They finally arrived at the church which was located down a side alley. The door was made of ancient wooden panels so old that she could only assume that they came from an actual church. She wanted to take a moment so that she could admire it but Yeoh was in no mood for a delay, pushing the door open and indicating for her to enter.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting but she wasn’t expecting this. The church was quite cramped with eight short pews on either side. At the far end was an actual priest dressed in the full black and white regalia but standing in front of him, looking very smart in his uniform was Hermandal holding a small posie of flowers and behind him was Bayas with his back turned. He too was in his uniform.

  “Please, take my arm,” Yeoh instructed.

  She did as requested and was processed up the middle of the aisle with Hermendal running towards her to hand her the posy.

  “You look marvellous,” he said, before running back to Bayas’ side.

  She thought that he looked a lot younger than he she remembered, no more than twenty-five and this immediately made her feel stupid, as though she had manipulated this whole situation for her own ends which was of course, simply ridiculous.

  Bayas turned to her at one point, smiling and nodding, though Yeoh who had assumed his place directly to the right of her clearly didn’t approve.

  The priest took them through the entire Coptic mass which was long and disorientating. He appeared to have been apprised of her situation and so at various points he took her hands and moved her through the required actions.

  It was only at the end, when Hermendal went to retrieve the two floral crowns that she realised the enormity of what was happening and for a second she had a very clear mental picture of Robert Faulkner. Not her first husband, Paul, as she might have expected, but Faulkner. Her old boss.

  The realisation of what that might mean frightened her and for a second she wanted no part of what was going on and would have walked out if she’d had any other choice.

  Bayas must have noticed her distress because he leaned forward and mouthed, “Are you okay?”

  She gave him a thin smile and nodded even though she felt anything but.

  Then, Bayas was standing right in front of her, holding her floral crown at waist height and she realised that the priest had stopped talking.

  Hermendal cleared his throat as a cue and the next thing she was saying, “I do.”

  She wasn’t sure that that was what she was supposed to say but it seemed to suffice and Bayas placed the crown on her head. The priest said a small prayer and the ceremony continued.

  Then it was her turn to approach Bayas with his crown.

  She felt very self-conscious listening to the priest drone on but when it came to his turn Bayas said, “I do,” loud and clear. The priest seemed undeterred by this.

  When she went to place the crown on Bayas’ head, she noticed that he had tears in his eyes.

  And then it was all over. The priest’s demeanour softened by a fraction and he spoke to them both individually before packing up his things and departing.

  Yeoh went over and formally shook Bayas’ hand while Hermendal enveloped her in a massive bear hug.

  “Is that it?” she whispered to him. “Over?”

  “Why? What else were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. No. It’s silly really…”

  “What!?”

  “Only,” she said with relief. “There was no kiss.”

  “Don’t worry,” he smirked. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

  As Hermendal retreated, she found herself facing Bayas.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Genuinely. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  With that, he gathered her hand in his and gently kissed her fingers.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You want them to do what?”

  Mitchell, the guy in charge of Laxx’s port authority viewed them with suspicion.

  “You need to evacuate the facility,” Farnese was saying. “And you need to do it right now.”

  Ardent had stood next to Farnese while he’d explained their plan to Meyer and Meyer had listened dutifully, nodding occasionally but without showing any real engagement with what they were saying or asking any pertinent questions. When Farnese had finished, he’d simply stepped away from his lectern, telling them that he’d be in his cabin if they needed him.

  It was as if he’d just surrendered all his authority, and without so much as a fight. She never witnessed anything like it before and she caught herself wondering whether there wasn’t something else going on. It was as if Meyer was terribly ill but going out of his way to keep the details from them.

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” Mitchell, a squat fireplug of a man was shaking his head. “Not in that timeframe.”

  Ardent was bewildered. She’d been expecting any number of possible responses but this wasn’t one of them.

  “Look, sir, the clock is ticking,” Farnese continued. “All we need is for you to initiate the evacuation. I’m sure your people can work out the rest.”

  “No, I’m sorry, commander. What you’re suggesting amounts to a dereliction of duty on my part. I simply can’t allow it.”

  With that he made to end the communication.

  “Sir, if I may,” Ardent blurted out. “This is Governor Ardent, here. I take it you’re familiar with who I am?”

  “Er, yes, governor,” he said, warily. “Of course. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help you resolve this problem a little more speedily?”

  “If there was a problem then we might be able to resolve it. Only, there is no problem.”

  “How so?”

  “You forget, we’re only a small station,” he sounded disdainful. “Tiny in comparison to Blackthorn, which means we have a much more limited capacity.”

  “I don’t see how that impacts on what’s happening here. People’s lives are at stake.”

  “Well, it’s this ship, see. This Galaxian. We’re not used to handling something on this scale, so all our work parties are taken up with that. Suppose I were to press the panic button, what then? Panic, that’s what. And you can’t have panic on a space station. Not with all these bodies floating around.”

  “But what about the other ships in the area? Surely, they need to know what’s going on also.”

  “That might well be the case but it’s not my job to tell them. These ships can’t just come and go as they please. There are very strict guidelines around a ship’s movements in port. What if there was to be a collision? What then?”

  Ardent was bewildered by the man’s implacability. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t realise the implications of what was going on, he just seemed adamant that things should carry on just as normal, flying in the face of what was actually happening.

  “But, what about yourself, Mr Mitchell? You’re not telling me you’re just going to sit there while all this is going on, surely?”

  While the man continued to make his excuses, Farnese tugged at her sleeve in an attempt to get her attention. Then he indicated something at the bottom of the screen. Mitchell’s current location.

  Space Terminal. 44 Greenwich Plaza

  Realisation was slow in coming for Ardent, but when it did come she felt anger starting to bubble up.

  “I’m sorry, sir, could you just clarify. What exactly is your location, right now?”

  He looked offended at being asked. “I’m at the Port Authority Offices in the Space Terminal, if that’s got anything to do matters.”

  “So, would I be right to determine that you’re not currently on the orbital.”

  “No, why would I be? The whole orbital docking facility is managed from down here. Always has been. What exactly is it you’re trying to suggest, governor?”

  Farnese leaned over and ended the transmission. “We’re wasting our time. He’s never going to give the order to evacuate. He’s too busy thinking how he’s going to dodge the blame once the dust settles.”

  “He’s worried that if he makes a decision, they’ll hold him responsible.”

  “No surprises there. It’s how these places operate.”

  “Not on Blackthorn it’s not,” she asserted. She was so frustrated she wanted to punch the screen.

  “And there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Nothing? Can’t you give the order. Get the Renheim in position as fast as possible?”

  Farnese rested both hands on his console as though he was contemplating some kind of push up. “You know what Meyer said: he’s sticking with the original plan. Doesn’t want to break up the flotilla.”

  Ardent couldn’t believe the level of resistance she was facing on all fronts. It was as if Farnese was condoning Meyer’s refusal to act.

  “But then we’re going to be too late. And a lot of people are going to suffer as a result.”

  Farnese leaned forward and tried to reassure her. “I think you’re right, but what can we do? Even if we were to try and engage the Da’al, our missiles would get there a good thirty minutes too late. It’s like the captain says…”

  “Don’t,” Ardent held up a hand to stop him. “Just don’t.”

  “But it’s true. Sometimes, doing nothing is the hardest thing.”

  *

  Yanik Utgoff had left the ship. Once Dekker had explained the situation to him, he hadn’t said a word. Next thing, their main shuttle was making an unauthorised departure. Not that Dekker could blame him.

  The man had a young family. Two girls and a little boy, Dekker seemed to recall. He’d brought the whole lot of them aboard a couple of years back, just after the son was born. He’d wanted to show him off, not that he’d ever done that with his daughters, though.

  But at least he had a family. Dekker had an ex-wife back on Lincoln and a son he hadn’t spoken to in ten years. It wasn’t something he was proud of – that’s just the way it was.

  Stella Robbins was still on board, of course. He doubted if he could do this without her. Stella had never married. Stella was sensible - had all her money squirrelled away in private savings. She must have quite a pretty penny tucked away, he reckoned. Not that that was going to matter now, of course.

  The only thing that mattered was Dekker sticking to a straight heading.

  The ship was an ugly thing. Like three tower blocks all impossibly yoked together. And Praader-Lorenz! What kind of a name was that for a ship, anyhow? It had been designed for one thing and one thing only: hauling ore. And he’d made a decent career out of it when a lot of the people he’d trained with had ended up working in storage facilities, doing nothing but shuttle cargo backwards and forwards all day every day. Whereas he had travelled all over. Seen a lot of things, some good, some not so good.

  He had to adjust his speed now as he navigated his way through the intricacies of the orbital’s arcane infrastructure. It wasn’t so much a question of navigation - he could run this route in his sleep - it was more to do with the payload they were carrying. The dock lads had spent the last two days attaching the seventy-three carriages they’d be hauling back to Lincoln. A big load, undeniably, though not the biggest he’d carried. They were hauling for four separate concerns this trip, with over three hundred thousand tons of deposits.

  They’d no doubt curse him for what he was about to do but, in the long term, he didn’t care. Besides, they’d invariably get a generous pay-out from their insurers somewhere down the line. He’d get the blame of course, but then, that was always sort of expected. You kept hauling until the day it all turned to shit and you just hoped that you had enough put by to pay your rent.

  But what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t be expected to just sit by and do nothing while all those families were put in harm’s way.

  They were close to leaving the station’s exclusion zone and he got his first clear view of the purple and black firmament of space. You wouldn’t get pure black until you moved out into deeper space but still, he never tired of the way the stars twinkled. In fact, this was his favourite part of his job: setting off for some far-flung destination with a full load.

  He caught himself wondering whether he’d have tried this if the ship hadn’t been fully loaded and knew at once that he wouldn’t have even considered it. They would need the mass the ore provided in order to have any chance of making this half-baked idea work.

  Even then, it might not be enough. And if Stella had been even slightly off in her calculations, chances were that the incoming missiles would miss them completely. Even with three hundred thousand tons of ore loaded on a ship three kilometres long, the chances of them being able to intercept missiles moving at near relativistic speeds were pretty slim.

  He tried not to think about what might happen to them in the unlikely event that they would be able to pull it off. Best case scenario would be that they’d both be instantly vaporised. He didn’t want to think what the worst-case scenario looked like for fear that he’d change his mind.

  So Dekker took his time, feathering his controls, ever sensitive to the way that the Praader-Lorenz handled. It was less about managing the speed at this stage and more about handling the sheer mass. Once you got it going it was easy enough to handle but it was as they got the whole bulk freighter up and running that the real problems started to present themselves.

  The one good thing about the ten-metre-long box which constituted his cockpit was that it had an ample supply of windows. Some ships had dispensed with these entirely, replacing them with screens but you couldn’t always rely on screens when you were shunting, which was why he had side windows as well as front facing ones. He glanced out the starboard window now, nervously checking to see if there was anything incoming.

  Of course, there was nothing to see beyond the stars themselves. The missiles would be moving too fast. He wouldn’t be able to hear them either. He was just going to have to rely on instinct to try and maneuver himself into exactly the right position.

  What happened after that – well, that was anyone’s guess.

  His hand went to open a line but he stopped himself.

  He’d considered intercomming Stella. See how things were going down in the engine room.

  But he decided against it.

  Bringing the engines online and keeping them working efficiently was the hardest part of her job, and he didn’t want to distract her.

  Finally, the ship was lined up roughly where he wanted her. Currently twelve klicks short of the sweet spot but he knew that momentum would take care of the rest. No such thing as a dead stop in space.

  The orbital was just coming up on his port bow. If Stella had got this right they shouldn’t have too long to wait.

  His thoughts went to his son back on Lincoln. There was perhaps enough time to send out a comms message. That would have been a nice touch if he’d had time to think about it sooner. Only, he didn’t know what he would say. He’d never been good at expressing himself. It wasn’t even to do with reaching out to his son, really. More about having some contact with his grand kids. He hoped in a way that if they ever found out about what he had done they might have cause to reflect that perhaps their granddaddy wasn’t such a complete fool after all.

  But what to say to them?

  On his monitor, bright explosions started flaring all along the rear of the ship.

  They’d arrived sooner than expected.

  His external sensors showed him a field of fire spewing out into space.

  From the inner sanctum of his cockpit he felt the whole ship buck and shudder.

  More impacts along his hull and a massive rise in temperature as the ship’s external shields began to fail.

  It was a miracle that the Praader-Lorenz held up for as long as it did with the second salvo doing the real damage, super-heating the ore in the first six trucks, causing the ship to explode in a fast-expanding cloud of debris and incandescent gases.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Contact Admiral Winterson,” Meyer said. “This thing’s bigger than we thought.”

  Ardent watched as the screens were flooded with new information, but that was all she could do - watch. As they closed on Laxx, they were still too far distant to have a direct impact on what was going on over there. It was an aspect of space combat which she had long known about but to experience it first-hand was another thing entirely.

  “Do you intend to engage her?” she asked.

  Meyer looked at her as if he thought she must be insane. “It’s too early to tell. The missiles they’ve launched are operating at sub-maximal speeds. They’ll take another twelve minutes to hit home rather than the five some of our missiles are capable of. They’re trying to force us to react.”

  “So, why don’t you? Send off a couple of these super-fast missiles. Let them know what they’re dealing with.”

  Meyer gave her a patronising smile. “Well, we don’t want to risk walking straight into a trap, now do we?”

  Ardent couldn’t believe what she was hearing. There were three ships in their flotilla and only one Da’al ship. It seemed incredible that he thought he could sustain the deception that he was a respectable Confederation officer, when all the while he was looking to hide away from any engagement in which he didn’t possess a substantial operational advantage.

  It was cowardice, pure and simple. They were effectively abandoning those people to their fates.

  “I’m sorry, captain,” she could maintain her silence no longer. “You’re talking about a trap and I have to confess that I just don’t see it.”

  He kept his eyes fixed on the main screen, hardly deigning to acknowledge her.

  “It’s an old trick, madam governor. They send out a ship on her own, usually a light frigate, admittedly, with the clear intention of drawing the other side out of position. They’ll do everything they can to provoke you to close with them before setting off again at maximum acceleration. And that’s rather the point: they want you to engage in an aggressive pursuit.”