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by her throat with his weapon pod’s barrels pressed into her side. Fox rolled to her feet from where she had thrown herself and looked around to check that the airlock door was closing.
    Kriel eyed her. ‘Open it.’
    Fox smiled and raised her weapon. ‘No.’
    Kriel looked down at the pistol Fox was holding. The ERU team were carrying standard-issue, light weapon pods, devices which mounted to the user’s arm housing an automatic rifle and a micromissile launcher. Fox was holding what looked like a compact machine pistol. It was not a familiar design; in fact, there was exactly one of them anywhere in the solar system, and it belonged to Fox. To a man in space combat armour it did not look that threatening, but she held it raised, aimed at his head. ‘Open the lock or we’ll find out how bulletproof your friend’s armour is.’ Kriel said, his voice level.
    ‘No. If you kill Pierce there, I’m going to set off the mine we planted in the airlock. Three people in hard armour locked in a pressurised container with a bomb. To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going to happen there, but I’d imagine we’ll have to spoon them out of their suits.’
    ‘You didn’t–’
    ‘I just armed it,’ Fox told him, arming the remote firing system as she said so. ‘Ask them if they see it.’
    There was a slight pause and then, ‘First Lieutenant Fox Meridian. I remember you. Always the one with the clever plan. Always the one who thought it through.’
    ‘It’s Inspector Meridian now, Kriel. I’m with NAPA. You just caught some bad luck that I was teaching these guys how to beat scum like you when you pulled this op.’
    ‘Should’ve taught them better. Open the door or the girl dies.’
    Fox’s smile broadened. ‘I think I’ll just blow your friends to crap instead.’ Her gun remained level, but her eyes dipped away from him as though looking down at something only she could see. Kriel’s arm moved, swinging out and away from Pierce, and Fox’s gun fired. Magnetic coils accelerated a metal needle, throwing it out with a sharp crack as it exceeded the speed of sound. It punched through the faceplate on Kriel’s helmet and then through his right eye. Fox was moving forward and grabbing his weapon pod, forcing it up and back even as Kriel was dropping Pierce to the deck. A second later they were both holding him down, but it was wasted effort.
    ‘I think he’s dead,’ Pierce said, looking in through the faceplate, which was badly cracked but already covered in blood.
    ‘Yeah…’ Fox agreed, frowning. ‘Hepburn? You with us?’
    ‘Fifty-fifty,’ the team’s leader replied, sitting up. ‘I think he hit me with a pile driver.’
    ‘And now you know why battles in close confines should be avoided. Want to see if the others want to be disarmed or detonated?’
    ‘Yeah. I’m on it, but you know there’s someone else in on this? He thought someone gave him up to take all of the loot.’
    ‘I noticed. I think that’s one for your investigative division, but…’
    ‘I heard him too,’ Driscoll said. ‘If you’ve got any thoughts on how to catch this outside man… Well, let’s just say the ERU could use an extra credit after the mess in the vault here.’
    ‘I’ll think about it,’ Fox replied.
    Luna City, 13 th January.
    The reception level of New Moon Data Security’s offices was still a mess. Fire had managed to get up through the elevator shaft from the floor below before the emergency teams could control it. It was crazy really; they were on the Moon, surrounded by a considerable amount of vacuum, which was very, very good at smothering fires, but it was not possible to use it without endangering the whole quadrant of the city.
    The small cyberframe hidden away in one of the reception room’s ventilation ducts had gone unnoticed because everyone had been far too busy making sure the fire was out and starting the operation to clear the elevator shafts. With everything stable for now, the