“He didn’t give it to me,” she said dismissively. “Don’t you see? I took it.”

  Noah tried to grab her then but the men holding him were stronger.

  “What shall we do with him?” one of them asked.

  She picked up the baseball jacket and threw it at Noah.

  “You’d best take that with you,” she said. “You’re going to need it if you’re walking home.”

  She waved her hand and he was gone.

  *

  Webster and Dalbiri stood in the ship’s observation chamber. It consisted of an entire wall which became transparent at the touch of a button.

  While providing awesome views, it was also slightly unsettling as it gave the impression that one false step would cause you to slip out into the void. They could see The Naked Spur alongside two vast super freighters which appeared to be just hanging in space. It was like finding three cathedrals dropped in the middle of the jungle. Opposite them, dark and foreboding was another Da’al ship.

  If there had been any action between the various ships it appeared that they’d arrived too late to see it. All the Confederation ships showed signs of being involved in a major engagement.

  Dalbiri turned to Webster.

  “Why do you think they’re showing us this now?” he said.

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps they want us to consider our options.”

  “You think they might be considering letting us go?”

  “Well, so far, they’ve made no attempt to stop us moving around, though that’s not the same as arranging for a shuttle to get us out of here.”

  Dalbiri dropped down onto his haunches and started rubbing his wrist. “We haven’t asked, and they haven’t offered but I think it’s clear they want us to stay.”

  “Yeah, you get the idea this is some kind of test. I get the impression that they want to share more stuff with us but before they do, they want to know that we’re committed to their cause.”

  “But we’re not actually staying though, are we? I mean, it’s a great view, and all, but to be honest, if I had to make a choice between staying put and taking my chances out there, I know which way I’d vote.”

  “Are you not a little tempted to review some of that data they’ve managed to collect? Not just a little?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I love all that stuff but …” his voice trailed off. “I’ve had enough of being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. Time I went and hooked up with someone special. Been thinking about settling down for quite a while now. Maybe get a lecturing job somewhere. Know what I mean?”

  Webster nodded in agreement. He knew exactly what Dalbiri was talking about because he’d been thinking about doing exactly the same thing himself. Only, that had been with Joanna. And now, that was never going to happen.

  “What about Maria?” he said in a bid to change the subject. “Won’t she get jealous, you talking like that?”

  Dalbiri squinted out of one eye. “I should’ve known you’d bring that up: Maria, the dream lady.”

  “Well, you seemed so adamant that she was real. Even set up a second date.”

  “Far as I was concerned, she was real. I can even recall the things we talked about. Whole conversations.”

  “Have you seen her since?”

  Dalbiri eyed him suspiciously. “You serious?”

  “Very serious. Remember, I sat on a Tuscan hillside that came straight out of your head. I think anything’s possible.”

  “Then you’ll be glad to know that I haven’t. Not unless dreams count.”

  “You still dream about her?”

  Dalbiri waved the question away. “That’s my business.”

  “Okay,” Webster rolled his shoulders, attempting to get the knots out of his neck. “Well, now she’s out of the picture, what do you say, first opportunity that comes up, we get the hell out of here. Agreed?”

  Dalbiri giggled at that. “You know they’re probably listening to all this, don’t you?”

  “They’ve been watching us ever since we came aboard. We can’t hold off forever.”

  “I’m surprised you’re so keen. Back there in the lab it sounded like they were lining you up to be their next captain.”

  “Stuck out here with this one guy wearing six different shirts? I think that’d get real old, real fast. But you, on the other hand, you strike me as ideal management material.”

  “No, not me,” Dalbiri said. “I’m just some old red leg. Back in the infantry, I just did what I was told. I’ve not got the temperament for any of this captain nonsense.”

  “So, we’re agreed then? First chance we get…”

  Dalbiri fist bumped Webster.

  “We’re out of here.”

  *

  When Webster awoke, he started to panic, fearing that he was back on his first posting.

  It had nearly been his last.

  The bunks on the old destroyer had been so tightly packed that he had struggled with so called coffin dreams. Unrelenting night terrors linked to the fear of being buried alive.

  When he finally managed to figure out where he was, he let out a long tremulous sigh. It was dark in the room but not so dark that he couldn’t make out the rectangle of the door. But there was another shape there which he couldn’t account for.

  Or, maybe he could.

  Perhaps he’d left his jacket on the back of the chair. Perhaps the hood of that jacket had fallen in such a way as to suggest the back of someone’s head.

  Only he didn’t have a jacket and had spent time neatly folding his clothes and putting them to one side. In fact, if he squinted hard enough, he thought he might still be able to see them.

  He shifted his weight onto one elbow.

  “Hello?”

  There was a long pause. Then.

  “Hello.”

  A woman’s voice.

  Webster sat bolt upright, the covers pooling around his waist.

  “Let me get the light,” he said.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” her voice was cool and dark. “I don’t want to disturb you any more than is necessary.”

  Webster wanted to know who he was speaking to while at the same time a part of his brain was saying that he already knew.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  “It’s been hard for me too.”

  Webster was suddenly very aware of his breathing. Was this really happening?

  He said, “Why did it take you so long to come and see me?”

  “The sub-minds watch everything. You must have worked that out by now, surely.”

  “And they didn’t send you?”

  She turned to look directly at him then but all he could make out was her silhouette.

  “I’m trying to decide whether you’re a part of all this,” he said. “Are they controlling you now?”

  “They don’t know about me yet and I’d rather keep it that way,” she said. “They pride themselves on the idea that they control everything but they’re not infallible. There are ways around their systems. Not many but a few.”

  “And how do you know all this?”

  “The ship knows, so I know.”

  That disturbed him more than he’d care to admit.

  “And, so, who are you exactly?”

  She turned her head sideways. In the near dark he could just make out her patrician nose, her strong, slightly masculine jawline.

  “Who did you think I am?”

  “I’m not saying that you don’t look like her but that’s not the same thing as being her. The ship’s done a great job of harvesting our memories so far. But I know what I know.”

  “And that is?”

  “That Joanna is dead. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “You saw the ship destroyed. Don’t tell me that a part of you didn’t hold out some hope.”

  Webster felt something twist inside his chest, making it difficult to draw breath.

  “I loved you,” he said.

  “Though not enough to tell me when it mattered.”

  “Are you really here? I mean, really?”

  “The Drasin are real enough. Hundreds of thousands of them trapped in the walls of this ship, having given up their physical form millennia ago. And yet they still exist.”

  He squinted at her in the dark. How did she know all this?

  “But you. Are you real or just some electronic ghost?”

  “You can be very cruel, Alex. I’d forgotten that about you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said and found that he meant it. “I’m just trying to make sense of all this.”

  “I know, it’s difficult. They want to warn you. About the sub-minds. You can’t trust them.”

  Webster could only nod. He’d laughed at Dalbiri’s stories and now here he was doing the same thing. Talking to himself.

  “I think you’d better go,” he said.

  “So soon? I thought you might want to talk. About us.”

  He opened his hand towards her, as if to fend her off.

  “Too painful.”

  She reached out to touch him, but he drew away. Horrified.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t.”

  “Okay,” she pulled her hand back. “But before I go, there’s something you should know.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “I understand your scepticism but I have to tell you this. I just want you to know what’s at stake. What you’re risking.”

  “I’m assuming that they want to try and harness my skills in some way.”

  Her laugh came out as a harsh bark.

  “Yes, something like that. They’ve been at this for a long time now but they’re old and they lack agency. That’s what they want from you. They want to act through you somehow.”

  “What about Dalbiri? Why not use him?”

  “They don’t want him, they want you.”

  Webster would have happily laughed at that in any other context as a blatant appeal to his ego but now found that he couldn’t. It was all just so heartbreakingly sad.

  Him. Joanna. Everything.

  The whole thing felt like some kind of clever double bluff. Getting him to agree by involving him in his own deception. Make him think that he was in control when, really, little by little, he was allowing them to guide him in the direction they wanted to go.

  “Why are they doing this?”

  “They need your strength…” she broke off, as if hearing something. “I’m going to have to go.”

  Suddenly, that felt like the most terrible thing in the world.

  “But you’ll come back? Yes?”

  Her eyes flashed in the darkness.

  “The sub-minds are degrading. How many did you say there were?”

  “Three, why?”

  She ignored the question.

  “And how many have you actually seen?”

  “Just the three so far.”

  “Ever think why that is?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Sir, we need to drop back if we’re to have any chance of staying in this fight.”

  Schwartz was still sitting in the little recessed area while a member of the medical team sutered her wound. Faulkner stood in front of her. His fingers had been strapped together where he’d been struck by something but, other than that, he seemed fine.

  The medic had given her a shot for the pain so she couldn’t feel anything and was just conscious of her neck being tugged around.

  “Much as I would love to back off,” Faulkner said. “I’m afraid we can’t. We have to press our advantage.”

  “Advantage? Sir, what advantage? They have us at a complete disadvantage here.”

  She threw out a hand to take in the chaos which surrounded her but in doing so clearly upset the medic who was tending to her, so she decided to stay still.

  She was starting to feel a little woozy, as if she was wrapped in a protective bubble. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.

  “I’d disagree,” Faulkner continued. “We must continue to harry them. They want us to go away so that they can concentrate on completing their mission: destroying the Henrietta Gate. And we have to stop them.”

  Schwartz patted the medic’s arm, forcing him to stop working.

  She needed to look Faulkner in the eye.

  “Sir, we can’t hope to survive another attack like that last one. We’re struggling to keep all our engines on-line; our shields are shot and Mr McNeill tells me that we’re down to only two laser batteries. We’ve already lost a significant number of crew with many others injured or completely incapacitated. So far, our missile strikes have proved ineffective. I don’t see what more we can do.”

  A young second lieutenant came over. He was offering them a data tablet.

  “Not now, son,” Faulkner said, the annoyance in his voice plain.

  “Apologies, sir, but the main screen’s down and you perhaps should see this.”

  Faulkner rolled his eyes but took the tablet anyway. Because of his shattered fingers, he had to hold it in his left hand and then couldn’t operate it.

  “Budge up,” he said before sliding in next to Schwartz, the medic stepping back to let him in.

  When it became obvious that he was having problems with his left hand, Schwartz took the tablet off him and did it herself. At first, it wasn’t clear what they were looking at, but then Schwartz caught sight of an arabesque design and she started shrinking the image until they were looking at a back wall. A further adjustment and they found themselves looking at the bridge of a starship.

  “That’s a Yakutian vessel,” she said.

  And so, it proved.

  A junior Yakutian officer, recognisable as such from the augmentations around his ear, stepped into view and started adjusting the camera.

  Then he disappeared to be replaced, a few seconds later, by a more senior officer.

  There was something about him that Schwartz recognised but, for the life of her, she couldn’t think of his name.

  Faulkner had no such problems.

  “Commander Sunderam,” he said, shifting effortlessly into full diplomatic mode. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “The pleasure is all mine. Although it’s Captain Sunderam now.”

  “My apologies, captain. You’ll have to forgive me, we seem to be having some trouble with our comms array.”

  “From what I’m seeing, captain, I’m surprised to see that you’re still in one piece.”

  “So, what’s happened to Captain Mahbarat? I was looking forward to crossing swords with him again in the future. Has he been promoted?”

  Schwartz doubted that very much.

  “Captain Mahbarat met with a rather unfortunate accident.”

  “It can happen to the best of us.”

  “Unfortunately, his proved fatal.”

  “Well, that is unfortunate. Please pass on my condolences to his family.”

  “I will be happy to do so, captain,” Sunderam said, before coming to attention, now that the social niceties were out of the way. “Captain Faulkner, I’m picking up a radiation spike from your ship. Quite a distinct one, if I’m not mistaken. I trust that everything’s under control?”

  Faulkner batted the inquiry away, “All in hand, captain. All in hand.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you at this stage. I can see that you’ve engaged the enemy ship. Was that wise considering the state of your ship?”

  “It might not be the smartest thing I’ve ever done but I felt it was prudent under the circumstances.”

  “You suspect that they intend to de-stabilise the Henrietta Gate?”

  Faulkner looked across at Schwartz before turning his attention back to the screen.

  “I have reason to believe that Thor has an anti-matter bomb on board.”

  Schwartz felt the crew flinch at that. The research into anti-matter as a cost-effective fuel had been abandoned once the first gate had been established so everyone onboard knew how incredibly destructive a bomb using those self-same materials could be.

  “She’s not looking to merely de-stabilise the gate,” Faulkner went on. “She’s looking to destroy it. Completely.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “It’s something I’ve suspected for some time, but now we have proof,” he gave an apologetic look to Schwartz. “Admiral Winterson’s people discovered one aboard one of the other Da’al ships. And, if they were in possession of one, it’s reasonable to assume that this ship has one as well.”

  Sunderam considered this new intelligence. “I take it you have proof of this anti-matter bomb?”

  “I do indeed. Would you like to see it?”

  Schwartz caught her breath at that. Sharing intelligence with another power, particularly one they were currently at war with, would prove fatal for Faulkner’s career. It would, at the very least, see him stripped of his commission.

  But this was a high stakes game they were playing here and the first person who blinked would lose.

  Sunderam took a moment to consider the offer.

  Then shook his head.

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. But, in that case, this makes my decision all the easier. Captain Faulkner, is there any chance that we could speak in private?”

  *

  Renheim had begun her deceleration ten minutes ago but it was only now that they could see Thor starting to pull away. As she watched it start to slip away, Schwartz felt a real sense of relief flood over her. They say that its only after combat that the fear starts to kick in. As the realisation of what might have happened starts to take hold. And that seemed to be true for her now. Her heart was racing so much that when she checked her pulse rate she saw that it was through the roof.

  She didn’t know what the two captains were discussing but she couldn’t see any reason why the Serrayu couldn’t step up to the plate as far as Thor was concerned. He’d said as much when he’d commented on their damaged state. He might be new to all this but it didn’t take a genius to recognise the poor state they were in.

  And perhaps this was what Winterson had meant when he’d said that reinforcements were on their way. The fact that they’d all thought he was talking about Confederation ships was neither here nor there. Certainly, it would make no difference to the Da’al who they were facing. A warship is still a warship at the end of the day, regardless of whose flag it’s flying.