“Beating the Da’al? Yes. That’s my biggest concern - one hundred percent - but that’ll seem like the biggest pyrrhic victory in history if we beat their main fleet only for Loki to destroy the Henrietta Gate. Where would that leave us? It’d be a disaster. I’m sorry, madam governor, would you excuse me for a moment?”

  The doctor was just leaving the bridge and Schwartz, for her part, was looking distressed.

  As Faulkner approached she gave him a thin smile.

  “Is everything alright,” he said, indicating her stomach.

  She waved the thought away. “No. It’s not that. Baby’s fine.”

  Faulkner turned to look at the doctor who was just entering the turbo-elevator.

  “So, what was all that about, then?”

  “Well, captain, this is quite difficult,” Schwartz’s eyes flicked across to Ardent.

  “It’s alright,” Faulkner said. “You can speak openly in front of the governor.”

  “Only, it’s Commander Farnese. You see, it seems that he’s dead.”

  *

  Noah was sticking with the Montezuma as best he could but her rate of climb was dropping by the second and he was seriously concerned that she wasn’t going to make it.

  He could see the smoke trailing from her main engine and was worried that if he pushed it any harder, the whole thing would just burn out – or worse. They were outfitted with enough equipment to fashion minor repairs but for something like this they’d need a deep space repair yard. Otherwise, they were going to be stuck on Tigris for the foreseeable future. The sensible thing would be for Tomas to shut off the engine before they did any permanent damage. The idea of pressing on with their main engine so badly compromised was sheer madness, of course. But if they didn’t manage to get their salvage ship into orbit then their gamble would have failed and it would all have been for nothing.

  As they rose steadily higher, the sun started to come up and the vista beneath them grew more impressive, spoiled only by the columns of ash left from the earlier bombardment. The fact that Elina had been able to distract the Da’al ship for as long as she had was a tribute to her skill as a pilot but he couldn’t help wondering what might have happened to her.

  It seemed unlikely that the Heimdall would break off the chase until Peter the Great had been completely destroyed. The Da’al had to be assured of their own orbital superiority.

  And you couldn’t claim that while you still had another ship up there, taking pot shots at you whenever they felt like it.

  Whatever the outcome, Noah could only hope that Elina had bought them enough time to get into orbit. They might be seriously outgunned when they got up there but they’d have to worry about that when it came to it.

  “How’s it going over there?” Noah asked. “You managing to keep it together?”

  “I have to admit,” Tomas’ voice was tight. “We’ve been in better shape.”

  “How’s things going with that engine of yours?”

  Noah knew he was tempting fate just mentioning it but he had to know. It was difficult enough attempting a hard vertical climb when everything was running smoothly but when things were stacked against you…

  “Oh, you noticed that, did you? I thought those Marines of yours were meant to stop that from happening.”

  “Firstly, they’re not my Marines and secondly…”

  His voice was drowned out by the sound of an enormous explosion.

  “What the hell was that?” Noah said.

  “Damned if I know. I got so many alerts coming up I don’t know what to deal with first.”

  “That sounded pretty bad from out here.”

  “Yeah, well, unless something actually falls off, I’m going to keep going.”

  The camera started to vibrate at that point, which suggested that Tomas had switched to maximum acceleration.

  The sky was darkening as they climbed. Noah looked down, the cloud cover they had just come through now stretching from horizon to horizon. Noah’s ship was being buffeted by high winds. They still had another ten minutes before they would make the transition into space.

  “Heay, Tomas, you think we’re going to make it?”

  “You sure you want me to answer that?”

  “Why? You think we’re pushing our luck?”

  “Aren’t we always?”

  “We could turn back.”

  “Oh, great idea,” Tomas’ voice was soaked in sarcasm. “See if we can find a local garage to take a look at this engine for us. Check into a motel while we’re at it. Have ourselves a couple of beers.”

  Noah could hear the alarms going off in Tomas’ cockpit.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Before we get clear?” Noah could hear his brother tapping on his keypad as he worked the numbers. “Another eight minutes – if we can keep it together.”

  “Can’t we speed things up a little?”

  “No can do, kid. I’m already at full burn, or as close to it as these engines will take. No, we’ve rolled the dice on this one. Just got to watch how they fall.”

  Eight minutes, Noah thought. Eight minutes. Yeah, he could manage that.

  “Okay, Tomas. I’ll let you get back to it.”

  He looked down at his controls to check how much fuel he had left. The plan had never been to stay in atmosphere for this long but, from the look of it, they should be fine.

  Noah was checking the figures again when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the vector on the Heimdall suddenly change. The course alteration was so dramatic that when he looked across, his first thought was that he had to be mistaken. The last time he’d looked, the Heimdall had been locked in pursuit of the Peter the Great, but it had broken off that pursuit and was now heading back in their direction.

  Suddenly, the whole thing seemed to make perfect sense.

  He thought about contacting Tomas but decided against it. He couldn’t climb any faster and, with no real ability to maneuver, it would just be one more distraction he could probably do without.

  Instead, Noah hit his thrusters going for a hard burn.

  Almost immediately, the fuel reserve light started to flash red. If this didn’t work, there was no turning back. He’d be out of fuel with nowhere to go.

  He felt his ship being assaulted by the winds as he climbed higher but he reasoned that once they’d cleared the upper reaches of atmosphere things should start to get easier.

  Then it would just be a case of hoping that the Heimdall’s crew could be suckered in.

  The comms squawked into life. Probably Tomas asking him what the hell he thought he was up to. He probably shouldn’t answer that. But when he looked, he saw that it was the Peter the Great trying to contact him.

  “Elina? That you?”

  “Who else would it be? Can I ask one question: what the hell are you doing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to draw fire away from the Montezuma.”

  “Are you mad? They’re going to shoot you down and then go straight for your brother.”

  He ignored that. “I finally worked it out. We thought this Da’al captain was an idiot allowing himself to get side-tracked like that. What was he thinking?”

  “Perhaps, that I am such an outstanding pilot, I think?”

  “I thought that too, at first. But I’ve been looking at his flight path. It may look erratic but he’s never been more than ten minutes away from his overwatch position.”

  “Really?” Elina sounded a little deflated hearing that. “I have to admit – I’ve been up against this guy for the last few hours. He really knows his shit.”

  “Yeah, he gives the impression he’s all over the place when really, that’s not the case at all. He’s just been play acting. Look at his flight path.”

  “Okay, I’m looking.”

  “See how low his base velocity was even as he was pursuing you,” he followed a green line with his finger. “Then, just as they’re about to commit to the chase, this happens.”

  He highlighted the tight hairpin on the screen with his finger. “Then he altered course to come back at us at maximum acceleration. He wanted us to think that he was distracted and looking the other way – until after we’d fully committed ourselves – and, of course, we did.”

  “Yeah. Now you put it like that …”

  “Think about it. They know that they don’t have the technology to lift that ship up off the surface. So what do they do? They sit back and sucker us into doing all the hard work for them.”

  “But what happened about the other ship? The one that Admiral Winterson promised. He said they’d be sending over a Confederation craft to rendezvous with us. What happened to that?”

  “I don’t know. But can you see any Confederation ships out there? I know I can’t?”

  “So, what do we do in the meantime? Offer ourselves up as target practice?”

  “Something like that.”

  The blue of the sky had faded now to a light charcoal colour and he looked around, half expecting to see the Heimdall at any moment. But even if it had been out there he doubted he’d have been able to see it until it was too late. Still, he had a decent supply of defensive measures on board and so should feel confident. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been fired on and, he hoped, wouldn’t be the last.

  Still, he needed more height if he was really going to draw attention to himself so he pushed his thrusters to maximum in the hope that by doing so he’d be able to burn through the last of the atmospheric gases. That way, he’d give himself one of those tell-tale contrails. Give them something to shoot at.

  The G-forces pushed him back into his seat, though it wouldn’t last long.

  “Noah?” Elina’s voice.

  “I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Then you’d best check your screens.”

  It was difficult turning his head, his neck taking all the strain.

  Heimdall had launched. Four missiles.

  A surge of panic threatened to overwhelm him.

  “Good,” he said, his voice pitched a little higher than he’d have liked.

  “Until you check the missile vectors. Look, you idiot!”

  Noah was totally against cutting the thrusters but realised he had to if he wanted to see what was going on. And when he finally did, his heart sank.

  “What are they doing?”

  “This captain, I think, is smarter than both of us.”

  She was right. The Heimdall’s captain had chosen to ignore the Motar completely, sending his first salvo arcing down into the upper atmosphere.

  But something was wrong.

  Noah had to switch screens a couple of times just to confirm his suspicions, though.

  Only three of the missiles were vectoring in on the Montezuma.

  “What’s happening with that fourth one?” he wanted to know.

  “Looks like it’s got a mind of its own,” Elina said. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  Noah tapped the screen so that it automatically matched the missile’s vector.

  “Oh God, yeah! Seventeen million creds about to go up in smoke.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Webster moved backwards, taking his time to feed the cable around his waist. The whole ship had shifted back again so that the corridors were now at an angle nearer to sixty degrees rather than ninety. If it had stayed like it was he might well have been tempted to remain where he was, but with the prospect of vacuum looming he knew that he had to get moving. He already had Nash’s helmet and, since he had a pretty good idea where Nash’s suit might be, he decided that he might as well go after that as well.

  If he could somehow put the two together, there was an outside chance he might even survive this.

  He’d fashioned a rappel line out of some electrical cable and descended to the octagonal doorway. After that, it was just a case of freeing the anchor he’d improvised using a metal chair. It took a good deal of manipulation but eventually he managed it. Then it was a question of avoiding the free-falling chair before starting the process all over again.

  He’d done it twice so far and each time he’d been worried that the chair would get wedged fast. So far, his luck had held but he knew it couldn’t last.

  He’d decided not to go looking for Nash’s body until he was low enough. He had no doubt in his mind that Nash was dead, a fall from that height would inevitably prove fatal, but what concerned him now was what state the suit would be in.

  Even if it was damaged, he reckoned he’d still be able to use it. He’d find some way of patching up any tears. But what if the suit had been shredded? What then?

  After a pause to get his breath, he prepared himself for the penultimate climb. He wasn’t used to such physical hard work and the strength in his arms was fading fast. Even worse, his forearms were starting to cramp up so he paused a second to slowly open and close his hands. There was an air-duct next to his head, ovoid in shape and slightly set back in the bulkhead. He assumed it was linked to some kind of air filtration system.

  But he didn’t have time to look into that now. He turned to look beneath him. A decent ten metres down to the next doorway, which was just as well as his cable didn’t extend much beyond that. Then he’d only have to repeat the process once more.

  He was about to start his descent when he remembered that he hadn’t checked that the chair was secure. It was an easy enough mistake to make. Most mountaineers died on the last leg of their descent. Mentally, they switched off. All the major hurdles had been conquered and so they stopped making basic equipment checks.

  And that’s what got them killed.

  He checked that the chair was wedged in tight and was relieved to find that it was.

  It was as he was about to step backwards off the platform that he heard something moving in the air-duct. His arms tensed and he froze.

  What was that? Nash?

  Was Nash still alive?

  Without thinking, he turned to look down the long shaft of the corridor. There was a huge pile of equipment heaped at the bottom and lying off to one side, was Nash’s body still in its red and grey pressure suit.

  But if Nash was down there then what was making the noise?

  Taking a tight grip on the cable, he side-stepped to bring himself as close to the duct as possible, his face almost on the same level.

  He tipped his head to one side, waited, listened.

  Nothing.

  Only, there had been something. Definitely. Probably something had just worked itself loose.

  Then he did see something. It was right at the back and he had to strain to see it. The edge of the duct was rimmed with thin brushes and just beyond this there’d been a flash of silver. He was left with the image of twin lenses which had seemed to scrutinise him momentarily before moving on.

  Some kind of maintenance robot, perhaps?

  “Hello!”

  His voice echoed off the walls.

  And then a strangled reply, “Who’s that?”

  Webster spun around, half expecting to find Nash standing behind him but, of course, there was no one there.

  Then the voice came again, “Who’s there?”

  This time it was easier to locate.

  It was coming from inside the air-duct.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Alex Webster. Who’s this?”

  “Oh thank God, commander. It’s me: Dalbiri. I’m stuck. I think I’m going to need a hand.”

  *

  Farnese’s body was stretched out on the floor of the cell.

  His bed was still made up but it hadn’t been slept in.

  Faulkner was having a hard time reconciling the corpse with the vibrant, dynamic young executive officer he’d spoken to only two days previously. The man looked shrunken somehow. Diminished.

  He’d been wearing his orange jump suit when they’d found him. The medical team who’d tried to resuscitate him had slit his suit open to provide quick access to his heart.

  Though they’d been too late to save Farnese, they were now out in the corridor hoping to have more luck with his guard. Faulkner though, having seen his fair share of corpses, wasn’t holding out much hope.

  Twice Faulkner had gone over to study Farnese’s face in more detail and it wasn’t down to some ghoulish fascination. He just wanted to be certain that this really was Farnese lying at his feet. He wanted to be confident that this marked the end of this particular chapter although, personally, he was finding that difficult. The muscles of Farnese’s face had been so distorted by the rigors of his death that it was impossible to say with one hundred percent certainty that this was him.

  “Captain! Captain!” a strident sound.

  It was Ardent. She was outside with Schwartz, standing at the main entrance to the cells. The warden had insisted that only Faulkner should be allowed through. The man’s job was hanging in the balance as it was, so he wanted to ensure that the investigation was as thorough as it could be. He didn’t want to be accused of a cover-ups.

  Still, the two guards he’d assigned to keep the corridor clear were having a hard time keeping Ardent back.

  But there could be no question of her being allowed in. With Farnese having died in such suspicious circumstances, the integrity of his cell as a crime scene had to be maintained.

  “Madam Governor,” Faulkner said, loud enough for all to hear. “Much as I’d like to accommodate you at this time, I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “Robert, please! This is difficult enough for me as it is. I’m begging you. Please! You must let me see him.”

  Faulkner and the warden exchanged glances, both men eager to get this over with.

  They could still hear the medical team out in the corridor. They hadn’t given up on saving the guard.

  “What the hell happened here?” Faulkner asked, struggling to keep the emotion from his voice.

  The warden was struggling to present a solid front and had the palor of a gambler who knew he couldn’t survive another loss.

  “We’re still trying to piece that together, sir.”

  “What about the cameras? Have you had a chance to look at those?”

  “It was the first thing I checked. The thing is, sir: there’s nothing there. No footage at all. There was a minor power surge just before this happened - took out all of our systems, lights included. When we did manage to get everything up and running again, we found this.”