suddenly kicked off all the way over there and she cursed the fact they were too far away to be able to help out.
Her feet slammed down the walkway, Rebecca behind her clutching her bra-and-bungee cord catapult - for what it was worth - in both hands. They emerged onto the main deck of the accommodation platform, turned right, skirting the edge of the deck to avoid tangling with any obstacles.
People were spilling out of their cabins, brandishing their home-made weapons, and heading towards the noise. Leona converged with them, pushing and stumbling along the walkway cage towards the second compression platform, towards the sound of gunfire.
She emerged from the cage moments later, and then weaved her way across the platform’s main deck until she could see the far side, and the next walkway. Across the dark empty space between platforms, she watched for a moment. Trying to make out the situation. She saw some flickers of light, and the occasional flash of gunfire, but nothing that clearly explained how things were. She suspected the shots were coming from the furthest platform.
Rebecca hunkered down next to her, wheezing from the sprint thus far.
‘Can you see anything?’
‘I think they’re on drilling. Come on,’ she said, stepping onto the walkway taking them across with the sound of her heavy steps ringing in her ears.
They emerged twenty seconds later onto the firm deck of the production platform into a confusion of panicking people, some scrambling past her to head back along the cage away from the fighting. She pushed her way through the mingling confused bodies and crossed the deck, catching sight of the skirmish going on ahead of her.
Along the edge of the deck she could see Adam and his men, and one or two of the old men - Howard, Bill, Dennis - firing potshots across the void between platforms at the boys on the far side. They, too, were firing back, sparks erupting from the deck, from the vent stacks and deck lockers the men were huddled behind.
She felt a puff of air on her cheek, heard a metallic clang against the metal wall beside her head and a hot spark jumped onto her bare arm.
‘Ouch!’ she yelped before instinctively dropping to her hands and knees. She crawled across the deck until she was huddled beside one of Adam’s men.
She recognised his outline. ‘Bushey! It’s Leona.’
He turned and grinned manically at her before turning back to aim down the barrel of his assault rifle. ‘The little shites surprised us!’ He fired two aimed shots one after the other, the hot bullet casings almost landing in her lap.
‘Where’s my mum?’
‘Dunno, she’s somewhere along here,’ he said, firing again.
Leona craned her neck, looking down along the row of people cowering behind assorted cover, in two groups either side of the walkway cage. She picked out the huddled forms of Walfield, Howard, Sophie and one of her sisters and Dennis. She saw Alice and her friend Rowan both blindly flinging walnut-sized rivets across the void with their catapults. She picked out Adam in the group to the right of the walkway entrance, aiming and firing methodically, Martha loading up a dainty lace bra cup with another projectile.
She looked down the length of the walkway and thought she could pick out the detestable orange flash of those jackets, several of them, lying prone along the first thirty feet of it.
Bodies. They’d already made a first attempt to force their way across it and failed.
On the far side of the walkway, amongst the clutter of the drilling platform’s deck, she saw the strobe-flicker of muzzle flashes from their guns and heads bobbing in and out of sight.
They’re stuck. She found herself grinning. Adam was right. The caged walkways were turning out to be perfect choke-points.
The firing on both sides began to ease off.
She looked around for Rebecca, assuming she was still with her, but she must have gone to ground somewhere else. Leona decided to press on. See if she could find Mum. Taking advantage of the lull in firing, she crawled on hands and knees, from one huddled person to the next, then, waiting for a moment of calm, she leapt across the open space beside the walkway’s entrance and a second later joined the others, hunkering down behind a long and low mechanical store locker, gasping for breath.
Jenny looked down at her, panting on the floor beside her. ‘Lee! Christ! I thought I told you to stay back! Are you all right? You