“You’re a team, Lieutenant Keller. I trust there’ll be no issues?”

  “No, sir, I was referring to the guys on RRT Alpha. Do they know who we are?”

  “We’ve sent them an encrypted comms message, telling them to give you whatever help you require.” Cody smiled grimly. “And to pretend they know who you are.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “And remember – both of you - the Estral don’t need to know about your augmentations, so don’t do anything that gives the game away.”

  It was the same message Nation had heard before. “I don’t need reminding. It’s all I seem to hear since they finished stitching me together.”

  Keller stood. “This is damned important, isn’t it?”

  “More important than you know. Things are strained - don’t screw this one up.”

  The two of them left the room and Cody watched the automatic door shut behind them. With a stab of his finger, he took his desktop communicator out of silent mode and impassively waited for the inevitable rush.

  Chapter Two

  The Fortress-3 base was a place of sweeping architectural achievement. It covered an area of twenty-five square kilometres, and, while many of its structures were blocky and utilitarian. In places it possessed sweeping curves and unusual shapes designed to astound the eye. Most of the buildings were constructed from stone-clad alloy and painted white or green or blue. Wide, tree-lined streets played host to smart gravity cars, which danced gracefully through the traffic, whilst hundreds of shuttles sped through the air.

  A row of well-polished pool cars gleamed in front of the command and control building. The closest one was all straight lines, with clear windows and metallic white paint. It hovered a few inches from the ground, waiting obediently. Keller pulled the door open and sat on the faux leather front passenger bench, while Nation climbed in the other side.

  “The landing strip,” Keller ordered. “SC Gundar.”

  “Certainly, ma’am,” replied the car. The onboard computer possessed an irritatingly cheerful voice which became grating after about thirty seconds of its inane patter.

  The vehicle pulled out into the slow-moving traffic and the two passengers watched the bustle of the Fortress-3 base without much interest.

  “It’s been a long time,” said Nation eventually.

  “Yup.”

  “What did you think of that speech Cody gave us?”

  “The same as you. He was worried, and if he’s worried that means every other admiral is feeling it too.”

  “That’s what I reckon. It was like someone had crapped in his favourite boots.”

  The gravity car hummed along one of the main thoroughfares, its navigational computer guiding it easily through the variety of other vehicles. Even during peacetime, the base was busy. Cars, lorries and light crawlers crowded the wide roads, along with a trio of light tanks heading towards one of the shuttle pads.

  “This must be your first assignment in a while,” said Nation.

  Keller peered at him suspiciously, trying to decide if he was fishing for a reaction. “They tell me I’m too valuable to risk.”

  “Not this time, though.”

  “Evidently someone believes they had no choice.”

  “They don’t want the Estral to clear up the site before we get there.”

  “That’s my take on it.”

  “Our allies need to learn when to accept the hand of friendship.”

  “Maybe they don’t have it in them. We have a peace treaty – there’s nothing in it which says humans and Estral need to be drinking buddies.”

  Nation gave a snort of laughter. “I guess peace is always better than war.”

  “You don’t sound like you believe it.”

  “Course I do. Are you getting any feel for what’s happening?”

  “Not yet. Perhaps I’ll get a sense of the probabilities when we get there. It usually works better when I’m in proximity.”

  “The infinite model, huh?”

  “It’s still a thing.”

  Keller tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Few people understood how the members of the Psi team did what they did, but Lieutenant Nation knew better than most.

  At the extremes of humanity’s normal distribution curve, existed individuals with the ability to predict the outcome of any event with a far greater degree of accuracy than chance alone dictated. For these people, the universe existed as a probability model in which every possible event might happen. Occasionally, such a person was offered a glimpse of the model and therefore a hint of the future.

  Lieutenant Becky Keller had all of that and much more.

  Nation studied her carefully. “They invested a lot in you when they decided to fit you with a Faor augmentation.”

  She shrugged and tapped the side of her head with a finger. “The Faor implant constructs a simulation based on what I tell it. Sometimes it comes up with the goods, other times, nothing.”

  “And it makes you into one hell of a pilot. In an age where we bow down to the prowess of the battle computers, there’s hardly anyone left who can outperform an AI.”

  “So they tell me. A great pilot. Not such a good killer, though.”

  She spoke with her eyes still closed and the hint of a smile played at one corner of her mouth.

  “It doesn’t sound like there’ll be anything to kill on this mission.”

  “Since we’ll be amongst friends.” She opened her eyes. Nation was gone.

  “You know I’m a covert op and not an assassin.” His voice came from nowhere, but when Keller stuck out a hand it connected with a solid object which she guessed was his arm.

  “Turn off your stealth modules when you’re talking to me.”

  The air blurred for a split second and then Nation was visible once more. “It’s going to be hard getting lost in the crowd when there’re only two of us.”

  “Two or a hundred, the Estral won’t watch us any less carefully.”

  “It’s like we’re talking about the enemy.”

  “They may as well be.”

  He looked at Keller sharply, wondering if she’d divined some probability of the future and wasn’t letting on. There was no change in her face – at least, nothing he could read.

  The gravity car continued its journey, through the main warehouse district of the base. It was a muggy, grey day on Eriol and the vehicle’s air conditioning struggled to keep things cool. Nation turned one of the control knobs and it came off in his hand. He dropped it into the footwell in disgust.

  “I thought you couldn’t feel the heat?” said Keller.

  “I can’t. Not really.” He pinched a flap of skin on the back of his hand. “I get signals telling me if it’s hot or cold.”

  “What happens when it gets to three hundred degrees outside?”

  “Unimportant stimuli get shut down, so they’re no longer a distraction.”

  “You can shut them down at any time.”

  “I don’t want to. There’s not much left of Joe Nation, so I’ll hold on tightly to what I can.”

  “Whatever they did to fix you up, you’re still Joe Nation. You definitely look like Joe Nation.” She prodded him in the arm. “Feels like skin as well.”

  “I’m not complaining. It’s better to be like this than dead. Way better.”

  “I think I prefer the old Joe Nation.” Keller was gently teasing, something she was good at.

  “So what have you been up to?”

  “This and that. Hush-hush.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Nation linked in with the Corps network and checked through Keller’s files to see what she’d been up to in the last few years. There weren’t many personnel in the Psi team – so few people in the Confederation possessed the gift, those the Space Corps managed to bring within the military fold were handled with exceptional care. The Psi team members were in the military, yet without being subject to the same discipline and it allowed them to retain far more of their individuality than many other Corps personnel. It wasn’t much different for those in Covert Ops and rank wasn’t always an accurate reflection of seniority.

  Without warning, Nation found himself ejected from the records. His Istoliar processing cluster dragged a copy of the files into his databanks where, to his astonishment, they were force-deleted.

  “Has anyone ever told you it’s rude to pry?” asked Keller.

  “Don’t you ever do that again!” he said furiously. “Do you hear me?”

  “I apologise, I was trying to make a point. Badly. I’m sorry. You can stop clenching your fists now.”

  “Don’t do that again,” he repeated. After a few deep breaths, he felt calm again. Keller was one of those people it was hard to stay mad at. “How did you do that?”

  “The Faor is like nothing you ever guessed.”

  “Can I block you?”

  She didn’t answer directly. “That was the last time. I promise.” Keller sat upright and peered through the glass windscreen. “We’re coming onto the landing strip. The Gundar is the third ship parked up.”

  “There it is,” said Nation. “It’s a beauty.”

  “A weapon capable of incredible destruction.”

  The SC Gundar was V-shaped, covered in silver-grey alloy plates, and it rested on several dozen thick landing legs. The front of the ship narrowed to a squared-off point, while the main body of the craft was a tapered cylinder which housed the Istoliar power source. Two thick wings protruded a hundred metres from each side – they weren’t to provide lift, instead, they housed the stasis emitters which could shut down enemy craft. The top-rear section contained the housing for the particle beam repeater weapon, this being the spaceship’s main armament.

  Compared to an old Hadron battleship from years gone by, the Gundar could generate a thousand times the power from a fraction of the volume.

  “Deadly like a scalpel,” said Keller.

  From her eyes, Nation could tell Keller was lost in the memory of something and he didn’t ask. The gravity car veered into a gap between a pile of metal crates and a maintenance crane, before coming alongside the first of the other craft parked up. This spaceship was a Class 3 Destroyer – similar in appearance to the Gundar, except with an old-style stabilised Obsidiar-Teronium drive and a hundred metres greater in length. The craft was so new its name was still visible on the side. SC Hoplite.

  The gravity car went by a second Destroyer, this time with its name eroded by flight through grit and other atmospheric particles. The vehicle came to a halt.

  “The Gundar,” said Keller. She pushed open the door and climbed out. Nation got out of the opposite door and walked around to join her. He was a head taller and guessed his augmentations made him 250 pounds heavier. They were on the same team, but their methods of achieving mission goals were radically different.

  “One of the fastest and deadliest ships in the fleet,” said Nation.

  “It makes a good statement of intent. The Estral won’t dare tell us to piss off, unless they have plenty of backup.”

  The spaceship’s front boarding ramp was lowered and a group of soldiers were standing guard at the bottom, accompanied by an evil-looking mobile repeater turret, with deflective front shields and a dense, angular main body. The device’s nine-barrel gun rotated slowly. Keller did her best to ignore it and she approached the group.

  A man in a plain, dark blue uniform approached with his rifle slung across his back and his sidearm within easy reach. He held a tablet in one hand and studied it as he walked.

  “Lieutenants Keller and Nation.” He snapped a salute. “I’m Corporal Hancock.”

  “The officer in charge.”

  “That’s right. The Gundar is happy to have you onboard. It’s a sweetheart.”

  “I’m sure it is, Corporal.”

  Hancock stepped aside and made an exaggerated flourish with one hand to indicate they could board whenever they wanted.

  “Going somewhere special?”

  “Very special,” agreed Nation.

  Hancock tried to hide his disappointment at being so easily rebuffed.

  “Well then, have a nice trip.”

  “Thank you.”

  The soldiers – a full squad of twenty – watched Keller and Nation go by. In truth, stealing a Corps warship wasn’t straightforward – it simply wouldn’t take off if you didn’t have clearance. If anyone was somehow clever or stupid enough to sneak onboard, they would discover an impressive array of automated miniguns concealed throughout the interior.

  The main airlock at the top of the boarding ramp was a plain walled space, cramped and bathed in red. The exit passage cut through ten metres of solid alloy and was protected by a pair of doors which vanished into ceiling recesses. Keller paused.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Lieutenant Keller,” came the reply. There was perhaps more female than male to the tones.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I am Teal. Welcome aboard.”

  Keller led the way from the airlock. The Gundar was mostly engines, with a little extra taken up by weapons and life support. Far down the priority list came the human occupants, and the warship’s internal corridors were narrow, freezing cold and claustrophobic. Ships like the Gundar weren’t designed to carry passengers – the fleet had other vessel types dedicated to the task of moving large numbers of armed personnel. A Retaliator was purely meant for offensive duties. In times of war, it could be equipped with a wide variety of weapons, some of which had the destructive power to annihilate a star.

  The cockpit was a tiny, rectangular room, lit in a blue-white colour and with three front-facing seats. The front bulkhead was dominated by a huge display, designed to look like a car windscreen. At the moment, it showed the area of the Fortress-3 base which was visible to the warship’s front sensor array. Nation peered through.

  Keller sat in the middle seat, which was infinitely adjustable, covered in supple brown leather and surrounded by smaller screens and instrument panels. There was a complicated harness, which she ignored. In these days of sophisticated life support systems, if you needed to rely on something so basic as a harness for anything, it was likely you were already dead.

  There was a second door in the rear bulkhead wall and Nation checked it out. It led onto a tiny corridor, with a row of low, narrow doors. He yanked one of them open. Inside was a stark white room about four feet wide, eight long and furnished with a single bed, a viewscreen and a tiny bedside table.

  “No surprises here,” he shouted. “Same as pretty much every other warship - six sleep pods, one replicator and a place to take a crap.”

  “Great. We should get moving.”

  Nation ducked back through the doorway and got into the left-hand seat. “I’ll let you handle the AI. Flying isn’t my thing.”

  Keller cleared her throat. It was a couple of years since she’d been onboard a Retaliator. “Teal, are we cleared to take off?”

  “I thought you would never ask. We have priority clearance to depart,” said the ship’s AI. “I have the details of your destination and my databanks are up-to-date with your mission priorities.”

  “Is there anything new?” asked Nation.

  “There is a 972-page mission briefing file if you would care to take a look, Lieutenant? I can download it directly into your databanks if you wish.”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” said Keller. “I just read it.”

  Nation was at that moment digesting the last few pages of the same document. It was crammed with cobbled-together pieces of speculation, guesswork and three hundred probability tables. The roundup pages may as well have been blank for all the insight they contained. “Full of crap,” he muttered. “No one has a damn clue.”

  “I have just received a query from a source with Admiral Cody’s signature,” said Teal. “He wonders why I am still, and I quote, sitting on the goddamn landing strip.”

  “Close up the ramp and send a message to Corporal Hancock telling him its time to be on his way,” said Keller. “At the double.”

  “I completed both of those tasks before you arrived on the bridge, Lieutenant.”

  “An AI that takes pride in its work. Let’s get on with this,” said Nation.

  “Initiating take-off routine,” said Teal. “Hold onto your hats.”

  The Gundar’s Istoliar drive came online with a grumbling roar from its detonators. The hull shook for a moment, before the main engine settled into a smooth, background whine. The ship’s AI scanned the surrounding area, checked in for a final time with the Fortress-3 Exar mainframe and decided there was no risk of harming any nearby ground crew.

  The whining of the engine climbed steadily and the SC Gundar took off. It rose vertically from its berth into the grey skies of Eriol. Through the front viewscreen, the two crewmembers watched the distant horizon. Far away, on a huge, levelled area of ground to the north of Fortress-3, ancient spaceships were lined up in neat rows. Their scarred armour plates were unreflective, as though these proud, indomitable craft defied even the light of the sun.

  “There’s the Graveyard,” said Keller. “Three hundred and twenty decommissioned warships from a hundred years ago. It gives me the shivers every time I go there. So many records and so much death.”

  “I try not to think about it too hard.”

  The Gundar’s ascent was rapid and it soon entered the clouds. Mist clouded the viewscreen, hiding the Graveyard from sight.

  “Clear the screen,” ordered Keller. “I don’t want any of this crap obscuring the view.”

  Instantly, the image sharpened and the warship’s sensors pierced directly through the cloud cover, filtering them out as if they didn’t exist. The Graveyard was already lost below and now they could see the cusp of Eriol as a line dividing the drab greens and blues from the pure blackness of space.

  “The beauty of the infinite,” said Teal wistfully.

  “You’re not one of those fruitcake AIs are you?” asked Keller.

  “The word is unique, Lieutenant Keller.”

  “I prefer nuts.”

  The AI wasn’t programmed to take offense and it didn’t respond. The SC Gundar climbed much faster now that it was outside the planet’s atmosphere. The Istoliar drive’s whine was in perfect harmony with the rest of the ship.