at the man’s formality.
Jenny offered him a smile. ‘Jenny . . . that’s what everyone calls me, Jenny. All right, Flight Lieutenant Brooks?’
‘All right, Jenny.’ Adam tipped his head in acknowledgment. ‘But this election can’t be now. Not until we’re done with Maxwell.’
‘He’s right,’ said Leona. ‘They’ll be on their way. In fact, I’m surprised we beat them back here.’
‘How big is this army?’ someone called through from the galley.
Adam shook his head. ‘Army’s the wrong word for them. They’re not proper soldiers. They’re boys with guns. About a hundred of them.’
A ripple of gasps.
‘You said a hundred?’
‘They all have guns?’
Adam nodded.
The room filled with voices. It was Leona who raised her hands to quieten them this time. ‘But they’re boys,’ she said. ‘No more than that. They’ve never fought in a battle, they’ve never had guns fire back at them. They’re children.’ She looked at Adam. ‘At the first sight of their own blood they’ll run, right?’
He nodded. ‘They’re green, untested. The only warfare they’ve experienced is on their games machines.’
‘What about you?’ asked Bill Laithwaite. ‘Are you green?’
Adam glanced at Walfield and the other two, leaning against the back wall. ‘Danny?’
Walfield grinned. ‘Three fuckin’ tours back-to-back providing perimeter security in and around Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Mostly on the receiving end of mortar and rocket fire.’ He shrugged. ‘We had a few toe-to-toe stand-offs. The local Pashtuns fired smarter than the Taliban-imports ever did. An’ I’m pretty fuckin’ sure both will fire much better than those boys will.’
‘We also have the advantage of the defensive position,’ added Adam, looking through the faces for one in particular. He found Martha. ‘If you hadn’t thrown us the rope ladder, miss, we’d have been unable to get on your rig. They may come with ropes and hooks and have to scramble up to those lowest decks . . . what do you call them?’
‘Spider decks,’ said Jenny.
‘If they’ve brought ropes and hooks, then they’ll have to toss and secure ’em under fire. That’s not going to be easy. Not even for experienced soldiers.’
‘But we’ve only got nine guns, sir,’ said Bushey.
Leona cut in. ‘So? We can make other weapons, can’t we? On the chicken deck there are rooms full of iron rivets and bolts, some of them as big as my hand. We can throw those down at them. There are lengths of bungee cable we could make slingshots or catapults from.’
Adam grinned back at Bushey. ‘Hear that? What she said.’
‘Or we could leave now, whilst there’s still time,’ said William. Heads turned towards him. ‘I’m serious,’ he added. ‘I’m . . . I’ve never fired a gun. I’m not really soldier material.’
Leona shrugged. ‘Yes, or we could leave now. But if we did? If we all left now? I don’t think there’s enough food left ashore to forage - not for four hundred and fifty mouths. We’ll go hungry.’
‘And the fact is Maxwell’s boys might attack us ashore anyway,’ said Adam. ‘Maxwell’s made them dangerous, predatory . . . do you understand what I mean by that?’ Not many of them seemed to. ‘You’re mostly women. Those boys have come for that as much as anything else.’
A ripple of whispers across the room.
‘We can’t let them on,’ said Leona.
‘We’ll have much better odds fighting them here,’ said Adam.
‘Perhaps this Maxwell is coming in peace?’ said Rebecca. ‘Is that possible? Could he be coming in peace? Maybe planning to co-operate with us?’
Adam and Leona looked at each other.
Adam shrugged. ‘Maxwell’s a power junky. If he comes he’ll want one thing only; to be in charge. That’s why he created his boys’ army and called them his praetorians. It was all about prolonging his authority at the dome . . . at any cost.’
‘If he did take charge here,’ added Leona, ‘his boys would be in charge. And the women would have to . . . submit.’ The word spelled out more than enough without her having to qualify what she’d meant by it.
‘Abandoning the rigs and running ashore,’ said Tami, ‘does sound like a very bad idea. But after this is done, going ashore is what we will eventually do?’
‘Eventually,’ said Jenny guardedly.
‘We could move now if it wasn’t for Maxwell,’ said Adam.
‘Is it really safe to do this yet?’ asked Sophie Yun. Her sisters nodded at the question being asked.
Leona nodded. ‘Yes, Sophie.’ She turned to her left. ‘It’s finally safe, Mum. It’s not the same place we ran from. Maxwell’s praetorians are the last of the men with guns.’
‘Did