin assistant. I was surprised to see him so soon, and quickly let him in.

"Nice office," he said as he headed across from the door to my desk. It was a nice office, though rather on the ridiculous side of large. The floor was the same shade of black as the marble downstairs, but was actually carpeted with a tightly woven thread from an artificially grown silk oyster cultivated on Olpheus III. The walls were inlaid with tinted blue crystal glass, and a pair of coordinating blue sofas lounged against one wall. The desk, made of rich black oak, was almost big enough to play billiards on. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I can't help what office they decide to give me, can I?

"News on Zur, already?" I asked.

"Just in," he said. "Zur's little convoy arrived in Zrsectipar yesterday. The situation on the planet has deteriorated since we were there, so the flight restrictions aren't really being enforced properly. Our courier left with the news soon afterward."

"Do you know what he's doing there?"

"Not yet, but he landed near the Dome spaceport where the revolution is still centred."

I sat and considered this for a moment. Why would Zur go to Zrsectipar? That was the first place we had come across the glossies, one of whom now worked for Zur. Another coincidence? It didn't seem likely.

"I've been assigned to return and monitor the situation," Drew continued. "As it's my home planet, the office thought I'd be the best person for the job."

"Need any company?" I asked.

"I was hoping you might say that."

*

Only two hours later, Excalibur IV was roaring away from SJL spaceport. Nirf had abandoned the huge list of jobs that he was supposed to be looking at and we had dragged Hanlo from his luxurious hotel to come with us. He had planned on staying on Earth for a while, but the mystery of the glossies, not to mention the arrival of Kralo Zur on his home planet, inspired him to join us again. Before leaving TGT, I took a detour via our Corporate Intelligence department. There I filled them in on the mystery of the glossies and asked them to keep an eye out for information. TGT has lots of connections all over the sector.

As the ten-hour journey to Zrsectipar got under way, Nirf went back to tinkering with Anok in an attempt to get it operational again. He hadn't quite got round to finishing the job on our previous flight, and Anok had been left slumped in the corner of the lounge. Before long, Nirf announced his success, and Anok began reciting times tables in several different languages as a demonstration. That quickly became very wearing.

*

Drew was at the controls when we emerged from hyper-space and homed in on Zrsectipar. An automated announcement from a monitoring satellite warned us away from landing, but there was no reply when we tried to contact system flight control or the Dome spaceport. Hanlo and I joined Drew in the cockpit and strapped in as we began our descent through cloudy skies. As we approached, I tried several more times to raise a response from the ground, but the only reply was silence.

We broke through the cloud cover on our final approach to the Dome. Or should I say what was left of the Dome. A large section of the roof was missing, and jagged sections of wall jutted from the ground like huge pieces of egg shell. The remains of internal walls could be seen, like a giant cut-away model. Evidence of fires and blaster damage could be seen even from our height, and smoke drifted fitfully skyward. Scorch marks and black sooty stains marred the surface of the Dome and the land surrounding it. The scene was like that on Zyg, but on a larger scale.

Several spacecraft lay abandoned around the field, some of them large freighters. Nearby buildings were in various states of disrepair, from shattered windows to complete devastation. As we circled slowly, looking for a safe landing site, wafts of smoke interrupted the view. I was left with the impression of a continuous series of snapshots, each detailing another aspect of the devastating results of a revolution.

The cockpit was grimly silent by the time we came to rest at the far edge of the landing field. We armed ourselves against the unknown threats that lay outside, and Drew palmed the controls that opened the hatch. The smell of scorched earth and raw concrete greeted us as we quickly descended the ramp, looking around carefully for any signs of life. Anok activated its on-board bioscanner.

"There are life signs in several directions," was the report after a moment. "None are very close. A mixture of human and Zurspo."

We decided to head for the Dome, and Drew led the way, skirting around the burned-out hulk of a midi-jet that leaned awkwardly on its one remaining landing strut. Flakes of scorched plastic and shards of metal crunched underfoot. We used the partial cover of other craft and small outbuildings until we arrived in the shadow of the Dome itself. The air grew chill as we left the weak warmth of the landing field and paused to get our bearings. Above us the Dome wall soared away and out of sight as it curved over. From where we stood, it could still have been whole. Drew set off clockwise along the gradually curving wall, constantly alert for any signs of movement. A bright green cricket-like insect was the only sign of life I spotted as it leaped away from us and disappeared behind a short fence.

After a few dozen metres we came to an open doorway. The door itself was gone, no sign of it lying around anywhere nearby. The door frame was shattered from floor to ceiling. Inside was an all-too-familiar grey corridor. A small pile of leaves and dust lay against one wall, blown into a neat pile by a fluke of the wind. A crack extended several meters along the other wall, snaking up and down as it followed the course of a previously unseen weakness. We hurried along, Anok's feet clumping dully behind and echoing around us.

Several doors led off the corridor into small offices and store rooms, and scorch marks decorated the walls at intervals. At the end of the corridor we came to a half-glazed door, the glass cracked into a thousand panes but somehow still in place. Drew pushed the door open carefully, and we all filed through.

We were back in the open air. Previously we would have been in the main hall of the Dome spaceport. Now over half of the visible area of the roof was missing, giving us a view of the clouds again. The chaos within was far worse than that outside. It seemed that everything had been smashed or blasted. Debris lay everywhere, from mangled chairs to piles of rubble. Signposts stood leaning at crazy angles, pointing in all the wrong directions. Desks were tipped over, and vending machines lay forlornly on their sides, oozing sticky patches of congealed food and drink. Dotted here and there like the abandoned pieces of a board game were droids and securibots, left where they had fallen. Friendly blue spaceport trundlebots, serious-looking black Dome securibots, dark green government intervention droids. They left no clear pattern to tell what had happened.

We picked our way among the debris, concentrating on our footing, while Nirf floated overhead and continually looked around. It was the noise that alerted us first though, a low mechanical rumble. It reverberated around the walls, making it difficult to pinpoint the source. Then, surprising us with its speed, an all-terrain armed trundlebot appeared around a corner. That was the friendly way of describing it. Others might have called it an automated mini tank. It was painted the dark green of the government intervention troops and bore a family resemblance to the spaceport trundlebots that might carry your baggage. Only this one was three metres tall to the top of its fully rotatable head. The grappling arms on the front of its armoured torso looked like they could handle far more than a suitcase, and a variety of weapons were in evidence, too. Its flatbed section was useful for carrying any number of things, but in this case it was giving a ride to four intervention droids.

The droids jumped to the floor, two to each side of the trundlebot, as it came to a halt. Two were thus out of our line of sight, giving us a moment's reprieve. The uneven floor worked to our advantage too, as one that jumped down on our side evidently landed on something unstable and immediately toppled over, landing with a cloud of dust. The fourth landed solidly, bringing its weapon to bear simultaneously. I noted that it appeared to be an ultra-mag self-targeting stunner, in the brief seconds I had before it fired directly at Hanlo. I saw him crumple to the floor as I followed Drew's lead and dived for the meagre cover of a shattered low wall.

From the belly of the trundlebot a mini-missile streaked towards us, erupting a plume of bricks and junk as it ploughed into the ground. Anok, not so fleet of foot as us humans, disappeared under the shower of debris that came back down around it. Nirf was clear of the blast zone, but instead was hit by a geyser of water that blasted out from a ruptured pipe and sent him spinning off across the Dome.

My attention was drawn back to Drew, who was now crawling rapidly away, looking for better cover. He paused and peeked over the wall to get his bearings, then let off a couple of shots from his accublaster. I scrambled sideways to a nearby doorway that stood gaping wider than the architects had originally intended. The floor didn't appear to be living up to its original specifications either, for a section bowed under my weight and, before I had time to move, gave way beneath me. I scrabbled for a hand hold, but everything within reach was loose and slid down through the gap with me. Several items scraped and stabbed at me painfully as I slipped through the floor and down into a cramped hole. My head collided with something harder than itself and a nauseating blackness engulfed me.

Chapter 4: Back Underground

I came to in a confused state, my head and several other parts of my body clamouring for attention with a variety of aches and pains. I lay in darkness, but somewhere above me clouds of dust danced through a beam of sunlight that slanted down into the space where I lay. It was difficult to tell exactly where I was, as a metal rod hung suspended a few centimetres above my face and blocked a good portion of the view. The tang of metal and dust filled my nostrils and the taste of dust mingled with blood clogged my mouth.

I shifted my head to look around, paying the price in flashes of pain. I was surrounded and partially buried by rubble, though nothing excessively heavy had landed on me. With some effort I managed to raise my hand up to my face and peer at my thumbnail chronometer. It took several attempts at blinking and squinting before I could make out the time. It was two hours since we had landed. The fact that there was no sign of any of my companions was not good news. Either they were similarly incapacitated, or had abandoned me. Or worse.

After a short while I could hear the sounds of movement from above. Footsteps, occasional clangs and thumps as things were moved aside, the static hiss of interrupted radio chatter. A figure leaned over the hole above me and peered down. With the light behind and the metal bar in front of my eyes I couldn't make out who or what it was. The figure pulled back out of view.

"Down here," a muffled voice reported.

There was more shuffling and clumping for a moment or two before the figure once more impinged on my field of view, this time climbing backwards into the hole. Evidently secured with a line, whoever it was slowly made their way past the jagged edges and debris that lined the shaft. By this time I had decided that I was in a narrow corridor of some kind, where the ceiling and walls had given way, creating a cosy pit for me to fall into. It was not as tall as I had first thought, because by the time the person above me had lowered themself over the edge they were half way down towards me.

I felt around the floor on either side, searching for a weapon, just in case. All I managed to find was a pile of something sharp and broken. I jerked my hand back in pain and waited resignedly until a pair of feet landed next to my head.

Now the light from above was mostly blocked out, I could see it was a man that had come down to me, but as he leant over and peered down at my face I could not make out his features in the shadow.

"You okay?" he asked, his slightly squeaky voice hinting at a faded local accent. He pulled the bar away from over my head and pushed other debris away from around me.

"Not really," I croaked through my awfully dry throat. He extended a hand to pull me up and I winced at several pains that wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten about them. I managed to stand unsteadily, and shifted my weight uncomfortably to see if any position hurt less. None did.

"We need to hurry," he said, removing the climbing rope from his waist band, "before the 'bots come back." Above us another head peered over the edge and watched our progress as I looped the rope round my waist and made a knot as best I could. I tried a few questions to find out who my rescuers were, but he seemed reluctant to talk and work at the same time. With the rope being pulled from above, and hands boosting me up from below, I managed to haul myself back up from the hole, only collecting a couple of minor scrapes on the way to add to my collection. I rolled aside and lay passively, breathing hard, as a short moustachioed man undid the rope and lowered it back down the hole.

By the time I had regained my feet my rescuer was back on the surface. A thin, pale-faced man with hair that had started off jet black but was now speckled grey with both age and dust.

"Brion," he introduced himself, extending a hand once more. I took it and shook gingerly, sending twinges shooting up to my shoulders. He indicated the other man, who's classical Indian features were only pale due to the coating of dust it had acquired. "Rahan," he said. Fortunately he didn't offer his hand, but bowed ever so slightly.

"We must get under cover," Rahan said, and led the way at as fast a pace as possible through the wreckage of the dome. I limped as quick as I could manage, with frequent assistance from Brion to negotiate obstacles along the way. Rahan continually surveyed the surroundings as we went, his head swinging from side to side in time with his chunky rifle.

Once out of the dome again, we crossed a large plaza, nervously trying to watch all ways at once as we moved unprotected across the open space. Then across a road, and into the shelter of a large selection of warehouses. Presumably these were owned by freight companies bringing goods on and off planet; likely those companies were now losing a fortune as their goods stayed stranded in storage. At the third warehouse that we passed, my two rescuers stopped and pushed open a small pedestrian entrance set into a large freight door. We shuffled through into the dim interior where shadowy crates and packing cases lay stacked neatly in every direction, oblivious to the chaos in the outside world. We paused in silence for a moment, listening for any sign that we were followed. I panted heavily, breathing in the smell of new wooden crates and trying to ignore the endless pain that was coursing through my body. Then Brion nodded and led the way along the inside wall to a set of service steps leading down.

"Down here," he said unnecessarily, leading the way at a trot. He had to wait at the bottom as I painfully lowered myself down each step. I was exhausted. Rahan slowly followed, peering up into the warehouse as long as possible while Brion tapped on the painted wooden door at the bottom. The outline of a face was briefly visible behind the purple slats, then the door swung in and a diminutive figure gestured for us to enter the even darker interior.

Inside, I leaned back against the rough brick wall to catch my breath, only to find my breath catching me with sharp twinges across my ribs. The tired-looking woman at the door closed it silently and pulled two bolts across with a quiet click. The chunky rifle slung over her shoulder looked obscenely over-sized against her compact frame. She looked at me inquisitively, but said nothing. Brion gestured down the hall with his head and strode off.

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, willing myself to stand up straight and keep moving. I pushed myself off the wall, only to find the opposite wall careening towards me. Four hands caught me and helped me stay upright. I could barely murmur my thanks as I concentrated on squinting through the pain that threatened to engulf me. Brion came back into view and with Rahan's help assisted me to lurch along the corridor. I didn't really pay attention to where I was going, but a short time later I was lowered onto the fluffy blankets of a semi-comfortable bed.

"Another one for you doc," Brion's distinctive voice announced. I managed to blink myself alert enough to look around the small, white-washed room that I had been brought to. There was nothing extraordinary about the room, but it had that distinctive smell that no matter where you go in the galaxy will always identify a medical facility. A short, chubby-faced man with dark curly hair entered through one of two doors on the opposite wall. I had no idea which door I had entered through.

"Hello!" he said, rather more cheerfully than the occasion warranted. "I'm Doctor Carlot." As though his declaration that he was a doctor would make everything alright. Before I could reply, he pressed something cold against my neck and there was a gentle hiss. There wasn't much I could say really, as once again, and this really was becoming an annoying habit, I fell unconscious.

Chapter 5: Yonda's Army

When I came to, an indeterminate time later, I felt a little groggy and aching, but the sharp stabs of pain had faded to a series of half-hearted twinges. I had barely managed to sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, noting that I was now dressed in one of those hideous light green medical gowns, when Dr Carlot bustled back in to the room, alerted, no doubt, by some kind of medical monitor.

"How are we feeling?" he asked in an irritatingly jolly tone. I mumbled that I felt better. Over his shoulder I could see someone armed with a rifle peering through the door that had been left ajar. In a corner of the room my favourite jacket hung on the back of a chair. I wondered whether anything was left in its pockets.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Quite safe," he said in a professionally reassuring voice as he checked my temperature. "I'm afraid I can't really say more until you've been cleared." He went on to check various dressings that had been plastered over me while I slept.

"I was with friends when we were attacked," I said. "Do you know if they were found?"

"I don't know anything that happens outside my rooms." He smiled. "I'm sure they'll be fine." Blind optimism was obviously part of his bedside manner. "Would you like something to eat?"

I realised that one of the pangs I felt was hunger, and asked for something to be brought in. A short while later I was brought a plate of eggs and bacon with a pile of buttered toast, and sat on the chair wolfing it down and inhaling the divine smell. With that and a cup of tea, I felt ready for anything. Just as I was finishing up, Brion came in carrying a bundle of clothes.

"You're looking more healthy than last time I saw you," he observed.

"I feel it," I said. "Thanks for your help. Was there any sign of my friends while you were out?" I gave him a brief description of Nirf, Drew, Hanlo and Anok. Brion shook his head.

"We've got a patrol going out soon," he said. "I'll ask them to check the area again." He handed me the pile of clothes to replace mine that had been ruined during my escapades. "Best we could do." He smiled apologetically.

"Are you with Yonda?" I asked. After all, it was she who started the rebellion. Brion looked at me sharply.

"You know Yonda?"

"I was there when she was released," I explained. He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Wait there," he said, "I'll be back soon."

By the time Brion returned, accompanied by a tall, haughty looking woman with long, greasy black hair, I had dressed myself in the fetching red and silver track suit that had been provided. The woman gave me a searching look. She seemed vaguely familiar.

"That was him," she said to Brion, and swiftly left. Brion nodded again thoughtfully.

"She remembers you," he said. "I'll go and tell Yonda." I rose to follow him. "You'll have to wait here," he said. The armed figure still lurking at the door helped me decide to be patient.

I paced up and down the small room, carefully flexing and exercising various muscles to see how unfit I was. I didn't feel too bad, as long as nothing too strenuous was expected of me. I checked through my jacket pockets. They were undisturbed. All of my useful little gadgets were present and correct. I fretted about Nirf, Hanlo, and Drew. What had become of them? Was Anok still functioning, or had I lost another useful gadget? It was quite a while before Brion returned, this time accompanied by Yonda.

"So, it is you," she said, unsmiling. Her blue eyes still had that same piercing quality that made me want to confess to something. I hadn't expected a joyous reunion with hugs and kisses, but I thought she might have been at least friendly. If not for us she would still be trapped, unknowing, in the transmat files.

"I'm glad to see you're alright." There's no harm in trying to be polite. There was a silence while she continued to gaze at me thoughtfully. "Hanlo came back with us," I said finally. "And Nirf and Drew. I'm not sure what happened to them after we were attacked. Or my droid."

"Hanlo is with you?" she asked, shock registering on her face. "We thought him dead. No-one knew where he had gone." She turned to Brion. "Have those patrols gone out yet?"

"A few moments ago," he replied. "They're searching the same area again for signs of anyone else."

"Send out more," Yonda said. "Find Hanlo."

Brion acknowledged and left.

"Come with me," Yonda said and left without a backward glance. I grabbed my jacket, unsure whether I would be returning, and hurried out after her. The armed guard outside followed in our wake.

The underground base that Yonda's rebels now occupied was evidently newer, yet more basic than the subterranean dwellings beneath the Zrsectipar Dome. The walls were of bare concrete, or sometimes grubby brown blocks. A short corridor had various small rooms off one side of it, like the medical room I had just left, and on the other side lay a large basement warehouse. The huge room stretched away into the distance, the ceiling four or five meters overhead supported by numerous square columns. The view was broken by endless rows of racking, much of it empty but some occupied by crates and boxes. In seemingly random spots around the warehouse, tables had been set up, and these contained anything from food, to weapons, to unidentified pieces of mechanical equipment. Some tables were attended by small groups of Yonda's soldiers. All looked tired, some were bruised and battered. Many looked rumpled and grimy. In some places crates had been stacked into makeshift dividers to give some privacy for bedrolls. Some were occupied by sleeping figures. It all looked a bit desperate.

Yonda took us across the warehouse into a large office on the far side. This room was much better set up. A proper desk, several chairs, maps on the wall. Behind the desk sat another figure I recognised, Bosak, one of the original rebels. His chestnut hair had been cropped short since last I'd seen him, and although still broad, his face now looked slightly sunken. He stood and shook my hand briskly.

"Welcome back," he said, offering me a seat. "Tell me what happened when you landed. We could use any scrap of information you can give us about the government forces."

"Are all those droids still controlled by the government?"

"We honestly don't know," Bosak replied, glancing at Yonda as she lowered herself elegantly into another chair. "Things have been a little chaotic." His eyes flickered toward Yonda again.

"We may as well fill you in on what's been happening," she said. Bosak nodded agreement. It was obvious who was in charge, despite the seating arrangements. Yonda stayed quiet mostly, and let Bosak do the talking.

I gave them as much detail as I could about the droids that had attacked us. The attack had been so brief that there wasn't much to say. Bosak explained that a few Dome Security droids were still on the loose, though with nobody in control at the Dome any more it was unclear who was running them. The green Government Intervention droids were also a common sight and had been regularly patrolling the city. After their invasion of the subterranean base beneath the Dome, Yonda and her followers had relocated to the warehouse district and set up base there. They had since been joined by others, and now numbered around two hundred. Elsewhere on the planet, various human and Zurspo groups had formed, and were fighting each other and the government. The glossies were involved somehow, and criminal gangs, some said to be linked to Kralo Zur, were taking advantage of the situation whenever possible.

It was unclear who was winning.

For the remainder of the morning I made a nuisance of myself, trying to find out more details of what was going on, and accosting any patrols that returned for information about my companions. Just after lunch, which I took in a small refectory with a couple of dozen grim-looking rebels, a familiar figure wafted through the door.

"Nirf!" I exclaimed. Of course, whatever he'd been through, he still looked immaculate as always. Rahan and an exceedingly skinny man I'd not seen before came in with him.

"These men were good enough to escort me from the surface," Nirf explained. His two companions had already headed over to the servery without a word and begun helping themselves to what some might generously term a buffet. I wandered out into the warehouse with Nirf. I'd finished eating and he didn't need anything. He had a look round at the setup while explaining that he had been disoriented by the water jet that blasted him halfway across the Dome and impacted his dermosensory receptors. By the time he had recovered there was no sign of any of the rest of us, so he had returned to the Excalibur and waited overnight, using the sensors to attempt to track us. After narrowing the location of a sizeable group of humans to somewhere within the warehouse district, he had set out to search, spending all morning until spotting a face he recognised from Yonda's group: the skinny man whom I thought I'd never seen before. Of course he would remember everyone's face. Nirf is fairly difficult to forget, and they were on the lookout for him, so it all worked well and there he was.

Not long afterward a messenger came to call us, the small woman who had been guarding the entrance the previous day; she still looked tired.

"Yonda wants you," she said, turning to lead the way across to the office.

All of the chairs were occupied when we entered, and a few more people stood around the walls. Bosak was there, along with Brion, Rahan, the skinny man, the tall, haughty woman and several others. The desk was now occupied by Yonda herself.

"We've tracked down Hanlo and Drew." She said without preamble. "They're being held by one of the regional gangs in their local HQ." She tapped a map laid out on the desk in front of her. I don't know the layout of the city, so it didn't mean much to me. "They apparently are holding several off-world prisoners, hoping for ransom money, I guess."

"Are they working with the droids, or the glossies?" I asked.

"We don't know," she admitted. "We'll make sure we're prepared for either." She looked round the room at the grimly nodding faces. "I assume you'll want to come along?" she asked me.

"We would," I answered for both of us.

"Good. You'll be with Rahan's group."

I nodded at my new leader. It seemed that I had just been conscripted to Yonda's army.

Chapter 6: Sortie

Rahan's group turned out to be comprised of Brion, two men and a woman I didn't know, Nirf, and myself. Brion appeared to be Rahan's deputy, though it was a bit unclear. There seemed to be no formal rank or structure. Two other groups of similar size were also on the mission, but as we headed out of the underground warehouse and back up to the surface, Rahan explained that we would be moving separately and converging on the gangsters' base at a pre-set time.

"How many gang members are there?" I asked. Nobody seemed to know. "Are we likely to run into any government patrols?" Nobody could tell. I had to trust that they knew how to move around the urban desolation without being spotted.

Once outside, we split up again into two smaller groups, one exiting out of either side of the warehouse. Nirf and I were instructed to follow Rahan, with the wavy-haired Leena bringing up the rear. After telling me her name she said nothing more. We moved in parallel with Brion and the other half of our group, traversing alleyways and wide streets at speed, and hugging the shadows where possible as we travelled through the warehouse district. The other two groups had disappeared from sight as soon as we came above ground.

Before long, sooner than I was really ready, Rahan called a halt outside a huge commercial warehouse. It was a wholesale food market, and I couldn't think of a better place to set up a gang headquarters, if I had a gang. No worries about running out of supplies here. The building was surrounded by a broad boulevard, now sprinkled with pot holes and piles of rubble, burnt-out vehicles and random pieces of green cladding from the store.

Rahan waited a moment, then signalled the advance. He led the way across the open expanse, ducking and dodging among the available cover. An explosive whine from a shadowed doorway and a shower of metal shards from an abandoned ground car sent me diving for cover. Rahan returned fire with his force-beam rifle and I glanced up to see holes being punched in the cladding. Leena ran forward under the covering fire and tucked up close against the wall. There was silence, then the creak of a door. Rahan fired again and someone grunted loudly. A bulky figure toppled out of the doorway onto the ground and lay still.

Nirf and I dashed over to the doorway, followed by Rahan. A section of cladding fell off the building and clattered loudly on the roadway, making me jump.

We slid into the darkened interior of the store, through a loading bay and into the main warehouse, where shelves stacked with goods towered above us. A pair of scruffily dressed men, armed with ugly looking rifles, hurried along one of the aisles, evidently attracted by the noise of our arrival. The three of us launched a barrage of force-beams in their direction, pummelling them to the ground along with an assortment of tin cans, boxes of pet food and a shower of juice. I'm not sure which of those I hit.

We moved forward cautiously, stepping over broken cartons and puddles of juice. At the end of the aisle we turned into a much larger aisle that seemed to run the length of the store. We edged forward.

"Hold it right there!"

I spun round at the voice. A large figure in dull white body armour stood several metres from us, pointing a jazzler in our direction. I fired, taking out a case of preserved prunes. The armoured figure fired back, his weapon's broad range shaking us all with induced pain. I fell to the floor and dropped my rifle. I was surprised to see Nirf sink to the floor alongside me.

Heavy footsteps behind me announced the arrival of half a dozen unkempt gang members. They glowered down at us, sweeping their weapons back and forth. I gave up trying to grab my rifle back.

"Get up," the figure in white said. Slowly we complied.

"Get down!" another voice yelled.

I dropped to the floor, bruising my knees.

The entire group of gangsters fell to the floor in a barrage of force-beams. The figure in armour twitched several times before falling back against the shelves and crashing down amongst a tumble of cans and boxes.

Brion and his two team members emerged from cover further down the aisle, followed by another team from Yonda's base.

"Thanks," I said breathlessly and pulled myself back to my feet.

"We think we know where the prisoners are," Brion said. He led the way without another word. We worked our way to the back of the store, to a door marked 'Staff Only' in Terran and Zurspo. Brion reached for the door handle, but paused and pulled back. He gestured to one of his men.

A short, twitchy man stepped forward and slapped a circular explosive on the door. I started to back away.

Rahan grabbed my arm. "Don't worry, it's a uni-way mine."

As he spoke there was a dull thud and the door blew inward in a shower of splinters and dust. Nothing came in our direction.

Brion dived through firing, followed by the rest of us. Stunned men inside fell before they had time to react. Several small rooms were within: store rooms, toilets, a lounge. Two or three other gangsters, caught by surprise, put up minimal resistance.

I stalked down a narrow corridor lined with cupboard doors. Electricity warning signs and cleaning notices provided decoration. Leena and another revolutionary followed me carefully.

As I stepped through the doorway at the end, a huge hand grabbed me. I spun round and smashed my rifle into the face of a massive Kropask. I was glad I hadn't known he was there before I entered the corridor. He flung me back through the doorway and I collided with Leena. The man behind her leaped over us and fired into the room. A massive foot lashed out and kicked the gun from his hand. He fell to the floor screaming and clutching his wrist.

Winded, I staggered into the room to see one of three doors swinging closed. By the time Leena and I had reached it there was nothing but an empty corridor beyond. Rahan and Nirf came in behind us and Nirf scooted off down the new corridor following the Kropask. Rahan stooped to see to his injured man.

Loud bangs sounded on another of the doors, painted blue and covered in scratches. Leena approached cautiously and grasped the handle. Rahan and I covered the entrance with our force-beam rifles. Leena twisted the handle. Locked.

"It's locked!" a woman's voice called from within.

"Stand back," Leena shouted back. She blew the handle out of the frame, with the lock still attached. The door swung open creakily, and a woman in a dishevelled business suit blinked in the light. She raised her hands quickly when she saw the guns.

"Dana Strong," she said, "Briden Associates."

I blinked appreciatively. If Galactic Security Services is the galaxy's largest private security firm, then Briden Associates is the longest running and most prestigious.

"I presume the Kropask has gone," she said, emerging slowly as we lowered our weapons.

Nirf re-entered from the other door. "He's gone. No sign of him."

"Great." Dana did not look impressed. "That was Horkoz. He works for—"

"Kralo Zur." I nodded.

"You know him?" She fixed me with an intense gaze.

"That's who we're after."

"Me too."

"Oi!" A dull shout reminded us there was another door still to open. Leena dealt similarly with the handle and we found Hanlo and Drew inside. I patted them on the back while two or three more of Rahan's men came in.

"Dana," I said, "this is Drew Nelson from GSS. He's after Kralo Zur, too."

"Great," she said again.

"What does that mean?" Drew sounded aggrieved.

"Who cares?" Hanlo said. "I want him too. Look what he's done to my planet!"

"Shall we compare notes?" I said, trying to ignore the irritation among the group.

"I don't think Zur is responsible for this entire mess," Dana said. "There are others behind him, and I haven't got time to wait for you amateurs to keep up with me." She made for the exit.

"I presume you're talking about the glossies?" I called after her.

She paused and turned around. "Who?"

"Tall, red, shiny skin," I said.

"What do you know about them?" she asked.

Chapter 7: Departure

It seemed Dana, and Briden Associates, knew a fair amount about the glossies, though not the incidents and encounters we had experienced with them. I updated her on what we knew as we searched the rest of the store. Well, we mostly stood around talking while Rahan's teams searched the rest of the store. They found another three off-world hostages who were fantastically happy to be free. Dana's information about Kralo Zur and the glossies was similar to ours, but she had little evidence to show they were also working separately to the master criminal.

Rahan was keen to round up his team and head back to their base before any other factions arrived to cause trouble. We edged towards the exit still talking, as his teams pulled out one at a time. Dana seemed determined to continue her investigations single-handedly, but with all her belongings gone, she had little choice but to come back with us temporarily.

"This doesn't mean I'm working with you," she said, taking in the rebels, me, and Nirf, Galactic Security Services, and anyone else present.

"Good," said Drew.

We regrouped at the rebel's base, where the newly-released hostages made a big fuss about wanting to return home, and an exasperated Rahan told them they were free to head back to the ruins of the spaceport and catch the next shuttle out of there whenever they wanted. A couple of them looked like they were ready to do just that, until Hanlo reminded them about the Kropasks, gangs, security bots and general mayhem. They all elected to stay in the safety of the rebel's base for a while.

"I, for one, will be going to the Dome," Dana announced a short while later. She had got herself cleaned up, as had Drew and Hanlo, and she now wore a pair of cargo pants that were too wide and too short, along with an ill-fitting cardigan that looked terrible on her.

Drew smirked. He had found some relatively clean coveralls to wear, and they fitted him pretty well.

"Why back to the Dome?" I asked.

"That's where most of the trouble began," she explained slowly. She obviously did not know that I had been there at the time. "And the information I gleaned indicated that Kralo Zur was basing himself there."

"Then why was one of his Kropasks in that gang base?" Hanlo said.

"How do we know it's one of Zur's Kropasks?" I said.

"Did you not recognise him?" Nirf said. "That was Horkoz, Zur's chief henchman."

"No, I had not recognised him."

"Oh, that gang were working along with Zur's organisation," Dana said, playing with the frayed edge of her cardigan. One of the freed prisoners, still wearing his dusty business suit, came in with a tray of tea and started dishing it out. He had evidently decided to make himself at home under the circumstances.

"So we'll go to the Dome, then," I said.

"We?" Dana's hand paused halfway to picking up a cup of tea. "I wasn't inviting anybody else."

The tray bearer stood still, looking awkwardly from one person to the rest. He coughed quietly and Dana took the cup.

"I don't need an invitation," Drew said.

"Great," said Dana.

An hour later, after a lengthy argument with Yonda and her lieutenants, we were ready to head back to the Dome. Yonda was not keen on us wandering round getting into trouble, or causing trouble. I pointed out that, although we were very grateful for her hospitality, we were not her responsibility and we were quite capable of looking after ourselves. Except for the odd occasion when we had needed rescuing, but that was beside the point. Anyway, Dana and Drew were both determined to show that their agencies were the best in the Galaxy and would leave without the rest of us, so we ended up getting agreement that two of Yonda's people would come with us.

Hanlo sided with us anyway and wanted to come, so along with Brion and Leena who acted as scouts, I made my way back through the ruined city with Drew at my side and Nirf overhead. It was early evening, and long shadows were beginning to make the streets dull. It was quiet outside, except for the occasional blare of a burglar alarm that was still hoping for some kind of response to its signal.

We arrived at the Dome unmolested and slid inside through one of the missing doors. Inside was even quieter. We picked our way through the rubble of the main dome again. There were no functioning robots to be seen, but I spotted a familiar grey and yellow leg, mostly hidden by dust and rubble.

Drew and I pulled Anok out from beneath the debris. It was much more dented than I remembered. Nirf fiddled with the controls in his back panel for a moment and managed to reset it.

"Hostile activity has ceased," Anok announced as it whirred back into operation.

After checking its legs were working satisfactorily, we followed Hanlo down into the depths of the Dome spaceport's sub-basements. There were signs of recent occupation in several places, but no people of any kind. We saw abandoned bags and empty food packets, broken robots and discarded weapons, but nothing that moved, except for a random robot's foot that twitched as we walked past.

We arrived in the holographic projection room, where Hanlo's face darkened with memories. A sudden hum had us diving for cover and grabbing for weapons.

The holographic screen flickered into life and there stood Kralo Zur, larger than life; and he is pretty large to start with. He smiled a twisted smile.

"Well," he said, "visitors." He looked around at us slowly, nodding in satisfaction. "The room's scanners indicate the presence of a GSS and a Briden Associates ID," he said. "I'm glad to see I'm so popular. And there is also a Tsimkan present, so that's three of the groups I know have been making my life slightly more difficult than necessary."

I looked round at the others curiously. Zur had evidently recorded specific messages for those he expected to turn up in pursuit. Convenient for him that we had joined forces.

"I've recorded several messages," Zur continued, "but they all end the same." He hooked his thumbs into his wide belt. "I'm long gone by now. I'll see you zuarka niablo." He turned from the camera and walked away. The hologram faded.

"Gone again!" Drew ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.

"What does zuarka niablo mean?" Hanlo asked.

"It is not Terran," Anok said. "Scanning linguistic files for possible translations."

"I was unaware you had linguistic files," Nirf said.

"I was likewise unaware," Anok said. There was a brief pause. Dana poked round the control consoles, while the rest of us stood in a disconsolate huddle.

"There are two possible meanings," Anok announced. "First, from the Niarin language spoken in the Palkot system, which translates as 'In the mountains the Nia sings'."

"What does that mean?" Drew said.

"Possibly a proverb," Dana said, "Palkot is full of them. It probably has a deeper meaning, maybe something significant that Zur is teasing us with."

"We should go to Palkot to find out," I said.

"What is the second translation?" Nirf asked.

"The Zinian Prime language, meaning 'Never again, for you are about to die'."

We ran.

"You could have told us that one first!" I yelled at the stupid droid as an explosion shook the ground behind us.

"I gave the options in alphabetical order according to the language," Anok said as it ran jerkily ahead of me.

Smoke and dust billowed down the corridor behind us. More explosions and rumbles threatened to throw us to the ground. Hanlo led us to a service shaft and we climbed for all we were worth. Gouts of flame engulfed the bottom of the ladders as we threw ourselves out of the shaft and ran pell-mell into the dome and out the other side. The ground cracked behind us and, as we raced across the broken concrete of the landing field, the Dome collapsed in on itself. The roar was deafening.

I nearly coughed myself to death as a thick cloud of dust engulfed us. When I could see again, I could barely recognise the ghostly figures around me. Anok, overcome by dust entering his systems, collapsed on the floor again. I was really beginning to wonder if he was worth keeping.

"Well," said Brion, "I'll go and tell Yonda you've managed to destroy the spaceport."

"That's hardly fair!" Drew protested.

"What will you do now?" Hanlo asked me.

"You know," I said. "Maybe Anok isn't completely useless. Zur is quite clever, you know. It wouldn't surprise me if he said that phrase deliberately because it has two meanings."

"We should go to the Palkot system," Dana said.

"Just what I was thinking."

"What do you mean, 'we should go'?" Drew said.

"I don't have a ship," Dana said.

"We only have a small ship," Drew retorted.

Everyone glared at each other. Except Nirf.

"I'm not going," Hanlo said.

I wasn't really surprised, I suppose.

"My fight is here," Hanlo continued.

I nodded. We made our farewells, and Hanlo walked off into the city with Brion and Leena.

I looked round at my remaining companions: Drew and Nirf, with me since the beginning, and now Dana, who was on the same mission as us.

"Let's go," I said. I kicked Anok, which jarred something within and the dusty, battered droid climbed back to its feet and followed us across the landing field to Excalibur IV.

End Part 4

Bio: Gareth D Jones is unofficially the second most widely translated science fiction short story author in the world, having been published in 35 languages. He’s a father of five, two of whom have also been published in Aphelion, and lives in the UK where he writes science fiction, fuelled by copious amounts of tea.

E-mail: Gareth D Jones

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