“The Yakutians have enough trouble working out their status system at the best of times. Having a total outsider in charge must be terrible for them. You can see it on their faces.”

  He was right of course. It showed in their pinched expressions whenever they looked at her.

  “May I enquire how you managed to acquire this post? Did you have to call on any of your other skills along the way?”

  She was referring to his ability to command people to do his bidding.

  “You do me a disservice, doctor. Besides, my abilities only extend to those people who are susceptible to my suggestions.”

  “As was I. Are you suggesting that I’m feeble minded?”

  He came forward and took her by the hand.

  “No, surgeon captain. All I’m saying is that loneliness can make fools of us all.”

  She pulled her hand away as if she’d been bitten. That hurt far more than anything the Yakutians might inflict on her.

  Hermendal clearly regretted it as soon as he’d said it.

  “Forgive me, I was showing off. I apologise. No, it was odd but Commander Sunderam contacted me directly.”

  “Sunderam?”

  “That’s right. For such a blunt military type he seems to be strangely astute. No doubt he picked up from your reports that you were becoming frustrated by your team’s lack of progress.”

  “Yes,” she said, re-classifying her view of Sunderam for the umpteenth time. “I suppose that might have been the case. What surprises me the most is that he’s actually read my reports. I didn’t expect that and I certainly never expected him to act on them.”

  “Might I be brought up to speed on what the problem is? If I knew what you were getting up to down here, that might be a start.”

  The pair of them turned their attention back to the observation window. “It’s Captain Faulkner. Mahbarat insisted that he be re-animated. Seems he’s a big fan of our CO. Only, it turns out that he has one or two heart problems which we hadn’t known about previously. Turned out that a heart transplant might be our best bet.”

  “Without having access to a suitable donor we had to rely on the Yakutians on-board cloning facilities.”

  “In such a short space of time? That’s truly impressive.”

  “You haven’t heard the best part. They were able to employ gene therapy to address the original heart’s congenital defects. If he comes through this, he’s going to have the heart of a twenty-year-old.”

  “Okay,” Hermendal sounded sceptical. “But that’s a good thing, surely?”

  “If they can manage to re-start his heart then that’s an excellent thing.”

  “I can hear a ‘but’ coming.”

  “If we can’t re-start it then we have a very real problem.”

  “Can’t you just re-freeze him?”

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. We can put him in a medical coma but the chances are that he won’t come out of it. The key issue won’t have been addressed and we’ll have failed.”

  “I’m assuming that – as far as Captain Mahbarat is concerned – this would be a bad thing.”

  Hermendal came around and began leading Morton towards the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The commander tells me that you haven’t taken a proper break in three days. At present our beloved captain is stable. So, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me.”

  “But I can’t possibly leave.”

  “You said yourself: they can’t start without your say-so.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, though.”

  “Trust me,” he swept his arm out towards the door. “It does.”

  *

  Governor Ardent was fast running out of patience.

  She had thought that, as the newly re-instated Governor of Blackthorn, she might have been able to prevail upon Captain Meyer to set up a defensive line to help protect the convoy of ships still leaving Blackthorn but as the hours passed it had become clear that wasn’t about to happen. The only authority Meyer seemed to recognise was that of the USDC and so it appeared that, short of a direct order from the Admiralty, he was unlikely to be offering his services anytime soon.

  Jacobs had already approached her with the idea of putting her in charge. He’d even offered up his own ship, The Sundowner, to act as her flag ship. Ardent had almost laughed when she’d first heard the suggestion. It was a very generous offer but the fact that she had once run a space station in no way qualified her to take charge of a major space offensive. Just the thought of working in three dimensions was enough to give her a headache.

  She still hoped, with Farnese’s help, to be able to talk Meyer around but he seemed in no hurry to meet with her, having by now committed himself to the Search and Rescue mission. And time was running out. They needed to get themselves organised if they weren’t to squander what little tactical advantage they had.

  Getting Meyer onside was the key to everything. With the Renheim to rally around, it would be so much easier persuading the merchant ships to join them. She also hadn’t given up on the idea that the Serrayu might be talked into coming along as well, although they were currently on the far side of Iscaria and had yet to respond to her hails.

  No, the main problem was Claus Meyer. He seemed adamant that his ship would not become caught up in all this activity and while Ardent could understand his reluctance to give his backing to what was essentially a civilian operation, the longer it went on the more she started to question his integrity.

  She had tried to broach the subject with Farnese once but he had been loath to even discuss it.

  On the surface, Meyer gave the impression of having become fully engaged in the humanitarian rescue of his fellow spacers, but the reality was markedly different. The Renheim hadn’t recovered a single escape pod in nearly two days. Every time one had been identified, Meyer had demurred. It was always too far distant or in completely the wrong area of space – whatever that meant. He justified these decisions by claiming that he didn’t want to be pulled out of position, as though to do so would see him stepping into some terrible Da’al trap.

  And it was this that she found most infuriating. Meyer could not be relied upon to commit to any one plan of action. He seemed quite content to gather data, going through all the necessary procedures while achieving precisely nothing. This, while all around him people were crying out for his leadership.

  And in the current vacuum, it had been Ardent who had stepped into the breach. Since the confirmation had come through that she had been re-instated as governor, Meyer’s attitude towards her had changed. Buoyed by the idea of having a top diplomat on-board he had granted her a certain amount of autonomy, giving her largely unfettered access to the communications department as she attempted to balance the affairs not just of Blackthorn but of all the colonists in the area.

  It had been Ardent who had requested that a line be opened to the Oreole, the first ship out of Laax since the crisis had started. She wanted to know what was happening on Laax but also what was happening in the rest of the system. Her intention in inviting Meyer along, was to try and highlight the importance of evacuating the little mining colony while they still had the chance.

  “But what was so important that you simply had to leave?” Meyer had precious little tact when addressing civilians. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed put?”

  The Oriole’s captain, a sour faced woman by the name of Shabnavee Vaz was finding it hard to stay civil.

  “We tried that. We sat out here patiently while all of this went on thinking that eventually someone would come out to us. But that didn’t happen. And as things got worse, it started to feel as if we didn’t exist.”

  “It’s just not been possible to get a relief ship out to you, that’s all,” Ardent said.

  “That might be the case, Madam Governor, but we’ve got a lot of sick people on-board this ship. We’ve had real problems with malaria and our medication gave out weeks ago. You can only make do for so long.”

  “I understand,” Meyer said. “But if you’d gotten in touch then we could have sent a drone out. Now, by launching your ship, you’ve drawn attention to yourselves. You may as well have set off a distress beacon. It’s not the sort of thing that the Da’al are likely to ignore.”

  “Captain, this has been going on for six months. We’ve had forty-two deaths in that time and nothing has been forthcoming from you or from anyone else. I am sick to death of contacting you people and being told that someone, somewhere is going to get onto it, and yet still nothing happens. There’s only so many funerals you can attend before you realise you have to do something, whatever that might be. We made our decision and now we’re sticking to it.”

  The woman’s sense of frustration was clear and Ardent had to agree that she did have a genuine grievance. But after everything that had happened over on Blackthorn, the fate of eight hundred miners and their families had slowly sunk down the list of priorities.

  “What are your plans now?” Ardent asked.

  “Some of these people are extremely sick. We need to get them to a proper hospital.”

  “Then may I suggest that you head for Iscaria? They’ve got a number of good hospitals down there and I can arrange for them to set aside a couple of isolation wards for your malaria victims.”

  “What’s wrong with going straight to Blackthorn?”

  Ardent shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible. Blackthorn can’t deal with the people she’s got. Trust me: this is the best alternative.”

  “Very well. If you could send me the arrangements for the hospital, I’ll get right on it.”

  “I’ve already taken the liberty of putting an emergency package together. Columbia Hills has enough capacity and has agreed to accept you. I’m sending the details over now.”

  Vaz’ expression immediately softened. “Well, Governor, I don’t know what to say apart from: thank you.”

  “I’m glad that we could help.”

  “Yes, that’s wonderful,” the suggestion of a smile had started to transform her features. “Can I just ask: what’s likely to happen to the others back on Laax? You’ve got families down there. Two schools.”

  Meyer made to say something but Ardent stopped him. This was a discussion for another time.

  “You’ll have to leave that with us,” she said. “We’re pretty stretched here at the moment.”

  “I understand,” Vaz said. “Could I also take this opportunity to offer my condolences?”

  “You’re talking about what happened on Blackthorn?”

  “Er, no, not specifically. I was talking about the survey ship you sent to Tigris.”

  Ardent and Meyer exchanged glances.

  “The Dardelion?”

  “That’s right,” Vaz’s tone had changed. “You are aware of what had happened, I take it?”

  “I’m not sure that we are. Please go on.”

  “We picked it up on one of our long-range scans. She was ambushed it seems. It was all over far too quickly.”

  “What exactly are you saying,” Meyer said. “She’s been hit? Destroyed? What?”

  “I don’t have the details but it seems the Dardelion was caught completely off guard.”

  “Survivors?” Ardent asked as numbness started to seep in.

  “Can’t be certain, though it looks as though she burnt up as soon as she entered the planet’s atmosphere. I’m very sorry.”

  After Vaz had signed off, Ardent slumped over her console while Meyer stood behind her, saying nothing.

  She couldn’t quite take it in. All those people gone in an instant. Joanna Silva especially. She’d liked her. Liked her a lot. This didn’t seem right.

  “What are we going to do?” Ardent said.

  “About the Dardelion? There’s nothing we can do.”

  “I meant Laax. There must be, what? Six hundred people still down there.”

  Meyer made an odd popping noise with his mouth while he considered this.

  “They knew the risks. If they hadn’t launched that relief ship we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “No, but they did and we are. As you said yourself, the Da’al are hardly likely to ignore them now.”

  “We don’t know that,” he said. “This may seem cold but the best thing to do at moments like this is not to panic.”

  “And do nothing?”

  “Sometimes doing nothing is the hardest thing to do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Webster couldn’t bring himself to look away.

  If they’d still been in orbit then things might have been different. Once the explosions had died down, the shuttle might have been in a position to approach the Dardelion on the look-out for survivors. The difference now was that the Dardelion, having been attacked and with her helm seemingly destroyed, had quickly fallen out of orbit and was, even now, preparing to enter Tigris’s atmosphere.

  “We have to do something,” Webster said. “We can’t just sit back and watch this happen.”

  Markham was keen to avert a confrontation. Keeping his voice calm, he took his CO by the arm and led him through to the shuttle’s cramped cockpit and away from the prying eyes of Nash and the other Marines.

  Corporal First Class Mullens was at the helm but kept his eyes fixed on his instruments throughout.

  The view from the cockpit was, if anything, even more distressing than the view from the main cabin.

  Dardelion was approaching re-entry at a flat angle, effectively guaranteeing that she would not survive the next ninety minutes. A beautiful blue flame ran the length of the broken ship’s fuselage and both men stared at it for far too long, fascinated by the play of light.

  “Sir, I’m sorry to have to say this, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “There must be something,” Webster insisted. “We have to try and get them out of there.”

  Markham squeezed his arm in an attempt to force Webster to focus. “Even with specialist equipment, sir, the best we could hope to do would be to get a line out to them. But that would require any survivors to have access to pressure suits.”

  Webster made to argue but then stopped himself. Renheim had provided them with two pressure suits, both of which were aboard their shuttle. In fact, Mullens was wearing one now.

  “But she might still be alive,” Webster said, any attempt at discretion suddenly gone from his voice. “I have to at least try.”

  Markham leaned in and lowered his voice. “Sir, I understand how you’re feeling right now but you must understand that you’re not thinking rationally.”

  “I have never been more rational. Helmsman, bring us alongside that ship.”

  Markham had hold of him by both arms now, their faces inches apart.

  “Belay that order, corporal.”

  As gently as he could, Markham backed Webster up against the rear bulkhead. When he spoke, he did so in a whisper.

  “Sir, please listen very carefully to what I’m about to say,” Webster attempted to shrug him off but Markham’s grip held firm. “Sir, you are currently experiencing a traumatic episode. There’s a good chance that you’re in shock. In a moment, I’m going to ask a corpsman to come forward and give you a sedative. I’m sorry to inform you that the Dardelion is lost, sir, with all hands. Within a few minutes, we will be entering Tigris’ atmosphere, isn’t that right, corporal?”

  “That’s right sergeant.”

  “We are looking at a very bumpy ride so I would appreciate it if you would sit in the observer’s seat for the moment and fasten yourself in. Do you think you could do that for me, sir?”

  Webster’s stare was fixed on the Dardelion.

  “I don’t… I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I can do.”

  “Then just sit here for the time being,” Markham steered him across to the co-pilot’s chair. “Corpsman!”

  The corpsman must have been waiting outside the door because he came right through. The man rolled up Webster’s sleeve before administering a pre-prepared injection. Markham thanked him and the man disappeared.

  Webster watched all this as though it were happening to someone else. At one point, he wiped his cheek to find it wet with tears. He was embarrassed. Here he was supposedly in charge of this mission and he couldn’t stop crying.

  “How are things looking, Mullens?” Markham inquired.

  “I wish I could give you an answer to that,” Mullens said, as the first gusts of tortured air buffeted the shuttle.

  “You’re cleared to crew on one of these things though, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve got lots of hours logged on these things in space but flying one in atmosphere is a whole different ball game.”

  “But you have landed one of these things before, haven’t you?”

  Mullens was struggling with the controls which were giving every impression of trying to shake him loose. “I’d love to give you an affirmative on that, sarge, but I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “Okay,” Markham licked his lips as he absorbed this new information. “I’m gonna take myself back to the main cabin and make sure everyone’s strapped in, okay?”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  *

  “We are so screwed,” Barnes was saying. “Absolutely and completely screwed!”

  “That’s not helping,” LaCruz said.

  The three of them had extended a line to one another for fear that the vastness of space would swallow them whole. They had used their cone jets judiciously but otherwise had done nothing which might overly tax their suits’ complex systems.

  They had watched in silence as the Dardelion had been consumed by the flames of entry. They had never even got so much of a glimpse of the shuttle, so were unclear whether it had managed to get clear in time. Whether it had or it hadn’t, it was no longer their greatest concern. They were on their own now and they were going to have to adapt themselves to that fact. The only thing preventing them from surrendering to the incessant waves of panic which they were all experiencing was the sight of the planet itself.