Amber wrenched the control stick of the gunship savagely to one side as Brock's shuttle exploded from the side of the building, weapons' fire spewing from its jaws, sending shattered chunks of masonry flying in all directions. The powerful engines roared and she felt herself getting pushed against the chair. Right now they had a small edge: the gunship was specifically designed for in-atmosphere combat. Its aerofoils carved for purchase in the humid skies of Detton-Mouré and they wheeled to the right out of the enemy's ship's path.

Her heightened reactions saved both their lives.

One of the other gunships wasn't so lucky. A long jet of ice-blue fire from the shuttle's nose-mounted cannon slammed into the unfortunate pilot's cockpit, ripping a ragged gash through the canopy in blood and fire. Secondary explosions bloomed from the impact point as the shot smashed through one of the elevator turbines, and a few seconds later the smoking wreckage plummeted down to crash in the city below.

She forced the image from her mind, frantically punching in adjustments to the thrust control and flinging the gunship into a violent u-turn. Even as they swung around to the rear of the enemy shuttle another Wyvern vanished in a blazing fireball as Brock's Gatling cannon punched a neat incision through its ammo cache.

"Stone me," Brannigan exclaimed. "This guy shoots like a damned computer!"

"He's been trained to kill people his whole life." Amber swallowed hard, even as she banked and gunned the engine in pursuit. She glanced nervously at her young companion. "Think you can do better?"

"Just give me a clean shot." The other operative gritted her teeth, her hands curling around the weapon controls with murderous intent.

Locking on to the rear of Brock's shuttle, Amber obliged. She keyed the Wyvern's engine up to its maximum level, angling the elevator turbines to increase their thrust, and they shot off in hot pursuit.

Strangely, rather than breaking straight for the open sky, the other ship stayed low, barely a hundred meters off the ground, and she seemed able to keep pace with him – for now at least. Amber wondered if Brock had taken a calculated gamble when he used his ship to ram a hole in the building. A normal shuttle would probably have smashed apart in such an attempt, and while Brock's heavily armoured craft had survived the impact, she doubted he could have done so without sustaining some kind of damage.

"Amber!" Darien's voice sounded in her ear. "What's your status?"

"He's airborne," she snapped back. "But we're on him. I think he damaged his shuttle breaking out of that loading bay. We're closing in."

She saw on the HUD that the remaining gunships of Olsen's flight had now swung into position behind them, but they lagged back, not reacting as quickly as she had to the danger. Right now it was up to her to keep Tannis Brock from shooting off into the atmosphere.

Easier said than done. The enemy craft, obviously aware of them, jerked and swerved in wild, unpredictable motions, blazing a trail towards the large inhabited structures of Detton-Mouré's capital city. It seemed that Brock's skill-set was not confined to killing, as he made it impossible for the gunships to fire without hitting the nearby structures.

"Crap," Brannigan muttered. "He's cutting too close. I can't risk a shot in the middle of those buildings."

Amber knew as much. The armour piercing rounds that the Wyvern fired would tear through windows and concrete with ease, along with any human beings unfortunate enough to be in their path. With an effective range of nearly a kilometre, if they missed their target the shots would hit something in such a densely packed urban area. Brock's shuttle hugged the walls of the concrete forest – he knew the game, and had been playing it longer than any of them.

"Olsen," she barked into the comm, hauling the Wyvern into a punishing ninety degree turn around one of the factories. "He's staying low, trying to lose us in the buildings. I'm going to stay on him. Lock in on my beacon and get your ships above us. If he tries to break for the atmosphere you need to force him back down again. Keep him contained."

"No promises, Operative," Olsen replied coldly. "If I get a shot, he's a dead man."

"We need him alive!"

"He just killed four of my people. I'm done playing soft hands with this bastard." Then the channel went dead.

"Damn it!" Amber thumped the arm of the pilot's chair in frustration. "Looks like we're on our own." With the fingers of one hand dancing over the systems panel, she rerouted power from the gunship's sensor arrays and sent it into the engines. Red warning lights blared but she ignored them. The Wyvern piled on speed and slowly but surely they began reeling in their quarry.

Only once did Brock try to ascend above the cover of the buildings, to be greeted by an overlapping storm of fire from the surviving ships of Olsen's flight. Despite herself, Amber found herself watching in amazement as their quarry pulled off a spectacular evasive corkscrew before plummeting back down into the relative safety of the city, bursts of fire snapping at his tail pipe.

The diversion cost him, too. When he returned to his weaving route through the buildings Amber had closed the gap to less than fifty meters. The assassin started trying ever more wild and dangerous paths to shake her off, but she matched him step for step. They coiled around towering factories, hurtled under low bridges, passed to within meters of the streets below but Amber continued to close in, her face a mask of grim determination. She may not have been the most dangerous on the ground, but when it came to flying she was the one to be afraid of.

As the two ships skimmed the ground along one of Detton-Mouré's main transit arteries, suddenly Brock's cannon erupted into life. For an instant Amber wondered if one of the other ships had moved to cut him off, but then she saw the reality was far darker.

His burst of fire slammed into the base of a tall building under construction. The cannon ripped through the scaffolds and support structures, shearing through them at angle that caused an avalanche of debris to come tumbling into the street. His ship shot past, but Amber had to wrench the control stick back and pull up to avoid getting caught in the shower of metal and masonry. She could only watch as Brock's diversion smashed into the road below, overturning mag-cars and crushing unwary bystanders. Beside her Brannigan let out a horrified gasp.

As panic unfolded beneath them Amber felt a kernel of fury ignite in her chest. It was one thing for him to shoot at the people trying to capture him – it was quite another to involve the innocent civilians of this unfortunate planet. She rammed the control stick forward again, dragging every last scrap of power out of the Wyvern's engines as she redoubled her efforts to close the gap. Then Brock's shuttle made an abrupt swing to the right, vanishing behind the tall cylindrical structure of a hotel.

"What is he...?"

Amber realised that Brock was no longer trying to get away. "He's slinging around that building," she said, tightening her grip on the controls. "He knows he can't outrun us so he's trying to get rid of us. Are you ready?"

Brannigan looked at her, askance. "For what?"

"He's going to come straight at us. You're going to get one chance. When he fires, I'm going to tilt us to one side. You'll have about a second to tag him before he adjusts his aim and I have to break off completely. Okay?"

"Err...okay."

Then the time for talking was over as, sure enough, Tannis Brock's brutish shuttle came screaming out from the behind the structure. Even damaged it still had a powerful engine and the two ships rushed together with alarming quickness. Amber locked her keen eyes onto the cupola beneath the shuttle's nose-cone. She saw the tell-tale pinprick of blue light as the cannon powered up and the instant it fired she gave the gunship's control stick the deftest of touches.

Their ship swayed out of the line of fire, leaving the trail of blue fire to shriek harmlessly past them. Before Brock could adjust his firing solution, Brannigan squeezed the triggers and, for the first time, they shot back.

The burst was short – barely half a second – but it was precise. The muzzles of the guns lit up the cockpit window in a flare of orange, and the next instant Amber's heart leapt when a trail of explosions lit up across the right flank of Brock's shuttle. She swung them clear of the wild blast of retaliation, knowing that the damage was done. The enemy ship roared past them, smoke gushing from the deep wounds in its plating.

"YES!" Brannigan whooped, pumping a fist in the air. "How do you like us now, Ghost boy?!"

"Nice shot." Amber gritted her teeth as she hurled the Wyvern into another violent U-turn. The engines roared and the structure groaned in protest, but she clung on to the controls, arms shaking with the effort. When the manoeuvre was finished she found herself chasing a trail of oily smog.

She could see Brock clearly fighting with the controls now as his crippled ship wobbled dangerously. The impact point had been nowhere near the cockpit, but the Wyvern's armour piercing rounds had torn a ragged gash through the stabilisers along the right side and very nearly shorn off one of the wings. The shuttle wouldn't be flying for much longer.

"All units, this is Amber," she called into the comm. "We've tagged our target. His shuttle's going down. I repeat, he's going down."

But even as she made the call, Tannis Brock again proved why members of the Ghost Cadre were not ordinary soldiers. Just before his ship slammed into one of nearby buildings its loading ramp dropped open and he jumped out. Amber watched stunned as his diminutive shape hurtled groundwards, only to be pulled up at the last second by the abrupt jolt of an anti-gravity chute.

"Hell," Brannigan growled from behind her. "He's got an answer for every damn thing, doesn't he?"

"Maybe," Amber said. "But he can't outrun a gunship on foot." Then she spoke into the comm again. "Darien, come in."

"I'm here."

"Brock is on foot – he bailed out of his shuttle."

"Copy – but you guys are halfway across the city now. Can you stop him?"

She glanced at Brannigan. The girl nodded decisively. "We're on it."

Coaxing the gunship's engine down to a less dangerous level, Amber kept her eyes rooted on the small, dark figure currently barrelling through the streets. She had to admire his sheer tenacity, but on foot, alone, it was only a matter of time before they finally caught him. She lowered the gunship, weaving effortlessly through the urban mire, all the while keeping Brock in sight.

"Have you got a shot?" she asked quietly, not taking her eyes of their quarry.

"Not really," Brannigan replied. "Honestly, Amber, I'm not sure this ship's got light enough weaponry for us to risk a shot at him."

"Well we've got to do something. He's heading for one of the underground transit-ram links. If he makes it in there we could lose him."

Her companion didn't reply. Amber took her silence for tacit agreement and closed the distance with Brock a little more. As he hurtled across a gap in the flow of citizens the Wyvern's guns flashed for an instant. The surface less than a meter behind Brock blew apart under the impact of the armour piercing rounds, leaving a crater in the street and sending civilians running screaming in all directions.

"Damn it, it's no use," Brannigan cursed. "If I tag him with the cannons we'll be taking him home in pieces."

Amber heard the unbuckling of straps and glanced over her shoulder to see her companion getting out of the co-pilot chair.

"Where the hell are you going?" she demanded.

Brannigan hefted her lance-rifle and jerked her head toward the rear compartment. "Pop the port-side doors. I'll do it myself."

"What?!"

"Amber, trust me."

For a moment Amber was speechless, but as she considered their options she realised that her companion was right. Looking down she could see Brock hurtling through the streets as fast as his legs could carry him, bowling over civilians, ducking and dodging under overhangs and behind vehicles to try and shake his pursuers. If they so much as clipped him with the Wyvern's main guns there probably wouldn't be a suspect to bring home. She just hoped Brannigan was as good a shot as everyone thought.

Reluctantly she punched the release for the Wyvern's passenger doors. The grind of metal from the rear compartment was soon followed by the scream of the wind and she chanced a look back to see Brannigan disappearing through the rear hatch. A moment later the other girl's voice sounded in her comm.

"Alright, get low and fast. I only need one clean shot," Brannigan assured her.

Taking a deep breath, Amber complied. She brought the Wyvern so low that the people beneath them would be feeling the blast of the elevator turbines. Maybe thirty meters ahead Brock still sprinted on – determined and undaunted despite everything. Amber wrestled with the controls to keep the craft as level as she could, providing a stable firing platform for her companion. However, she was acutely aware of the wall of buildings fast approaching them.

"Kelsey," she barked. "I've got fifteen seconds before I have to pull up."

"Copy."

People were beginning to part like a living sea before Brock as they noticed the gunship chasing him. With his human shield dissipating the Ghost put on a last, desperate burst of speed to reach the gaping, flat maw of the transit-ram station.

With the noise of the engines Amber didn't hear the shot. She simply saw Brock collapse to the ground clutching his right leg. Then Brannigan's voice sounded in her ears.

"Target down."

She hauled the controls back, pulling the Wyvern up seconds before they would have crashed into the row of buildings above the station. With a gasp of relief she reversed their course and lowered the ship into the clearing among the crowd. The gunship touched down with a soft bump and Amber scrambled out of the pilot's chair, dragging her volt gun from its holster as she went.

Brannigan was already on the ground, approaching Brock carefully with her lance-rifle trained on his prone form. Amber jogged over to her, levelling her volt gun and approaching side-by-side. Brock rolled over, glaring at them, and she could see the bloody incision about the size of a marble in his right knee where Brannigan's lance had found its mark.

"Nice shot," he grated. His voice didn't sound right – as though he had some kind of mechanical grill lodged halfway down his throat. "Didn't think they taught you that well."

"We all have our skills," Brannigan shot back.

"Tannis Brock," Amber interjected, fighting to keep her voice level. "You're under arrest under the authority of the Biological Interstellar Navigation Korp."

"No shit, princess," he laughed mockingly. "If you think you're going to gain anything from all this, you're in for a reality check. I'm not telling you a damn thing."

Amber narrowed her eyes. "That's fine. I'm not here to talk to you."

Then she raised the volt gun and shot him.