face and close-cropped silver hair. The simple grey cloak of the Gemini Council worn over his combat fatigues. Only this Ballard is way more bent than I remember, impossibly older since I last saw him.
He signals to the men holding me. ‘Go easy.’
I’m held less tightly now, do my best to straighten up.
‘Kyle?’ Ballard says, his face mournful. ‘You’re not hurt?’
‘I’m all right,’ I mumble, glancing around at what’s left of the still-burning tent. ‘Colm was in that tent there. Is he –?’
Can’t ask it, in case I get the answer I dread.
I don’t get a second chance. A quick whispered order from Ballard to his fighter escort and now I’m being hustled away.
‘Wait, wait!’ I call out. ‘What about my brother?’
But Ballard’s not listening. Flanked by his wary bodyguards he follows along slowly, his head down, as if deep in thought.
‘Kyle!’ Sky shouts. ‘What’s going on?’
I look over my shoulder and see her trying to push past the cordon to reach me, only to be shoved roughly back.
Her raging face is the last thing I see.
The guards put a bag over my head. Everything goes black.
After a forever of stumbling along blindly and being pushed, I’m stopped, turned and shoved backwards. Hinges squeal, metal clangs and bolts rasp home. Finally, the hood is pulled off. I squint around at a small rock-walled chamber. Table. Bench. Covered shit-pit in the corner. Closed metal door. Loads of guards.
‘Why the bag over my head? What’s going on?’
I’m wasting my breath. None of the guards will answer me; they just watch me out of their bored, tough-guy eyes like I’m some not-very-interesting bug. I give up asking, lie down on the bench and glower up at the rock ceiling, sick to my stomach.
Does this mean Colm is dead?
Time crawls by, slow and ugly. Wrath knows how long it is before the oil-starved hinges squeal again. The chamber door opens outwards and . . . Rona and Colm are shepherded inside.
Seeing me, Rona’s hand flies to her mouth.
I jump up from the bench. Rona dashes across the room, throws her arms round me and hugs me so tight I can hardly breathe.
‘Kyle! Oh, thanks be to goodness, we were so worried.’
I hug her back, while over her shoulder I gawp at Colm. He looks shaken, his face pulled tight. His left arm is in a sling.
‘You’re alive,’ I blurt out.
He grimaces. ‘Yeah. I think so.’
Rona lets go of me, dabs at her red-looking eyes and takes a quick healer look at me. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her. ‘I – uh – wasn’t there to get shot at.’
One of the guards who brought them in steps up, clears his throat and lays a gloved hand on her shoulder.
‘You’ve seen the boy needs no healing,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’
I glare at him, but Rona shoots me a quick warning look. She reaches out and pulls Colm and me together. ‘Listen to me,’ she says, frowning, ‘you’re safe here at least. Do what they say and don’t make any trouble. They won’t let me stay with you, but I won’t be far away. Everything will be all right. Okay?’
We each get another quick hug before she’s taken away.
After the door slams shut behind her, the guards left inside shove us towards the bench along the wall. A minute ago I’d have shoved back to spite them. Now I can’t be bothered. I’m more interested in hearing what my wounded brother has to say.
‘What happened?’ I ask him. ‘A guy said three masked shooters burst into our tent and then opened up with blasters.’
Colm nurses his bandaged arm and nods.
‘I was half asleep. The tent flap lifts and some guys barge inside. Next thing I know they’re blasting the hell out of your bunk.’
I stare at him, appalled. ‘So what did you do?’
‘They shot up my bunk next.’ A painful smile tugs at my brother’s lips. ‘Only I’d got such a fright when the shooting started I’d already fallen off it. It was lights-out and dark inside. With all the blasting, maybe the shooters dazzled themselves. My pulse rifle was still up on my bunk, so I cleared off as fast as I could. They came after me, but by then our guys were shooting back.’
I can’t help glancing at his bandaged arm. Rona’s handiwork.
‘I got lucky,’ he says. ‘Four of our mates were killed in the crossfire, more injured. It was a slaughterhouse.’
‘Who did this?’ I splutter. ‘And why? I don’t understand.’
‘Me neither. But . . .’ He takes a deep breath, sighs it out. ‘My first thought was that Slayers had somehow tracked us down and sent in a suicide squad to take us out. For revenge, or to teach us a lesson, like even out here in the Deeps nobody’s safe. Only before I was taken away, I got a good look at the shooters. They were Gemini fighters. I’ve seen them around. And before you ask, it wasn’t Stauffer or any of his thug mates.’
Colm’s words stomp about in my head, but make no sense.
‘You’re saying our own guys tried to kill us?’
He nods. ‘And it was definitely us they were after. They came straight to our bunks. It was a hit. We were the target.’
‘Why?’ I say, dry-mouthed.
‘I don’t know. Lucky you weren’t in your bunk, huh?’
‘Too right.’ I shiver. And now I finally remember that I’ve got my own big news to share. I tell Colm about how I saw the windjammer land and the black-clad passenger it unloaded.
‘Ballard brought a Slayer here ?’ he says, rocking back and chewing his lip. ‘Guess the peace deal must be on then.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’
‘So when did the jammer land?’
I think back. ‘Not long before the shooting started.’
Colm nods and pulls what I call his serious-thinking face.
Which
