They braced themselves as the walls shuddered, but Nallera’s eyes were on the dim windows. ‘That was an explosion,’ she confirmed, ‘but not this building. Someplace nearby.’

Cassidy sucked his teeth, pressing a finger to his earpiece. ‘Rook One to Rook Four, come in.’ Silence met him. ‘Rook One to Blackbird?’ More silence.

‘Jamming,’ Tiran surmised.

‘Or they’re all dead,’ said Cassidy with a shrug.

‘It’s Tal Shiar,’ said Ireqah.

‘Local warlords could -’

‘They wouldn’t jam local comms; it’d be blinding themselves, too,’ she said, cutting off Rosewood’s challenge. ‘Not to mention, I don’t think they have the means to do that. I thought the Tal Shiar had followed me to this world; there’s a reason I stayed in that safe room. They must have trailed you to the building and waited until I was exposed.’

Cassidy glared at her. ‘Or they knew you were in this building because your opsec was bad. It’s time to move, anyway. Tiran, watch her. Chief, you’re with me. Rosewood, back us up and one eye on the rear if needed. Stay close, keep your heads down.’

To Rosewood’s relief, Ireqah looked shaken into complying, and Tiran’s presence was calming as she put a hand to her shoulder. ‘I’ve got you, ma’am,’ she said in a low, quiet voice. ‘Just do what I say.’

Nallera was already sweeping the hallway with her rifle. ‘Clear. For now. What’s the plan?’

‘Same as always. Fight our way out,’ said Cassidy. ‘Regroup at the Nomad if we can, get the hell out of here. Make up something else if the Nomad’s gone. Expect resistance – the Tal Shiar will take her dead or alive.’

‘Still might be nothing to do with us,’ Rosewood pointed out. ‘And if it is, it could be locals deciding to collect a bounty.’

‘They’ll get out of our way regardless,’ said Cassidy.

They moved as one down the dim hallway and back towards the stairwell, Ireqah sandwiched between them, Tiran’s hand on the back of her head. Even from the rear, Rosewood could hear a faint hum of voices, muffled by more than distance, and the echoes of footsteps from below as they reached the stairwell door.

Cassidy moved up to join Nallera at the door, pressing his ear to it. For a moment, he stayed still, and Rosewood wondered if he was going to wait. This might have nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the local warlords. No way an explosion in the city wouldn’t have consequences.

Then a burst of disruptor fire ripped through the door inches above Cassidy’s head, and the exact political affiliation and ambitions of these people stopped mattering. There were only two designations: friend and foe.

‘They want to welcome us to the neighbourhood,’ mused Cassidy. ‘So let’s be neighbourly.’

It was like a silent signal between him and Nallera. Cassidy kicked the door open and at once Nallera sprayed fire from her rifle, stymying the disruptor fire enough for him to burst into the stairwell. Rosewood rushed up to join her in the doorway.

Beyond were four figures, bulky from body armour, faces hidden with helmets. They’d been ascending, Nallera’s covering fire taking them by surprise, and now Cassidy rushed across the landing, giving them two points to defend from while exposed in the stairway.

‘Oh, that’s nice body armour,’ Nallera cooed, impressed as her high-powered rifle shot seared through a breastplate, regardless. ‘Shame.’ She nodded to Rosewood. ‘Go, get with the boss.’

At the next burst of cover fire, he was moving into the open, slipping behind the first column on the landing that didn’t look like it’d crumble from a disruptor blast. From here he could see Cassidy at the far wall, popping up to rain pistol fire down on the three remaining enemies. He was grinning. Then his eyes went up, and Rosewood ducked down as he realised what was about to happen.

Cassidy’s next shot wasn’t at the attackers, but the ventilation shaft hanging high above them – or, rather, the straps hanging it up. It groaned, creaked – then fell. One enemy went down under it, another staggered away only to expose themselves so Rosewood could get a shot off that dropped them. It was Tiran who took out the last, stepping into the open for a crack shot that hit the throat of the armour, rendering it useless protection.

In the silence, Cassidy peered over the railing. ‘That’s good equipment. New. These aren’t warlords.’

‘They must have been watching,’ Ireqah hissed from behind. ‘Waiting for me to leave the safe room.’

‘They probably underestimated us,’ Rosewood said, chest heaving. ‘Maybe figured we were from the Liberty.’

‘More fool them,’ said Nallera with a grin that didn’t wane when she added, ‘They’ll send more. They always do.

There were more about five floors down. The four they’d taken out had been out in the open, but these had taken cover, greeting them with a spray of disruptor fire that had the Rooks ducking back.

‘No easy way through that!’ Tiran called, risking a peek.

Rosewood slunk in next to Ireqah as Tiran repositioned herself. ‘Is there another exit?’

She shook her head, wincing at the shooting. ‘The other stairwell collapsed.’

‘Then we make an exit!’ called Cassidy. ‘Chief, ideas?’

Nallera peered around the railing, assessing. Disruptor fire flew overhead before she ducked back and pulled a hefty photon grenade from her pack.

‘Are you crazy?’ snapped Rosewood, eyes on the cracks running up the wall and stairwell, the dust already falling from the ceiling above. ‘Do we want this building to come down?’

‘Shut up!’ said Cassidy before Nallera could answer. ‘Do it, Chief!’

Another wide grin from Nallera as she thumbed the charge and tossed it. Rosewood threw an arm over Ireqah as they hunkered down. He heard the hum of the charge, the shouted warnings in the Romulan tongue, the dink of metal hitting one step, another, a third –

Then came the thunder, loud enough to shudder in his chest, strong enough to make the walls quiver, and when Rosewood eventually raised his head, he was shocked to find not only were they still standing, but so was the building. There was no more shooting from below.

His eyes fell on Ireqah, just as low beside him. ‘You okay?’ he mumbled. She nodded.

Nallera stood, grinning. ‘So,’ she said to Rosewood as they got to their feet. ‘This place is old prefab duracrete with alloy reinforcements. Blast went through the support beams, not the structure, and the stairwell’s designed to flex, not snap. I tuned the charge for directional force; it hit Tal Shiar, not ceilings.’

He glanced down to see the damage done, working his jaw. ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut when you work.’

‘That’ll be a first,’ called Cassidy, already down at the bodies. ‘Yeah, this is the T-S. Comms are in their helmets and fry when they don’t pick up a bio-sign from the wearer after activating. Keep moving, but be careful.’

‘Of course there’ll be more,’ said Rosewood, irritated at the idea he needed to be warned.

‘I mean, they just sent two fire teams at us direct and failed. They’ll do something else next time.’

When they reached the street, Rosewood thought the ‘something else’ was a pitched battle. Then he realised the road itself was quiet and the roar of battle, the hum of weapons fire, the lights of bombardment were coming from further away, towards the city centre.

Tiran clicked her tongue as they shoved the doors open. ‘Cease fire’s over.’

‘Think the Tal Shiar used that as cover to strike?’ said Rosewood.

‘Or they broke it so they could,’ said Cassidy, striding out, pistol in hand, eyes sweeping the street. ‘Where the hell’s -’

There was the roar of an engine, the scraping of wheels on dusty road, and on cue the Nomad came tearing out of the darkness. The hard brake to pull up by them was enough to make everyone take a careful step back, then the rear door swung open and they could see Aryn behind the front controls.

‘I saw you had company and decided discretion was the better part of valour,’ he admitted, ushering them in. ‘It’s gone crazy out there.’

They piled into the Nomad, Tiran taking over driving as Aryn slid to the front passenger seat. Cassidy all but shoved Ireqah and Rosewood together into the rearmost compartment and settled behind Aryn. ‘Drive!’

Tiran gunned the engine, and they were away by the time Aryn was turning to the rear, explaining through ragged breaths as if he’d run alongside the Nomad instead of driving it. ‘The explosions were the comms towers in the city,’ he said, pointing out the window with his tricorder at nothing – but even in the dark, Rosewood realised that nothing was meaningful. When they’d arrived, there’d been a tower two blocks over. ‘Now someone’s stuck out a jamming signal.’

‘So there’s been a series of explosions and nobody can talk to anyone?’ Rosewood winced.

‘Exactly.’ Aryn’s voice sped up as he explained. ‘The towers were routing local communications, but these jamming frequencies have been layered, so they’re scrambling all open signals. It’s an adaptive algorithm – hijacking any frequency still trying to transmit and flooding it with noise. Even encrypted Federation channels are only intermittent; I can’t raise the Blackbird.’

‘What about the fighting?’ said Cassidy. ‘Who’s hitting who?’

‘Without comms, no way to know for sure,’ Aryn pointed out. ‘But I’ve the sensor records from this afternoon’s analysis. Based on how people have moved since the explosions, there’s mobilisation in clusters. Anyone in either faction who was waiting for the other shoe to drop has moved out and started shooting.’

‘That’s going to make a path back to Blackbird fun!’ called Tiran from the front, voice tight.

‘Warlords between us and them, the Tal Shiar on our heels.’ Inexplicably, Nallera laughed. ‘I thought this was a milk run pickup, Boss?’

‘Don’t forget,’ said Cassidy, completely humourless, ‘Liberty’s out there, too. Bet they find a chance to get in our way.’