As he started back towards the campfire he shook his head in disbelief. What was he thinking? Clearly, he was becoming delusional. That wasn’t a real valley, down there. It was some kind of illusion. The chances that there’d be a stream running down were highly unlikely. It was more likely that, at some point, he’d simply run into a wall of some kind. An obstruction which separated this area off from the rest of the ship.

  He was still shaking his head when he bent down to pick up the bottle.

  If he couldn’t find any water in here, he would be forced to try and re-trace his steps back through the body of the main ship. Not that he thought that that would be easy. There was plenty of water back in the room they’d first sheltered in, if only he could find his way back without getting lost. The whole place was like a labyrinth, much larger and more complex than they’d first realised.

  Without thinking, he unclipped the top of the bottle and raised it to his lips, intent on draining the very last few drops in order to just wet his throat.

  Only the bottle was completely empty. Except for a note.

  It had been written on a sheet of plain paper, folded twice and then slipped inside the bottle. He managed to get a finger inside the neck of the bottle and angle it in such a way that he was able to tease the top of the note out.

  Then it was just a matter of hooking his little finger inside before he was able to pull it clear. He found that it helped if he turned the bottle upside down and just tugged.

  When he had it clear, he saw that his first impression had been wrong. There was still some moisture inside the bottle which had soaked into the back of the note. It had been that which had made the paper soggy so that it had clung more readily to the inside of the bottle.

  He unfolded the note carefully before holding it up to read. It was handwritten, which surprised him.

  Webster, it said.

  You’re wasting your time digging.

  That was the first line and it froze him to the spot.

  Had someone been watching him this whole time? He looked all around him trying to see where they might have hidden a camera. The most likely place was over in the olive trees but he didn’t fancy searching through there.

  He decided to read on.

  You’d do better to look for me in the library. That’s where you’re most likely to find me. In the Horticulture Section.

  Yours,

  Dalbiri

  Well, he thought, I’d lay money that Dalbiri had had no hand in writing that.

  For one thing, who referred to themselves simply by their surname? No, he imagined that whoever it was that had been watching them had picked up on them using one another’s surnames. The reason they hadn’t used their Christian names was because their observer didn’t know what they were.

  And what was all this about a library?

  The concept of having books physically gathered in one place had gone out of fashion two hundred years ago.

  What would an alien intelligence do with actual books anyway?

  *

  Winterson watched the events play out from the comfort of his hospital bed.

  Vincenzi was there, as was Duvall who stood in the corner looking as though he were half-asleep, though with Duvall, appearances were often deceiving.

  Winterson assumed that Vincenzi had come to keep an eye on him for this first engagement. Make sure that he didn’t start sending off directives to Kerrigan once the action got underway. It was important for the bridge crew to stay focussed at a time like this and Vincenzi knew that Kerrigan would have enough to think about without being second guessed by his superior.

  Winterson knew this as well, but he wanted to stay in contact just in case things started to go against them. Only now he’d have to filter everything through Vincenzi.

  “What’s happening now?” Vincenzi asked in a loud voice, pointing at the screen. “I find this first bit all very confusing.”

  Not that Vincenzi was confused in the slightest. He knew exactly what was going on – he hadn’t climbed the ladder to Commander without knowing how ships formed up prior to an engagement – but he wanted to check that Winterson was following everything that was going on. He was still trying to ascertain to what extent his boss’s mental faculties had been affected when the bridge had been destroyed, which meant that Winterson had to work doubly hard to try and convince him otherwise.

  “Captain Kerrigan is trying to get all his ducks in order,” Winterson said. “Though God knows what the captain of the Tyr is making of all this.”

  “He’s probably enjoying it. The longer we delay, the better it suits him.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Have you seen his battle plan?” Vincenzi asked. “Kerrigan’s, I mean, not this other fellow.”

  “I’ve glanced at it, yes.”

  In truth, Winterson had gone over it in some considerable detail. He would have liked to have spent even more time on it but lately he’d been having trouble concentrating for sustained periods. He’d been studying the armaments on the Hudson at one point and had briefly closed his eyes. Next thing it was morning, the nurse had arrived with breakfast and his plans had disappeared. He suspected Duvall of having taken them but couldn’t quite bring himself to challenge the big man over it.

  Vincenzi tipped his head to one side and spoke into the microphone that had been set up earlier. “Could we see the current battle formations, please?”

  The lights in the room dimmed and a three-dimensional projection of the opening gambit appeared in front of them. Because they didn’t want to interrupt the action on the bridge, Vincenzi had set up a link to the battle bridge which would relay all the necessary information directly to them.

  They were fielding five ships in all, which were facing the Tyr which was rendered in vibrant red.

  Hudson and Blackbeard ranged alongside The Naked Spur.

  Santiago in blue, was over on their starboard side while the Molly Maguire, in green, was on their port side. Both were moving to engage the enemy.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Faulkner took another bite of his bacon roll.

  He hadn’t realised how hungry he’d become and had wolfed down the first one without taking the time to enjoy it. So now he was savoring the experience, pausing only to wipe a dab of ketchup off his chin.

  McNeill, who had approached his roll as though he thought it might explode, was just starting to get the hang of eating one.

  It had been a trick popular with old Doc Martin, a captain who Faulkner had served under for four years. Martin had been fond of telling anyone who’d listen why it was that Neanderthal Man’s brain doubled in size once he’d learned how to light a fire. He claimed that it came about as a result of Neanderthal Man learning how to cook his meat. This allowed him access to fats and proteins his body couldn’t process in their uncooked state. And, as a result, his brain doubled in size.

  Martin maintained that if you were ever faced with a difficult decision, the simple act of eating a bacon roll – with its winning combination of carbohydrates, animal fats and carcinogens - might well provide you with the break-through you needed. Either that, or it just tasted good.

  Unfortunately, one or two of Faulkner’s officers didn’t seem to agree with this line of thinking, Schwartz being one of them. She’d passed up on the bacon idea in favor of eating a fresh avocado. Faulkner could just about handle that but felt that she’d then compounded her error by eating the thing with a spoon.

  Regardless of what they chose to eat, Faulkner felt that the simple act of having food delivered to the bridge had worked. It had helped to distract his people from their duties long enough for them to be able to take a well-earned break. And, after all they’d just been through, he thought that that could only be a good thing. Maintaining morale was, as far as he was concerned, just as important as maintaining good discipline. In fact, he contended, you rarely found one without the other. The crew had to believe in whatever strictures were being imposed upon them and, so long as they all felt that they were going through this together, then they couldn’t help but be brought together as a team.

  It wasn’t Faulkner’s job to enforce his will upon the crew. His job, as he saw it, was simply to facilitate both officers and NCOs so that they could work together as effectively as possible. And, if that meant that he had to reward them every so often, then so much the better.

  “Captain?” McNeill was mopping at the sides of his mouth with a napkin. “I think we may have something.”

  “What? Have you found her?”

  “Not yet,” he said, eager not to overstate his case. “But there has been a significant development.”

  “I think you’d better explain.”

  “I’d love to, sir, but my brain’s a little fried at the moment,” McNeill waved over one of the junior officers. “But allow me to introduce you to Ensign Xiong.”

  “Ensign,” Faulkner nodded as Schwartz moved over to join him. “What do you have for us?”

  The young woman took a moment to smooth her long dark hair down before she began,

  “Sir, Lieutenant McNeill had me looking for possible long range scanning operations in and around Topeka.”

  “Topeka?”

  Topeka was the next planet along. The last one standing between them and Iscaria.

  “And what did you find?”

  “Quite a few operators utilise such scans. The only problem is that most of these are concentrated on either Iscaria or Blackthorn itself.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. This was where the bulk of their trade would be coming from, after all. Then he realised what Xiong was implying. “Most of them, but not all?”

  “That’s right, sir. Two are currently monitoring Laxx while there’s a scientific station focussed on the gas giant, Ares. You’d be surprised how much there is out there once you…”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But how does this affect us?”

  “BireX is one of the companies operating one of these long-range scans. It’s a small mining company which was taken over a few years ago by McEwan Industries.”

  “And this helps us how?”

  “McEwan Industries was set up by Ian McEwan whose daughter is Bethan McEwan.”

  “Bethan McEwan?” Faulkner mused. “That sounds familiar. Should it?”

  “Isn’t she the captain of…” Schwartz seemed to have suddenly run out of words.

  “The Charles W Morgan,” Faulkner said. “The ship that the Da’al destroyed earlier.”

  This revelation sobered them all up.

  “That’s right, sir,” Xiong went on. “With Lieutenant McNeill’s approval, I approached the company’s CEO. Fergus McEwan.”

  Schwartz nodded. “Is that her brother?”

  “That’s right, ma’am. I told him what’s been happening, and he said that he’d be only too glad to help us.”

  “I’m still not getting the significance of all this,” Faulkner said, looking to McNeill. “Am I missing something?”

  “Mr McEwan has agreed to hand over control of his scans to us,” McNeill said, by way of clarification. “For the time being, that is.”

  Faulkner shrugged, still none the wiser.

  “Let me get this straight,” Schwartz said. “He’s letting us use them so that we can search for the Loki?”

  “Which will have to by-pass Topeka in order to get to the gate,” Xiong said.

  “Okay,” Faulkner clapped his hands together. “So, what are we waiting for?”

  Xiong gave them all a beatific smile.

  “That’s the thing,” she said, indicating the master clock. “We started monitoring seven minutes ago.”

  “Thank you, Ensign, that’s sterling work,” McNeill said before turning to Faulkner. “It’s just as you said, sir. We might not have the capacity to track the Loki from where we are but a massive commercial concern like McEwan Industries? They’re going to be all over this.”

  *

  They all breathed a huge sigh of relief as they stepped into Peter the Great’s hold, the interior door slowly edging shut behind them. That wasn’t an experience any of them wanted to repeat in a hurry.

  She had to admit that this whole take-over had been artfully handled. From the way that the raiders had managed to sneak the second shuttle on-board, to cutting off the oxygen supply in the cargo hold and now separating them up into compliant groups - it had all gone very smoothly. This was clearly a very well-rehearsed schedule. Even though most of these guys weren’t the sharpest tools in the box, they all seemed to be well briefed in their various roles and assured in what they did. There was no denying that. That was down to good organisation and solid leadership.

  LaCruz wasn’t sure exactly how much credit the albino could take for any of that. She imagined that his job was to kick ass and keep people in line. Which suggested that Saratova was the one in overall charge. Which meant that she was the one LaCruz was going to have to keep an eye on. If anything were to happen to Saratova, she was pretty sure that this little operation would start to unpick itself fairly quickly.

  The problem was that she rarely let her guard down. Every time LaCruz had seen her she’d been surrounded by her various hangers-on. Taking out one or two of these should prove fairly straightforward but taking them all down was going to prove problematic. However they decided to go about this, it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Even if Markham could get the Marines organised, they were going to have a major fight on their hands. There were just too many unknowns at present. Saratova had built up a regular little army here, plus, this was their ship and they’d know how best to defend it.

  There were a group of eight raiders waiting to pick them up and take them to whatever holding facility they were currently using. They had the hard eyes of men and women who’d seen a lot of bloodshed and she didn’t doubt for a second that they were capable of looking after themselves. She’d seen their type in bar rooms all over the galaxy. Ready to turn their hand to whatever grim tasks their paymaster might require. Then, it was simply a question of keeping them supplied with drink and drugs before you pointed them in the right direction and let them loose.

  She watched their faces as they received their briefing from Deetz. She’d piled her braids up on top of her head to show that she meant business. Most of them were listening, but one or two of them were glancing over in the direction of LaCruz’s group, eyeing up the women. It was subtle, no one was making it too obvious, but it was there. LaCruz had seen it too many times before. If you were going to survive in space as a woman, you had to know those signs and be willing to act on them.

  Problem was, most of the attention was being directed towards the Marsh woman. She was attractive enough, LaCruz reflected, that is if you liked skinny women but clearly enough of them did. Annoyingly enough, the last thing Markham had said to her before he was taken away was that she had to look out for Marsh.

  She didn’t know what was so special about her, all she did know was that if anything happened to her, Markham was going to be pissed and she had no intention of letting that happen.

  As they were being led out of the cargo bay, LaCruz positioned herself towards the front. She figured that if the attention was on her, she might be able to divert it away from Marsh, at least in the short term. And it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t have already been warned about her. Some of them would no doubt be delighted about the fact that LaCruz had nearly strangled one of their own. You get enough service personnel together and they invariably revert to a pack mentality, delighting in the rise and fall of others.

  They’d no doubt already marked her down as a troublemaker and would deal with her accordingly. Which suited LaCruz. If they cared to step up, she’d be only too happy to reciprocate. Didn’t matter how big they were, LaCruz would make them rue the day they decided to mess with her.

  LaCruz smelled their quarters a long time before they got there. She recognised the smell from her childhood: an acrid mix of human waste, intercut with notes of fear and despair. The smell of the worst slums. The smell of a prison.

  She quickly dropped back into the middle of the group, keeping her voice low.

  “Okay, ladies, listen up. They’re keeping other people in here with us and I’d imagine that by now they’re pretty desperate. Your job is to keep your head down and try not to draw any attention to yourself. Anyone asks, you’re with me. Tell ‘em, Jackson’s here now and she’s taking care of you. If nothing else, it’ll put them on the back foot while they try and work out who the hell I am. Got that?”

  A blonde woman looked at her with wide eyes. “What sort of things are you talking about?”

  “I think they’ve been keeping people down here for a long while. That makes them a potential danger far as we’re concerned. But don’t worry, that’s all going to change.”

  “And you’re the one to do it?” Marsh said.

  “Sister, I’m the one chance you’ve got of making it out of here, so you’d better do just whatever the hell I tell you.”

  They’d turned down a narrow corridor which reminded LaCruz of the inside of some industrial pipe. The stench rose up, threatening to over-power them and a couple of the women gagged.

  “Don’t worry,” their guard snickered. “You’ll get used to it. Everybody does. Eventually.”

  LaCruz turned to the others. “Okay, if we’re going to stick together, I need everyone’s names. Let’s have ‘em.”

  *

  The women were all split up and LaCruz was put into a cell with three other women, though one of them, named Tulip, was barely out of her teens. In contrast to the squalid conditions, she wore a sort of cocktail dress which hung off her tiny frame.

  Her companion, a hard-faced young woman called Mariella, made it clear that they had no interest in talking to her and that she would have to bed down beside the door. LaCruz was happy enough with that arrangement as it meant she was on the other side of the room to their foul-smelling toilet. There were two bunks, one on either side of the room. The two younger women shared one, while an older woman, who was twice the size of LaCruz, was asleep on the other.