Luna: New Moon

Marina has already fled the court arena. She presses the back of her head against the wall, hoping that its solidity and cool will press down the pulses of nausea. Escoltas rush past her to escort the Cortas to their waiting transport; a glass partition separates the Corta side of the corridor from the Mackenzie. Their blades huddle around the Mackenzie court party but Marina can see Duncan Mackenzie wipe blood from his mother-in-law’s face.

‘Oh Carlinhos,’ she whispers. ‘I could have loved you.’

The first Corta Hélio extractor goes dark within ten minutes of Carlinhos Corta’s victory in the Court of Clavius. Thirty seconds later, the second goes offline. Within three minutes the entire North Imbrium samba-line has gone dark.

In the passenger pod of VTO moonship Pustelga, Rafa, Lucas, Carlinhos and Heitor Pereira’s familiars light up. On the train back to Hypatia Junction, Sombra alerts Wagner Corta. In the moto to the Meridian apartment, Beijaflor and Hetty key in their clients.

Corta Hélio is under attack.

The hire of a VTO moonship is hefty even for a Dragon but Rafa knew that whatever the result on the killing floor of the Court of Clavius he would need to get the family to safety fast. By the time the ship drops on to the pad at João de Deus, West and East Imbrium and Central Serenity are all down.

‘We’ve just lost West Serenity,’ Heitor Pereira says as the ship lowers the pod on to the tractor. ‘I have South Serenity, I’ll link you in to it.’

Helmet feed appears on everyone’s lenses: a devastated samba-line. The camera pans across wreckage and scrap, metal and plastic shards strew far across the regolith; five extractors dead, a rover smashed open like a skull by falling construction beams.

‘Are you getting this?’ a woman’s voice shouts. Her familiar-tag identifies her as Kiné Mbaye: Mare Serenitatis. ‘They’re killing us.’ Behind her a flash in the sky, a blast of light. An entire structural truss spins towards the camera. The woman swears in French. The camera goes dead. The name tag turns white.

‘Carlinhos!’ Rafa shakes his brother. After the explosive rage and madness of the court-arena Carlinhos collapsed into catatonia. His seconds wrestled him down to the zashitnik stables where a medical bot patched up his abdominals, his biceps and shot him full of tranquiliser. His seconds showered off the blood, shoved him into street clothes, bundled him on to the Pustelga. ‘What’s happening?’

Carlinhos tries to focus on his brother’s face.

‘We’ve lost the entire South Serenity samba-line,’ Heitor Pereira says. His face is grey. Airlocks link and equalise, the passengers enter the elevator lobby. ‘Thirty lives.’

‘Carlinhos! You’re the duster.’

‘Show me,’ Carlinhos says. He reviews Kiné Mbaye’s footage three times as the elevator arrives. ‘Stop all the samba-lines.’

‘What’s happening—’ Rafa begins but Lucas cuts him off.

‘I’ve given the order.’

‘It won’t hold them off for long. They’ll just recalculate the trajectories.’ Carlinhos looks at each of the faces in the elevator car in turn to see if any of them have worked it out. ‘They’re firing BALTRAN capsules at us. You can see one in the South Serenity report if you slow it right down, just before the impact. That flash, it’s not a flash, it’s a BALTRAN capsule impact.’

‘There’s nowhere we can hide,’ Rafa says.

‘This isn’t something you just make up on the spur of the moment,’ Lucas says. ‘You have to plot the locations of every single one of our extractors, book the capsules, target the launchers. They’ve had this planned for a long time.’

‘Who?’ Heitor Pereira asks. Lucas rounds on him.

‘Who do you think, you old fool?’

São Sebastião Quadra Kondakova Prospekt, the elevator says.

‘What can we do?’ Rafa says.

‘Outbid them,’ Lucas says. ‘No one beats General Money.’ He issues commands to Toquinho. There is a pause. There has never been a pause before.

Access to Corta Hélio accounts is temporarily unavailable, Toquinho says.

The elevator doors open.

‘Explain,’ Lucas says.

Our bank systems are under a denial of service attack, Toquinho says.

The elevator lobby rocks. All the lives on Kondakova Prospekt look up, the instinct of people who live in caves.

‘What we need right now,’ Rafa says. ‘A quake.’

‘Not a quake,’ Carlinhos says. ‘Shaped charges.’