Give me one of those!' I yelled above the slipstream and the choppy thrum of the turbo-fans.
"What?'
'I need a weapon!'
Fischig nodded and keyed a security code into a pad built into his bulky control stick. The cage on the gun-rack popped. 'Take one!' Aemos handed one over to me, and I began loading shells.
Thaw-view rose before us, a terrace of luxurious crystal-glass and ferrocrete dwellings built into the curve of the dome itself. We whipped low over stepped gardens, making ferns and palms shudder in our downwash.
Then Fischig keyed the fans to idle and we settled on a wide veranda deck, eight storeys up.
He leapt out, racking his shotgun.
I followed him.
'Stay here/ I told Aemos. He needed no further encouragement.
'Which one?' Fischig asked.
'12011.'
We edged along the wide, curving deck, clambering over dividing rails and trellises of climbing flowers.
12011 was glass-fronted, with wide sliding doors of mirrored window-plate.
Fischig swept up a warning hand, and took a coin from his pocket. He flipped it onto the terrace and it was atomised by nine separate las-beams.
He keyed his vox. 'Chastener Fischig to Arbites control, copy?'
'Copy, chastener.'
'Access dome central and shut down auto-defences on Thaw-view 12011. Immediate.'
A pause.
'Shut down authorised.'
He made to step forward. I halted him and tossed a coin of my own.
It bounced twice on the basalt terrace and rolled to a halt.
'I like to be sure/ I said.
We came up either side of the main picture window. Fischig tried the slider but it was locked.
He stepped back, apparently preparing to shoot the window in.
'It's arma-plex/ I told him, rapping my knuckles off the material. 'Don't be stupid/
I pulled the plastic bag containing Eyclone's effects from my jacket and searched for the compact las-knife. Before I found it, I found the plastic key.
Slim chances but what the crud, as Inquisitor Hapshant used to say.
I slid the key into the frame lock and the window slid aside on motorised rails.
We both waited. Perfumed air and light orchestral music wafted out past us.
Adeptus Arbites! Make yourselves known!' Fischig bellowed, his voice amplified by his helmet speaker.
They did.
Rapid gunfire, heavy calibre, blew away the terrace rail, decapitated potted shrubs and dwarf trees, cropped flower beds, and chopped down the deck's aerial mast.
'Have it your way!' bellowed Fischig and rolled in, pumping his shotgun. The blasts were deafening.
I clambered up a drain-spout onto the second level balcony, my shotgun dangling around my shoulders on its strap. Furious exchanges of fire rumbled below me.