Standing Alone

By Martin Dougherty

The Assassin lurched and staggered, vanishing from view in a fountain of mud, water and splintering metal. It emerged after a second, one arm hanging limply and its torso armour pitted and dented. Halsey dropped the cannon on target and let fly on maximum rapid fire, shells slamming from the massive bore and tearing into the Assassin's chest cavity.

The WarMek stumbled, then toppled forwards into the swamp. A great cloud of steam erupted around it, then an explosion rocked the swamp. Fragments of Mek, fallen logs and a wall of boiling water scattered across the battleground. For an instant everyone was blind.

As the Armageddon War of 2089 escalates, the United States of America and the European Federation constantly vie for new advantages. The paranoia and mutual suspicion of the two combatants is at an all-time high. Each jockeys for position across the globe, goaded on by Russia and the Tiger Combine, both of whom see an opportunity to advance their own agendas at the expense of the warring superpowers. Hopelessly outmatched by the might of the European Federation, the United Kingdom fights its War of Independence with American aid. Its fate will be decided by a few warriors fighting in the most powerful land-based war machines ever devised.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Antimony Sun
• Release date: Mar 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301262175

Martin Dougherty

Martin J Dougherty has been at times an engineer, a teacher, a sports coach, a games designer, a defence analyst and, of course, a writer. His published works range from strategic reports for the arms trade to a self-defence manual and a handbook for teachers.Martin currently works as Line Editor for a games company, and is heavily involved in the creation of Roleplaying Games and supplements. He also pursues a career in the arms trade as a freelance analyst, where he specialises in high-technology weapon systems and asymmetric warfare.Martin’s interests include military history and malt scotch. He also trains regularly in the martial arts and is coach to the University of Sunderland fencing team. He lives in the northeast of England with his wife Helen and three unruly cats.

Book preview

About the Author

Martin J Dougherty has been at times an engineer, a teacher, a sports coach, a games designer, a defence analyst and, of course, a writer. His published works range from strategic reports for the arms trade to a self-defence manual and a handbook for teachers.

Martin currently works as line editor for a games company, and is heavily involved in the creation of roleplaying games and supplements. He also pursues a career in the arms trade as a freelance analyst, where he specialises in high-technology weapon systems and asymmetric warfare.

Martin’s interests include military history and malt scotch. He also trains regularly in the martial arts and is coach to the University of Sunderland fencing team. He lives in the northeast of England with his wife Helen and three unruly cats.

History is nothing more than the sum of the actions of many, many people. Most individuals make no real mark on history, but some dare to stand above the rest. It is those few that shape the world.

And likewise, most of the people who pass through our lives make no real mark. But there are those who, by their influence or just by being there when we need them, change our lives forever.

This work, then, is dedicated to the people who made a difference.

The World of Armageddon 2089

It is 2086, and the world is in flames.

The European Federation is at war with the United States of America while lesser conflicts rage in other corners of the world. The powerful economies of the Far East, united into the so-called Tiger Combine, flex their muscles and seek domination. And the mighty multinational corporations transcend the boundaries of states as they pursue their own agendas.

Conflict between nations and corporations is fought by all means available. Economic pressure, covert operations, manipulation of populations through the media – and outright war.

In 2086, the weapon of choice is the warmek, a towering humanoid monster capable of taking the firepower of a tank unit any place an infantryman can go. Backed up by conventional units, warmeks clash in all corners of the world, and normally the only counter to a warmek is another mek.

Thus warmeks are big business, and the mek firms wield tremendous power. As Earth shudders in the throes of what will come to be known as the Armageddon War, the arms firms are probably the only ones who will prosper.

The Armageddon War was born of many causes; the Earth of 2086 is a troubled place. But the flashpoint was an island state off the coast of Europe, unimportant in geographic terms but a powerful economy, one of the Big Four of the European Federation.

Tired of the gradual erosion of national identity by French and German dominated Euro-bureaucracy, the people of Britain voted in a new government, one determined to secede from the European Federation. The EF blocked the move, of course, so British secession went ahead unilaterally.

The EF sent its EuroForce troops to bring Britain back into the fold, and met a storm of opposition. The initial battles were bloody in the extreme, but the EF advance was held back for a time. A minor but vital US intervention resulted in a state of war between the EF and the US.

EuroForce was pushed back out of Britain twice, but each time they came back stronger. Finally, under the effective command team of General Louis Calvert and his field commander General Jean Lavalle, EuroForce broke the back of British resistance.

As Euro forces rampaged across southern England, US units deployed to assist were overrun or forced to surrender. Organised British resistance all but collapsed as covert operations units struck at key command and control installations, and assassinated figures who might be a rallying point for the British people.

British resistance almost collapsed. But only almost.

Somehow the shattered remnants of the British forces, which themselves were part of EuroForce, managed to beat a fighting retreat northwards. They held out long enough for a new defensive line to be created, a shaky chain of defended conurbations and hurried emplacements stretching from Manchester to the Humber Estuary. Defended by militia and forces cobbled together from the remnants of British EuroForce regular units, the Humber Line was expected to hold out for a few days at most.

It stopped the Euros cold.

When the European field forces under General Lavalle confidently assaulted the weak Humber Line, they met fanatical resistance from its defenders, backed by the very last formed British units, which had been held in reserve in the north against this dire day.

After a week of bloody fighting, the Europeans fell back to their start positions. They had made gains, bent the line in places and even penetrated it here and there. But they had not broken it.

Euro command decided it was time for a change at the top. Calvert kept his overall command but Lavalle was relieved by his rival, the Polish-born Karl Tanikeszk. A period of reorganisation and preparation ensued, punctuated by low-intensity raids and bombardment. The defence of the Humber had bought Free Britain a short respite.

But still the situation is dire in the extreme. The Humber Line dammed the European tide. But can it hold until the tide ebbs, or will the dam break and drown Free Britain? There is no way to tell. All the defenders can do is hang on, shore up the line and hope overseas powers might come to their aid.

That seems less than likely. The Americans, having got their fingers burned in their first intervention, are reluctant to come to the aid of their old ally. There is no other likely source of assistance.

And so, as 2086 turns to 2087, Free Britain stands alone.

Prologue

Thailand, 19th August 2086

Chapaev was the first to die.

A ripple of muzzle flashes flared along the jungle treeline; shredded twigs and leaves scattered from the blast of half a dozen autocannon and railguns. Chapaev’s Commander jerked under several devastating impacts, heavy shells ripping through its torso armour like so much tissue paper. One punched right through and came out the back, spallation showering Asaki’s Tatemoto with secondary projectiles that sparked and rang from its armour. Fragments rained down into the oily surface water of the swamp.

Even as the Commander began to topple to the muddy ground, launch alert tones howled in Mike Halsey’s ears. A second ripple of vegetation scattered out from the treeline, but this time it was not a cannon salvo; this time the ambushers were launching a saturation rocket and missile strike.

And at this range, they couldn’t miss.

Icy white adrenaline fire surged through Halsey’s body, lending greater urgency to his movements as he dragged his vaguely humanoid Bastion-class warmek around to return fire. His subconscious understood what was happening, though there wasn’t time to frame it as words. They’d been in such a hurry to reach their blocking position, so keen to stop the strike from reaching the Kroeng Kral warmek plant they’d walked into an ambush. The attackers had opened up with cannon at close range to minimise warning time. Now they’d switch to slower-flying rockets and missiles to complete the slaughter.

The rocket strike rippled out from the treeline, dozens of tubby tubes hurtling across the narrow space towards the swamp-mired defenders. Halsey’s combat-trained perception recognised the pattern at once; a saturation strike on three of the seven surviving warmeks with a few rockets at each of the others to keep them defensive.

It was going to work.

Prakash’s Bastion spewed multi-spectrum decoys, his point-defences spitting out a stream of interceptors and close-in defence projectiles. It was too little, too late. The Bastion hit the ground in dozens of pieces. Nothing larger than a football was left above the waist.

Asaki went next, his Tatemoto still off-balance from his reflexive jerk when the fragments of Chapaev’s mek struck him. The Tatemoto flipped backwards into the swamp, missing its head and right arm. Coolant gases leaked from the severed neck and shoulder as the massive armoured torso settled into the mud.

Rollins, with the reflexes of a cat and better judgement than he’d ever shown, saw what was incoming and ejected without firing a shot. His escape cocoon shot free of his doomed mek as it disintegrated under massive impacts.

Mike Halsey, technically now in command of the unit since Chapaev perished, felt the decoy discharger thud twice, then the close-in defence system in his Bastion’s head banged out a stream of shells. He guesstimated by eye, realised there would be at least one ‘leaker’ coming through his point-defences, and took a gamble on which one. Halsey threw back the right shoulder of his warmek, twisting it off-balance. The heavily-armoured Bastion staggered, swampy ground dragging at its feet and threatening to trip it.

Two rockets came through the point-defences, fat 120mm mek-busters. The first struck as Halsey had predicted, a glancing blow against the shoulder of his Bastion. The rocket’s HEAM warhead detonated, forming a lethal plasma jet, but at such an oblique angle it did little but char the heavy armour plate there. The second rocket came in low, clipping the warmek’s left leg. It glanced off, its impact fuse detonating it a split second late, by which time it was harmlessly past the target.

As his mek stumbled, Halsey saw Palmer glide his Bastion out of the way of a six-rocket strike. Even in the swamp, his heavy mek moved like a dancer, its elegant footwork drawn from the karate that Palmer studied so obsessively. Even in the madness of combat, Halsey recognised artistry for what it was; Unhittable Palmer dodging rockets like he had some sort of sixth sense.

Like he knew they were coming. The thought raced through Halsey’s mind, but was instantly gone as he brought the staggering warmek back under control and locked fire control on the last known launch point. He tripped the laser firing stud.

Nothing happened.

Halsey didn’t hesitate; weapons failures were a fact of life and they showed up at the worst possible moments. They’d had that drilled into them throughout their training, and the instructors, especially that sadist Anderson, would occasionally simulate one to test how well they’d absorbed the lesson.

This wasn’t training; it was their first combat deployment, but Mike Halsey had learned his lessons well. He just kept angling right and brought up the cannon in his right arm as a squad of towering warmeks emerged from the trees. Four of them; Ipex Assassins. Other meks were moving behind the treeline; probably lightweight missile-truck support types pulling back from the firing line now their work was done.

Four incoming meks; four survivors to meet them. It might have been a fair fight, but Halsey’s squad were cadets, half-trained pilots thrown into the battle line for lack of anything better. And they were rattled, shocked by the devastation wrought among them.

Looking for escape rather than victory.

Halsey’s cannon thudded out heavy shells, and an Assassin rocked from the impact. A railgun projectile hissed past as a laser burst flashed the swamp to steam around Halsey’s mek. To his right, Palmer was grooving, twisting his heavy mek through the maelstrom of fire, his laser and cannon hammering away constantly. There was nothing wrong with HIS weapons!

Suddenly, Halsey’s faulty laser stuttered into life, snapped off a ragged burst, then fell silent. A second later a single bolt erupted from its bore. Halsey switched it to ‘safe’ in case he shot up one of his surviving teammates. He tripped the comms stud on the squad frequency.

‘Alpha Strike – Romeo – on target Zulu,’ Halsey snapped into his headset, dropping a targeting prompt onto the nearest Assassin. The rest of the squad would receive the prompt and slave their targeting systems to Halsey’s – hopefully.

Halsey’s rocket pack rippled itself empty, thermal sensors whiting out for a second from the exhaust backblast. A stream of rockets tore across the narrow space, aiming at the lead Assassin. A second stream came in from Halsey’s left, where what was left of Schmidt’s Bastion cut loose. Juarnine’s mek launched a single rocket; the rest must have hung up in a damaged launcher. Palmer didn’t fire at all. He was too busy being unhittable to slave his rocket pack to Halsey’s.

The Assassin lurched and staggered, vanishing from view in a fountain of mud, water and splintering metal. It emerged after a second, one arm hanging limply and its torso armour pitted and dented. Halsey dropped the cannon on target and let fly on maximum rapid fire, shells slamming from the massive bore and tearing into the Assassin’s chest cavity.

The Assassin stumbled, then toppled forwards into the swamp. A great cloud of steam erupted from around it, then an explosion rocked the swamp. Fragments of mek, fallen logs and a wall of boiling water scattered across the battleground. For an instant everyone was firing blind.

Then the three surviving Assassins stormed out of the steam, their cannon and railguns blasting in a frenzy of close-quarters devastation. Halsey twisted his mek frantically, but to no avail. A mighty salvo slammed home, shattering the Bastion’s left arm and tearing great gouges in his torso armour. Damage alarms screamed their frantic warning. The mek jerked as something struck its head. Halsey tasted blood where he’d bitten his lip. The cockpit voice warned of armour breaches and coolant spills. He ignored them, dragged the autocannon online and hammered a shell into the nearest Assassin.

And watched it glance from an angled shoulder guard.

More fire came in, making Halsey’s Bastion stumble. He triggered the laser again out of sheer desperation and pumped out more cannon shells, sending his mek lunging forward at its tormentors.

Behind Halsey, Juarnine’s mek exploded as one of the Assassins dumped a final rocket salvo into its torso. Palmer traded fire with another, shells ripping up trees and sending fountains of muddy swamp water into the air as the two meks tried to get a clean shot in while evading for all they were worth.

Schmidt’s Bastion took an autocannon salvo in the head as a wild laser burst from Palmer raked his across its legs. The Bastion reeled, dying. Halsey’s mind formed the desperate thought: EJECT!

Schmidt was beyond reason, beyond any instinct but to fight until he was killed. He rode his warmek into oblivion, locking its legs in position and blasting away at the enemy until he was cut down. Then there were two to fight three, and it was as good as over.

Halsey’s Bastion slipped in the swamp, staggering forward. The remains of the left arm sheared away as a railgun round clipped it. The cockpit voice warned of critical damage, suggested ejection, and then fell silent as the mek’s central computer core was penetrated by spalling armour fragments. Splinters of armour sparked brightly from the torso as glancing hits chewed away at the remaining protection. The laser finally opened up, a long raking burst that fell silent as the internal fire alarm howled out its warning.

The autocannon thumped one last time, then fell silent as a round penetrated the ammunition feed system. Heavy lasers from the Assassins blasted into the shambling carcass of Halsey’s mek; an autocannon round from behind breached the rear armour and shattered control circuits, but still the mek plunged on.

Halsey ran his dying Bastion right into the nearest Assassin, sending both machines toppling into the swamp. More by luck than good management, Halsey ended up on top, his mek’s remaining arm rising and falling, pounding on the downed Assassin. Halsey bared his teeth in a feral, killing snarl as he felt more shells slam into his mek.

Not long now, not long. He should eject, the mek was dying… but he didn’t care.

Lasers churned the swamp and scored away wreckage; shells struck the entangled warmeks indiscriminately. The reactor leak warning light flickered amber, then came on solidly. It turned to red. It began to flash urgently. The alarms all went silent.

Palmer’s mek went down, its marker on Halsey’s tactical display flickering red then fading – a kill, though Halsey had no idea how it had happened. Now he was alone; one against three.

And the end was close.

Halsey kept on trying to beat the Assassin to death until a railgun round shot off his mek’s remaining arm. For an instant there was stillness. Two Assassins closed in on the homicidal corpse of Halsey’s mek and its still-struggling victim. Their cockpits were close together; Halsey could see the enemy pilot’s desperate struggles as he tried to wriggle free, tried to get his mek upright and away from this madman and his unstoppable zombie combat machine.

One of the Assassins closed in, seized Halsey’s Bastion and began to heave him off. Halsey waited until his mek was almost clear, then brought up its knee, striking the downed Assassin a blow that was damaging but pointlessly vindictive, given what he intended to do next. Halsey cupped his right hand over the reactor failure light so the Assassin pilot could see the reflected glow through the two cracked canopies… and yanked the ejection handle with his left.

Halsey’s escape cocoon blasted out through the rear of his mek’s head. He grunted as it glanced from the Assassin trying to drag his mek away. Nausea welled up as the pod spun, its gyros and rockets trying to compensate for the impact. For a moment there was weightlessness.

The pod crashed into the swamp, and Halsey triggered the emergency-open bar. Explosive bolts cracked the pod and foul, hot air smelling of ozone and burning metal over a base of rotting vegetation poured in. Halsey ignored it. Releasing his seat straps he shouldered the survival kit, pulled the shotgun from its overhead bracket, and dived out into the swamp.

Halsey hit the stinking water just ahead of a scorching laser burst. He scrambled over a dead log and into deeper water as more fire came in, blanketing the area in scalding steam. His boots already felt like they were filled with lead as he plunged beneath the churning surface. Mud and underwater plants clung to him, dragging him down. His flimsy light grey jumpsuit was soaked through instantly, but at least it might keep some of the leeches and other nasties out, assuming he lived long enough to attract any.

Halsey plunged to the bottom, hauling off his pilot’s helmet and discarding it. Thrusting one arm through the straps of the waterlogged survival kit, he wedged himself under what was left of the log.

Any second now, the Bastion’s Tokamak reactor would go completely. Perhaps they’d dragged it clear of the downed Assassin, and perhaps not. Destroying the mek was a bonus that Halsey didn’t really care about. What he was interested in was the distraction; something that’d make the enemy pilots – whoever they were – lose sight of him for a moment, giving him time to disappear; a chance to survive this disaster.

Which had begun a little more than one minute ago.

A deep shudder rippled through the ground, churning up the mud still further. Something large shot away from Halsey. He refused to think about what manner of swamp-dwelling carnivore had been sharing his shelter.

The pressure in his lungs became intolerable, but Halsey knew the Assassins would be looking for him, and using infrared sensors. The water and all the steam would confuse them, but if he broke the surface…

Halsey slipped the shotgun off his shoulder. It was a pump-action affair, with a solid beech stock and a slightly shorter barrel than was normal, limiting magazine capacity to four rounds. Halsey worked the pump four times, ejecting the unfired cartridges.

Most mek pilots carried handguns for self-defence. Others didn’t bother, on the grounds that if you ejected, it was into the middle of a mek battleground. A sidearm wouldn’t help. In fact, you might as well swap your ejection cocoon for a coffin. Halsey held a different belief – you’re not beat until you decide to give up, or they kill you. He planned to keep on trying to win right up until they dragged him kicking and screaming through the Pearly Gates. So he might as well carry the tools for the job, and the shotgun was one of them.

Now, the shotgun served another purpose. Halsey closed his hand around the breech and put his lips to the open ejection port, blowing hard with the last of the air in his lungs. He pushed the barrel of the weapon just out of the water, and breathed in. He almost choked as he drew the hot, foul-tasting, faintly cordite-flavoured air into his aching lungs.

But only almost.

The two surviving Assassins called up their support meks, and after finishing off the downed meks they pressed on towards the defenceless mek construction and training station at Kroeng Kral.

Mike Halsey crawled out of the swamp and gazed with numb despair at the wreckage. He’d killed two Assassins almost single-handed, but he’d failed to save his team. He’d fought like a tiger, but only after walking into the trap. As second-in-command of the cadet squad, he should have reacted faster, better. Should have at least tried to get his people out. Should have….

It didn’t matter. He’d failed.

As the mushroom clouds blossomed to the north, signifying the end of Kroeng Kral and Halsey’s career as a trainee mek officer, he turned away from the carnage and began walking. Walking towards the coast and a ship back to Britain. Walking away from the life he’d wanted for as long as he could remember. Walking towards an uncertain future.

But walking.

Because the alternative was to lie down and die in the jungles of Thailand, and Mike Halsey wasn’t quite ready to give up just yet. He shouldered his survival kit and walked on, slipping cartridges into the shotgun breech as he slogged through the mud.

In the numb, empty darkness of Halsey’s mind, vague thoughts churned. There was no proof, no teammates to thrash the idea around with, but the ambush had been so perfect that there were only two possible explanations. One was that Halsey and his team were utter incompetents and there was no hope for him.

The other…

Halsey chose the other option, because it gave him both hope and rage. Hope that he wasn’t a useless incompetent, and rage at what had been done to him, what had been taken away from him. For the dead friends and the life he must now go on living.

Numbness gave way to undirected but white-hot rage as Mike Halsey slogged on through swamp and jungle. Some day the rage would find a target, and his revenge would be like Armageddon.

Yes, that had to be it. He wasn’t a clueless idiot after all. He’d been set up.

And someone, someday, would pay for it.

Teeside Conurb, England, 2nd November 2086

Cold, grey rain hissed on the cracked pavement as the transit car hummed away over the potholed road surface. Mike Halsey watched it go, then shouldered his bag and started walking, though he really had nowhere to go.

Halsey kept his head up despite the water trickling down his neck, not just out of pride but also self-preservation. The streets of the Teeside Conurb were rough at the best of times, and since the war and its associated hardships and shortages a person walking alone was asking to be robbed. A person who walked with his head down, ignoring his surroundings, all but demanded it.

Halsey’s left boot leaked a little, chilling his damp foot as he walked. His tattered leather jacket was soaked, and he’d made the mistake of sitting during the transit ride. The back of the seat had squeezed water from the sodden leather into his shirt. He shivered, flexing stiff, cold fingers. There was a little warmth to be gained from sticking them in his pockets, but that limited his defensive options, and Halsey knew first-hand that a beating from muggers was worse than cold hands.

Slightly worse, at any rate.

Halsey walked slowly along the wide road without a particular goal in mind. He ignored the malfunctioning holographic display boards that promised a better life, a glossy existence of high-tech consumerism for those willing to part with the cash. He didn’t have any, for a start, and he didn’t want most of that stuff. What he wanted was to be warm and dry, and not hungry.

That, and to have a future.

There were few other pedestrians on the street, and hardly any cars. Power was rationed since the mass destruction of power stations and other infrastructure at the beginning of the war. What a citizen could obtain was used for cooking and a little warmth. Powering-up the fuel cell of a personal transport was a luxury few could afford. And anyone who did take a vehicle out was asking for trouble. Conspicuous wealth was not a good idea in northern Britain in 2086.

Halsey trudged on, his right hand on the strap of his shoulder bag. In it were a few personal items – in other words most of Mike Halsey’s possessions – and his shotgun. The barrel stuck out the front end, unmistakable for anything but a weapon. It’d made the other transit passengers nervous, but that was their problem. Halsey had nowhere to leave it, and besides, wandering around the city was like ejecting into a combat zone.

The two cops, an Asian man and a white woman in the dark blue-grey of the Teeside Urban Constabulary, coming the other way thought so too. They covered all the angles, watching one another’s backs. Gloved hands stayed close to the grips of their batons and sidearms. They spotted Halsey and his shotgun instantly, and closed warily in.

Halsey’s weapon was in his bag; his hands were in plain view. The cops didn’t draw their own weapons as he calmly watched them approach. But they were wary. You had to be, to survive foot patrol on the streets of what had once been Middlesbrough.

‘Keep your hands away from the weapon, sir,’ the female cop said with police-issue politeness. She held out her left hand, her right close to her sidearm.

Halsey nodded, passing over the bag by its strap. He smiled slightly as a thought struck him. In most other countries the cops would have their weapons out, have him on the ground and handcuffed before he could blink. These would if they had to, of course, but this was Britain. In the middle of a war and total social breakdown, the police were resigned to using violence to keep order. But they would do it politely.

‘Shotgun, pump-action, civilian model, loaded, no round chambered, no permit,’ Halsey said without inflection. ‘Weapon is registered to Michael John Halsey, of no fixed address, purchased for self-defence during mercenary service and illegally retained at end of service.’

The cop unzipped the bag and ran her hand-reader over the shotgun stock as her companion watched Halsey and the street around them. The reader interrogated the chip embedded in the weapon’s butt and displayed its findings. ‘That’s correct, sir,’ she said, putting the bag down in a puddle. ‘You have identification?’

‘Yup,’ Halsey said, making no move.

The cop raised an eyebrow.

‘All right.’ Halsey unzipped his jacket, reaching slowly into his pocket for his wallet. He handed it over and the cop opened it.

‘Mek pilot?’ she said, trying to decide if the clean-cut military officer cadet in the wallet hologram bore any resemblance to the unshaven, soaking wet deadbeat standing in front of her. She tried to mentally overlay the smart dress uniform on Halsey’s ripped black jeans and manual worker’s grey shirt, the military buzz-cut on his unkempt almost-black curls. Then her eyes fell on the forlorn object dangling by a few threads from the shirt collar. The hollow star of a mek pilot cadet’s insignia, torn from a ruined uniform and crudely stitched to cheap work clothing.

Something had happened to this man, something tragic, the cop realised. Mek pilots were highly-paid experts; you didn’t meet them wandering around the city looking like bums. They weren’t people who were likely to be short of work, not since the war. Normally she’d have decided he was a fake, or else a psychopath deemed too dangerous to keep in the service and thrown out of his unit despite the expense of training and hiring him.

But there was something else about him: pride, integrity… something about the fact he wore his insignia despite the fact it marked him as a failure. Something about the way he made no apology for carrying a weapon on the streets. It was an arrestable offence, of course. Something they could throw him in the slammer for. And looking at him, it’d be a kindness. He’d be dry, and if he was lucky he’d get a hot meal. But for some reason she didn’t want to do it.

‘Its an offence to carry a firearm within the conurbation, sir,’ the cop said.

‘I know,’ Halsey replied. ‘And we both know I’ve not got a permit for it.’

Was he asking to be arrested? No, he wasn’t. He was just stating a fact.

‘Is there a good reason you’re carrying it?’ the cop asked, trying to give him a loophole so she’d not have to add to his troubles.

‘Same reason you are. So I can shoot back if I have to,’ Halsey replied, as if unaware – or uncaring – that the cop was trying to let him off.

‘We have the Queen’s Warrant, sir. Private citizens do not have the right to bear arms.’

‘Not even for self-defence,’ Halsey said. ‘I know. But I’ve