217

Avenal turns and fires a snap shot at Barlow’s fleeing form. Unfortunately, there is only one bullet left in his pistol and it misses by a wide mark. You watch as the traitor reaches the waiting clan biker, climbs nimbly astride the pillion, and is whisked away along a side street bordering the plaza.

As the traitor and his confederate disappear, Rickenbacker and Cutter come running across the plaza and take cover with you and Avenal behind the garbage cart. Quickly you tell them that Barlow has escaped and that you are now absolutely convinced that he was guilty. Understandably, this remark provokes a less than charitable reaction from Avenal.

‘You’re right,’ says Cutter. ‘He must have been a clan infiltrator. I’d hazard a guess that this whole attack was staged t’ get him out o’ here.’

From behind the metal lip of the garbage cart you survey the battle that is raging around the plaza. Most of the colonists have now armed themselves and taken cover, and they are putting up a worthy defence of the vehicles. The few clansmen you do see are either dead or attempting to escape from the town now that they have achieved their objective. All of them, that is, apart from one. He is a blond-haired thug, dressed in a studded leather vest and striped pants, who is busy hammering at the glass door panels of the DC1 school bus with the stock of his machine pistol. The sight of him senselessly attacking the door of the empty bus does not bother you unduly until you remember that there is one person still on board the bus—Kate—and your heart nearly stops with shock.

If you wish to open fire at the clansman before he gains entry to the bus and are able to do so, turn to 270.

If you do not wish to open fire at the clansman, or if you are unable to do so, turn to 181.