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workers, dragging them out of latticed depths. There seems to be struggling going on in several places. Several workers are being hustled into one of the ships.
    “Less than I thought,” says the Operative.
    “Here’s a hint—those guys aren’t drawing a salary, friend. They’re not in it to win it. They’re either soaking up the radiation on that thing or else they’re breaking rocks beneath the Mare Imbrium.”
    “They’re convicts.”
    “And usually political ones. Sentenced to life by definition. Nothing left to lose. Someone was probably doing petty sabotage. Or plotting hopeless escape. Shit, man. This kind of bust happens a lot more often than you’d think.”
    But someone must be refusing to go out easy. Because now another swarm of suits is billowing from both ships. They latch on to the scaffolding, start getting in there. The Operative shakes his head.
    “Look at them go.”
    “This is getting good.”
    It’s getting even better. Because now the jets of both ships are flaring. Those craft are still tethered. They’re turning on their axes. The KE gatlings in their tails are starting to track on something.
    “Hello,” says the Operative.
    “Shit,” says the pilot.
    Both guns fire simultaneously.

    T he elevator doors give way to a room that’s really a warehouse. It cuts through at least three stories. Catwalks line the walls. Power-suited soldiers stand at intervals along the lower catwalks. Some kind of structure occupies most of the floor—sections of plastic wall partition the space into many sections.
    Morat leads the way into the maze. Occasional glimpses through open entryways reveal equipment, crates, dust—sometimes all three and always at least the last. At first Haskell wonders why the partitions haven’t been removed. But then she realizes that what’s about to happen is for her eyes alone: hers, and maybe Morat’s—and now he’s leading her into one particular room. It contains a metal rack in which a console sits. Wires protrude from the floor, nest around that console like snakes. Five screens gleam atop it.
    “Here we are,” says Morat, halting. “We’ve dug in, hooked up these interfaces. When you jack in, the connection goes live.”
    Haskell just stares. At the screens. At the console. She walks toward it. She halts in front of it, looks it over. She turns back to Morat.
    “I’ll watch your flesh,” he says.
    She says nothing—just turns, adjusts the manual controls. Takes out the implants, connects them. Slots them into her head. The hooks hang heavy in her skull. She sits down on the floor. Crosses her legs. Glances up at Morat.
    “The fuck you will,” she says as she jacks in.

    M arlowe’s given up on the stairs. He switches to the elevator shaft. He squirts the components of an acid compound from the finger-cartridges of his glove, lets that acid activate and corrode a hole in the elevator doors. He climbs through into the shaft. The light here is very faint. He loops a tether around a beam, drops down the shaft’s length. He sees sensors positioned in its walls. He feels their emissions scrape against him, watches his suit run countermeasures. He wonders whether he’s showing up on anybody’s scopes.
    That’s when something emerges from the gloom below. It’s the elevator car. It’s about twenty-five floors beneath him. It’s just gone motionless. Marlowe doesn’t know how fast it can move. He only knows that it’s time to get out of the shaft.
    But before he can do that, the doors to the floor immediately above the elevator car open. He goes very still.
    Two figures in light battlesuits leap into the shaft, land on the elevator’s roof. They’re looking upward. Not as high as Marlowe is. But high enough. Marlowe watches on his heads-up as the spectrums start to get crowded. He realizes that the suits are probing. That they’re about to detect him. The stealth part of this run is officially over. He lines up his targets.

    N o half measures: