*

  They’d set up a service to fly civilians out to the Mantis and back but there were only two shuttles operating and a long queue had already formed. Faulkner drew up short as soon as he realised what the queue was for. Normally, his rank would see him straight to the front but, as this was a largely civilian affair, he felt disinclined to do so.

  He was about to turn around and walk back when a figure in overalls came over to introduce himself. His nametag identified him as part of the Mantis’ crew. His name was Rodgers and he was currently in the process of taking out a group of the local politicians in a small schooner. He invited both of them to join him. Faulkner was impressed that the man had been alert enough to identify him so quickly and then acted to spare his embarrassment. Perhaps there was some hope for him after all.

  The schooner was roughly half the size of a conventional shuttle with its tiny cockpit squeezed into the nose cone. The passenger compartment was stacked above this with a blister roof affording an impressive 360-degree view. Although ideal for their purposes, Faulkner had to wrack his brains to think what the men were doing operating such a craft. Then he had it: they were checking the hull for IEDs. A ship of the Mantis’s size would be a sitting target out here, particularly after all the recent publicity.

  Rodgers assisted the politicians, three men and a woman, while they pulled on thin suits over their clothes. They were obligatory on all small vessels. They would help retain body heat and the hoods provided a small supply of breathable air in case of emergencies. The woman was wearing a cocktail dress and so was trying to get out of wearing one of the suits but, to his credit, Rodgers insisted.

  Morton went over and helped the woman, showing her how to wrap her dress around her waist before stepping into the suit. With a little coaxing, she had the woman properly attired in a matter of minutes and then turned to her own suit.

  Faulkner managed to pull the legs on himself but found that, because of his injuries, the simple act of getting his arms into the sleeves was an awkward and painful process. The suits were designed to be snug in places and so Rodgers had to help him get his on.

  Faulkner eyed the other man’s badge.

  “Petty Officer first class,” he said. “And your specialism? I’m sorry, I’m not quite up to speed with these new ranks.”

  “Engineering Technician, sir,” Rodgers said.

  “Engineering, eh? What are you doing down here?”

  “We’ve been running a skeleton crew for quite some time now, sir. Everyone has to pitch in.”

  It was tempting to ask the PO1 his opinions concerning the chief engineer, but Faulkner decided against it. Best to make up his own mind.

  Once Rodgers was satisfied that all the suits were securely fitted, they all squeezed inside the craft. Faulkner was introduced to the pilot whose tiny cockpit was built into the nose cone. Then it was up a short flight of steps before it opened out into the passenger section. The four politicians sat in the middle, leaving room for Morton and Faulkner at the rear.

  The craft was far too small to generate its own gravity so there were restraints fitted into each of the seats. When they were all secured, Rodgers went around and checked their harnesses while handing out sick bags.

  “I’m starting to regret all that champagne I had earlier,” Morton said.

  Faulkner had been thinking the same thing. “And to think that our ancestors used to smash a bottle of that stuff over the prow.”

  “I know,” Morton was arranging her hood. “Shameful waste.”

  Faulkner smiled back at Morton but inside he was a mass of conflicting emotions. He was excited about seeing his old ship again but was also mindful of some of the feelings a reunion of this kind might trigger in him. Although he’d commanded the Mantis through a long string of victories he was acutely aware that the last time he’d seen her had been one of the low points of his life.

  His last view of her, after being taken captive, was from inside the Yakutian ship to which he had surrendered. The Yakutians were an odd race, in some respects they were highly cultured, capable of producing great music, beautiful architecture and epic poetry but were also capable of acts of unimaginable cruelty. They made for an extremely resourceful enemy who might well have bested the Confederation if it were not for the fact that they were a society driven by internal rivalries which effectively saw them pitched against one another rather than fighting the common enemy.

  One thing that did seem to unite the Yakutians was their hatred of him. After what had happened at Tsvengir, it seemed that they would stop at nothing to track him down.

  And they had.

  Any hopes that his rank might offer some protection were quickly shattered when the first thing one of his guards did was to drive the point of his staff straight into Faulkner’s face, breaking his jaw. The injury had taken months to heal and left him even now with a slightly lop-sided jawline.

  That was the moment that the full horror of Faulkner’s predicament really hit home.

  Lying on the floor, nursing his jaw, he looked up to see a portal just behind his attacker’s head. And that was the part which nearly broke him, because through the he could clearly see the Mantis making her final turn before departing.

  The ship had by this point been reduced to a shadow of her former self with deep gashes slicing through her fuselage. She appeared systemically incapable of sustaining the lives of those still left on board and the thought of her making her way through the vastness of space in that pitiful state filled him with dread.

  And yet, somehow, his crew had managed to make it home.

  The idea that he was going to view the self-same ship now hardly seemed credible.

  He was broken out of his reverie by Morton gently tugging at his sleeve.

  The man sitting to Faulkner’s left had turned around and had his hand extended by way of introduction. “Byron Carroll. I work on Lincoln’s transport system. Just like to congratulate you on your new commission, captain.”

  Faulkner shook his hand and introduced him to Morton. She was too far away to shake hands so they just nodded their acknowledgements.

  “We’re all very envious,” Carroll said.

  “I’m looking forward to getting re-acquainted with her myself after all this time.”

  “Must be very odd though, after all that’s happened.”

  That surprised Faulkner, though it shouldn’t have, he just wasn’t used to complete strangers knowing his business.

  He said, “We’ll have to wait and see how it goes.”

  The Mantis, which loomed ahead of them now, looked almost too perfect – more like a scale model than the real thing – and it was that sense of disassociation which helped make the experience that much easier.

  Thirty years ago, the Xerxes battle class, of which the Mantis was the only surviving example, had been the finest of its era. Its emphasis on thicker and more comprehensive armour had meant that it could absorb a prodigious amount of punishment from Yakutian battleships but that wasn’t what gave it its unique reputation with spacers from all backgrounds; it was the diversity of its weapons’ system. Up until that point it had been argued that each class should specialise in only one type of weaponry whether that be the rail gun mass accelerators, conventional warheads or short-range offensive lasers. Largely, this made sense, particularly in a battle fleet where ships worked closely with one another to provide covering fire, allowing the larger class ships to engage the enemy with their own heavy weapons.

  However, Xerxes class ships were poorly served in large fleet engagements tending to get marginalised. They really only came into their own when allowed to operate freely and had an impressive reputation for going up against much larger vessels.

  “She’s quite something,” Carroll said and meant it. “Must make you very proud.”

  “Yeah. She does.”

  Faulkner was having difficulty speaking. Up close, his over-riding feeling was less to do with pride and more to do with a sense of great sadness. The war had dragged on for much longer than necessary, driven by internal politics as much as anything else. By the end, both sides were so desperate for victory that they were willing to do almost anything to achieve it.

  Faulkner’s own career path was ample testimony to that.

  As they came around the Mantis’ port side, the sun reflected along the whole length of her hull and Morton caught her breath.

  Faulkner pressed his forehead against the glass.

  “Hello old girl. Remember me?”

  It was as if the years had bled away and he was that young commander again, laying eyes on her for the first time.

  Slowly, he began picking out the areas which had been replaced or re-modelled. From what he could see, the comms equipment had gone through a major upgrade but that was the only obvious cosmetic change. And while she had clearly undergone a major re-fit there were still signs of battle damage if you knew where to look.

  “The nose section’s been completely re-modelled,” he observed. “We flew straight into a torpedo cluster at one point. That should have been the end of us but somehow we came through it. Lost a lot of good people that day.”

  He was silent as he studied the fuselage, looking for tell-tale signs of where the re-built sections butted up against the original plates. There was nothing to mark where the first torpedo had struck, depressurising the front three compartments, killing thirteen of his crew in the process. That didn’t seem right – that there was nothing there to mark their sacrifice. They needed some way of commemorating the crewmen who had died that day.

  He’d hardly had time to register the damage at the time, he’d been too busy trying to save the rest of the crew. They’d been heavily outnumbered and fighting for their lives, but he’d had plenty of time to reflect upon it since.

  There was nothing else he could have done at the time but, for some reason, that first major loss of life had stayed with him all these years, even though there had been much worse to come. It had been the first time in his career that he had fully grasped the idea that they were all vulnerable. That they might be taken at any time.

  The Mantis was over seven hundred metres in length weighing close to 80,000 tonnes but Faulkner found that he could still recall the ship’s internal lay-out. It was extraordinary but he could still vividly remember individual sections of the ship which he hadn’t seen in twenty years. Not that it was like that now. Probably all changed.

  At that moment, they passed through shadow of one of the ship’s four massive fusion engines.

  “Brian Garside - he was Chief Engineer under me. He ran his own little on-board choir. No one thought anything about it at the time but it was quite wonderful really. He was lost trying to save this engine along with three of his men: Summerscale, Walther and, er … oh, who was that other one. Young lieutenant. Dammit what was his name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Morton assured him. “You’re doing well to remember anyone’s name after all you’ve been through. Don’t worry, it’s still in there somewhere. You just need to give yourself a little time.”

  Faulkner nodded agreement but his mind was racing. This was his ship and they had been his crew. They had died doing their jobs and it was contingent upon him to remember things like that.

  His vision was narrowing to pin pricks, his breath becoming more laboured.

  “But I do know his name. I can even see his face.”

  “Okay,” Morton said. “You’re getting yourself excited.”

  She reached across and stroked his arm. Then she registered his shrunken pupils.

  “He had an odd nickname,” Faulkner said. “That was it. Bull something.”

  He attempted to stand up but his harness prevented him. He looked down at it as though seeing it for the first time.

  “Okay. Look at me,” she squeezed his arm to get his attention. “You need to calm down. I want you to try and breathe with me for the minute.”

  He made to protest but something in her demeanour silenced him. Morton took a series of exaggerated breaths and Faulkner copied her. Byron Carroll looked over but said nothing.

  After a couple of minutes had passed, his breathing – though still shallow – had begun to return to normal.

  Morton said, “Are you feeling better?”

  Faulkner nodded wearily, then banged his fist lightly on the glass.

  “But, I still can’t remember that name.”

  His head dropped dejectedly onto his chest.

  Morton watched in silence as they came around the stern and then the pilot brought them slowly around until they were back on the starboard side. Two of the passengers had their tablets raised, filming all the while. The fuselage appeared almost perfect here, leaving Faulkner feeling frustrated. It didn’t seem right that so many of her battle scars should have been eradicated in this way. As if they’d never happened. It felt vaguely disrespectful and some small part of him couldn’t help but wish that they’d left the Mantis the way she was. As a reminder to all of them of the harsh realities of war.

  “Would you like us to go around again?” Rodgers asked.

  Everyone looked to Faulkner for a response. Carroll had witnessed his earlier attack of breathlessness and didn’t attempt to hide his concern.

  “No, that’s fine. Best be getting back.”

  Almost as soon as he’d said it, he felt the small craft beginning to turn. Looking back towards the station, he could just see one of the other shuttles arcing up as if to intercept them.

  “Gondry. That’s it!” Faulkner exclaimed a little too loudly. “Gondry. The young lieutenant we lost in the engine room. But they called him Bull, as in Bullfrog. He had this really deep voice, see.”

  As they turned away from the ship, the two men with tablets strained to get their final shots. So, when Faulkner saw the strange flash of light he wasn’t overly concerned.

  It was only subsequently, as he saw the growing cloud of debris blossoming from the rear of the on-coming shuttle, that he realised something was terribly wrong.

  “The shuttle,” he said and pointed.

  Morton struggled against her restraints to see what he was talking about.

  “That can’t be right.” Down at the front, Rodgers had noticed as well. “Where are their running lights?”

  When Faulkner looked again he saw that Rodgers was right. The whole shuttle had gone dark and was starting to veer off to one side.

  The passengers could hear the pilot on the radio. “Lincoln Centre, this is Zero Foxtrot Niner. Are you receiving me, over?”

  In response, all they could hear was the low buzz of static.

  Faulkner considered removing his harness but then thought better of it. If this was some kind of emergency then he didn’t want to be getting in anyone’s way. He glanced over at Morton who gave him a weak smile.

  “Okay, everyone,” Rodgers was looking back down the cabin. “Can we put our tablets away? Thank you. And now, if you’d be so kind, could we start securing those hoods?”

  “Is he being serious?” one of the other men asked.

  “Nothing to be worried about but we do need to follow safety procedures. If you could each seal your hoods and then get your neighbour to check them.”

  Morton had already pulled hers on. Faulkner heard the whoosh of air as it inflated. He quickly followed suit then helped to check Morton’s seals. He did this automatically and then swivelled in his seat so that she could return the favour, his mind suddenly clear.

  “What’s going on?”

  He was having difficulty seeing as his visor misted up momentarily. By the time it had cleared, the shuttle was starting to turn, allowing them to see the cloud of debris picked out against the bright white of the station.

  “There’s been some sort of collision, that’s all.”

  But that wasn’t it.

  In the distance, he could see a second craft approaching. Yellow and black in colour, it appeared to be moving at considerable speed, far faster than was the norm in such a built-up environment.

  “Incoming!” he shouted.

  It wasn’t totally accurate but it served to get everyone’s attention.

  “Crash positions!” Rodgers shouted. “Everybody down!”

  The first shot lanced over the top of them, momentarily illuminating the small craft’s interior. A second shot went wide and then the whole ship lurched to one side.

  “Check those hoods!” Rodgers shouted.

  They’d been hit. Faulkner looked up just in time to see the other ship fly past.

  “They’re firing at us!” Morton sounded more offended than anything.

  Faulkner watched as the little ship roared past them, making last minute adjustments in order to avoid impacting the Mantis.

  “Okay, everyone, keep those heads down. We’ve got a slight atmosphere leak but other than that we’re fine.”

  “He’s coming round for a second approach,” Faulkner said. “Station’s too far and he’s coming up fast.”

  “Please, sir, try and relax. Everything is in hand.”

  Faulkner hit the release button on his harness and stood up. Morton tried to stop him, assuming he’d done this by accident.

  “Petty Officer, I need you to instruct the pilot to change course immediately.”

  Rodgers squinted back at him, as though he’d misheard.

  Faulkner pressed on. “I’m giving you an order, PO. Tell the pilot to reverse all engines and return to the Mantis. Now!”

  The other passengers looked at him with grey faces.

  “But sir, if you please …”

  “That’s a direct order, Mr Rodgers.”

  It took a moment for Rodgers, but then he was out of his seat and talking to the pilot. Suddenly, the whole ship shuddered as the reverse thrusters were activated and they began to bleed off speed. Faulkner chose his handholds carefully as he turned to look back at the oncoming fighter. It was either an S-5 or an S-10, the craft was too far away for him to be sure. They were small, quick craft most often used for patrol duties. They hadn’t been designed to carry armaments, that was a later addition which made them slightly unwieldy. Faulkner hoped that they could somehow use that knowledge to their advantage.