Part 30 (2/2)

Outside, the hover tank was concentrating on a group of four men who'd dug in and were covering the main door of the aircraft.

A grenade arced over, bounced off the armoured sh.e.l.l, then clattered away. It exploded a few seconds later, blowing a chunk out of the tarmac.

The tank was the only thing firing bullets.

Relker changed channel. 'Keep under cover!' he ordered his men. 'There's a malfunction. I'm going to the teletroop control room. Everyone just keep their heads down.'

Malfunction. The tank was functioning fine. Making short work of his men. And if they hadn't realised they should be keeping their heads down without him telling them, then they didn't deserve to have heads in the first place.

He hurried further inside the building, heading for Baskerville's office. It wasn't far. To get there faster, he could cut past the production lines.

Relker headed that way, swiped his way past two security doors. Once the second of those was closed again, he could no longer hear the gunfire, all the other sounds were drowned out by the clatter of the factory floor.

He cut across them by climbing the metal stairs to the gantry. Down on the factory floor, he saw someone moving. Not one of his men Cosgrove, presumably. He'd have to be dealt with, but first things first.

Relker flung open the door to Baskerville's office, ready for anything.

What he found instead was nothing.

The RealWar booth in the corner, the only possible place in the complex from where the hover tank that was killing his men could be controlled. A cursory examination was enough to tell that it hadn't been on recently.

So what was controlling that tank? Was it just some malfunction, after all?

The office was empty. The light was on.

Baskerville and the Chinese girl, his a.s.sistant, weren't here.

So where were they?

No. First things first stop the tank. He moved over the terminal, switched it on, and while he waited a few seconds for it to boot up, he went back to the door and barricaded it with the filing cabinet and desk.

The booth was running. He set it to the simplest control interface, found the rogue hovertank.

Then he was hoisted out of the chair and slammed against the wall.

Cosgrove.

'A word to the wise,' he said, in Russian with a thick Scots accent, 'if you lock a door, what's on the side you're on is far more important than what's on the side you aren't.'

'I saw you down on the factory floor.'

He looked puzzled. 'I didn't even know this was a factory; I came in through the window. Is that thing working?' he indicated the RealWar booth.

'Yes.'

Cosgrove knocked him out.

Baskerville sat in the c.o.c.kpit of the Concorde, controlling the hovertank.

He paid for two dozen men to guard this facility. Which meant there were probably about fifteen. There were ten scientists, various a.s.sistants, a few support staff there to look after the autosecs, cleaning robots and food dispensers. He wouldn't expect any of those to put up a fight.

Even his mercenaries, who were meant to be there ready for the day the authorities discovered this place, were keeping down. They'd been hopeless against one cla.s.s two tank. The whole point about the RealWar armies was that the robots were expendable, and dropped on to a battlefield in great numbers. A girls' hockey team should be able to immobilise one one of them. of them.

So he had no regrets in gunning the men down. They were incompetents.

He turned the tank about twenty degrees. Now he was facing a couple of them, huddled behind a crate.

Crosshairs appeared on the screen, and Baskerville decided to fire a couple of shots to the left with the secondary cannon, before strafing the right with machine gun fire. His guess was that they'd instinctively dive out of the way of the first volley... and into the second.

A competent soldier would know to stay where they were. So this was simple Darwinism if these people really were soldiers, they would survive.

He pressed the switch that fired the secondary cannon.

Nothing happened.

The signal was lost. They'd finally got around to jamming him.

Time to move out.

Anji and Mather sat still, waiting to see what happened next.

Dee was still by the front door, unable to move for fear of sniper fire. Outside, they could hear the hovertank moving, but it was a few minutes now since it had fired a shot.

Anji stood up.

Dee was whispering something into her radio she sounded unhappy.

Anji strained to hear. 'It's not secure,' Dee insisted. 'We have twenty, thirty metres of runway, then a hangar then... well, who knows how far to the computer room?'

She paused, the radio hissed its response.

'We stay here,' she hissed.

Anji edged away.

Dee looked over. 'Where are you going?'

'Er... it was a long flight, and I had a lot of champagne and coffee.'

'OK. But be quick.'

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