The Host of Avernum arrived the following day, masquerading as a trader as they had expected. Aslam had agreed to cooperate with their ambush just as Al Hamra had predicted, grasping easily at the opportunity to avoid being spaced, and after a night with little sleep the trap had been set. They built rough barricades behind the entrance to the central accomodation section directly in front of the broad thoroughfare that ran along the front of the docks, where they also set up a killing zone with barricades at each end. They also sealed off the entrances to the other two accommodation sections, where most of the colonists would hide during the raid, and cleared two of the four main docks on Adam’s suggestion. “They’ll try and change their docking location from the one we give them,” Adam had warned, “Because they think we’ll direct them into the one that has the best defences. Let’s put drones in both.” So in both docks they had placed four small drones, draining almost all of the colony’s supplies, placed out of view behind crates and on gantries. For good measure they had loaded one of their mining ships with explosives, and would fly it out of the small docks where the mining ships were docked to block in the Host of Avernum once it landed. If it tried to evacuate that ship would be detonated, hopefully disabling the pirates’ engines before they could put themselves into a position to destroy the asteroid. Unfortunately the colony’s mining vehicles could not be automated, so one brave colonist had been required to pilot that ship in what could become a suicide mission, which made this strategy their last resort.

  To back up that strategy, Saqr and Lavim Tamm remained on board the Phoenix of Hamura, charged also with a separate, secret task: to evacuate the ship if everything went wrong, and pick up the rest of the Firebirds from escape pods and crumbling habitats if necessary. Al Hamra had ordered everyone not to go down with the colony, and to escape to the Phoenix on his orders if it looked like everything was going wrong. “In particular,” he told them, “If the Host of Avernum slips out of our trap and into space, I want us all in the Phoenix before they take out the central habitat. It should take more than one missile, and we’ll have time if we act quickly.” It was grim work, but they all understood that if the battle went wrong the pirates would try to eliminate the evidence of their scheme, and if the colonists failed in their defense of the asteroid the pirates would exact a brutal revenge that the seven of them simply would not be able to stop.

  The risk that the defense of the colony would fail was real. The colony had a squad of six enforcers, proto-police who could arm themselves with Vulcan carbines and light armour, but other than that there were only enough weapons to arm another twelve colonists, even using the spare weapons on the Phoenix of Hamura, so they had to set up their defense with a small squad of people who were armed with a mixture of pistols and stun guns. They divided them into squads, with a small group with the longest range weapons stationed at the barricades at each end of the docks and the remainder lying in wait in the plaza inside the entrance to the central residence area. Olivia took position at one end of the docks and Al Hamra at the other, with Adam in charge of the squad in the residence. Dr. Delecta stayed with Adam, telling everyone that they worked well together. “We haven’t mentioned this,” she told them, giving Adam a small look to confirm that her revelation was acceptable, and continuing when he nodded agreement, “But we were actually working together before the Ghazali. We didn’t meet the first time there, and we have some experience fighting together.” That had surprised everyone, because Delecta and Adam rarely conversed onboard the ship, but then Adam barely ever spoke to anyone if he was not talking about business. They agreed to that plan, and Siladan then suggested organizing a squad of close fighters, which he would lead with his sword.

  “There’ll be chaos and some of the pirates will try and flank the barricades,” he pointed out. “If we have a squad under cover in the residence area they can flank them and fight in close. The pirates won’t be expecting it, and it’ll divide their fire more.” He did not add that it would be close to a suicide mission if it went wrong, and they all agreed despite the obvious unspoken risk.

  So that was their trap, and in came the Host of Avernum. “Oh look,” Saqr said over the intercom as it approached, “It’s a class 4 ship, and it has a lot of guns.” The visual feed appeared on their tabula screens, showing an ugly, blocky beast of a ship, about two hundred metres long and thirty metres high, painted steel grey with no identifying markings of any kind on the sides. It had dorsal and lateral gun emplacements, and what looked like a torpedo bay mounted near the rear beneath the main hull. A final accelerator cannon emplacement sat menacingly on the nose below its square, ugly bridge. The stern section of the ship bulged wider than the bow, giving it the menacing air of a fat shark drifting towards its prey, and also suggesting a large cargo bay, just as Saqr had predicted.

  “That means a lot of troops,” Adam warned them as the ship drifted in, still maintaining its pretense as a trader.

  “I’d guess about a hundred,” Saqr added. “Remember, they have cargo and hangars, and a lot of guns. And every troop needs a stasis chamber and an escape pod.”

  Al Hamra pointed out that they might have skimped on the latter, and then the negotiations began. As Adam had guessed, they rejected the request to land in dock 2, with the pilot, who identified herself as someone called Slim Pickens, saying, “Sorry control, my captain’s awful suspicious about the number 2 since we had a bad experience in Awadhi, can we take a different number?” The controller cheerfully obliged, directing them into dock 3, and the drone operators prepared their ambush.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  As soon as the Host of Avernum was fully inside the docks, before it had even set down, the rear cargo door began to lower, opening rapidly, and by the time it was on the deck and the engines were firing down the troops began to pour out. Al Hamra gave the order and the drone operators set to work, hurling a drone straight at the airlocks on the port side and sending two more zipping into the cargo bay. The explosion on the airlocks was huge and satisfying, sending pieces of plexiglass and metal ricocheting around the docking bay and disrupting the smooth forward motion of the serried ranks of troops as the front line ducked into cover, but the interior drones were too slow and although their explosives disabled the rear door they did not kill any troops. The pirates surged forward, running to the cargo bay doors in ranks of four on the starboard and port sides of their ship, a tide of men and women in exo-suits, carrying a mixture of carbines and rifles. A small number wearing no armour sprinted ahead, sliding into position at the docking bay doors to stop them closing, but as Adam had predicted they got their data slicing tools in place a little slow, and the dock’s doors were half closed by the time the pirate soldiers reached them, forcing them to clump together as they ran through the doors. That was when Adam’s team opened fire with their carbines from their position directly facing the doors, laying down a vicious pattern of covering fire. The front ranks of the pirates fell down like wheat before the scythe, screaming and dying, while others spilled through and dashed across the thoroughfare beyond, seeking cover in the hallway each side of the entrance to the residence. Once a sufficient number had gathered there Al Hamra and Olivia’s teams opened fire from the flanks, forcing them to back away or turn to face the new threat. More pirates spilled through, taking positions in the hallway to fire back on the teams that had flanked them, while others gathered ready to push through to the residence. At that point the final drone zipped down from its hiding place, exploding among the gathered team. Drones from dock 2 zoomed down the hallway into the clusters of pirates in the hallway, blowing them apart and smearing the hallway with blood and gore.

  The initial stage of the ambush had been brutally successful, but now the pirates in cover behind the docks regrouped, and the Host of Avernum’s gunners opened fire with the accelerator cannon beneath the bridge. The railgun wrought enormous damage on the colony’s ancient structure. It smashed a massive hole in the hangar door and carved a long track of ruin through the centre of the residence district, caving in a part of a wall and leaving a steaming, smoking path of ruin in its wake. The second shot punched the hole wider and careered off through the residential section, tearing down a piece of wall and exploding in a cloud of dust and shards of rock on the far side of the asteroid. The defenders recoiled from splatters of molten metal from the door, and crouched on the far side of the hallway watching the ragged fringes of the railgun’s hole fade from white hot to red to purple, dripping chunks of molten metal onto the steel floor. The whole hallway filled with the rank stench of burning insulation and singed steel, and several of the defenders with Adam and Dr. Delecta panicked and ran away in horror. In the wreckage of the barricades Dr. Delecta dragged herself to her feet and rushed to the nearest colonist with her medkit while Adam lay groaning on his side, blood pouring from a shrapnel wound in his leg. As the defenders reeled in shock in the aftermath of the blast the remaining pirates poured out of the docks and charged into the residence.

  “When we catch that ship the gunners get spaced,” Al Hamra snarled grimly through the intercom as he and his team opened fire on the flanks of the charging pirates. More of them went down in the hallway but many broke through into the residence, fanning out inside the plaza to open fire on Adam and Dr. Delecta’s ruined emplacement. No one behind the torn-up barricades was in a position to defend themselves, with Delecta providing urgent first aid to the few survivors and Adam firing sporadically from his prone position, cursing and grunting over the comms link with the pain of his injury even as he ordered Dr. Delecta to ignore him.

  As the pirates took their positions in cover inside the plaza Siladan loosed his trap. His ragged band of colonist knife-fighters charged forward, taking the gathered pirates by surprise and closing to melee range before they could react. Brutal fighting followed, with the colonists stabbing and bludgeoning and cutting any pirate who was unable to get a weapon out in time, or reverse their carbine for close combat. As the melee unfolded Adam fired single shots at stragglers and clear targets, and Dr. Delecta, finished with what limited aid she could give the dying defenders of the barricades, turned her pistol onto any pirate she could pick off. “Al Hamra, Olivia,” Adam hissed over the intercom. “Get inside the ship before they do something even dumber.”

  Al Hamra and Olivia led their teams from the barricades into the docks, fanning out quickly as they ran through the disabled entrance and running as fast as they could for the disabled cargo bay doors. Dock 3 reeked of smoke and fire, the stench of melted plastic and gunpowder mingled together with burning flesh and the ozone stench of the railgun. Smoke from the melted, tangled wreckage of the ship’s airlocks roiled through the upper gantries of the hangar and wreathed the bodies of dozens of dead and dying men and women, who they sprinted past without a glance. Al Hamra and Olivia led their teams into the hold of the ship, almost immediately having to duck behind supply crates as gunfire rattled around them from the hallways of the ship. More men dashed in, two falling in the crossfire at the entrance to the smoke-shrouded cargo bay, and together they laid down a ferocious hail of fire that tore the cargo bay apart. The guards at the hallway pacified, they began the laborious process of fighting their way into the ship.

  A few minutes more and Abraham called a ceasefire over the general communications channel. The captain of the ship had offered his surrender, and aside from a few pirates who had escaped the plaza into the depths of the residence complex, no one was left outside the ship who was capable of continuing the battle. They had beaten the raiders, and saved the colony.