She pulled on her night vision goggles. Gry would give them the advantage of darkness when he cut all power to the room below.

Chervaz, at her side, looked up from his Snapper. "Message from Gry. The alien fleet has crossed the border. They'll be here in fourteen hours."

Maiga nodded and looked around at her team and one by one they signalled their readiness. She turned back to Chervaz. He wasn't in the attack, she wanted him here as something else. A witness.

"Message Gry. Standing by and awaiting his signal."

Chervaz sent the message, and they waited, goggles on, waiting for the darkness that would be their signal.

Come on. Come on, Maiga thought. Time to do it. Let me get at her. She grinned suddenly. She hoped Bara was actually in the office, or Maiga would look a terrible fool smashing into the office to find Bara had gone out.

She recalled a story an instructor once told her. Weeks of surveillance to pinpoint the office of an enemy general, a Chia Majan. Weeks of planning for the surgical strike that would kill only him and scare the crap out of the rest of his people. And the day they blasted his office to smithereens he'd popped out five minutes before to get a cup of whatever the Chia drank.

Nothing was ever guaranteed.

The light coming up through the ceiling vents went out. The voices below grew louder, sounded panicked. At once Maiga's team triggered their explosives. Discs a meter in diameter rained down into the control centre and the Lifers rained down after them.

Maiga waved to Chervaz and dropped though the hole. The cable took her weight and she let it out steadily until her feet touched the top of the central tower. In the office below her a dim glow showed. Emergency lighting. First thing to take out once she got inside. And it showed movement, the shadow of someone in there.

Don't go running off now, Bara. It would be hard for her to run off anywhere, since the lift platform would be inoperable with the power off.

The top of the tower was smooth and rather slippery and Maiga's shoes squealed on it as she moved to the edge. The cable made her braver than she would have been without it, on that treacherous surface, but even so she moved cautiously. She took her explosive from her belt and stuck it to one the curving glass panels that were the walls of the office. Staying crouched down; she scooted back, near the middle, fearing being shaken off the tower by the explosion.

A click at the trigger device on her belt and the device exploded. The glass panel shattered and fell out if its place in the wall of glass. Energy bolts instantly sizzled out of the open space, and Maiga waited for a moment. Waited for Bara to stop panicking and start considering her next move. She counted five and then she stood up.

Maiga ran, shoes squealing and slipping. At the edge she launched herself out into the air. For a second she flew away from the tower and then the cable caught her and began to swing back towards the gap where the window had been, twisting in mid air to face the tower, face that gap into the office just before it swallowed her up.

It took precise timing this move. She had to give herself more cable at exactly the right moment. Past the frame, inside the room, but before the cable hit the top of the frame and pulled her up short. Get it wrong and she could be pulled back out of the office.

Now! She released the brake and let the reel spin free. Her feet touched the floor running. Even as she ran, trying to control it, trying to stop, she drew her gun, and fired. Not at Bara, but at the dim emergency light, a ceiling panel in the middle of the room. Bara howled with frustration as her only illumination was snuffed out. She fired blind anyway, but came nowhere near hitting Maiga.

Maiga stopped herself just in time, as she almost fell over the guard rail around the lift shaft. The platform was at the bottom of the shaft.

Stepping back from the rail, Maiga unclipped the cable from her belt and switched the brake to recall. It snaked away back out up the window, winding up onto its reel above. Stand clear, Chervaz she thought. She'd seen people get nasty whacks from recoiling cables.

Another window shattered as Bara fired again. Maiga ducked down.

"Give it up, Bara," she called. "It's over." As soon as she spoke, she moved, and as expected Bara turned her gun in that direction and let loose.

"My people have seized all the key positions." Maiga again spoke and moved on.

"No!" Bara went on firing blind, destroying furniture and computer panels and windows. "Your people are old, or cripples and children! My people are soldiers."

"My people know this station better than yours." Another dodge. "Can't you see we already control it?" Dodge again. "Who do you think shut off the power?"

"You can't have shut off the power! We control all the systems!"

"Bara, my people control systems you don't even know about. They own the station. They are the station."

"I control it. It's mine!"

"Give it up to me." Maiga moved behind the manager's desk now. Bara followed her voice with the gun, but had stopped firing. "At least I'm human. If you don't, then in a few hours you'll have to give it up to the aliens."

"Never!"

"You know they're coming. Do you really think you can hold this place against them?"

"We can hold. If we work together."

"Oh, don't tell me you're trying to recruit me again."

"Recruit? Perhaps... No. Perhaps I'm only asking for an alliance."

Maiga watched her over the desk top, her figure ghostly through the night vision goggles. She was edging slowly towards Maiga's position. Maiga moved again, not willing to stay in one place too long, stayed low, not speaking now.

"We're both human," Bara said, the gun weaving back and forth now. "Why are we fighting? Humans aren't supposed to fight each other."

Well that's damn funny coming from her, Maiga thought. She did start this. And she smiled, recalling telling Jaff that excuse only worked while you were still at school.

"We must be united," Bara went on. "We can only be strong when we stand together."

Maiga's own beliefs, Bara parroting them back at her. They weren't allies, but Bara was right, Maiga was right. They must stand together. Now if Bara would just put down her gun... Maiga really didn't want to shoot her. She had other plans for Bara.

"Where are you?" Bara yelled, "Why don't you answer me? You're afraid of me!"

"Think not." It was only a whisper, but it made Bara turn and move towards the sound.

Okay, that's it, come to me.

When Bara hesitated, Maiga glanced down and stood on a piece of plastic, making it crack. Bara moved more quickly then, and fired as she moved forward. Maiga had already ducked down though, and came up as Bara got close enough, slammed into her, knocking away the gun.

Bara yelled and the two of them staggered backwards. Maiga knew the odds were on her side now. She was heavier and stronger than Bara, and more experienced in hand to hand combat.

But her weight and strength was nearly the undoing of both of them. She expected to bring Bara to the floor, expected her to topple backwards. But something stopped her.

Bara slammed up against the guard rail of the lift platform. The Klaff were shorter than humans and the guard rail didn't come quite as far as Bara's waist. With the momentum of Maiga pushing her backwards, she fell over it.

With her arms around Bara, Maiga went over too, Bara's yell of shock loud in her ear. As they went into free fall, Maiga made a desperate grab at the guard rail. Her hands caught, and almost slipped as her full weight jerked on them. Bara's weight added to that for a moment, still clinging to Maiga. Then that weight was gone. Bara dropped with a scream.

Maiga, struggled, legs flailing, shoulders screaming with pain, sure she would fall too, until one foot found a rung of the emergency ladder. She managed to inch her way around the guard rail until she reached the ladder and climbed back up out of the shaft into the office, where she flopped onto the floor, panting.

After a moment, she recovered enough to kneel up and turn to look down the shaft. Just as she did, the lights came back on, making her tear off her flaring goggles.

Bara lay at the bottom of the shaft, not moving, limbs splayed and graceless. Someone moved down there and Chervaz appeared. He must have dropped down on one of the returned cables. He knelt down by Bara and touched her neck. After a few seconds, he looked up at Maiga.

"She's alive."

Maiga flopped down, frankly relieved. Killing Bara had not been the plan.

"Get the doctor," she said to Chervaz. He stood up nodding and spoke into his communicator. Maiga forced herself back up to her feet, fighting exhaustion. No time for exhaustion.

Part one of the plan was done. They had taken the station back.

Now for part two.