"I would, " Dredd answered immediately. "The Warchild is the product of criminal activity. It's evidence and it belongs in Justice Department hands."
"Thank you, Dredd. My thoughts exactly." She cast a dark glance in Buell's direction. "Not to mention certain ethical considerations. And there is one more factor to be taken into account: Hellermann claims she can control it."
"Really," Dredd grated. "Psi-Div finally get something out of her?"
Hershey shook her head. "Unfortunately not. The woman's as smug as they come. Believe me, I'd like nothing better than to see her snap. But whatever Psi Division came up with, it was bad enough to make her offer a deal."
"A deal? Chief Judge-"
"I know, Dredd! I know!" Hershey raised her hand. "Your feelings on these matters are on record. But we've verified with Tek Division that each Warchild has a control code, a word that will shut it down. Hellermann says she'll know which word when she sees the Warchild."
Dredd didn't like the way this was going. "And what does she want in return?" he asked.
"An end to the interrogations and transfer to a low security cube," Hershey replied. "I share your misgivings, Dredd. But as you say, the Warchild is our business and it belongs here. Not running wild on a ship full of civilians."
"Or possibly falling into the hands of our enemies," said McTighe, quietly.
"If Hellermann is able to do what she claims, I judge it to be a reasonable trade," Hershey continued. "Dredd, I want you to assemble a team. Get Hellermann close enough to the Warchild and let her shut it down. The Sargassans may not be pleased to see you, but I can't see them complaining if you can get rid of their problem."
"And if the word doesn't work?"
Hershey gave a small shrug. "Then I guess it'll eat her."
Dredd squared his shoulders. "A win-win situation. I like it."
"You'll need to come in fast and high," McTighe told him, as they walked through the Tek Division prototype lab. Dredd had followed McTighe there after the briefing had broken up. Buell had skulked off somewhere on his own and Duffy had gone to prepare margin clearances for the mission, plus any extra intelligence he could find on the cityships. He had warned Dredd that there might not be much - the titanic vessels tended to keep themselves fanatically to themselves.
McTighe was confirming that fact right now. "If they see a plane coming in low they'll shoot it down. Probably think it's an attack, plus they'd want the salvage. So we'll take you up to a safe altitude and drop you from there."
Dredd thought about parachuting on to the moving deck of a ship full of angry mutants and decided there was no harm in exploring other options. "Grav-belts won't do the job?"
"Not from the altitude you'll need," McTighe told him, as they walked past benches covered in components and various items of hardware. "You'd reach terminal velocity before they got low enough to activate. Never slow down in time."
Better to land on the deck than plough straight through it, Dredd had to agree. "So what are you thinking?"
McTighe had stopped near a rack of grey, rubbery-looking bodysuits. "The PFE Shrike. High-altitude, pressurised flight envelopes; radar invisible, with integral life-support." He reached into a nearby locker and pulled out a slim, streamlined casing fitted with heavy straps and covered in the same slate-coloured material as the suits.
"There are lift-generating surfaces built into the suits, under the arms. Equipment storage in the backpacks, along with nano-composite parafoils. You'll free-fall most of the way, then activate the foils and come in so fast they'll never be able to draw a bead on you."
Lift-generating surfaces, thought Dredd. Wings, in other words. They were going to jump out of an aircraft halfway out of the atmosphere and sail down into a combat zone wearing something a bat burglar would laugh himself sick at.
"Great," he muttered. "Reckon I'll need to assemble a team who can flap hard."
It took two hours to get the team in place. Dredd knew three street Judges with para-drop training, not including himself, but one was on secondment to Brit-Cit and couldn't be brought over in time. That left Larson and Adams, neither of whom Dredd had worked with before. Still, they had jumped out of aircraft at high altitudes and survived, which made them as qualified for the mission as anyone.
McTighe had insisted that a Tek-Judge be part of the team too and Dredd had to concur. Some scientific know-how could be invaluable when there was unknown technology involved, and Hershey had reminded Dredd that the Warchild wasn't the only X-factor he would be facing. The entire cityship was, at present, a virtual unknown.
The man McTighe had supplied would not have been Dredd's first choice. Tek-Judge Peyton seemed to be someone far more at home in front of a lab bench than out on the field, and he was less than happy about the para-drop. In his favour, however, was the fact that he had worked on the original Warchild Project.
Somehow, Buell had managed to get one of his people involved. When Dredd had arrived at Kennedy Launch Strip, SJS-Judge Vix had been waiting there for him.
Dredd had met Vix once, and not in the best of circumstances. He regarded the woman as acid in a uniform, a worthy student of Judge Buell and all his teachings. Buell's excuse for Vix's presence was that she was qualified in airborne operations and para-drops. She was also, Dredd knew, spying for the SJS. Dredd would make sure he didn't keep his back to her for any length of time.
Which, of course, left Elize Hellermann. She had arrived at the strip last in a pat-wagon. The look she gave Dredd when she saw him could have burned holes in plasteen.
So Dredd's team, at take off, consisted of himself, two Judges he didn't know, one he didn't trust, one who was scared witless and a mad scientist who would probably feed them to her pet monster at the earliest opportunity.
The day was just getting better and better.
They sat, three facing three, in the cramped body of the strat-dart as it arrowed across the Atlantic. The dart performed best in high, thin air, and the pilots had taken it up to forty kilometres as soon as they had left the launch strip. It had been a long climb, during which the occupants of the drop bay could do nothing except sit on the hard benches, review their mission data and think about what was to come.
There was little in the way of conversation. Dredd wasn't surprised, given the make-up of the team, and found it something to be thankful for. There was work to be done and he could do without the idle chatter.
The dart had been flying level for almost two hours when Dredd got a signal from the cockpit. He unstrapped, stood as upright as he could in the low-ceilinged bay, and went forward.
The pilot had activated a monitor screen between himself and his copilot. The screen must have been for Dredd's benefit since both fliers were wearing head-up display helmets. Everything they needed to see would be right in front of them.
There were no windows in the cockpit.
The pilot gestured at the screen. Concentric circles were scanning outwards from a bright point, partway across a stylised map of the Atlantic. "We've got your target."
"Can they see us?"
"Not yet. We're picking up passive scans from a spy-sat, so we're as good as invisible."
"That's about to change," Dredd replied. "Take us below the cloud layer and stand by to broadcast."
"Commencing descent to drop altitude." Dredd watched the pilot ease the control collective forwards and felt the angle of the deck beneath his boots begin to change. On the screen, the map disappeared and was replaced by an external view. Dredd saw an endless landscape, white and billowing, rising like a tide. It swallowed the view and the screen went blank.
"We'll be through the cloud layer in a few seconds," the pilot told him. He flipped down part of his control board, revealing the comms panel, and pressed several buttons. "Okay, Judge Dredd. Give the word and I'll slave this into your personal comms channel."
"We don't know what kind of equipment the cityship might be using," the copilot told him, "so we'll be sending across a wide frequency spectrum. I
'll record as you speak and put it on a continuous loop until touchdown."
"Sounds good. Patch me in."
The monitor screen turned from white to black. One second it was blank and in the next the view had turned to that of a vast, oily sheet, glittering with tiny ripples of sunlight.
"Calling whoever is in authority onboard the cityship Sargasso," Dredd began. "I am Judge Dredd. I represent the law in Mega-City One. A piece of our technology has been taken aboard your city and I am leading a team that will remove it. Your assistance is not required, but your cooperation and that of your citizens would expedite our mission.
"My team will arrive by air. This is not an attack. Repeat: this is not an attack. But be advised, we shall defend ourselves if fired upon. This message will now repeat. Dredd out."
The copilot pressed a key on the comms board. "We'll keep broadcasting until we hear you're down safely," he said.
"We're now at drop altitude," the pilot cut in. "Five minutes to marker. You ought to get back and buckle up."
Dredd turned awkwardly in the confined space and squeezed back through the hatch and into the drop bay. He was already wearing most of McTighe's Shrike suit: the radar-baffling grey fabric was a tight fit over his uniform and didn't allow for any great freedom of movement while walking. The lift surfaces under his arms flapped uncomfortably and he could barely turn his head. But already Dredd could see how it would turn a man into a missile in the air.
The rest of the suit was waiting for him in the bay. Adams helped him into the backpack which strapped on securely with reinforced webbing across his chest. The top of the pack - which contained not only the parafoil but also the bulkier sections of his uniform - looked oddly truncated, until he put on the flight helmet and locked it down. The helmet was designed to fit over a Judge's helm and turned his entire torso into a nearly rigid and highly aerodynamic capsule.
The others were already suited up. As soon as the dart had reached drop altitude the lights in the bay had changed from white to amber, giving them the signal to suit up and lock down. Dredd saw the inside of the flight helmet light up with icons and guide indicators, a full HUD that would tell him everything he needed to know on the way down.
He turned to Peyton. "How are you doing?"
"I'm, ah, okay, sir." Peyton was a faceless teardrop with arms and legs just like the rest of them, but his body language was all nerves. "My suit's slaved to Larson's flight controls, so I guess I'll be okay."
Larson slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, tekkie. I won't put you down too hard!"
"See that you don't, Larson," growled Dredd. "If Hellermann doesn't come up trumps, Tek-Judge Peyton could be our last line of defence."
"So it's true." That was Hellermann. Her Shrike was covering up prison greys, and slaved to Vix's. More for reasons of security than to give her an easy ride. "You were part of my operation."
Peyton's suit bobbed. Probably nodding in the helmet. "I was lead analyst on the resequencing team."
"No wonder it failed."
"Button it, Hellermann." Dredd moved down the line to stand at the bay doors. "There's only one word any of us want to hear from you."
The lights in the bay went red and an armoured pressure door slid across the cockpit hatch.
"We're nearing the drop zone. Helmets on; make your final checks. Larson, make sure Peyton's harness is good to go."
They came out of the strat-dart in a long line, Dredd jumping first.
For a few seconds the slipstream tore at him. He tumbled, his view a spinning mess of black water and white sky, and then the Shrike took control. The lift surfaces between his arms and torso were filled with a complex array of hollow, flexible spines. The suit's onboard computer worked these effortlessly, filling some with air and emptying others, modifying the flight characteristics of Dredd's body until he was sailing through the air straight and true.
The strat-dart was a triangle of black shadow, already peeling out of Dredd's view and back into the clouds.
Dredd kept his body straight, his arms back and level with his torso splayed at forty-five degrees to give the lift surfaces their best angle of attack. He was moving forwards as fast and far as he was falling downwards.
Ahead of him, the cityship was a ragged island of metal, trailing a hundred kilometre wake.
"There's the target," Dredd reported. "Drop team, sound off."
"Adams here."
"Larson, all okay."
"Vix."
"Grud," gasped Peyton. "Grud! This is fantastic!"
"Don't get too fond of the experience, Peyton. We'll be down in sixty. Hellermann?"
There was a pause, then: "I hear you."
The cityship was growing like a stain. Dredd could see that every square metre of its upper surface was covered in buildings, everything from the original superstructure of Sargasso's component vessels to skyscrapers made from upended chemical tanks and great stacks of cargo containers. Everything was linked to everything else. Great spans of gantry and support cable and haphazardly swinging bridges glittered in the sunlight, looking from this altitude like the work of a deranged and hyperactive spider. There wasn't a flat spot anywhere.
"Drokk," muttered Larson. "We'll be in trouble if we can't find a landing strip."
Alarms began to go off in Dredd's helmet HUD. "Foil altitude!" he barked. "Drop team, deploy parafoils!" As he spoke, he keyed a control in the palm of his flight glove.
He felt the backpack shudder as it unfolded, and then he felt a massive impact against his chest and shoulders - the parafoil had deployed. Instantly his flight-wings went limp and disengaged from his torso, leaving his arms free. He reached up and grabbed the foil's control handles, swinging himself around towards the port side of the cityship.
It was rushing up to meet him, filling his field of view, becoming more insanely complex with every metre he dropped towards it. There was detail everywhere: the stepped superstructures of luxury liners and the blocky conning towers of supertankers and anti-pol ships. Bridges and walkways were slung between individual vessels, while elsewhere the hulls of several ships appeared to have been welded tightly together. And, on every level, untold numbers of dots that grew and resolved themselves into figures.
Dredd watched as one of the dots looked up and stabbed a pointing finger skywards. There must have been shouts of surprise or alarm as other dots followed the first figure's lead, looking up and pointing. Some ran for the nearest doorway or hatch. News was spreading.
"There!" called Vix. "That Sov-ship in the middle, near the conning tower!"
Dredd scanned the cityship for the distinctive lines of a Sov-Blok vessel. He quickly saw that Vix was right; almost at the centre of the Sargasso was a gigantic mass of grey metal that looked like a Putin-class assault carrier. While most of the deck was taken up with hastily-constructed residential areas there was a large, uncluttered space just ahead of the superstructure. From what Dredd remembered about the Putin-class, that's where the primary weapons mounts would have been.
"Drop team, follow my lead. We're setting down." Dredd tugged at the control handles, spilling air from one edge of the parafoil and angling towards the open space. Whatever passed for city defence on board the cityship would almost certainly have realised where they were headed and, if they were anything like City-Def back in Mega-City One, they would be itching for some target practice. The presence of the Warchild would only make them more trigger-happy than usual.
"Get down and ready as fast as you can," he told the others. "If we're going to be sitting ducks, I'd sooner have my feet on the ground."
Seconds later, the deck came up and hit the soles of Dredd's boots - hard.
Instantly he slapped the foil-release on his chest webbing. There was the dull thump of explosive latches and the parafoil whipped up and away from him, skating across the deck. Around him, the rest of the team came down with varying degrees of success: Adams, Larson and Vix made good landings, but Hellermann seemed to crumple as h
er boots hit, and she went down heavily onto one knee. Peyton made a textbook landing but missed the release pad - the wind against his parafoil had him over - and for a few seconds he went slithering across the deck. Larson had to trigger his release by remote control.
Dredd hauled off his flight helmet and dropped it, undoing his webbing with his other hand. The backpack slid off his shoulders and he pulled it round and slapped a panel on the side. The pack popped open along a pressure seal and dropped a Lawgiver into his palm.
The rest of his uniform could wait. He checked the weapon over, made sure it was set to deliver standard execution rounds. By the time he had done that the rest of the team were assembling around him. Vix was helping Hellermann along - it looked as though the woman had damaged her knee on descent.
Peyton was last to join them, dragging his helmet off as he did so. "No welcoming party yet," he puffed, obviously unused to the effort. "Maybe Dredd's message worked."
"Judge Dredd - diplomatic attaché to a ship full of mutant scum," Hellermann sneered. "That has a nice ring to it."
"So does 'life without parole,'" Dredd growled. "I'd bear that in mind." He looked up at the long window of the Putin's conning tower and saw faces pressed against it. They were unashamedly looking back at him.
"Defensive formation," he ordered. "Cover the angles and watch the shadows. Move slowly. We don't want to spook the locals."
Dredd could see movement all around: figures darting from cover to cover, heads peering over rails and out of windows. Weapons were no doubt being passed around. He needed to connect his sudden arrival with the message he had broadcast earlier.
He dropped his helmet mike and turned on the internal amplifier. "I am Judge Dredd!" he roared.
"And I'm Mako Quint." The voice was as commanding as his own, and very nearly as loud. Dredd turned to find its source and saw that a hatch had opened halfway up the conning tower. A man stood on a platform there, flanked by armed mutants, although he was a head taller than any of them.
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