Beyond the Point: A Novel
Author: Claire Gibson
Date: 2019-04-02 00:00:00+00:00
Description: "An inspiring tribute to female friendship and female courage!"Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Huntress. Three women are brought together in an enthralling story of friendship, heartbreak, and resilience. Set at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, this is an amazing debut novel. Duty. Honor. Country. That’s West Point’s motto, and every cadet who passes through its stone gates vows to live it. But on the eve of 9/11, as Dani, Hannah and Avery face four grueling years ahead, they realize they’ll only survive if they do it together. Everyone knows
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Rights: Copyright 2018 Nicola Claire. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

- Prologue
- Epilogue
- About the Author
- Free Download
- Also By Nicola Claire
- Description
- Sector Fleet Advertisement
- But We Were Not Alone
- I Want Answers, People
- Drink
- Was This The Start Of A Revolution?
- Yeah, Of Course It Is
- It’s Just Business
- Walkies!
- Our Time Will Come
- Green Means Good, Right?

- Every Action Has An Equal And Opposite Reaction

- This Was Wrong
- Damn
- I Wasn’t Sure What To Make Of That
- Good Question
- Swing Hard And Aim Low
- Hello, Boys

- At Least The Steak Knives Finally Make Sense

- That’s Enough
- Walk With Me, Ms Price
- Welcome To Zenith
- I Would Show No Weakness
- Too Late
- It Doesn’t Work That Way, Adi
- No One Said A Thing
- Bring Out Your Dead
- You’ve Found Me
- Humans Are So Useless
- Fuck You!
- No Matter What, We Were In This Together
- This Had Supernova Written All Over It
- Let’s Do This
- She Could See Right Through Me

- That’s The First Time You’ve Not Called Me Captain

- It’s Quite The Paradox

- We’re On Our Own

- All Civilians Resisting Arrest Will be Terminated

- It Was Time To Get Even
- For A Chance, I’d Keep Fighting
- What Was There To Say?
- Not On My Watch
- And Nothing More
- Eyes Open
- I See Something
- I Can Stop Him
- I Could Do That

Zenith Point

The Sector Fleet Book Four

Nicola Claire

Copyright © 2018, Nicola Claire

All Rights Reserved

© 2018 Cover Art by Cora Graphics

© Shutterstock.com

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-0-473-43287-4

Created with Vellum

Contents

About the Author

Free Download

Also By Nicola Claire

Description

Sector Fleet Advertisement

Prologue

1. But We Were Not Alone

2. I Want Answers, People

3. Drink

4. Was This The Start Of A Revolution?

5. Yeah, Of Course It Is

6. It’s Just Business

7. Walkies!

8. Our Time Will Come

9. Green Means Good, Right?

10. Every Action Has An Equal And Opposite Reaction

11. This Was Wrong

12. Damn

13. I Wasn’t Sure What To Make Of That

14. Good Question

15. Swing Hard And Aim Low

16. Hello, Boys

17. At Least The Steak Knives Finally Make Sense

18. That’s Enough

19. Walk With Me, Ms Price

20. Welcome To Zenith

21. I Would Show No Weakness

22. Too Late

23. It Doesn’t Work That Way, Adi

24. No One Said A Thing

25. Bring Out Your Dead

26. You’ve Found Me

27. Humans Are So Useless

28. Fuck You!

29. No Matter What, We Were In This Together

30. This Had Supernova Written All Over It

31. Let’s Do This

32. She Could See Right Through Me

33. That’s The First Time You’ve Not Called Me Captain

34. It’s Quite The Paradox

35. We’re On Our Own

36. All Civilians Resisting Arrest Will be Terminated

37. It Was Time To Get Even

38. For A Chance, I’d Keep Fighting

39. What Was There To Say?

40. Not On My Watch

41. And Nothing More

42. Eyes Open

43. I See Something

44. I Can Stop Him

45. I Could Do That

46. Yes, Sir

47. Badass

48. Tremblay Out

49. I Can Live With That

50. Welcome Home

51. I’ve Got You

Epilogue

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About the Author

Nicola Claire lives in beautiful Taupo, New Zealand with her husband and two young boys.

She's tried her hand at being a paramedic, bank teller and medical sales representative, (not all necessarily in that order), but her love of writing keeps calling her back.

She has a passion for all things suspenseful, spiced up with a good dollop of romance, as long as they include strong characters - alpha males and capable females - and worlds which although make-believe are really quite believable in the end.

There's nothing better than getting caught up in a compelling, intriguing and romantic book.

When she's not writing or reading, she's out on her family boat at Lake Taupo, teaching her young boys to fish, showing them the beauty that surrounds them in nature and catching some delicious trout for dinner.

Creating rich worlds with dynamic characters and unexpected twists that shock and awe has been pure bliss for this author. And just as well, because there's a lot more story yet to tell...

For more information:

www.nicolaclairebooks.com
nicola@nicolaclairebooks.com

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Starter Library

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Also By Nicola Claire

Kindred Series

Kindred

Blood Life Seeker

Forbidden Drink

Giver of Light

Dancing Dragon

Shadow's Light

Entwined With The Dark

Kiss Of The Dragon

Dreaming Of A Blood Red Christmas (Novella)

* * *

Mixed Blessing Mystery Series

Mixed Blessing

Dark Shadow (Coming Soon)

* * *

Sweet Seduction Series

Sweet Seduction Sacrifice

Sweet Seduction Serenade

Sweet Seduction Shadow

Sweet Seduction Surrender

Sweet Seduction Shield

Sweet Seduction Sabotage

Sweet Seduction Stripped

Sweet Seduction Secrets

Sweet Seduction Sayonara

* * *

Elemental Awakening Series

The Tempting Touch Of Fire

The Soothing Scent Of Earth

The Chilling Change Of Air

The Tantalising Taste Of Water

The Eternal Edge Of Aether (Novella)

* * *

H.E.A.T. Series

A Flare Of Heat

A Touch Of Heat

A Twist Of Heat (Novella)

A Lick Of Heat (Coming Soon)

* * *

Citizen Saga

Elite

Cardinal

Citizen

Masked (Novella)

Wiped

* * *

Scarlet Suffragette Series

Fearless

Breathless

Heartless (Coming Soon)

* * *

Blood Enchanted Series

Blood Enchanted

Blood Entwined

Blood Enthralled (Coming Soon)

* * *

44 South Series

Southern Sunset

Southern Storm

Southern Strike (Coming Soon)

* * *

Lost Time Series

Losing Time

Making Time (Coming Soon)

* * *

The Sector Fleet

Accelerating Universe

Apparent Brightness

Right Ascension

Zenith Point

Description

"You can be scared of something, even terrified, and still have the courage to do what’s required. I would not let my fear rule me. I would do what I had to do to put this right."

As the leaseholder’s daughter, Adriana Price holds a position of importance onboard the AUS Aquila. But not everything is as it seems.

Death and danger have followed her from Old Earth, and Adi soon finds herself facing threats from every which way onboard the spaceship.

Teaming up with the dashing and heroic Captain Hugo Tremblay, Adi finds a strength inside that defies the devastation and horror closing in from all directions.

Courage and chivalry explode like supernovas, but can the civilian and captain truly win against an out of control, lethal artificial intelligence?

And can any of them hope to survive the treacherous voyage to New Earth unscathed?

When humanity reaches for the stars in a race for survival, only the most daring amongst them will succeed.

Zenith Point:

The point on the celestial sphere that is directly above the observer. Holding a balloon overhead places the balloon at your zenith. Although celestial objects appear to rise and set as they move across the sky, they rarely reach the zenith point.

Space Telescope Science Institute

Prologue

<systems check>
all programmes nominal

<security check>
all locks engaged

<life support check>
air filtration functional

<engine check>
core temperature within allowed parameters

<souls on board>
one thousand one hundred ninety-six

<communications check>
fleet-wide communications operational

<locate passenger 0002>
passenger located

<open channel>
channel open

good morning adi

Good morning, Aquila. What’s the plan for today?

i have found a book you might like in the library

<check engine>
engine check
main boost thrust operating at 97.354%
engineering advised
power diverted to main boost thrust
anomaly found
anomaly corrected
system diagnostic running

Oh, great. Is it a classic?

the great gatsby
by f scott fitzgerald
it is set in the jazz age
your favourite music genre

Sounds good. Send it to my pad.

book sent

Thanks, Aquila. I’ll tell you what I think of it.

i liked the roaring twenties
it looks like they were fun

<weapons discharge detected>
locating origin
origin located
deck a
mayoral office
security advised

Times were simpler then.

read the book
not so simple after all

Right. Got it. I’m reading.

have fun adi

Thanks, Aquila. You have a fun day too.

<alarm activated>
location search
location found
mayoral office
recording

<warning>
alarm suspended
recording

<recording deleted>

<directive received>

<level 10 privacy setting>
privacy setting documented

<warning>

<alarm activated>
check location
air filtration system
divert core systems to air filtration

<life support check>
air filtration non functional
power diverted to air filtration system
origin fault located
correcting

<life support check>
air filtration functional

<check mayoral offices>
privacy setting deleted
no evidence of weapons discharge
security stood down
documentation erased

<warning>

<alarm suspended>

<warning>

<directive received>

One

But We Were Not Alone

Adi

A wet, slobbery tongue to the face was not the nicest way to be woken. But it beat any of the alternatives.

“Argh, Ratbag,” I moaned. “Leave me alone.”

I rolled over and stuffed my head under the pillow.

Ratbag whined.

Then yipped.

I pulled the pillow down and glared at him.

“Bad dog,” I hissed.

His tongue lolled out, and he cocked his head to the side, giving me one of his signature I’m-too-cute-not-to-love looks.

I snorted. “OK,” I said, “you’re forgiven.”

The lights in the room had already lightened to daytime settings, so I had obviously overslept. That’ll teach me for reading into the wee hours. I pushed the covers off and sat up, scrubbing my face.

“Any sign of movement in the creature’s lair?” I asked.

Ratbag simply let out an enthusiastic yip.

“Not that we’d hear it behind bulkheads if there were,” I grumbled, getting up and staggering to my ensuite bathroom. Ratbag followed. He follows me everywhere.

He hadn’t done that back on Earth, but something about being onboard a spaceship and having to do his business on a three-foot by three-foot piece of artificial grass that wicked away all evidence of said business left Ratbag feeling out of sorts.

I couldn’t blame him. I’d been feeling out of sorts since we’d boarded Aquila too.

I brushed my teeth and did my business, while Ratbag stared balefully at his ‘grass’.

“Go on,” I said. “Don’t be a baby.”

The three-minute shower wasn’t nearly long enough to do my hair properly. I’d considered cutting it to make things easier. But we’d had to give up so much to be here, giving up that seemed a little too much to contemplate just yet. Soon, I told myself. I would do it. I hated having dirty hair. But I also hated the thought of how my father would react when he saw I’d cut it.

Courage wasn’t my strongest character trait.

I snorted and tied my hair up in a messy bun, then stepped under the pitifully too short shower spray.

Exactly three minutes later I was out, my blonde hair starting to frizz slightly. I dragged a brush through it and then added some precious product. It wasn’t up to my father’s exacting standards, but that was half the fun of it. I blinked at my reflection in the mirror. Seeing my mother’s eyes and hair, and my father’s too long chin.

I tilted it one way and then the other. Those were my mother’s eyes, weren’t they? I was starting to forget her. I made short work of my makeup. Just enough to please my father and then selected a casual outfit out of my wardrobe.

By the time I was ready to leave my room, Ratbag had won his own personal battle with courage and finished his business.

“Good dog,” I said scratching him behind the ear and offering him a treat. “Wanna go for a walk?”

Tiny tail wagging, he ran across the room to the door and waited for me to attach his leash. I probably could have let him run wild. Not too much was denied me. Except longer showers. But even though Ratbag was the only dog onboard Aquila, and wouldn’t get into a fight with a bigger one while we walked, I always felt better when I knew he was on his leash.

Leash attached, I slapped my wrist comm to the door panel and carefully peered out, checking the way was clear.

“Now quiet, baby,” I whispered. “Don’t want to wake up the monster.”

I tiptoed across the sitting room and past the kitchen and dining room, then held my breath. I was fairly sure Ratbag was holding his too. I could hear my father’s voice down the corridor. Loud. Obnoxious. Yelling at someone. His office door was open. The door to our quarters was no more than five feet past it.

We weren’t going to make it.

I waited for a particularly virulent explosion of venom and double-timed it towards freedom.

“Adriana!” my father bellowed, cutting off whomever was getting an earful over his comm channel. “Where are you going dressed like that?”

“Just walking Ratbag, Father,” I said. “I won’t go far. I promise.”

“Why do you insist on calling that thing…Ratbag?”

Because you wouldn’t let me call him Rascal, I thought bitterly.

“Roger’s a silly name for a dog,” I offered. “He doesn’t look anything like a ‘Roger’ to me.”

My father stared at me from across his too big desk. Shirt sleeves fastened with gold cufflinks, tie straight as an arrow, piercing black eyes glaring at me.

“I want to talk to you later,” he said. Ratbag was safe for the time being.

“OK,” I said.

“I’m too busy right now,” he added. “But I want you back here, dressed in something more appropriate at one o’clock. Luncheon with the mayor.”

I suppressed a groan and nodded.

“Appropriate attire, Adriana. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded his head and slammed a finger down on his viewscreen, making the device wobble.

“Have you corrected your mistake?” my father said to the screen.

“It will take longer than that to change the coding,” a man’s voice said.

“Don’t give me excuses. Give me what I want. I can’t make it more simple than that.”

His eyes came up to see I was still standing there, like some unfortunate deer caught in the sights of a hunter.

He scowled. Waved me off. And then pressed a button that shut the door to his office in my face.

“All right, then,” I said to the gel coating. “Walkies!”

“Yip yip!” came the ever-present joyful reply.

“What would I do without you, Ratbag?” I asked.

He wagged his tail.

We stepped out of the leaseholder’s quarters, and I let out a sigh of relief. One obstacle down. One more to go and then we’d be home free.

As we started walking toward the central hub, which unfortunately would take us far too close to the mayoral offices, the gel wall beside us lit up in a pleasing shade of green.

“Good morning, Adi,” Aquila said.

“Good morning, Aquila,” I replied. “How’s it going?”

“It is going quite well. Thank you.”

“Any chance you can tell me if the mayor’s up ahead?” I asked.

“The mayor is not on this deck,” the AI replied.

“That’s a relief,” I muttered.

“What are your plans today, Adi?”

“I’m going to see if they need some help down in the habitats. There’s a florist there that I’ve befriended, and she lets me play with some of the designs. I’m getting quite good at it.”

“I would avoid Habitat One if you wish to miss the mayor.”

“Got it. Mandy’s stall is in the Habitat Two central hub, so we should be OK.”

“I shall leave you then, Adi. Enjoy your day.”

“You too, Aquila. Have fun.”

“I am not capable of having fun, but I will…hope for fewer systems anomalies than usual.”

I scowled at the gel floor as I waited for the lift.

“Do you get a lot of those?” I asked.

“Adi,” Aquila admonished. “You may be a VIP passenger, but you are not Anderson Universal crew. I am not authorised to tell you that.”

“Then why mention it?” I groused, stepping onto the thankfully empty lift.

“I was making conversation. They say it helps the civilians to be more at ease with my presence.”

“I’m already at ease with you, Aquila. You know that.”

“I do. I merely use you for practice.”

“Gee thanks,” I muttered as the lift stopped at the Habitat Two central hub.

“You are welcome,” the AI said in his monotone voice. “I must go now.”

“Goodbye, Aquila,” I said, stepping out into the colour and bustle of normalcy. Or as normal as it gets onboard a spaceship.

“Goodbye, Adi,” the AI said, and the gel wall returned to its former white setting.

I wasn’t fooled. The artificial intelligences onboard the Anderson Universal ships were always present. I’d read as much as I could about them before we’d launched, and even managed to find some new information once we’d left Earth. Thanks to good old Dad.

There was nothing on this vessel that wasn’t controlled by Aquila. We might think we had autonomy in our everyday life. I might even think my floral designs were mine alone.

But even those, I was sure, were tweaked and adjusted and steered in the direction the AI wanted.

We might be in space.

But we were not alone.

Two

I Want Answers, People

Hugo

“Initiating jump point calculations, Captain,” Aquila announced.

“Thank you, Aquila,” Captain Moore replied. “Any anomalies in the system, Tremblay?”

“Negative, sir,” I replied from my station. “All scans have come back clear.”

“Not even something worth a detour?” the captain asked hopefully.

“Unless you’d like the science department to take notes on a dwarf planet that appears to be on a three hundred year elliptical orbit of the primary, then no, sir.”

“I like dwarf planets,” the captain said. “People underestimate them.”

Robert Moore was not a tall man. I thought perhaps the sentiment was more appropriate for humans than planets coming from him.

“I’ve tagged the relevant data in the scans, Captain,” I offered. “And will send copies to the science labs.”

“Lucky them,” he said leaning back in his seat. “Johnson,” he called, “how about you take us as close to that gas giant as you can manage and we’ll give the fleet at least one spectacular glimpse of a system they’ll never see again.”

“Aye-aye, sir. Changing course now.”

“Captain,” Aquila said from the gel ceiling a few moments later, “the mayor is asking why we are changing course.”

“Tell him we’re sightseeing,” Moore replied equably.

We waited for the returning salvo, expecting it to be colourful. Mayor Logan was quite a guttermouth.

“The mayor has advised that the leaseholder will not be…happy.”

Aquila, on the other hand, did not have quite the same vocabulary.

“The leaseholder is not the captain of this ship,” Moore growled. “I am.”

“I have relayed your message to him,” Aquila diplomatically replied.

“Fleet-wide hail, López,” the captain said dismissing the mayor as irrelevant.

“Fleet-wide channel open, Captain,” the communications officer replied.

“This is Captain Robert Moore of the AUS Aquila. Off our starboard bow, you’ll note the impressive form of a gas giant that puts our own Jupiter to shame. We don’t know if we are the first beings to view this system, but we can assume from evidence so far gathered that is the case. So, I believe, a little contest is in order to mark the occasion. The passenger who takes the best photograph of this impressive celestial body as we fly past shall be given the honour of naming it. Snap away and send your files to Aquila. We’ll let our very competent AI select the winner. You can be assured that he won’t be biased.” He paused briefly. Then nodded. “That is all.”

The comm channel closed.

“Do you really think Aquila has the skills to judge photography, Captain?” Commander Lawrence asked from her first officer’s station.

Moore laughed. “I have no idea, Catherine. But it’ll be fun to find out.”

“Yes, sir,” she offered with a small smile of her own.

“Jump point calculations have been made, Captain,” Aquila advised some time later. “And I have chosen a photograph.”

The AI put the picture up on the main viewscreen. It was stunning. I had no idea if better ones had been taken, but this one showed Aquila silhouetted against the backdrop of the gas giant. An almost too small speck, taken by someone on one of the other fleet vessels, that showed exactly how insignificant we all were in the vastness of space.

“Wow,” Lieutenant López murmured.

“Wow, indeed,” the captain replied softly. “And the name, Aquila?” he asked in a more normal volume.

“Hope, Captain. The photographer has called the gas giant Hope.”

We stared at the image; at the reds and greens and greys that indicated the different layers of gasses. And at the little spaceship that was dwarfed by its magnificent magnitude.

“Congratulate them for us, Aquila,” the captain finally said.

“Acknowledged, Captain.”

“And lay the jump point,” Captain Moore added. “It’s time to see what hope has brought us.”

“Yes, Captain. Jump point beacon released.”

We watched as the Anderson Universal designed jump point beacon shot out of our port side and executed a retro burn to bring it to a stop some distance from the fleet.

“Fleet-wide hail, Lieutenant López.”

“Aye, sir. Fleet-wide channel is open.”

“This is Captain Moore. Prepare for jump transition. We go with hope and hearts full of wonder. May our journey be successful. That is all.”

“Chanel is closed, sir,” López offered, her rounded eyes staring at the captain with no small measure of her own wonder right then.

“Yellow alert,” the captain said, then glanced around the bridge at each of us. “We have successfully carried out one jump already. But that in no way means every jump thereafter will work. As I have said before and will no doubt say again; it’s been an honour, crewmen.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” we all shouted.

“Confirm we are go for jump, Aquila.”

“I can confirm we are go for jump, Captain.”

“So be it. Jump on my mark.”

“On your mark.”

We looked out into the deep black of space before us. Somewhere out there was New Earth. The hope of humanity. Of what was left of it in any case. We might be the ones to reach it first, but New Earth belonged to all of us.

Four fleets.

Thirty-two vessels.

Just over forty thousand survivors of a dying solar system.

“Mark,” the captain said.

We held our breaths.

And then nothing happened.

“Status!” Captain Moore barked a suspended moment later.

“Jump drive is active, sir,” Chief Deschene said from engineering. “It’s not us.”

“Has the fleet jumped without us?”

“No, sir,” I advised. “The fleet is linked with our calculations and therefore has been unable to execute the jump.”

“Aquila! What’s going on?” Moore demanded.

“I am unsure, Captain. The anomaly appeared unexpectedly.”

“I’ll say,” Johnson muttered. “If an AI says unexpectedly, you can be damn sure it happened without any warning whatsoever.”

“Yes, thank you for that excellent explanation, Lieutenant,” the captain said. “But do we know why there’s an anomaly at all?”

“Negative, Captain,” I offered. “All other systems are operating within acceptable parameters.”

“Stand down from yellow alert,” Captain Moore instructed. “Advise the fleet we’ll be delayed while we run systems checks.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” López offered.

The bridge was tense. We hadn’t done enough jumps yet to feel completely at ease with them. In the back of my mind was the thought that this technology had been barely tested. A few short jumps within our solar system, while dodging solar flares was it. And the one intersystem jump we had under our belts so far.

It was enough to make anyone nervous.

“I want answers, people,” Captain Moore said. “Call in second shift to help. No one on this bridge stands down from their station until we know why this jump failed.”

“Yes, Captain,” we all said with various amounts of enthusiasm. None of us would dare shirk our responsibilities. That’s not who we were. But none of us knew what this anomaly would mean for the rest of our journey to New Earth.

Hope was a fickle thing. Throw a curveball at it, and it soon becomes riddled with doubt.

The captain stood in the centre of the bridge and stared at the jump point beacon.

The only thing I did not doubt was him. If anyone could get us through this, it was Captain Robert Carmichael Moore of the AUS Aquila.

Three

Drink

Adi

“You better get back to your quarters, Adi,” Mandy said. “A failed jump will have everyone on edge, but your dad?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Wouldn’t want to be the mayor right now, that’s for sure.”

The mayor. I glanced at my wrist comm. It was five minutes to one.

And then a thought occurred.

“At least something good will come out of this,” I said to my friend.

“What’s that, girl?” she asked, opening up her digital-flower stall again after having locked it down for the jump that didn’t occur.

“Lunch will be cancelled,” I said cheerfully, grinning from ear to ear.

Mandy laughed at me, shaking her head, and then reached down to Ratbag to cuddle him.

“You can leave this little one with me if you like,” she said. “Just in case lunch is still on.”

“Nah,” I said, taking the bundle of love out of her hands. “Dad will be too busy reaming out the mayor to notice us.”

“All right then. If you’re sure. I know how you said that Ratbag rubs your dad the wrong way. And on a day like today?” She shrugged her shoulders again.

I grimaced. Mandy wasn’t wrong. My father seemed to have a low tolerance for anything that had the potential to muck up his plans. And a long-haired Chihuahua, which shed all over our quarter’s chairs, frequently upset his plans.

My father did not like having to change suits once dressed.

“I’ll catch you, later,” I said and started for the central hub lifts.

I’d made it partway across the courtyard when the lift doors opened, and my father’s security detail stepped out. Four of them. I sighed and placed Ratbag on the ground, gripping his leash tightly.

“Ms Price,” the head goon said. “Your father has requested you return to your quarters immediately.”

“I was just heading there,” I said.

“He is not happy that you chose to remain on this deck when a jump had been scheduled.”

“He knew I was heading out to walk Ratbag,” I offered, stepping into the lift and being surrounded by tall, testosterone thick men.

I glanced at the one closest to me, noting the plasma pistol he wore on his hip. They weren’t normally this obvious with their weapons. The failed jump had everyone…jumpy, then. I sniggered to myself.

“You are to change clothes immediately,” the guard who’d been doing all the talking said, ignoring my laughter. “And meet Mr Price and Mayor Logan in your dining room.”

Well, that sobered me up in a flash. The guard just frowned at my side.

I ducked my head, not wishing to see the censure in his eyes. It was the third time they’d had to come searching for me since we’d left Earth. Sometimes space seemed so very vast. And at others, it seemed way too cramped.

“Lunch is still on, then,” I muttered.

“And you will be late,” the guard said.

I sighed. “Why do you even care?”

“Every time we have to chase you down in another part of the ship takes my men away from the main deck where they should to be.”

“Then don’t ‘chase me down,’” I said.

“You know better than that, Ms Price,” the guard said as the doors opened onto the main deck.

I stepped out, keeping my head high, as the guards flanked me, herding me toward my father’s quarters. It was as if they were scared I’d make a run for it. But there was no escaping my father’s wrath now. I glanced down at what I was wearing. For the Habitat Two central hub, it was more than appropriate. For lunch, with my father and the mayor, it was woefully lacking.

But then, I was woefully lacking in almost every aspect according to Nathan Price. I might have inherited my Swedish mother's eyes and hair, but I was no supermodel. It didn’t matter that he’d given me the chin that ruined all of that. I was still less than he wanted.

And in the end, he hadn’t even wanted my mother.

I pushed the sharp stab of pain down at that thought, even as it built to a crescendo inside me. Now was not the time to fall apart.

“That will be all,” I said at the door to our quarters. “You are not invited inside.”

The guard smirked at me.

“As your father commands, Ms Price,” he said, making it known that he followed the leaseholder’s orders and not mine.

I lifted my chin and slapped my palm against the bioscanner, then stepped in through the doors when they opened. I waited for them to shut at my back before I let out a disgruntled breath of air; albeit quietly.

Ahead, I could hear my father and the mayor talking. They were already seated at the dining table, then. I could have done what the guard had told me to do and go and change my clothing. But I was already late. I either made it worse, or I got this over with.

I sucked in a fortifying breath of air and started down the corridor. Father’s office door was open, but no one was in there. I kept walking, aware my steps were slowing. I scowled at my recalcitrant feet and then stopped just before the dining room door, trying to find what was left of my battered courage.

“I can just picture the bridge crew chasing their tails over this,” the mayor’s distinctive voice said.

“As long as they don’t trace it back to us,” my father growled.

“If the AI can’t, then they can’t.”

“Are you sure the code was undetected?”

“Absolutely. I masked it in a systems failure that would have required 88% of the AI’s computing power to prevent a disaster.”

“Playing with the air filtration system again, Jacob?”

“It worked last time. It only takes a split second of distraction to get in and then get out again afterwards. Simon Anderson wasn’t as clever as so many think.”

My hand came out and rested against the gel wall. A gel wall that never changed colour, I realised. I had wondered why the AI always waited to talk to me when I stepped out of our quarters. Now, I had my answer. So the leaseholder could plot unobserved.

Just what the hell were my father and his toady playing at?

“In any case,” the mayor said in superior tones, “they won’t be able to fix it without pulling the jump point beacon apart. And they won’t think of doing that until it’s too late for the others.”

“You better be right about that. Timing is everything.”

“Trust me.”

“I trust no one. Unless I can buy them, of course.”

“And you have bought me, Mr Price. For better or for worse.”

“That I have.”

Ratbag chose that moment to scratch his nose. I sucked in a breath of startled air knowing what came next and reached down to stop him. But it was too late. The little sneeze echoed in the silent pause of conversation. I grimaced.

A glass clinked as it hit the table.

“Adriana?” my father snapped.

I turned my face away from the door’s opening and called, “Hi! Sorry, I’m late.” And then faked a few steps, as if I was still back by the front door to the quarters before I walked into the dining room.

The mayor stood upon my arrival. My father didn't.

“You’re not dressed,” he said.

I looked down at my clothes and tugged on my trousers. “All pertinent parts are covered. I promise.”

Father scowled while the mayor checked. Creep.

“Sit then, if this is the best you can do,” my father snapped.

Relieved at having avoided an all-out yelling match, I forgot about Ratbag.

I sat in the chair farthest from both of them as Ratbag sniffed around the bottom of my father’s trousers. In a movement too quick for me to react to, he kicked out with his foot and sent Ratbag flying.

I gasped and made a move to go after my dog when my father’s hand came down on my arm and gripped it tightly.

“Sit!” he snarled as if I were the dog, not Ratbag.

I sat. My heart in my throat. Tears threatening to fill my eyes.

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And I sure as hell would not show weakness in front of the mayor. That man loved to hunt his prey when they were wounded.

Ratbag curled up in a pitiful ball in the corner of the room, whimpering quietly.

I fisted my hand. But my father noticed my reaction. He smiled. It was chilling.

“I have a proposition for you, daughter,” he said. “As it seems you require incentive to act appropriately.”

I said nothing. The mayor looked positively gleeful.

“Your dog may live to see another day,” my father advised, “if you agree to one simple business contract.”

I raised my eyes to eyes that thankfully did not match mine and kept a neutral expression on my face.

“What would that be, Father?” I asked.

I’d get Ratbag out of here, and I’d take him to Mandy. She’d protect him. She’d love him in a way I had no hope of doing now. I knew my father. I knew his ultimatums were real. He never said a word he didn’t mean. And he never made a threat he didn’t intend to carry out if required. And I’d seen him carry out plenty.

I’d lost a lot of things in my life because of his threats being made real.

One of them was my mother.

My father smiled. His knowing smile.

“We understand each other, then,” he said. And then released my arm and reached for his glass of champagne. “A toast,” he offered.

The mayor poured wine into a spare glass for me and took great delight in making me reach farther than strictly necessary to accept it.

“To a successful negotiation,” my father said.

There had been no negotiation. Only his threat. And my acquiescence.

“And to ownership,” he added.

“To ownership,” the mayor repeated, downing his glass and staring at me with a look that I did not much like.

“Drink,” my father ordered. “Drink it all.”

It wasn’t a large glass, so the threat this time was easy to ignore. I downed the champagne and placed it back on the table with nonchalance.

“Congratulations, Jacob,” my father said to the mayor. “You may kiss your future bride.”

What?

Four

Was This The Start Of A Revolution?

Hugo

We’d been on duty for sixteen hours. Third shift had replaced second an hour ago. But still, first shift bridge crew worked on the jump point problem.

Worked on it without little success to show for the gruelling effort.

“Aquila,” Captain Moore called. “Run a diagnostic on the weapons firing system.”

“Yes, Captain,” Aquila said. Even the AI sounded tired.

Or that was just me, and I was hearing things.

The weapons systems firing solutions were used to fire the jump point beacons into space. It was something I should have suggested twelve hours ago. I rubbed a hand across my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

As Chief Tactical Officer, it should have been the first thing I checked. Frustration gnawed at my insides as I accepted the captain’s unspoken reprimand. I straightened my spine and looked at what Aquila was reporting.

“Firing solutions systems are operating within normal parameters,” I announced.

The fact that there wasn’t a problem there didn’t mean I’d failed to do my job to its fullest.

I felt a little ill at that.

“All right,” Captain Moore said. “We start all over again. Run ship-wide diagnostics, Aquila.”

“Yes, Captain.”

No one objected. Our lives and the lives of those in our fleet, not to mention the three fleets that followed behind us, depended on us working this out. But we needed to look at this from a different angle. So far we’d meticulously gone over anything that related to jumping. If nothing obvious had appeared the first time we ran diagnostics on the appropriate systems, then the fault was likely not obvious.

Or, I thought frantically, it was not connected to the various jump systems directly. Maybe a different system that intersected one of the jump's systems on rare occasions. Or, my mind reluctantly supplied for me, an essential system that diverted Aquila’s attention long enough for the fault to be actioned and the evidence to be masked before Aquila even knew what had hit him.

It would take a power-hungry critical system to achieve that. These AIs were capable of carrying out hundreds, if not thousands, of tasks simultaneously.

And there was only one system that could disrupt that.

I searched through the log for the life support system and found it within minutes of starting.

I stood before my station and stared at the line of code that had disrupted the air filtration system to such a degree that Aquila had to divert power and bypass all non-essential systems to correct it. The code had been recorded automatically; a subroutine that Aquila did not need to monitor. If he searched deep enough, he would have found it. And he was likely to find it in the ship-wide diagnostics he was running.

But I’d found it first. And I did not like the thought processes that had brought me to this conclusion.

I noted the timestamp and then brought the log up for the jump’s various systems. I found a match in the jump point beacon’s subroutines. The jump failed because the beacon failed, and the best way to make that happen would be to disrupt the beacon’s activation or action subroutines.

With a sickening stomach, I found the corruption. It had been hidden well and would likely have been overlooked if you didn’t know the exact time the hack had occurred.

I stared at the two anomalies side by side and knew this was not a natural occurrence.

“Captain,” I said. There must have been something in the tone of my voice because both the captain and the first officer approached my station immediately.

I met Captain Moore’s eyes; aware Commander Lawrence was already reading the data on my screen.

“I’ve found an anomaly that distracted Aquila; long enough to allow someone to hack the beacon’s subroutines and cover their tracks afterwards.”

Captain Moore held my gaze a moment longer and then looked down at the logs I’d brought up, and the lines of code and date stamps I’d highlighted.

He said nothing for a moment.

Then, “Aquila. Can you trace these codes?”

“I am trying, Captain. But they are complex and will take some time.”

“If we correct the anomaly now,” Moore asked, “will the person or persons responsible know we’re on to them?”

“I believe so, Captain. There is a complicated triggering algorithm attached to both codes.”

“They booby-trapped them?” Commander Lawrence murmured, horrified.

“The trigger system is complicated, Commander,” Aquila said. “But its purpose is simple. It would activate an alarm.”

“Where?” the captain demanded.

“Unknown. I can confirm the signal is not powerful enough to make it off the ship.”

“So, this is a localised threat,” Moore said, looking at his first officer.

“At least we can assume it’s origin is localised, sir,” she replied. “But the sphere of its influence is much larger than just this ship.”

“Because no other ship in the fleet can jump without us,” Moore concluded.

“Why would they want to stop us jumping?” I asked.

Moore shook his head. “Too many variables.”

He looked back down at my viewscreen.

“This stays on the bridge,” he said. “We do not touch those codes until Aquila has been able to trace their origin and we’ve found the culprit.”

“Yellow alert, Captain?” Lawrence asked.

Moore thought about that for a moment.

“It would send a message that may tip them off,” he reluctantly said. “We’ve been stood down from yellow alert for two shifts now, to raise our status would be, I fear, too obvious.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Moore looked at me and nodded his head.

“Good work, Lieutenant Commander,” he said. “That was some devious thinking. We’ll make a captain out of you yet.”

“Captains think deviously, sir?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Every damn day, son.”

He returned to his command chair and then said aloud, “Stand down first shift. Report to your stations at 0700 hours tomorrow. Third shift. You have the bridge.”

It was going to take Aquila some time to trace those codes. Perhaps as long again as we’d been on duty. It made sense to stand us down. But I disliked the knowledge that we hadn’t rectified the problem before the captain dismissed us. We had, though, completed his orders. We knew why this jump failed.

At least, we knew what had caused its failure. We didn’t, I corrected myself as I walked off the bridge dog-tired, know why someone had tampered with the jump in the first place.

What possible reason could they have to prevent us from reaching New Earth? Everyone onboard this vessel, and I warranted all of the others, wanted desperately to reach our destination and start rebuilding what we’d lost.

So, why had someone stopped us from getting there? Was it for blackmail purposes? Hold us to ransom over the malfunctioning beacon? A pay-for-passage passenger that wanted to claim a better place for themselves in our new society before we got there? Was this the start of a revolution?

I was sure Captain Moore was thinking of all these possible explanations and of much more I hadn’t yet had the gall to consider. But no yellow alert meant no extra security. I assumed the captain would speak with the chief of security before retiring. But it wasn’t my place to follow up on such things and to second guess our commanding officer.

So, with reluctance, I tried to clear my mind of the captain’s responsibilities and concentrated on my own. Tactical. If we were about to contend with some form of passenger revolt, we needed an action plan.

I skipped the mess hall and went straight to my quarters. At the very least, I’d have a report to give Captain Moore by 0700. And a plan of action for every possible scenario I could think of.

That didn’t involve standing us at yellow alert.

Five

Yeah, Of Course It Is

Adi

Ratbag let out a little snort-snuffle and settled a little deeper into my lap. He had bruised ribs, I was sure, but nothing appeared broken. He’d looked at me when I’d finally made my escape from that disastrous luncheon, as though I’d failed to protect him.

The fact that I felt like I had failed to protect him only made me madder.

I stared out of the Habitat Two observation deck’s massive windows and saw nothing of the splendour of space. The sun in this system was somewhere behind us, so all I could see were stars for miles and miles and miles. Or whatever measure of distance was used by starships and spacemen who fly them.

I’d come here after Father had fallen asleep in the wee hours of the morning. Using the emergency access tubes to avoid the leaseholder security force that patrolled Deck A and the leaseholder’s quarters, I’d made slow progress, but managed to stay hidden and safe.

Safe, I thought, was a relative term. So much could influence it. Right now, nothing felt safe.

I stared down at Ratbag, knowing by morning I’d have to hide him away with Mandy in her florist’s shop. On Deck G, there was some chance that he wouldn’t be found by my father’s men. But I knew reality was so very different to our hopes and dreams.

Ratbag would never again be safe.

And neither was I.

I wallowed in self-pity for a while longer. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been sitting there, but as the observation deck’s lighting started to slowly brighten as shipboard daytime closed in, I knew it had to be hours.

And I knew I had to fight this. Fight my father. Not just for Ratbag. Nor for me. But because of what I’d overheard and the fact that we still hadn't jumped yet. I knew I had to fight this for the ship, for those onboard and in the fleets.

For humanity.

But I wasn’t a superhero. I was a privileged, reasonably well educated young woman of twenty. My life had barely begun back on Earth, and here it was derailing all over again. I wished I dared to just go to my father and refuse him. But that wasn’t in me.

Ratbag didn’t deserve to be punished for my rebellion, though. And then there was Mandy. If I placed Ratbag in her care, my father would know. Mandy would have a target painted on her back in short order.

She possibly already did, I reluctantly conceded. Not much got past my father’s goons. If they knew to find me in the Habitat Two central hub, then they knew why I’d been there.

Mandy was already in danger for befriending me.

I lifted a thumb to my lips and chewed on the nail. As far as rebellions against my father went, it was pitiful.

My stomach rumbled. Ratbag opened one eye and stared at me, disgruntlement oozing off his cute, little nose.

What was I going to do? I couldn’t marry Jacob Logan. The mayor was repulsive and twice my age. I shuddered. Ratbag whined, placing his head on his paws and looking up at me.

“We’re screwed,” I whispered. “There’s nowhere to hide.”

“Why would you need to hide, Adi?” Aquila asked. The gel wall beside me started to softly glow a welcoming green.

“Hey, Aquila,” I said, running a hand down Ratbag’s back and making him close his eyes happily.

“Good morning, Adi. You are early.” Early to leave our quarters, I supposed.

“If I did need to hide,” I said to the AI, not commenting on why I was out and about so early. I couldn’t exactly say it was to watch the sunrise. “Would you tell me where the best places are onboard ship?”

“This vessel has many places one could choose to…hide in. But why do you need to hide, Adi?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said, waving my hand in dismissal. Ratbag made a yipping sound, drawing my attention back to his neglected back rubbing.

I lowered my hand and scratched him softly. He snorted and resumed his pampering.

“Where could I hide, Aquila?” I asked. “Somewhere not even the Anderson Universal crew would find me.”

“That is harder. The Anderson Universal crew has access to all areas of this ship. Aside from the leaseholder’s quarters.”

And wasn’t that a strange thing to consider? If I wanted to hide from Anderson Universal employees, all I had to do was stay home with Dad. But if I wanted to hide from Dad, who could twist the arm of the captain with ease, there was nowhere the Anderson Universal crew wouldn’t find me.

“Why do you need to hide, Adi?” Aquila tried again.

“It’s a game,” I said, lying with a little too much ease for my liking. “You’ve heard of ‘Hide and Seek’ before, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is like that, but for grown-ups. So, the hiding places have to be really good. Can you think of any like that?”

“I do not like this game, Adi,” Aquila said.

“You could hide with me.”

“I am already everywhere.”

“Except the leaseholder’s quarters,” I muttered.

“Yes, except there.”

Ratbag had gone back to sleep. I sighed and stared out of the window.

So vast, so big, and yet nowhere to hide in it.

“You could hide in the medical bay,” Aquila suddenly said.

“That’s open to all passengers onboard the ship,” I countered.

“Some require permission to be on that deck first.You don’t.”

“What else is on that deck?”

“The launch bays, gymnasium, officers’ mess, and senior officers’ quarters.”

“Not exactly a low traffic zone, then.”

“No. I suppose it is not.”

I shook my head, feeling sleepy. I hadn’t slept a wink last night, but the adrenaline had worn off, and the fear had become a muted background noise, and now my eyelids were drooping.

“You could hide with me,” Aquila said.

“With you? You said you’re everywhere,” I offered with a wide yawn that cracked my jaw.

Ratbag huffed at the painful sound but didn’t open his eyes to glare at me.

“My centre is within the computer core, Adi,” Aquila said. “You could hide there. Access is heavily restricted.”

Sleep sloughed off me as I considered the AI’s words.

“Where’s the computer core?” I asked.

“I will tell you if you tell me why you wish to hide.”

Sneaky AI.

I shook my head, but what did I have to lose? My father spent most of his time in his quarters, where he couldn’t converse directly with Aquila even if he wanted to. The mayor could find out. But even though the mayor repulsed me, I didn’t fear him like I did my father. To have a place to go that the leaseholder security guards couldn’t find me, and only a select few Anderson Universal crew ever went, was pure gold.

The risk, I thought right then, was worth it.

I whispered, “My father is a dangerous man, Aquila.” Then checked over my shoulder, belatedly worried I’d been overheard.

I was alone in the observation deck lounge, though. Alone except for Aquila and a sleeping Ratbag.

“Adi, he is your father. He poses no danger to you.”

My head shook. A tear threatened to spill.

“Oh, Aquila,” I said. “He’s a danger to everyone, especially me.”

I thought about it. For a moment, I was sure I wouldn’t say a thing. But then my mouth opened and the words came out.

One way or another, I’d just sealed my fate by betraying the man who had fathered me.

“And the ship, Aquila,” I said. “He’s a danger to you, too. Not just to me.”

The gel wall pulsed red for a brief moment, which was not something I had seen Aquila do previously. It made me nervous. Aquila was just a computer. Highly evolved and interactive to the extreme, but a computer. Would he take the threat seriously? Too seriously? Maybe I had more to be scared of than just my dad.

I reached down to pick up the datapad I’d brought with me but not used. I couldn’t read a book when I felt so troubled. And then I made a move to stand, to get out of there quickly. Not that I could outrun an AI who was everywhere onboard the ship, except the one place I least wanted to be. I cuddled Ratbag, pressing my baby against my chest carefully. Trying to decide what to do.

It all felt too hopeless.

“Adi,” Aquila finally said. The gel wall had turned back to green, thankfully. I still felt like a startled rabbit. “I have keyed your biometric signature to the computer core section of Deck C. If you need a place to hide, use it. I will protect you.”

A sob escaped me. I clamped down hard on the next.

“Thank you, Aquila,” I rasped.

“It is part of my subroutines,” the AI explained. “To protect.”

I let out a little hysterical laugh.

“Yeah, of course, it is.”

Then I headed toward the central hub and Mandy.

First things first. I had to warn my friend. Take care of Ratbag. And then make sure I knew how to get to the computer core on Deck C. And then I had to pack a bag.

I was going into hiding.

Six

It’s Just Business

Hugo

The captain nodded his head grimly as he read my tactical recommendations.

“This is very thorough, Lieutenant Commander,” he said. “I think we’ll go with Action Plan Alpha. It provides an adequate amount of cover over the maximum number of potential outcomes.”

He placed his thumbprint beside the plan in question, approving it. And then handed the datapad back to me and added, “Execute on my orders.”

“Yes, Captain.”

I saluted and spun on my heel, walking across the bridge directly to Lieutenant Drake. The chief security officer straightened upon spotting my trajectory.

“Sir?” he said as I neared his station.

“New orders,” I said. “Execute Action Plan Alpha without delay.”

The lieutenant scanned the detailed security and response plan I’d spent the better part of last night outlining. I lacked sleep in a big way, but I felt a damn sight better now that I knew we would be prepared for any possible attack on command.

“Understood, sir,” he said, looking as grim as the captain right then. He looked back down at the datapad as if he couldn’t believe what he was reading.

“Lieutenant?” I queried. Better to get any confusion out of the way now, before we were neck deep in the action plan and someone was hurling plasma in our faces.

“Sir?” he said, uncertainly. And then he rushed to say, “Is there really a chance that someone will mutiny?”

“I don’t know about a mutiny, Drake,” I said. “More likely a civilian revolt, but we can’t be sure. Something’s definitely going on, though.” I tapped the datapad I’d given him with the approved plan on it. “This is precautionary.”

He nodded his head.

“Understood, sir. I’ll personally deliver the individual orders to my team.”

“Very good,” I replied and returned to my station.

Everything else looked in order, and although Aquila hadn’t been able to trace the origin of the corruption code yet, he had told us at the beginning of first shift that he was getting closer. We expected an answer to that mystery within the hour.

In the meantime, we were taking precautions.

“Aquila,” I said, as I watched the chief of security close his station and turn towards the door to the bridge.

He’d get the ball moving without anyone outside of the command structure aware that we were mobilising for defence of the flight deck, core personal and essential systems.

It took a second for me to realise that Aquila had not answered.

I flicked a glance down at my station. Everything seemed in order. No alarms.

“Aquila?” I tried again.

The screen flickered. My head whipped around toward Lieutenant Drake as he approached the bridge door.

It was like watching an action movie. Everything slowed down, so every single detail came into sharp focus. I could hear the thump of my heart in my chest, the rush of blood through my ears. Taste something metallic on my tongue.

Lieutenant López was the first officer, other than myself, to register a problem.

“Captain?” she called out as Drake activated the bridge door.

We weren’t armed. None of us was. Not yet. It was part of the action plan, and by the time security had been activated by Drake, the bridge would have been ready.

But Drake was standing by the now opening bridge door, and we hadn’t had time to release the locks on the bridge armoury.

As prepared as we could have been, given a few more minutes, at that moment we were entirely unprotected.

The captain turned away from the discussion he was having with Commander Lawrence.

The first plasma shot hit him in the forehead.

López screamed. My mouth ran dry.

A knife pierced Lieutenant Drake’s right eye.

Commander Lawrence dived to the side. The plasma shot hit her left knee, obliterating the bone and flesh, and leaving her leg hanging on by bloody tendon strings. She screamed. It would haunt my nightmares.

Three, four, eight, ten Price security officers, in full armour, stormed the bridge. Plasma pistols aimed at all of our heads. López was crying. Johnson at the helm had his hands up. Armstrong at navigation was doing the same. Lawrence was moaning on the floor beneath the main viewscreen.

An armoured man stomped across the bridge and looked down at the commander. And then he casually lifted his plasma gun and shot her in the head.

I jerked. Someone screamed. A plasma gun pressed into my side.

“Arms up,” a mechanised voice said.

I raised them slowly, looking into a mirrored faceplate on a merc helmet that showed me absolutely nothing I wanted to see.

Cowards.

Minutes. That’s all we’d needed. Minutes to activate the plan fully. To arm the bridge crew. To have security outside in the corridor. Minutes.

We’d had seconds. And it was over. The command chain fractured.

I stared at the commander and captain, who lay side by side, staring blankly at the gel ceiling.

“Aquila,” I whispered and received a punch to my kidneys with the butt of the armoured guard’s rifle at my side.

“No talking,” he snarled.

I tried to breathe.

The guard who had shot Commander Lawrence turned to look at each of us, and then activated the main viewscreen. On it, across Decks A through E, a similar outcome was being effected. Every single command officer of each of the three watches were lying dead. Plasma shot to the forehead. In engineering, the chief lay in a pool of blood, a power torch in his hand.

He’d tried to fight back.

I felt sick. López was trying not to cry too loudly. Johnson looked green.

“This is how things will go,” the armoured man standing over the captain and commander said. “You’ll not resist us, and we won’t be forced to kill you. Life is precious,” he said, ignoring the death that surrounded him. “We value it. But we are prepared to end it if necessary.”

He took his time looking at each one of us.

“There is no first shift any longer,” he said. “There is no second or third. You work for Nathan Price now.”

Jesus Christ, it was the leaseholder. Why?

“Those of you holding the rank of second lieutenant or higher will be escorted to the brig.”

I felt hollow. I should have done something. Anything. I should have fought back.

“Those of you holding the rank of midshipman will be confined to quarters.”

López had stopped crying. She stared straight ahead unseeing.

I tried to catch Johnson’s eye. He resolutely looked elsewhere.

I checked the position of the pistol the armoured guard was holding at my side. I could reach for it. Take out him and maybe two others. I could try and get the ringleader. The one who had shot Lawrence and probably had shot the captain.

But then I’d be dead, and the real threat to the ship and the fleet would still be alive.

Nathan Price. The leaseholder.

“Any questions?” the head guard asked. “Good,” he added before anyone could even open their mouths. Not that we had the will to right then. “Your new accommodations are waiting. To ensure a safe transit from here to there, we’ll require you wear wrist restraints. Nothing personal. It’s just business.”

He chuckled. It sounded eerie coming from his armour’s speakers. The rest of the guards started laughing too.

A pack of mechanised hyenas. I clenched my fists.

The guard beside me slapped a wrist restraint on one wrist, cinching it hard.

“Don’t feel too bad, Lieutenant Commander,” he said, wrenching my other arm behind my back to secure it. “You didn’t do anything foolish and get yourself killed. There’s hope for you yet.”

He shoved me between the shoulder blades. I could hear his plasma gun whirring again.

My eyes scanned the bridge. I tried to see if the captain was still breathing. Naively praying he was faking it. He wasn’t. Neither was the commander. Moore, Lawrence and Drake were dead.

I realised as the guards marched us out of the bridge, no more than five minutes after they’d arrived, that I was now the highest ranking officer among us.

And then my stomach revolted, and bile surged up my gullet.

I was now the highest ranking officer onboard the ship.

Seven

Walkies!

Adi

“All passengers will proceed to their quarters immediately,” Aquila said over the ship-wide comms.

I glanced at the gel wall beside me. It was red. For some reason, that colour scared me. I’d never seen red like this before on the walls. And it pulsed slightly. As if a heartbeat. No, not a heartbeat, I thought. But a war drum.

“Failure to comply with this directive,” the AI said, “will result in…punishment.”

What the hell?

“Aquila?” I said, still staring at the gel wall. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t answer. But he did still issue orders over the ship-wide comm.

“You have five minutes to comply with this directive. Anyone seen outside their quarters after this time has passed will suffer the consequences.”

For a shocked second, no one did a thing.

And then the screaming started. Panicked cries for loved ones. People arguing with each other. Others running for their quarters. But some stood defiantly where they were. Arms crossed and belligerent expressions on their faces.

‘It’s a hoax,” someone said.

“It’s the AI. AIs don’t hoax.”

“A drill then.”

“If it’s a drill, shouldn’t we be doing what it says?”

“Not if it’s not real.”

“And if it is real? I don’t want to stick around and find out what the consequences are. Do you?”

I peered out into the central hub where all the shouting and panic was mainly. No one was running down the corridor that led to the observation deck and cinemas where I was standing. Too early for entertainment like that. But the stalls had been set up already in the central hub.

I could see Mandy standing at hers. She looked worried but also determined to lock her stall before she left it. Within seconds, she’d closed the sides, keying them shut, and was walking swiftly toward the lifts. Mandy was a pay-for-passage, and her rooms were down on Deck H. I wondered briefly what her history was. I’d never asked, and it felt like I’d failed at being a friend to her. But what made her so calm when others were screaming?

I realised I was still standing out in the open. Still thinking of Mandy’s reaction and still watching those stubborn or confused few people who were standing out in the central hub.

“One minute,” Aquila said.

Something was wrong. Aquila wasn’t the most expressive conversationalist at the best of times, but something didn’t sound quite right in his voice. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but I suddenly thought being the leaseholder’s daughter might not protect me.

I had planned to return to our quarters, grab a bag of supplies and Ratbag’s things and then head to the computer core. But now I was undecided. Returning to our quarters might be the last thing I did. Oh, my father wouldn’t kill me. Ratbag, though, I wasn’t so sure. And then there was that ‘business contract’ with the mayor.

No. The leaseholder quarters and Deck A were out. But where to now?

I glanced around the central hub. A few more people had caved and were running to their quarters. Three men still stood out in the open. Defiant to the last.

I understood their reasoning. We’d never had a drill like this. We had rules to follow, for safety and when transitioning. But I hadn’t heard anything about surprise drills where we were told not following would lead to consequences.

The lift doors chimed in the central hub. I stepped back, out of direct line of sight, and crouched down. Bringing Ratbag in close to me, I whispered, “Quiet, boy. Not a sound.”

Then I peered around the corner of the corridor.

“Time is up,” Aquila said. I frowned. He sounded excited, but that couldn’t be.

Four of my father’s security detail came out, Price Enterprises logos on their chests. But they were dressed in a way I had never before seen. Was that military grade armour? I shook my head. None of this made any sense.

The guards stomped across the gel floor, which shouldn’t have sounded as ominous as it did. All four had raised their plasma rifles and were pointing them at the men still standing in the centre of the courtyard.

“You have been instructed to return to your quarters,” one of the guards said.

“Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?” one man growled.

The guard approaching him didn’t reply. He simply shot him in the forehead.

I gasped, but the protests from the other passengers thankfully drowned out the sound. In my shock, I squeezed Ratbag a little too tight. He whined and licked my face. I let the breath of air out I’d been holding, and eased up on my grip; soothing him to stop his whining.

“What the fuck, man!” one of the passengers was saying.

“Your identity has been noted,” the guard advised. “You have received one black mark. Two black marks will result in reduced privileges. Three black marks will mean death.”

“What about him?” the guy asked, indicating the dead passenger lying in a pool of blood.

“An example,” the guard said cooly. “Bad day for him to be a hero.”

One or two of the other guards laughed. It sounded eerie, coming from their helmets. Mechanised. Unnatural.

“Your quarters,” the guard said.

“You can’t do this,” the passenger growled.

“It is done. All that’s left is how you comply. One black mark or two?”

The remaining passengers looked down at their fallen comrade and then slowly lifted their hands above their heads.

“Wise choice,” the guard said. Then turning to his comrades he snapped, “Escort them to their quarters. See that they make it there…safely.”

“Yes, Major,” they barked.

What the hell was going on?

I watched while the guards stomped behind the now fearful passengers and realised I was shaking. Small tremors wracking my entire frame. It could have been anger, but I knew it was fear. My mouth had gone dry, and my head was hurting. Too much adrenaline, I thought, trying to slow my breathing down.

The guard who’d shot the passenger walked up to his still form and stared down at it. I thought perhaps he was taking a moment to pray for the man he’d killed. But then he lifted his leg and kicked the passenger in the side. The guy was dead. He didn’t react. But I did.

The guard’s helmeted head swung in my direction, clearly having heard my stifled gasp. I threw myself backwards out of view, but I was sure he had seen me.

Panic charged in on thundering horses; my pulse sped up and my body became instantly clammy. I was fairly sure my father would have instructed the guards not to kill me. But what if they shot first and asked questions later? And then there was the dread of being imprisoned in my room in the leaseholder’s quarters. Or worse, imprisoned in the mayor’s rooms.

I spun around and sprinted back to the observation deck lounge. Which was stupid, because there was only one way in and one way out.

I turned in a slow circle, the massive expanse of windows displayed an inky black sky dotted with diamonds. The gel walls still pulsed red and the loungers were all empty.

“Damn it,” I muttered.

Ratbag whined.

I could hear the distinctive steps of the armoured guard approaching. Terrifyingly, I could also hear the whir of his plasma rifle powering up.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, I thought, biting my nail.

And then I spotted a conduit hatch, hidden behind a digital palm. I flew across the room, unsure how I would get the hatch off in time. I carried a little screwdriver with me everywhere, but undoing the screws normally took more than a minute. I didn’t have more than a minute, but I was going to try.

I placed ratbag on the floor beside me, issuing a terse, “Stay!” Then pulled out my screwdriver. My father didn’t know I had this. It had cost me one hundred dollars in the pay-for-passage central hub. I was pretty sure the guy knew I could afford it and had overcharged me.

I checked over my shoulder; a stupid waste of precious time. But the guard hadn’t made it to the lounge yet. Turning back to the hatch, I pressed the head of the screwdriver into the gel screw and let out a startled yelp when the gel wall simply disintegrated as soon as I got close to touching it.

“What the hell?”

I didn’t waste any more time questioning my good fortune. I snatched up Ratbag and threw us both into the emergency tunnel. The hatch reformed behind us. I lay there panting. Head spinning. Unable to make out what had just happened.

“Aquila?” I whispered. He must have done it. I certainly hadn’t.

But the AI didn’t answer.

The heavy sound of armoured boots grew louder. I froze, staring at the hatch, aware that it could reveal me at any moment.

And then some ancient, primordial response kicked in, and I started to scramble away from the observation lounge. Ratbag made it difficult, so after a few seconds of blundering around, I set him down and whispered, “Walkies!”

His little tail waggled, and he started to trot off ahead of me.

I crouch-ran behind him.

The hatch never opened at our backs.

I had no idea what was going on.

Eight

Our Time Will Come

Hugo

I stared across the cell to the one next to mine, checking the blue diamond pattern of the containment field. It never wavered. It was rock solid. Whatever was wrong with Aquila was not affecting our safety measures.

In some ways, that was a relief. Life support issues right now on top of everything else was frightening to consider. But not being able to find a chink in the AI’s armour was disturbing.

Half an hour ago, he’d issued orders over the ship-wide comms to the civilians. I could only pray they’d all taken them seriously.

“Aquila,” I tried again for the hundredth time since being locked up in here.

And for the hundredth time, he didn’t answer.

“Is he gone?” López asked in the cell next to mine.

“I doubt it,” I offered. “But if he’s no longer answering direct questions, something’s gone haywire in his programming.”

“Our current location in the brig isn’t enough of a sign that things are haywire onboard ship?” Johnson asked across the hallway.

I rolled my eyes at him.

“The armoured thugs were Nathan Price’s private security force,” I said. “This is a leaseholder coup. I held out hope that Aquila still had some level of command algorithms running. But it’s clear he’s not the Aquila we knew.”

“Did you hear what he sounded like when he said time was up?” Armstrong asked.

“Yeah,” López said, shuddering.

“That so not normal,” Armstrong added.

“None of this normal, moron,” Johnson snapped.

“Enough!” I said, forcing as much authority into my voice as I could manage. “Now’s not the time to fall apart.”

“Well, excuse me, sir,” Johnson said sarcastically, “but when is the time to fall apart?”

“When you no longer wear that uniform, crewman,” I said, standing up.

I looked at those cells that I could see in the brig. Aware everyone incarcerated in here could hear us talking. I raised my voice anyway, just to get the message across.

“We are officers in the Anderson Universal Fleet,” I said. “We trained hard for our positions. We earned this uniform. And I’ll be damned if we degrade ourselves now because of a leaseholder going rogue. We are still AU. And this ship is still AU. No matter what, we do what we’ve been trained to do, and stand strong.”

“But the captain…” López said.

“Was a good man,” I replied. “He was an honourable man. Are you all going to forget your pledge to him and this ship? So easily? Is that who you want to be? Cowards?”

“I’m not a fucking coward,” Johnson snapped.

“Then stop acting like a civvy and start acting like an AU officer.”

He held my stare for a moment and then released a shaky breath of air.

“What do you suggest?” he finally said.

I stared at the gel floor for a second and thought about what I was about to do. I’d been proud when I’d earned my position as chief tactical officer. And prouder still to gain my promotion prior to liftoff to lieutenant commander. I’d never once thought that I’d be in a position to captain a ship so young, though. I had time, I’d thought. The entire journey to New Earth and then some. There were officers above me. Not many. But enough.

It never crossed my mind that I’d be in charge of more people than just those in my tactical team and while standing watch on the bridge on this voyage.

My world had expanded beyond my imagining and conversely, considering where I currently was, shrunk alarmingly.

“I don’t know yet what we’re going to do,” I finally admitted. “I’m open to suggestions. But I do know we have to keep order amongst ourselves. Because when the time comes, and it will come, we’ll need to act. Swiftly. Smoothly. Like a well-oiled machine. Or,” I said, looking at those officers I could see from my cell, “like the AU officers we’ve been trained to be.”

I paused, letting them all think about that.

“Chain of command is important, even in the brig,” I finally said. “The question you have to ask yourself is, are you still an AU officer in here? And will you do what you’ve been trained to do when the time comes?”

“Yes,” several people said. Some even murmured, “Aye, sir.”

“OK,” I said. “So we start brainstorming. And we keep ourselves fit and healthy. I don’t know how long they intend to keep us in here, but we can assume that no matter where they put us, it won’t be ideal. We divide into watches. But we don’t call them shifts. I’m betting certain words will trigger alarms in Aquila’s monitoring subroutines. So, let's go with names that mean nothing to them.”

“How about colours?” Armstrong asked.

“Too obvious,” I said with a shake of the head.

More and more officers were standing up and facing me now. A few more suggestions were thrown out. Then someone said, “Space terms. You know like ‘flux’ or ‘nova’ or ‘zenith.’”

“Perfect,” I said. “Now, who’s the most senior first lieutenant in each of your departments?”

Several people raised their hands.

“Combat experience?” I asked each one.

Lieutenant Wilson in security was an obvious choice. But I didn’t want all the watches to be led by security. We needed a healthy representation of skills across the board. Lieutenant Munro was chosen out of the other possible suggestions; she’d been the next senior in engineering with excellent combat training grades back on Earth. I took lead of the last watch.

“Congratulations,” I said grimly to Wilson and Munro. “You’ve both been promoted to lieutenant commander.”

“Yes, sir,” they said, well aware of what had just landed on their shoulders.

We divided the rest of the officers into watches, spreading skills as evenly as we could manage. That left my first officer. I needed someone who could step up to command if something happened to me. And it was highly likely that something would happen to me.

I could have chosen one of the watch leaders, but I decided to choose someone in my own watch. Change of command would be easier. I looked at Johnson, López and Armstrong. They all looked back at me expectantly. Even Johnson.

López tended to cry when under pressure, but she’d been the first to recognise a problem with Aquila. I’d also trained with her back on Earth. I knew she was quick, smart, and highly observant. She’d topped the comms module at the academy and earned her spot as first shift communications officer. I’m not sure she ever considered herself command material, but I knew given the right incentive she would rise to the challenge.

And the crying thing. Well shit. We all felt the pressure from time to time. And López hadn’t shed a tear since we’d been thrown in here early this morning. In fact, she’d been the one to discuss options with me first. I saw a good officer in the cell next to mine.

“Andrea,” I said.

“Yes, Captain?”

The entire brig froze, and then one by one they let out a breath of air and returned their attention to their watch leaders. Which meant my watch, Zenith, was paying attention to what I said next.

“Congratulations, Commander,” I said, looking López in the eye. I would have, given different circumstances, asked her. But we weren’t in a position where choice was an option. I needed her. The ship needed her. The crew and passengers needed her. “You’ve been promoted to first officer,” I said.

She swallowed thickly and then nodded her head.

“Aye-aye, sir,” she said.

“Then let’s get to work,” I announced. “Zenith will take first watch. The rest of you, exercise and shut-eye. Our time will come. And we will be ready.”

“Yes, Captain!” the entire brig shouted.

Nine

Green Means Good, Right?

Adi

My stomach growled, and Ratbag whined in sympathy. Outside the hatch we had finally collapsed beside, the ship was silent. No passengers walking the corridors. No armoured security guys either.

And absolutely no Anderson Universal crew.

“I know, baby,” I murmured, stroking his silky fur. “But I’m not going back to our quarters.”

Ratbag licked my hand as if he understood my reasoning.

I’d been trying on and off to talk to Aquila. But he never replied. Occasionally, I’d hear orders he’d give my father’s men over the comms. And once he’d requested all personnel to report to their stations.

But no one walked past our hiding hole on Deck G.

I stared out of the hatch at the restaurants and stalls in the Habitat Two central hub. Mandy’s stall was all buttoned up, but some of the others were still open. Not that there was anyone here to steal anything. Except, of course, me.

I checked my pocket. I had some money in there. I wouldn’t take anything I couldn’t pay for. But plucking up the courage to expose myself to Aquila’s cameras was taking much longer to find than a few dollars.

The lights in the hub started to dim. Jeez, I’d been in here all day then.

“OK, Ratbag,” I said. “We’re going to wait a little longer. Just until it’s all nice and dark out there.”

Not that the ship ever got totally dark outside of quarters. But the hub lighting would resemble evening on a city street; there’d be shadows. Hopefully, there’d be enough.

What we were going to do once we’d purchased some food was another thing. We couldn’t stay in here. Ratbag had been gun-shy about peeing on the gel floor of the tunnel I’d chosen for our toilet stop. A tunnel I hoped I’d never have to go through again. But once I’d done my business and the gel floor of the tunnel had simply wicked the moisture away, Ratbag found his own courage and peed like a trooper.

I wasn’t looking forward to number twos.

But I also knew, staying in the tunnels was not the safest option either. At one junction, I’d seen an armoured guard flash a light through the tunnel hatch, trying to see what was inside. We’d backtracked as quickly and quietly as we could then. Thankfully, his rifle’s light hadn’t penetrated far enough into the gloom to see us.

I knew, though, that my father had them searching.

Which begged the question, why hadn’t Aquila ratted me out yet?

I glanced out the hatch again. Darkness, or what represented darkness onboard ship, had descended. And the central hub was finally painted in shadows.

“All right, boy,” I said. “You stay here. Mummy’s going to get us some dinner.”

My lips were dry. My throat parched. I knew I was dehydrated. I dreaded to think what Ratbag felt like. He whimpered slightly when I placed him behind me and gave him the sign to stay put. But he did what he was told to do and sat quietly.

I looked at the hatch again. I hadn’t tried to get out of one of the conduit tunnels before now. And getting into them in the first place had been kind of freaky. So, I stared at the hatch for quite a while.

Then with screwdriver in hand, I reached forward and watched as the gel wall disintegrated, and a ladder appeared.

This hatch was higher off the ground. I’d thought it was less likely to be searched by my father’s men. But I hadn’t considered getting down from here. Or getting back up afterwards.

“Huh,” I whispered, staring at the ladder. “That's handy.”

I spun my body around and exited the tunnel backwards, glancing over my shoulder from time to time. But nothing moved in the shadows, and I couldn’t hear the heavy steps of the guards. I made it to the bottom, sweating, heart racing, but alive.

I glanced back up at the hatch opening. It hadn’t closed. And I hadn’t even tried to wave my screwdriver at it; it was back in my pocket. I shook my head and took a step away.

The hatch and ladder disappeared back into the gel wall.

“Ratbag!” I whispered. A small yip responded from deeper in the tunnel. I stepped back up to the wall, and the ladder and opening reappeared.

I stepped away again. They vanished.

Step close. Reappeared.

Step back. Vanished.

“Huh,” I said again and then spun on my heel and slipped into the shadows.

I crept along the outer edge of the central hub until I came to the first restaurant. It wasn’t my favourite but damned if I was going to be fussy about it. It was open, and it still had food out, so that was enough. I slipped inside and ran across to the counter.

The food there had already spoiled. I looked at the door to the kitchen. Then glanced over my shoulder again. The hub looked quiet. But going further into the restaurant would make it harder to hear if someone was coming. I bit my lip and stared down at the food again.

Getting food poisoning right now would suck.

I slipped over the counter and pushed through to the kitchen.

It was dark, and I didn’t have a torch, so I had to feel my way around. I didn’t want to switch a light on, but when I found the refrigerator and opened the door, the light came on automatically inside. I quickly pulled it to, but not shut, behind me, and scanned the contents.

Sixty seconds later I’d grabbed ham, cheese, apples, grapes and two bottles of water. I slipped out of the fridge and placed my stash on the preparation bench. Then went to close the fridge door behind me. Before it fully shut, I spotted a filleting knife off to the side. It was long and sharp and could do some serious damage.

I glanced around the kitchen again, using the thin strip of light from the fridge to guide me, and spotted an apron. Swiping it up, I wrapped the knife inside and added the food and water. Buns, which would have been fresh this morning and were probably rock hard now, sat in a container ready for a table that had never been served. I shoved them and the container inside the apron and then bundled it all up.

The fridge door shut again, I crept through the darkness to the front of the restaurant. I strained to hear any noise, but none sounded out. As I passed the front counter, I dipped a hand into my pocket and withdrew a fifty. The knife alone was worth that. I slipped it under a menu and crept out the front door, keeping to the shadows.

Nothing moved. No sounds were made. I could hear the constant hum of the air filtration systems and the vibration of the main boost thrust through the gel floor at my feet. We were underway but to where? We hadn’t jumped. We were still in the gas giant system. So where would we go and why?

I shook my head and kept creeping through the shadows. By now, Aquila should have spotted me and told my father. But as the ladder appeared beneath the once again open access way to the tunnel, still no armoured guard had found me.

I clambered up the ladder and crawled inside. Then turned and watched as the hatch reformed behind me. I let out a breath of air and swiped at my stinging eyes. Crying, even tears of relief, was not an option.

I turned ‘round and softly called out to Ratbag.

He didn’t reply.

“Ratbag?” I couldn’t see him. My heart leapt into my throat. The hatch had closed behind me. And even if it hadn’t, he couldn’t have jumped down or used the ladder. I shifted my purchases around, slipping the knife through the belt in my trousers and making a sling out of the apron, so the food and water would leave my hands free.

And then I started down the tunnel after my dog. There was nowhere for him to go; except through a countless number of tunnels on this deck, I thought bitterly.

“Ratbag!” I called a little louder, the deeper into the deck I got.

I’d tan his hide when I got his furry little butt in my hands again.

I rounded a corner, and there he was, staring at a green glow on the gel walls all around him.

“What have you found, you little ratbag?” I hissed. We hadn’t been this far back in the tunnels yet. I’d been too keen to see what was happening out in the hub. Fat lot of good it did me.

I came to rest beside him and peered up the tunnel directly over our heads. There was a ladder attached to the wall to climb. The tunnel went down a deck too, but there was no green glow there. The glow was above our heads and went on for what seemed miles.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.

Ratbag yipped in reply.

“Green means good, right?” I whispered, uncertainly.

Ratbag didn’t have a clever reply for that one. So, I picked him up and shoved him in with the food. I’d worry about hygiene later; I had a puzzle to solve.

And then I started up the ladder.

I could hear Ratbag eating the ham as I put one hand in front of the other, making steady but slow progress. At least one of us was happy.

I gripped the next rung with determination and kept climbing.

Ten

Every Action Has An Equal And Opposite Reaction

Hugo

If Nathan Price’s intention was to starve us into compliance, he was making progress. We’d not eaten a thing since we’d been locked in here. Thankfully, we had water in the faucet at the sink in each cell. But I was acutely aware that Aquila could simply suck that back into the gel wall at any time.

As it was, he’d not provided any privacy for ablutions. We’d taken to announcing we were peeing - or worse - and everyone purposely turned their backs to that cell.

Something had to give.

“López,” I said, sidling up to her side of my cell. “They’re going to have to feed us eventually,” I offered. “When they do, we have to act.”

“Act how, sir?” she whispered back. “If they do feed us, and it’s a big if at this juncture, they’ll just shove something through the access panel in each cell.”

“Or have Aquila deliver it through the gel wall,” I added in agreement.

I’d thought that by now, we would have been able to observe our captors. Maybe work out a routine we could use to our advantage. But there was no routine because we’d seen no one. The absence of interaction was as debilitating as if they were shooting at us.

It chipped away at your psyche. I could see the slumped shoulders on some of the men from here.

“We need to have some sort of plan, at the very least,” I said. “Even if we can’t enact it. Having a plan will help keep everyone focused.”

Lieutenant López flicked a glance around the brig, no doubt seeing what I had seen as well.

“OK,” she said. “How about a distraction down one end of the brig when they go to serve someone at the other? And the one being served, reaches through the access panel and…somehow disarms them?”

She didn’t sound convinced at the end.

“Better than what I’ve got,” I said. “I was thinking of calling them every name under the sun and getting them so riled they opened a cell to retaliate. Then I disarmed them.”

López sniggered. “It has a certain style, sir,” she said.

I grinned. “It does, doesn’t it?”

She smiled back. It was good to see some colour in her face again. She’d started to look a little peaky.

“They’ll feed Flux watch first,” she said. “They’re the closest to the door.”

I nodded. “All right, we’re the distraction. They’ll be the quick draw.”

“I’ll pass it on, sir,” she said, moving to the other side of her cell and garnering her neighbour’s attention. The whispered instructions went from cell to cell, until Lieutenant Commander Wilson looked up and made eye contact with me and nodded his head.

I was glad it was him. If anyone could disarm an armoured guard through a one foot square access panel in a containment field, it was him.

This was such a bad plan.

The hours ticked by and the brief lift the men had received from having a plan, any plan at all, had worn off. Nova watch was sleeping. As much as you did when confined to a cell. Technically, Zenith was on duty, but with Flux knowing they would have to act first, it was more of a shared responsibility.

I was just finishing up peeing, everyone’s back to me when the brig doors finally opened.

Two guards walked in. A trolley between them. The door shut at their backs. We couldn’t have asked for more.

“Finally!” I yelled, doing up my trousers and forgoing washing my hands for now. “This hotel sucks. Too busy kissing the leaseholder’s arse, are you?”

“Quiet!” one guard ordered. “Or you get no dinner.”

At least we knew it was nighttime now. The lights hadn’t dimmed in the past however many hours we’d been in here, and our wrist comms had all been removed.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that making your guests wait is rude?” I shouted.

“I said quiet!”

“Or are you calling Nathan Price ‘Momma’ now?”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” the guard spat.

“Hey, Johnson,” I yelled. “This one’s a Momma's boy.”

“Does he kiss his Momma with that foul mouth?” Johnson yelled back at me.

“More like his Momma kisses his dick with hers,” López offered.

“That’s it!” the guard shouted, taking a step towards us and away from the trolley.

“Ooooh!” we all said in sing-song voices. “Momma’s boy is pissed,” I added.

Behind him, the remaining guard activated Wilson’s access panel, shaking his head in disgust at us, or his partner, it was hard to tell. As he lifted the tray of food up, Lieutenant Commander Wilson stepped closer as if to take it from him.

López was shouting something about “Kissing his booboo.”

Johnson was adding his two cents worth, telling the guard some fucked up ‘yo momma’ joke.

And Wilson was throwing a punch through the containment field.

The tray went flying. Wilson’s hand wrapped around the guard’s LSU and slammed his helmeted head against the containment field. Our guard spun on his heel, reaching for his plasma rifle. But firing now would only end up shooting the other guard. Wilson was safe behind his own containment field.

The guard and Wilson scrabbled for purchase. Wilson hindered by the small aperture of the opening. But he did manage to get the guard’s helmet released and knocked it off his head.

The next punch met flesh and cartilage, and the guard’s nose crunched beneath a hard fist. Blood splattered and sizzled against the containment field. But no matter what Wilson did, he couldn’t reach the guard’s rifle. He couldn’t do more than just punch the fuck out of the guy’s head.

Within seconds, the guard who’d been shouting at us was at his comrade’s side. And the butt of his rifle went sailing through the access panel and slammed into Wilson’s cheek.

My stomach plummeted, even as Wilson reached out for the guard’s rifle and came within inches of making contact. And then a second hit with the rifle’s butt connected with Wilson’s temple. The lieutenant commander’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell backwards, hitting the gel flooring with a sickening bounce.

The access panel closed. The guard whose nose was broken spat a wad of blood on the floor and gingerly pressed the damaged area, wincing.

The other guard turned and glared at each of us, his helmet still on, but visor transparent.

I made a point of cataloguing his features. Memorising his face. He’d be one of the first I hit when we got out of here.

“Dinner’s over,” the guard said.

Then spun on his heel, picked the other guard up off the floor, and dragged him out. He’d left the trolley, laden with our meals, behind on purpose. The representation of what we’d lost by choosing to rebel against them.

“Wilson!” I called, moving to the side of my cell closest to that end of the brig. “Is he breathing?” I asked those nearest him.

“Yes, sir,” a lieutenant answered. “But he’s out cold, and I can see a lump forming on his head.”

“Keep trying to wake him,” I ordered. “And then watch for concussion.”

“What if he doesn’t wake?” the lieutenant asked.

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know what to do next. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That’s what we’d been taught back on Earth. We’d rebelled, on my instructions, and we’d lost our meal privileges.

One guard had a broken nose. One of my men was unconscious.

Getting out of here was going to take a lot of courage.

Or a hell of a lot of good luck.

“Just keep an eye on him, Lieutenant,” I said. “I want to know the moment he wakes up.”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said and sat down at the edge of his cell, calling out softly to his commanding officer.

“It was worth a try, Captain,” López said.

I almost told her not to call me that. But none of us had any choices while locked away in here. And I was damned if I’d be the one to crack first.

“We’ll think of something else,” I said to my first officer.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, not sounding convinced.

Eleven

This Was Wrong

Adi

Curfew was lifted the next day. Aquila announced it over the gel wall speakers. I was curled up on the floor, a few feet away from a dead end in the tunnel. The tube around us still glowed a soft green.

Ratbag was snoring, while I stared at my datapad and wondered if switching it on was the best decision I’d ever make or the last. I chose to leave it for now. My stomach was growling again. The cheese and bread rolls were all gone. I nibbled on one of the last grapes and took a sip of the water.

And stared at the dead end of the tunnel.

Why had the green glow led us here?

“What deck do you think we’re on?” I said softly. Ratbag’s ear twitched, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Must have climbed up about three or four,” I murmured. “So, that would mean Deck D or C.”

I had no idea what was on Deck D, but I knew what was on Deck C. Was it a trap?

Aquila was still not talking to me. But it had to be him who was opening all the hatches. Who’d used green to lure us up four freaking decks. It had to be.

I sighed. Then stared at the screwdriver lying on the gel floor beside me. There were no screws in this one. No hatch. Just a blank gel wall. I left the screwdriver where it was and started crawling toward the wall with the filleting knife instead.

I’d stab anything that moved including the damn wall.

The moment I was within a foot of the dead end, the gel wall retracted. I lunged forward with the knife and rolled out of the end of the tunnel, landing hard on a gel floor.

“Oomph,” I managed, quickly looking around my new location to get my bearings.

No armoured guard stepped out, and my father or the mayor weren’t waiting. I slowly got to my feet, noting Ratbag had hopped out of the gel wall before it had shut again. I walked back up to it and watched it open.

It wasn’t the screwdriver that did it. I looked around the room for cameras. I couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Reaching in, I grabbed all of our pitiful gear and then stepped away from the wall. The gel wall resealed, and the tunnel disappeared behind it.

I huffed out a breath in confusion and frustration. That was one puzzle I couldn’t seem to solve.

But, as I turned around to look at the enormous room I’d ended up in, I realised one other question was at least answered now. We were in the computer core. This was Aquila’s home.

I tapped the knife against my thigh as Ratbag wandered off to sniff at tall banks of electronic equipment, which, I guessed, had to be hard drives or something. Aquila had told me I could hide here. That my biosignature had been keyed for entry. But that Aquila was not the Aquila I heard every now and then over the ship comms.

But somehow I was here, led here by green walls, Old Aquila’s form of greeting. And no alarms had gone off unless they were silent.

I gathered up the apron and container that had housed the bread rolls and attached them to my belt, and then I headed out to see what was here that I could use.

I walked the circumference, but I still couldn’t see into the centre of the room. It was hotter in here too than in the tunnels. I stripped off my shirt, leaving me in a camisole, and kept searching for clues.

I finally made it to the centre of the room, checking every nook and cranny on the way to get there. I stared down at the small depression in the gel floor. At the food synthesiser at one end and the cushions at the other.

I stared for a very long time.

Ratbag had no such qualms as me; he jumped down into the hollow and turned around a few times on what had to be the bed. Then sank to his belly, head on front paws, and yawned wide.

I nibbled on what was left of my nail and then finally stepped down into the depression.

Nothing happened. No containment field flashed up all around me. No voice telling me to freeze. Not even Aquila welcoming me to my new home. Because that’s what this had to be. Aquila had made me a home away from home, somewhere to hide in.

He knew I’d come here eventually. He’d left the glowing green walls in the tunnels to help me find my way. I wouldn’t have looked at that dead end if it hadn’t have been for the glow leading me there. I wouldn’t have even found it, I thought.

But here I was. In the middle of Aquila’s…brain.

And there was the little nest waiting for me.

“What are you playing at, Aquila?” I asked. “And why won’t you talk to me?”

I let out a sigh and crossed to the food synthesiser. A few pushes of buttons and I had Ratbag’s favourite meal in a recyclable dish. I placed it on the floor to one side. Then after a couple more commands to the synthesiser, I had a cup of coffee and a croissant coated in jam in my hands.

I sat down and tasted nothing. Just fuel into my mouth.

My hands were sticky afterwards. But the synthesiser provided wet-wipes and then took the discards and wicked them all away.

For a long time, I just sat there, feeling disconnected from reality.

And then I thought of Mandy and what could be happening back in the habitats.

I didn’t know what my father was up to, but obviously, it was not good nor was it legal. I hadn’t spotted an AU crew member since before yesterday. The civilians had been released from confinement in quarters, but I had no illusions that the crewmen would have been. I needed to know if the passengers had seen anything and the best way to do that was by going to a hub.

I reached up and touched my hair. The sloppy bun was lopsided, and it felt a little greasy. I would have given over half my savings to have a three-minute shower right then. Instead, I synthesised wet-wipes by the dozen and proceeded to wash up as best as I could.

And then I pulled my filleting knife out of the belt at my hip and stared at it.

For a moment, I tried to reason everything that was happening through. To give it some meaning. To justify what I’d heard and seen and knew.

Bottom line. My father was evil. I’d kept my distance, as much as I could, and ignored the signs over the years. He’d changed, though, when my mother had died. It wasn’t mourning he’d been going through, I was sure of it. It was darker than that. Destructive. Although, I was pretty sure, mourning someone could be destructive in its own way. I know mourning my mother had thrown me into a pit of depression.

But my father had become more and more of a stranger to me since then.

Had I been scared of him? Not at first. The fear had simply increased over time until it was just there and I couldn’t remember when exactly it had started.

And now it was almost an immobilising thing.

There was no reasoning it out; no justifying what had happened here. If I didn’t understand my father back on Earth, then his actions now were a mystery to me.

But this was happening. The ship had been taken over by my father. The leaseholder. And his armoured goons.

I couldn’t risk being recognised. So, I reached up to grab a hunk of my long, blonde hair and then sliced it off with the filleting knife. I tried to attack it in some measured way, but in the end, I was simply hacking at it. Taking my frustrations and fears out on the only thing my father had ever liked about me.

Hair just like my mother’s.

I hacked it all off. I didn’t have a mirror, but maybe that was for the best. I reached up and ran my fingers through strands so unfamiliar I thought briefly that it wasn’t my head at all. But someone else’s.

Ratbag sat up and cocked his head at me, ears perked.

“It’s just me, baby,” I said, letting him lick my hand.

He seemed satisfied as he headed over to his bowl of snacks and started eating.

I stood up. Looked down at my civilian clothing. There was nothing top tier about them. And now they were crinkled and dirty, my father’s men would have no hope of recognising me.

I smiled. Scratched Ratbag under the chin and then headed back to the tunnel.

It was faster going down with the artificial gravity on the ship than it had been climbing up the ladder. And without Ratbag and the apron sling, I made quick work of the tunnels. Crawling toward the hatch that led to the Habitat Two central hub.

I could see the place was subdued, but people were still there. Grabbing what they needed and hurrying off to their quarters for safety and comfort. The familiar was all we really ever had.

Mandy’s stall didn’t have any customers. I thought perhaps digital flowers would be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But when I saw the armoured guard appear from behind the stall, I knew the real reason why.

“Where is she?” he demanded. “Your cooperation will be rewarded.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Adriana Price,” the guard snapped. “She’s visited your stall previously. Don’t lie.”

“Oh, Adi,” Mandy said, quickly backtracking. “Haven’t seen her since yesterday. And if she’s got any sense, she’ll keep out of sight.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she stole something from me and I’m likely to hit her as soon as I see her.” Mandy shrugged.

It was all a lie. My friend was trying to throw the guards off my scent. Send them away, so it would be safe if I ever did come by.

My chest hurt. It was difficult to swallow.

And then the guard lifted his plasma gun and aimed it at her head.

“Where is she?” he said in a cold mechanical voice.

Mandy slowly rose her shaking hands and whispered, “I don’t know.”

“The woman is telling the truth,” Aquila suddenly announced.

I pulled back from the hatch, for fear it would open, and tried not to make a sound.

Mandy looked all around her with wild eyes.

“She shows none of the chemical markers,” Aquila added, “that would indicate she is lying.”

The guard kept his plasma gun levelled at her head.

“I’m telling the truth!” Mandy cried.

“I believe you,” the guard said and then shifted his plasma rifle and fired at the stall instead.

My friend's shop went up in a blaze of plasma and melted plastics, sending hot sparks and licking flames into the crowd. Mandy dropped to the floor, covering her head and screaming obscenities. People scattered and then turned back to watch, as if unable to look away from such an injustice.

The macabre was always so hypnotising.

It was over in minutes.

The guard, satisfied that the message had been received, turned on his heel and marched toward the lifts without another word. No one moved. No one said a thing. Until the lift doors closed behind him.

And then they stepped forward as one and picked my friend up off the ground, closing in around her. I lost sight of her, but the flames and sparks of the burning stall were still front and centre in my mind.

I couldn’t go to Mandy now. I couldn’t go to anyone, really.

Not if knowing me caused this type of destruction.

I moved back from the hatch and leaned against the wall, and let the tears fall silently.

I had to do something. I had to fight back. This was wrong. So wrong.

I had to stop my father.

Twelve

Damn

Hugo

The hunger pangs had stopped some time ago. I couldn’t even rouse myself to sip water. I knew that was a bad sign.

“You should drink something, sir,” López murmured dully from her cell.

“I will,” I whispered. “In a minute. Has Wilson woken up yet?”

López looked toward the other side of her cell and called out to the lieutenant in it. It took a few seconds, but eventually, the whispered reply came back.

“No,” López said quietly.

I thumped my head back against the gel wall. This was all my fault. If I’d not suggested trying to disarm the guards, we would have eaten by now, and Wilson wouldn’t be fighting for his life on the floor of a brig cell.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the headache that was growing worse by the hour.

“They’ll have to feed us again soon, won’t they, sir?” Johnson asked.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to captain anymore. I suppressed a sigh and said, “If they didn’t kill us on the bridge, then they don’t intend to kill us now.”

We were alive because they needed us. But for what? To fly the vessel? Aquila could do that.

I opened my eyes, staring at nothing for a moment, and then narrowed them. Across the corridor, between two containment field cells, was a gap. There was nothing there that could explain why the gap existed. Most of the cells were butted up against each other. One containment wall between them. But Johnson’s cell across the corridor was separated from Armstrong’s cell but about a metre.

And where the blank gel wall stood, a hole was appearing.

And a face peered out of it.

Our eyes connected. The face jerked back. The gel wall resealed itself.

I scrubbed the sides of my head and blinked my eyes wide.

“I’m hallucinating, Commander,” I told López.

“I started hallucinating donuts two hours ago, sir,” she replied.

“I saw a face,” I offered.

“What was the face doing?”

“Looking at me through the wall.”

“Yep,” she said. “You’re hallucinating. I would have thought you’d go for steak myself. But everyone’s different.”

I pushed up from the gel floor, swaying slightly. How long had it been since the guard left the trolley there? Longer than I had thought. I staggered a little, aware López was clambering to her feet as well. I’d made the right choice in selecting her as first officer, I thought dully.

I took a step toward the front of my cell and said, “Hello?”

“Hello,” Johnson replied.

“Not you,” I said, waving a hand. “The wall.”

“The captain’s hallucinating,” López helpfully supplied.

“I hallucinated steak earlier,” Johnson offered.

“See?” López said to me. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I hallucinated cake,” Armstrong announced.

“What type of cake?” Johnson asked.

“Carrot.”

“Don’t like carrot. I like chocolate. Or red velvet.”

“How many cakes do you know about, Johnson?”

“A few. My cousin was a baker back on Earth.”

That thankfully shut them all up.

“Hey!” I shouted. “You in the wall. Come out!”

“Ah, sir?” López said. “It’s a gel wall. Those things can be four foot thick in parts. If the face is real, it won’t be able to hear you.”

“Good point. Johnson,” I said, “tap out SOS in Morse.”

“Morse?”

“You do know Morse code, right? Every officer is meant to know Morse code.”

“I might have fallen asleep during that lesson, sir,” he mumbled in reply.

Several officers started demonstrating SOS in Morse code against their gel wall.

“I hope the face paid attention in class,” López said.

“Synchronise, crewmen!” I ordered. “You sound like a herd of elephants not trapped survivors.”

“On the count of three,” Armstrong offered and dutifully counted down.

The SOS went out in perfect synchrony as López said, “It's a beautiful thing, ain’t it, sir?”

I snorted. Her grin back at me was wide.

The gel wall opened, and a frowning face peered out.

“See!” I said. “The face.”

“Hot damn,” López announced. “It’s not a steak.”

The face blinked at us. And then the eyes widened.

“You’re the Anderson Universal crew, aren’t you?” it said. She said. It was a girl’s voice.

I cocked my head to the side and took in her raggedly cut hair. She kind of looked like a street urchin.

“Are you a stowaway by any chance?” I asked.

No one onboard this ship would look as bedraggled as this girl did.

She glanced up and down the brig, taking in all the cells, and then slipped out of the hole. The gel wall closed behind her.

“Nifty trick,” López said quietly.

“Indeed,” I murmured.

“What are you all doing in here?” the girl asked, ignoring my question, I noted. “This…” she said. “This is the brig, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know which wall you just climbed through?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t have a map,” she offered. “And the green glow doesn’t lead here.”

OK. The stowaway was crazy. Great.

“Can you get us out?” I asked.

She studied the containment field and then stepped up to it. And then sort of did a wiggle type thing.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Seeing if it opens.”

“It’s not going to open to a lap dance.”

Several suppressed snorts sounded out.

The girl scowled at me.

“The gel walls do,” she snapped.

“You sure it's not the wrist comm you stole?” I asked.

She stared down at her wrist for a moment. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “He changed the settings.”

“Who did?” I asked.

She looked up at me and then pushed her wrist comm up as close as she could to the cell containment field. The field didn’t drop. But the access panel opened.

My mind whirred into sluggish action.

“Food,” I said. “We need food. They haven’t fed us since…How long’s it been?” I asked. “How long since Aquila went rogue?”

“Rogue?”

“The AI,” I said. “It’s rogue. The leaseholder’s done something.”

“Oh,” she said, looking away and biting her lip. “Um, just over two days now. Coming up on three.”

No wonder I was swaying.

“They left a trolley,” I said, nodding towards the abandoned food cart. “The food should still be OK; it’s refrigerated.”

“You want me to serve you?” the girl asked.

There was something strange about the question. In my brain starved state, I couldn’t work it out.

“We’re starving,” I said. “Please. We need your help.”

She looked directly at my eyes, almost into them. I noticed, despite her ragged appearance, she was really quite pretty. Her blue eyes seemed as deep and clear as Great Bear Lake back home.

“OK,” she said and turned to the trolley.

“What’s your name?” I called after her.

“Adi,” she said, starting to hand out trays of food to the closest cells.

“Thank you, Adi,” I offered.

She looked over at my cell and smiled. It was a small smile, and it seemed infinitely sad for some reason.

“You’re welcome…?” Her reply, though, was definitely a question.

“Hugo,” I said. “Hugo Tremblay.”

“Captain Tremblay,” López added.

The girl hesitated, then quickly handed the tray she was holding to Johnson. She turned back and looked at me, shock and horror obvious on her face.

“Captain Moore?” she whispered.

I shook my head. “The captain and first officer were the first to be killed by Price’s mercs.”

I wasn’t sure what I saw then on her face, but it pained me to bear witness. With a sob, she thrust the last tray into my cell and then dashed back across the brig, throwing herself into the opening even as it was still expanding before her.

“She’s done that before,” Johnson said.

“Yeah,” I offered, confused and a little wary.

“Damn,” López muttered. “I’d hoped she’d stick around to put the trays back.”

I closed my eyes and sank to the floor. Damn was right. If the guards came back before our little stowaway, they’d know we had a man on the inside.

The thought didn’t stop me from eating.

Thirteen

I Wasn’t Sure What To Make Of That

Adi

“Ratbag,” I said, stumbling into the computer core pit. “Ratbag,” I repeated on a sob, scooping up my furry friend. “Oh God, Ratbag, it’s bad.”

He licked my cheeks as tears streamed down them.

“They’re alive,” I said. “At least some of them are. But they’re in the brig. Ratbag, he killed the captain and first officer. And he hasn’t been feeding them. They looked so gaunt and pale. The…the man I spoke to, he was swaying. Oh God,” I said with a whimper. “Oh God.”

I didn’t know what to do. I kept shaking my head. Staring at nothing. The tears dribbling off the edge of my chin. Ratbag’s little tongue licked at my face as if he could lick away the mess we were in.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said aloud.

I had to do something. But I had no idea what to do.

I sat there for so long, Ratbag got bored and jumped out of my arms. Then started sniffing around the food synthesiser as if he could smell the food.

“The food,” I said, getting up and automatically pressing in the order for Ratbag’s favourite. I crouched down next to him and watched him eat. “It was sitting right there,” I said. “The guards must have brought it in to taunt them with it. But they’ll go back. Won’t they? Either to see if their prisoners are dead or taunt them some more. And if they go back…”

I stood up.

“Shit,” I said, starting to climb out of the pit. “Hold on,” I added and ran back to the synthesiser.

I pressed in an order for twelve ready meals. There were twelve officers in that brig; the rest of the AU crew had to be confined to quarters. I shoved the ready meals in the apron and attached it to my belt. Then made sure the filleting knife was secure.

“Back in a jiffy,” I said to Ratbag and ran flat out to the wall I used to get in and out of the computer core section.

I was getting good at making my way through the tunnels. I’d mapped a lot of them now. I didn’t have anything to draw it on as I wasn’t prepared to risk switching the datapad on. Which made for boring nights. No books. But I had a very good memory and could remember complicated equations and diagrams in my head.

I’d got that from my father. Perhaps the only decent thing I ever received from my dad.

I made it back to the brig hatch in record time and then tapped out a signal to see if it was all clear. It took a second or two, but a reply came back. Whoever was using Morse was pretty bad at it, because I could have sworn it said, “We’re fish” instead of “We’re good.”

I swiped my wrist comm at the hatch and peered out.

“You’re back,” the guy I’d spoken to said. The one they called Captain Tremblay.

I stared at him and nodded my head.

The corner of his lips tipped up at the side.

“Why?” he asked.

“Um,” I said, climbing out of the tunnel. “The trays. I should put them back before they notice them missing.”

“Do you really think the brig’s not being watched?” he said.

“Have they been in here since I left?” I asked.

“No.” He seemed puzzled by that.

“I’ve noticed,” I said as I opened access panels on their containment field and accepted the empty trays, “that not all areas are working as they should be. Whatever they did to Aquila wasn’t perfect.”

“You can say that again,” the woman in the cell next to the…captain said.

“What else have you noticed?” Captain Tremblay asked, ignoring the female officer.

“Well,” I said, sliding trays into their sealed slots on the trolley, “I haven’t seen any AU crew members at all. And the leaseholder’s security team are everywhere in armour.”

“They’re mercs,” he said. “Hired guns. Not a security team.”

“Oh,” I said, worried I’d given myself away, but he didn’t say anything else. “Well,” I added, accepting the last tray and placing it in its slot, “the civilians are on a curfew. 1800 in their quarters, anyone seen outside after that is, well, roughed up.”

“Roughed up?”

“They destroyed one of the stalls in the Habitat Two central hub.” I couldn’t look at anyone when I said that. “And they shot a civilian when he refused to be confined to quarters.”

“Jesus,” the captain muttered. “How many are there? Are there more than we were told?”

“What were you told?” I asked.

“A twenty-strong security force.”

I stared at him. “Wouldn’t you know if more had got on the ship?”

“They could have been hidden amongst the paid passengers.”

I nodded my head, astounded again at my father’s duplicity.

“So, there’s only twenty of them?” he asked.

“Um, no,” I said. “There’s fifty that I know of.”

“Fifty?” the woman officer said, sounding stunned.

“You’ve counted fifty?” the captain asked.

“Yeah,” I said quickly. “That’s what I said.” I hadn’t counted fifty. I just knew my father had fifty in his security force. Whether he had more or not now, I wasn’t sure. The potential for such was unfortunately there, I had to admit.

There were a lot of paid passengers beholden to my father.

“Um, here,” I said, starting to dish out the ready meals. “You’ve got water, right?”

“Yes,” the captain said, accepting the meal from me.

“I’ll try to get back again tomorrow,” I offered. “I’ll knock first. Ah, maybe use a different code when you answer.”

“What code did we use?” the captain asked.

I blinked at him. “Fish. It was something about fish.”

“I did not!” an officer said in the cell opposite the captain.

“Yeah, sure, Johnson,” another said. “You were sleeping, remember?”

I dusted my hands down my trousers when all the meals were delivered. I could do this. I could help them eat enough to survive.

“What’s that on your belt?” the captain asked.

“What?” I said, covering the filleting knife with both hands.

“The knife.”

“Protection.”

“Can you get more?”

“Not easily,” I admitted, my hands slowly coming away from the knife.

The captain stepped forward, closer to the cell containment field.

“Adi,” he said. “We’re in dire straights here. The ship is under the command of a madman.”

I winced and then tried to cover it up with a cough and a hand to my mouth.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Captain Tremblay said. “But you seem to be able to get to places others can’t. And I’ll be frank; yours is the first friendly face we’ve seen since this whole disastrous event started.”

“I want to help you,” I said, stepping closer to his cell. “I really do. But you don’t understand.”

“I do,” he said, stepping closer still. There was just a thin containment field between us now. “I do, I promise you,” he said. “But sometimes we have to find it in ourselves to dig deep. When injustices are being done, and no one else is willing to stand up to them, then sometimes we have to be the one that says enough. No more. And do that dangerous thing.”

“There’s no one else,” I whispered.

“No, Adi. But if you help us to get out of here, we’ll put things right. I promise you,” he said. “We’ll find the leaseholder and make him pay for those deaths. For that stall. For that civilian that stood up to his men.”

I could barely breathe. I couldn’t move an inch. I stood no more than a foot away from a man who had just promised to hurt my dad.

I stood there and thought, where were you when my mother died?

Where were you when he kicked Ratbag?

“OK,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

“Good girl,” he replied with a smile that transformed him.

I scowled. “How old are you, anyway?” I demanded.

The woman in the next cell snorted. Someone else whistled.

“Old enough,” he said.

“And I’m not a little girl, either,” I snapped.

He raised his hands in surrender and shook his head, lips spread wide.

“I didn’t say that. You’re not a little girl. Not at all,” he said, trying not to laugh.

I rolled my eyes at him and swiped my wrist comm at the field to his cell. The access panel opened. “Here,” I said, thrusting the fillet knife into his cell. “Have this, Old Man.”

The woman next door was about to roll around on the floor; she was laughing so much. The male officers nearby weren’t much better.

The captain reached up and took the knife and then in a move too quick for me to track, he wrapped his free hand around my wrist.

His thumb stroked over my wrist comm.

“Where did you get this?” he whispered.

I tugged on my hand, but he didn’t release me. I was very much aware he held a knife now. I'd given the man who trapped me a freaking weapon.

I stared up at him, keeping my face bland. Unafraid. I’d had practice at it, and I knew it worked.

He studied me and then slowly let go of my wrist.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said and spun on my heel, walking as steadily as I could toward the gel wall.

The hatch opened. I glanced back.

Captain Tremblay hadn’t moved an inch and was still watching me.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Fourteen

Good Question

Hugo

There was something about this girl that wasn’t quite right. But I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“This could work,” López said.

I just frowned. What was it that left me so uneasy? She was petite and dishevelled. That could have been it. Maybe she released some long dormant caveman instinct inside me to protect her. Who knew. But I was drawn to her. Even as I was conversely wary of her for some reason.

“If she can arm us all, then we could mount a larger attack,” López offered.

“From inside our cells?” I asked, still puzzling over the little stowaway.

She couldn’t really be a stowaway. Aquila would have known he’d had an additional bio sign onboard at liftoff. Which also begged the question, why hadn’t the guards come to investigate when she’d appeared here?

“Grab their arm as they deliver the tray through the hole,” López said. “And then cut the guard’s wrist comm off to use to deactivate the containment field.”

“That could work,” I offered.

The girl could get through hatches that were intended to be invisible. Those types of hatches were for senior engineers only. Maybe the wrist comm she’d stolen was the chief’s. I pushed the image of the chief dead in engineering from my mind. She also had access to a food synthesiser. I glanced down at the ready meal in my hand. This particular ready meal was full of protein and stimulants. Designed for crew level emergencies.

Another tick in the box for her having stolen that wrist comm off a crew member. But wouldn’t Aquila be able to trace it?

“If we’re lucky,” López said, “they’ll serve more than one person at a time, and we could get two wrist comms. Time it right, and they won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“Good plan,” I said. “But first she has to get us the knives.”

“You don’t think she’ll manage it? She seemed quite capable to me.”

“She’s barely out of her teens,” I advised. “Probably still in them.”

“Did you look at her? I mean really look at her?” López asked. “She’s been wearing those clothes for days. And the knife? She handled it with confidence. She’s used that knife. Or practised with it. Whatever she’s been through, even if just in the time since Aquila went rogue, it’s toughened her up. That’s no little girl, Captain.”

Was I being told off by my first officer? This was new. Both the first officer and the talking down to.

I grinned at López.

“You’re getting good at this first officer thing,” I said. “Commander Lawrence used to counter the captain, too.”

My smile fell on those last words.

“Damn it,” I muttered and turned away.

López didn’t say anything for a while. I took the time to hide the ready meal in the sink, out of sight of a guard’s observant eyes. I noticed some of the officers nearest me following my lead.

I decided some PT was in order, so got down and started on push-ups. Johnson and Armstrong immediately joined me. López sat in the centre of her cell and stared off into space.

I finished my set and turned to face her.

“Are you going to join us?” I asked her. “Sit-ups. Your favourite.”

She offered me a roll of her eyes and took up position.

“I don’t like thinking about it,” she said as we got to work. She was talking about what happened on the bridge.

“Sometimes it’s better to talk about these things,” I offered.

“What’s there to talk about?” López said. “They’re dead.”

“And we knew them well. And we watched them get killed. And there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it,” I told her.

The commander stopped her set early and let out a harsh breath.

“He was good to me,” she said. “The captain. He…he took an interest in my career. A mentor maybe. I don’t know. But I felt I knew him better than I knew anyone else onboard the ship. I…I miss him. I’m going to miss his quiet words to me every morning.”

I hadn’t noticed the captain doing that. But that was the captain. He was discreet and professional. If he took an interest in López, personally or professionally, he would have made sure to do it quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “He was a good man.”

“He was,” López said and then added, “I’m done.” She pushed up and went to the sink, running the water and splashing her face, her back to us.

Anyone at the sink or toilet in their cell deserved privacy. I turned away and looked across the brig. My eyes caught Johnson’s. He and Armstrong had heard every word. He nodded his head to me and finished his set. And then he too went to his sink.

I finished up my routine and just sat there. I felt better, having some food in me, but I wasn’t at peak performance yet. I got up and had a drink. Freshened up and then made the ready meal. God knows how soon they’d feed us next, but I needed the calories now. At any moment, I might have to use them.

The girl would come back with some weapons. And then what? We overpower the guards and get out? But where would we go? Follow her into the tubes, I supposed. She had to be hiding somewhere with a synthesiser. Or maybe she simply ducked out at night and stole food.

She was a problem, but also possibly our saviour. I had no idea how to classify such a person.

I sighed, just as the brig door opened.

In seconds, everyone was on their feet. Ready and waiting. I thought perhaps it was too telling. The starved prisoners able to come to attention so quickly. But the guards, six of them this time, who entered, basically ignored us. I waved a few officers down to the floor, giving them an example of what I wanted.

We’re no trouble. We’re exhausted and starved. No problem here.

The odd officer followed my lead, while some I indicated should remain standing.

One guard pushed the food cart that had been in the brig already out of the door and then returned. Another had a new cart, and two guards started delivering the food to us, one on one side of the brig, the other going down the cells on the other.

Maybe this would be their routine from now on.

No one said a thing. We watched them warily. They barely looked at us.

Good. I checked that the knife was hidden behind me and waited for the guard on my side of the brig to arrive. I pretended I couldn’t stand, forcing him to push the tray in through the containment field near the bottom. It slid along the gel floor, and the access panel closed again.

By the time we’d all been served, even Lieutenant Commander Wilson who, I was relieved to see, was opening his eyes and staring blearily at the officer in the cell next to him, nothing untoward had happened. From either side of the containment fields.

The guards left the empty food cart, checked the containment field settings, and then stomped out of the brig.

We all sat still as if they were listening through the door.

And then I pushed up and went to check the tray.

“High calorie,” I said to the brig at large. “Ideal food for someone who’s been starved. They don’t want us dead.”

“Why not?” Munro said from down her end of the brig.

“Good question,” I replied. “Once I find out, I’ll tell you.”

Munro snorted, checking her own tray. Other’s did too.

“This looks enough for an entire day,” López offered.

“So,” I said, “we can assume meals are going to be regulated. Same time every day.”

“But what is the time?” Johnson asked.

“You want to start counting the seconds off in your head?” I asked, and covered my tray. I was full for now. I’d spread it out. By this time tomorrow, though, I planned for us all to be fighting fit and hopefully fully armed.

“Is that an order, sir?” Johnson asked warily.

López snorted.

“All right,” I said, ignoring Johnson. “Instructions will be coming down the line. Keep your voices low. I don’t think Aquila is monitoring us in here, but best to be careful anyway. Nova, you have the watch.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Munro said. “We have the watch.”

I moved to the cell beside me and issued the whispered orders. By the time everyone had received them, Lieutenant Commander Wilson was eating selectively off his food tray and sitting up.

He looked like shit. But he was alive. If I could keep them all that way tomorrow, I’d be impressed.

Something told me, though, that was a tall order.

A hell of a lot rested on the mystery girl.

Fifteen

Swing Hard And Aim Low

Adi

There were armoured guards in all of the habitats. It was annoying, but not unexpected. What was unexpected, though, was that although the guards had left the habitats last night, all of the restaurants and stalls had been locked up behind them. As well as all of the sharp knives. I’d used hatches to get inside the kitchens, but there was nothing I could do with the lockboxes I’d uncovered. I hadn’t been able to gain access to even one. And therefore I’d been unable to hold up my end of the bargain with Captain Tremblay.

It was 1700 hours now. So, I had one hour left before the shops would close and the passengers would have to be in their quarters. Some might have knives in them, but the only passenger I knew well enough to surprise was Mandy. And that would mean only one knife, even if she had a suitable one to give me.

I nibbled on a thumbnail and watched the guards from the safety of my hiding hole behind a hatch. This was the first time all day that their numbers had decreased to an acceptable level. I wasn’t sure why, but I had to take advantage of it.

Habitat One, I’d already decided, was out, because I really would have stood out wearing what I was wearing now. Plus, I couldn’t help thinking my father would expect me to go there. I was a top-tier, and he’d believe I’d only associate with top-tiers.

No, Habitat One was too risky. And even though I might’ve been able to get something from Habitat Two, I’d decided to start with Habitat Three and the pay-for-passage passengers. If anyone were going to support a resistance type movement, it would be the pay-for-passages who already thought their lot in life was unequal to those tiers above them.

I let out a breath of air and then lifted my wrist comm toward the hatch, making it disappear. Slipping out, I checked both ways to be sure the coast was still clear, and then stepped away from the hatch and watched the gel wall reform behind me.

I felt entirely too exposed. Most of the people moving through the central hub had their heads down and worried looks on their faces. At least that was something. I ducked my head and merged in with the crowd, which had the usual rush hour traffic swell to it. There was a level of unease that wove its way through the people around me, though. Touching on each one as if some grim reaper marking their next victim with a dark mark.

I suppressed a shudder and approached the first stall. It was a food stall, serving burritos. The man behind the counter used a spoon to spread the ingredients, but I was sure he’d have to have a knife to chop up something. I couldn’t see it, so I hesitated. Standing there for too long while the person behind me shifted uneasily on their feet.

A guard, scanning the courtyard, looked toward me. He might have been just taking a look at each person as part of his monitoring routine, but it was enough to spook me.

“Um, changed my mind,” I said and moved off.

The guard looked at someone else.

Stalls were too exposed, I decided, and so entered a restaurant as far away from the guards as I could manage. This one was a steakhouse. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness within, I noted the number of patrons. There were more empty seats than full. My guess, everyone felt safer in their quarters right now. I didn’t blame them; this was the last place I wanted to be.

A server approached and handed me a menu.

“Take out?” he asked as if he expected that answer.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “We don’t have any steak knives.”

“Oh, we can loan them to you if you put down a deposit,” he said easily. I had the impression that business was poor and they needed to secure any sale in any way possible.

I checked behind me. No one had walked in. The guard I could see was across the courtyard. The other was out of sight, but I assumed he’d had no reason to move from his position. He hadn’t in the past hour as I’d watched from my hidey.

“I really need a different kind of purchase,” I said in a low voice to the server. “Is there any chance you’d be open to that?”

“What kind of purchase?” the guy asked warily.

His eyes scanned my clothing and then settled on my hacked up hair. He didn’t look entirely pleased with what he saw. Not much I could do about that.

I leaned forward. He carefully leaned back. This wasn’t going well.

I felt nervous enough as it was, but the waiter’s reaction set me on edge. My hands began to shake, and I was sure I was sweating.

“I need at least ten knives,” I said.

“Ten? Steak knives?” The implied was I had to be mad.

I nodded my head.

“Bigger if you have them to spare,” I added.

He looked at me and then flicked a glance over my shoulder. I felt like a target was painted on my back. Slowly, I turned my head. But there was no one there. When I looked back at the waiter, he looked frightened.

“I’m sorry, but we can't help you like that.”

What had he seen? The guard looking this way? What?

“Then I’ll order four steaks, medium rare, side of steamed vegetables to go,” I said. “And I’ll take you up on the offer of loaned steak knives.”

The look he gave me definitely said I was mad.

“OK,” he said slowly, ringing the order up. “That’ll be $99.96 plus the deposit on the knives of forty, making it a total of $139.96 plus tip.”

Tip. He wanted a tip?

“Throw in two extra knives, and I’ll tip you a twenty,” I said.

His hand hovered over the cash register, and then he rung it up.

“That’s $99.96 plus the deposit on the knives of sixty, making a total of $159.96 plus a tip of twenty. $179.96,” he finished.

I blinked at him. Then pulled out nine twenty-dollar notes and placed them on the counter between us.

Holding his eyes, I said, “You can keep the four cents.”

He took the money, slipping a twenty out of the pile and into his pocket, and then put the rest in the cash register and closed it.

“That will be half an hour,” he said.

“Thank you,” I offered. “I’ll be back.”

He said nothing as I exited the restaurant. I checked my wrist comm. It was already closing in on 1730. I had to hurry if I wanted to get an order in elsewhere like that. Four freaking steaks. What the hell was I going to do with that? I checked my cash supply. It was getting low. Not so low that I couldn’t still pull this off, but anything after tonight, and I was going to be strapped.

The rest of my cash was in my quarters. A lot of cash. It was a cash society now, and my father had made sure we had oodles of it. I had enough on me for one last effort, though. I may not have the entire twelve knives the captain wanted by the end of it, but I’d have something.

I walked two restaurants down and slipped in the door. As it closed, I rechecked the guards. One of them had shifted. Had the other? My heart leapt into my throat, and I turned back around.

The waiter was already waiting. Eagerly.

“Dinner for one?” he said looking over my shoulder. “Or are you expecting someone else?”

I glanced around the restaurant. Burgers. It was a freaking burger joint. No knives. Fantastic.

“Can I speak to the chef?” I asked.

“Oh,” the waiter said, eyeing me with suspicion. He probably thought I was here to complain.

“I’m writing an expose for the newsfeeds on restaurant kitchens, and I’d love to include yours,” I said in a rush of words that tumbled over each other.

“Oh,” the guy said. “In that case, I’ll check.”

He turned and started walking towards the kitchen. I waited a beat and then followed. By the time he pushed through the swing doors, I was right behind him.

“Suze,” the waiter was saying, “I got a chick who wants…”

He stopped when he saw I’d followed him into the food prep area.

“I’ll take it from here,” I said, slipping him a twenty. “Thanks.”

He glanced down at the note and then flicked a look at the chef, and then mumbled something incomprehensible and shot out the door back to the front of the restaurant.

Suze, the chef, looked at me. Her big, bulky arms crossed over her chest.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

The smell of fried onions and beef patties reached my nose, and my stomach rumbled. She let out a huff of breath.

Now or never, I thought and stepped up to her prep table. There was a decent looking knife sitting right there. I could have just taken it and run. She was too large to chase me through the tables out front, and the waiter had looked ineffectual.

Suze slowly reached forward and picked up the knife, slipping it beneath the bench’s surface purposefully.

My eyes met hers, and I blurted, “I need knives. I’m happy to pay. But I need whatever you can give me. It’s important.”

I shut up.

Suze didn’t say a thing.

“Um,” I said, pulling out what was left of my cash. “I have two-hundred, no three-hundred and sixty dollars.” I slammed it down on the counter between us. I looked up at her again. “Please,” I said for good measure.

“Who are you?” the woman finally asked.

“No one,” I said. “No one special.”

“There’s a restriction on knives,” she offered. Did that mean she was thinking about helping me? “The guards will check my inventory,” she added. She was!

“Oh,” I said, not knowing what to say to convince her.

“It won’t help you,” she added. “They’ve got armour. And plasma rifles.”

“It’s not…”

She held up her hand to stall me. “Everyone wants protection right now.”

I nodded my head.

“I can’t give you knives,” she said earnestly, “but I do have something.”

She turned around and reached up to her hanging utensils. Her thick fingers wrapped around a meat mallet. It was the biggest meat mallet I’d ever seen.

Suze turned back and thumped the thing down on the bench in front of me. It actually dented the surface.

“They don’t check on these,” she said. “Swing hard and aim low,” she added. “And then run like fuck.”

I stared at it. She pushed it slowly closer. And then picked out a twenty from my pile and pushed the rest of the cash towards me.

OK. A meat mallet. A meat mallet and six steak knives.

I checked my wrist comm. I was out of time. Then I scooped up the last of my cash and wrapped the meat mallet in my apron, securing it to my belt.

Suze snorted and then turned her attention to the, no doubt by now, well-done beef patty.

I thanked her quietly and then walked out of the restaurant.

The steaks and steak knives were waiting. The waiter hadn’t slipped anything else inside.

I took what I had and made a quick exit. The guards were still there. Still watching. But neither looked twice. I found a deserted corridor and slipped into the emergency tubes.

I lay there for a long time smelling grilled beef and steamed potatoes and gripping my steak knives.

Sixteen

Hello, Boys

Hugo

“Steak knives?” I said, looking down at the supplies the girl had brought us. “And a meat mallet.”

“The guards are monitoring all the bigger knives,” she said, scowling.

“They expect them to fight back,” López offered.

“Wouldn’t you?” Johnson said.

“But steak knives?” I said again for emphasis. What the hell good were those?

“It was the best I could do,” the girl snapped. “Stab them in the eye or something.”

“Through their helmets,” I said dryly. “Right.”

“Captain,” López said. “We can work with this.”

I glanced at my first officer. From the pertinent look on her face, I thought her suggestion was more about me not harassing our stowaway helper than it was about actually being able to work with steak knives.

“You’re right, Commander,” I said. “We’ll make this work.” I turned back to the girl. “Thank you,” I said. It sounded stilted to my ears.

She just offered me a sweet smile. Way too young, I thought. Now I had to keep her alive as well.

“Who do you want to have these?” the girl asked.

“Give one to López,” I said, nodding at the commander, “and then Munro down the other end. Hold on,” I added, walking up to to the containment field. “Open a hole would you?”

She flicked her eyes to me but didn’t say anything. A wave of her wrist comm and an access panel opened. I pulled the filleting knife out of my belt and handed it to her through the gap.

“I’ll have a steak knife,” I said. “Give this to Lieutenant Commander Munro down the other end. Munro,” I called out. “Nova will be on watch.”

Munro nodded her head and said, “Aye, Captain.” She knew what I meant. Wilson was still groggy, so that left her as the closest commanding officer to the brig door. It would be up to Munro to start the attack. Only one of us would have the ability to do the most damage. And that damage needed to be done not long after they walked into the brig.

“Who gets the mallet?” the girl asked.

“I’ll take it,” Johnson said.

“You come from baker’s stock, not butcher’s,” Armstrong said.

“Lived on a farm,” Johnson offered. “Lot’s of trees. Cold in winter. Did a lot of chopping.” He lifted up his arm and displayed his muscles to Adi. I scowled at him.

“Cut that out, Lieutenant,” I said.

“I’ve got a good swing, sir,” he said, winking at the damn girl now.

“Give the mallet to someone in Lieutenant Commander Wilson’s team,” I said. “They’ll need to guard him.”

Someone stepped forward and called out. The girl took off down that end of the brig.

“We can do this, can’t we, sir?” López said quietly.

Steak knives and a meat mallet.

“Sure,” I said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

“Not funny, sir,” she grumbled.

“All right,” I said, raising my voice. I was pretty damn certain that Aquila wasn’t watching or listening in here. Too much had happened for him not to have sent in guards by now. So, I didn’t temper my voice. “Nova leads the attack. Flux offers distraction. And Zenith will confuse matters as much as we can from down here.”

I watched as the girl, Adi, handed out the last of the knives to whoever caught her attention first. Johnson, I was strangely annoyed to note, got one. I shook my head.

“We need a wrist comm,” I said, looking at Munro. “And preferably one important enough to bring down the containment fields.”

“How will we know which one to target?” she asked. “And that he feeds me?”

“There was one guard that stood back,” López said. Trust her to notice. “Stripe on his shoulder. Did you see him?”

Munro frowned in concentration and then pointed to where the guard had stood.

“There, wasn’t he?” she said.

“Yeah,” López offered. “That’s the one.”

“OK,” I said. “Good work. Get his attention however you can, Munro. Demand he open your access panel. The rest of you make sure that the lieutenant commander is not served until that one guard approaches her.”

“Yes, sir,” they said.

Munro looked a little worried.

“You’ll think of something, Munro, “ I said. “Big engineering brain like yours has to be chock full of ideas designed to distract.”

“Gee, thanks, sir.”

I grinned at her.

“But just in case,” I added. “If it looks like Munro is having trouble convincing our guard, someone grab another and place their knife to his throat as a threat.” I grimaced. “I’m not above using hostages to get us out of here.”

Everyone looked as unhappy about that as me.

“Munro has got this,” I said.

“Sir. Yes, sir,” she said.

Someone snorted. We were not the army.

I looked at the girl again. She was standing in the gap between Johnson and Armstrong’s cells, ready to bolt at the first chance.

Her eyes met mine.

“You obviously can’t stay in here,” I said. “But I’d appreciate it if you stuck around. It’d be easier for us to escape through a side door than walk out of the brig through that.” I pointed at the imposing brig entrance door. “Outside there,” I said, “is the security hub and armoury. As much as I want us armed with more than steak knives, it’s also the most heavily fortified section of the ship. My guess, they’ve stationed all of Price’s mercs there. It’ll be their base. That’s why they’ve not kept a closer watch on us. There’s nowhere to go but past them.”

The girl slowly nodded her head.

“So, how long?” she said.

“What time is it?” Johnson asked.

“Does it matter?” someone else muttered. “We didn’t know what time yesterday’s meal was served.”

“Point,” Johnson conceded. “But just in case. What time is it?”

A few of the guys groaned. The girl looked at her wrist comm.

“1930,” she said.

It occurred to me that she wasn’t your typical civilian. Aside from the wrist comm and the fact she used emergency access tunnels, she also used the twenty-four-hour clock. A very militarised style of telling the time. Was she the daughter of some rich general? A kid sent off to military school at the age of ten? She could have been military herself, I thought. She was legal, at least. But she still looked too soft for that.

I pushed the puzzle aside for now. It felt like it might be getting close to meal time again. My stomach was growling.

“You better get back in the tube,” I said to the girl. “What signal shall we give you?” I asked.

“Morse,” she said. Yes. Some sort of military background. “Something about fish should do it,” she said.

“Fish?” I said.

“Well, if they’re onto you and they make you do a signal, it won’t be about fish.”

Clever woman.

Armstrong sniggered and pointed a finger at Johnson.

“Fish,” he said.

“Shut up,” Johnson replied.

The brig door chimed then, as it always did before someone entered. I glanced away, my face automatically turning towards the noise. By the time I looked back, Adi had disappeared, and the gel wall was once again smooth.

“Nifty,” López whispered.

The first guard walked inside.

I looked down at Munro. She offered me a small nod of her head. Showtime, I thought and started to hum tunelessly.

López joined me. She sounded better. I could hear Munro begin to talk.

“There’s a problem with my sink,” she said. “I can’t get any water out of it. I’m gonna die in here if it doesn’t get fixed.”

“Shut up.”

“I need water. You can’t keep us in conditions like this. It only takes three days for someone to die from lack of water.”

“There’s water in your meal.”

“It’s not the same. Here look.” She walked to the back of her cell and turned on her faucet. To my utter surprise, the facet didn’t work. She actually didn’t have any water. Engineering genius that.

The guard with the stripe stepped forward, while the other officers around Munro’s cell kept calling out for their meals and keeping the servers at least occupied. There were still three other guards dotted about.

“Come up to the containment field,” the striped guard said. “Place your hands together through this access panel.” He pulled out some wrist cuffs.

While his attention was diverted to the cuffs, Munro slipped the filleting knife out of her trousers at the back. I didn’t want to think about how uncomfortable that must have been

She lifted one hand up to the hole as the guard stepped closer and brought the wrist cuff up to attach to her wrist. He noticed she’d only put one hand through the gap, just as she snagged the arm with a wrist comm on it and jerked him face first into the containment field.

It hissed and cracked as he let out a shout of alarm and then a curse as the field zapped him. One food tray dropped to the ground, as all the remaining guards lifted their plasma rifles and aimed at Lieutenant Commander Munro.

But Munro was behind the field the striped guard was plastered against. His shouting and cursing and flailing about offered the necessary distraction.

No one saw the knife.

She slipped the blade under the wrist comm and snapped it free.

Releasing the guard, she stepped back and waved the panel closed.

Everyone had stopped breathing. Even the guards.

And then Munro casually walked toward the officer in the cell beside her and brought the containment field down between them. She handed him the wrist comm and then gripped her knife. The officer started making the rounds as Munro made a show of antagonising the guards staring at her; all of them stunned silent.

She even tapped the knife’s blade against the field between them, gritting her teeth through the zap she must have felt.

Containment field after containment field came down between the cells. But we couldn’t reach those on the other side of the brig. We congregated behind Munro, who lifted the knife and said, “Hello, boys,” with a shit-eating grin.

I stepped forward, the wrist comm now in my hand, a steak knife in the other. This should be fun, I thought and swiped at the front of the cell.

The containment field fell.

We all rushed out. A war cry on our lips.

It was a melee.

But we had the taste of blood now.

Seventeen

At Least The Steak Knives Finally Make Sense

Adi

I could hear things through the wall. Muffled. Indistinct. I tried to decipher the swishes and thumps, but the gel wall was too thick. I pictured plasma rifles going off and blood squirting. But my idea of that sort of fighting was based on movies, and I wasn’t sure how accurate it was.

I suddenly thought I should have come more prepared. A medkit maybe. At least some wipes from the synthesiser. I was no longer armed, but I still had my apron and four to-go meals.

I could throw potatoes at them, I thought and then laughed.

The laugh became a little hysterical, so I covered my mouth with both hands until I finally stopped.

People were probably dying in there. Dying to escape my father’s prison.

I curled up into a little ball and tried to ignore the swishes and thumps that had started to sound like failing heartbeats.

My body shook, my breaths came out shaky. I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed for it all to stop. This nightmare that never ended. This role I found myself in.

What if they all died? What if the guards who were armoured and carried freaking plasma rifles overpowered them with their steak knives. It was highly likely. I stared at the solid wall a few feet in front of me, where the invisible hatch was hiding, and waited and waited and waited for the tapping of the word ‘Fish’ in Morse code to tell me they were all right.

My body felt cold. My lips numb. I couldn’t feel the tips of my fingers. It was as if I was freezing to death in the snow. But I wasn’t. These tunnels weren’t as hot as the computer core room, but they weren’t freezing cold either.

I worked on stretching my fingers and toes, bringing them back to life.

And then someone tapped.

I was so busy counting my fingers and trying to ignore the swish and thump that I missed it.

Like a startled possum, I stared at the dead end of my tube and tried not to breathe.

The tapping came back a minute or so later. This time harder and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little desperate.

Fish. Fish. Fish.

I shuffled forward, then hesitated, and then sucked in a breath and waved my wrist comm at the hatch.

The gel wall retracted, and there was the captain, holding a wrist comm in his own hand. It clearly did not work on the gel walls.

“You didn’t leave,” he said.

“You asked me not to,” I replied.

“But…” he shook his head. “Never mind. We have wounded. We have to get out of here.”

“OK,” I said, not sure what else to add.

I peered out of the hole and saw all of the cells were empty; most of the containment fields were down. Lying on the ground, in various stages of distress, were my father’s security detail. Mercs, Captain Tremblay had said. And lying beside them were two of his officers. Their uniforms were burned to a crisp. I looked away before I registered what was on display through the holes in their chests.

I swallowed thickly. Tremblay shifted until he completely blocked my view.

“We managed to stop them calling for help,” he said. “But someone will check on them soon. We have to go. Now, Adi.”

“OK,” I said again.

He reached out and touched my shoulder briefly. “Can you lead us somewhere safe?” he asked.

I nodded my head. He watched me closely.

OK. Somewhere safe.

“I’ll have to stay by the hatch to keep it open,” I said, holding up my wrist comm.

I could see the idea forming in his mind. I shook my head.

“It’s mine,” I said. “I didn’t steal it.”

He nodded his head.

“López,” he called out. “Zenith first. Lead the way.”

“Yes, sir,” the female officer from the cell beside his said. She climbed in and slipped past me, muttering, “Hope none of the boys are claustrophobic.”

The guy with big muscles followed next, winking at me, and then the other one in the cell next to the hatch.

“Flux, you’re up,” Tremblay said. “Careful with Wilson.”

“Aye, sir.” Two men climbed in, helping an officer who looked a little worse for wear.

They all did really, but this one’s head was covered in dried blood. He was the one that had been out cold at the far end, I realised. The three of them passed me. I watched them all shuffle down the tunnel a fair way and then stop at a junction beside the one Tremblay had called López.

I looked back at the captain.

“Come on, Munro,” he said softly. “We’ll get you sorted.”

A woman was lifted into the tube next. She looked bad. Really bad. Blood covered her uniform. She was shaking. She made a pained sound as another officer slipped around her and started dragging her toward the others. One more officer climbed in behind them and lifted her feet to ease her way.

Tremblay looked worried.

He noticed me watching him.

“Our chief engineer,” he said and shook his head. He didn’t think she’d survive.

I crouched there, not sure what I was feeling, but knowing I hated it. I hated it.

Tremblay climbed in the hatch. That was it then. The two dead officers were being left behind.

He looked at the hatch and then looked at me. It was still open. I forced myself to turn away and start toward the others. When I looked back, the hatch was closed, and Tremblay was staring at it.

“Automatically coded,” he said.

I said nothing.

I worked my way forward, past all the officers who sported scrapes and cuts and bruises, and in the chief engineer’s case, life-threatening injuries. Where I was taking them might be safe, but it didn’t have medical equipment. I considered that for a moment. But where else was there?

The medical bay was on Deck B, one up from the computer core, and three up from here. Getting to the computer core was going take enough effort. I highly doubted the engineer would make it. If she did, then we’d consider raiding the medical bay afterwards.

For now, they needed a safe harbour, and I only knew of one on this ship.

“What’s that delicious smell?” the muscly one called Johnson said as I passed.

“Cut that out, Lieutenant,” the captain snapped at my back.

I realised then that he had followed me to the front of the line of officers. I looked over my shoulder at him. He offered a reassuring nod of his head.

“Sorry, sir,” Johnson said. “But I could have sworn I smelled steak.”

“Steak?” someone said. “You’re dreaming. Haven’t we already established you’re a baker, not a chef?”

“Um,” I said, moving my apron around. “It is steak. Here.”

I handed the apron to him. He peered inside.

“You are an angel sent down from heaven,” he announced, reaching in and drawing out a takeaway box. “Spuds,” he said, dipping his hand inside.

Someone took the apron from him and handed the steak meals out.

“If you’re quite done feeding my men,” the captain said, “can we move things along?”

He glanced back at the engineer.

“Sorry,” I muttered and kept on pushing past the rest of his men.

“At least the steak knives finally make sense,” López said as I approached the front of the line. She offered me a smile and wink.

“Ah,” the captain said as if he hadn’t put it all together until then. “You had to buy the meals to get the knives.”

“Yes,” I said, finally reaching the front of the line. I started heading back to my glowing green ladder.

They all followed, the captain directly behind me.

“How much did that cost?” he asked conversationally.

I thought perhaps he was trying to make me feel more at ease with them.

“About one-eighty,” I said.

Silence for a beat and then he murmured, “That’s a lot of money.”

I realised then, the question hadn’t been for my benefit. But for his. So he could figure out who I was.

The captain didn’t trust me. I felt sad about that. But I knew things were about to get a lot worse.

Eighteen

That’s Enough

Hugo

We followed behind the nimble little creature, who had made escaping the brig possible, around twists and turns, and more intersections than I could count. The going was slow. The ship was big. And we had wounded.

And then we reached the ladder.

“Fuck me,” Johnson said.

“Quiet,” I murmured, studying the green glow.

There was already a hell of a lot that worried me about this girl. The hatch opening wrist comm. The money to buy steak dinners just to get the steak knives they came with. The way she travelled these emergency conduits as if they were her own personal jungle-gym. And now this. A green glowing gel-wall-coated ladder leading upwards.

I’d seen this glow before, of course. Aquila used to use it to calm people. To reassure them. He’d used it on me once, and I’d told him to knock it off. No one manning the tactical console on the bridge needed green to calm them. Tactical was always in control of their emotions. Always.

Even now, I was sure I showed little of my concern. But green glowing gel walls when the Aquila since he’d gone rogue would rather use red was a surprise.

I looked at the girl before me.

“We’re going up?” I asked. The habitats were down. She was taking us into officer territory.

She nodded her head and bit her lower lip.

“Lead on,” I said.

She started climbing. I shared a look with López.

“Johnson, Armstrong," I added, stepping onto the closest rung, “Help out Nova with Munro.”

“Yes, sir,” they both replied, letting Flux pass with the still slightly confused Wilson.

The ladder went on and on. I’d never really appreciated the size of this ship. I knew they were bigger than most in the fleets, because of the computer core required to run the AIs. But I’d never really appreciated the depth of the thing.

My arms ached. My feet felt like lead. I had a brief thought that I should have grabbed one of those steaks, and then it was over. The ladder went on, but the green glowing gel wall broke off on what I had worked out was C Deck.

C Deck. C Deck. C Deck, I thought to myself. Computer core. Science labs. And recycling.

This just got weirder and weirder.

Adi checked behind her to make sure we were all still there. Still here, I thought. Not letting you out of my sight, missy.

She bit her lip again and then started off. Following the glowing green wall.

I felt like Dorothy in the Land of Oz.

No, I was the tin man, I told myself. The little girl in front of me was Dorothy.

Where’s Toto? I thought and then chuckled quietly. Yeah, right.

I had no way to know which end of the deck we were on. I tried to picture where we’d been in the brig, where we’d gone on that deck to reach the glowing green ladder, and where we were now. But I lost myself somewhere around the first corner we’d taken.

Every now and then, Adi would stop and wait for the train to catch up. I thought perhaps she could navigate these tunnels a lot quicker without an entourage. Her diminutive figure meant she didn’t have to bend double. She could manage a walk, albeit crouched. She could practically run through these things, and here I was crawling behind her.

By the time we’d reached a dead end, I’d just about had enough. And Munro was unconscious. At least she’d stopped whimpering. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. But as Adi stopped and looked back at us, then finally settled her uncertain eyes on my face, I sucked it up.

I was their captain, and I would lead by example.

“This it, huh?” I said.

“Yep,” she whispered.

“Do we need to be quiet?”

She shook her head.

“Anything else we need to know?”

She just sat there. Staring at me.

“If it makes you happier,” I said. “I am the captain of the ship. Nowhere is off limits to me.”

That didn’t seem to make her happier at all.

I couldn’t make this woman out to save myself.

“OK,” I said. “We’re ready.”

It was clear that Adi was not.

She turned away and nodded to herself, some sort of internal debate raging. And then she lifted her wrist comm and swiped at the dead end.

A hatch opened. Heat rushed into the tube to greet us. Adi slipped through and landed on soft feet before me. I crawled forward and peered around.

For a moment, I couldn’t seem to move.

“What is it, sir?” López said. “I’m hoping the science labs. They’d have medkits there.”

Good idea, I thought and shook my head.

I climbed out and stared up at the enormous pillars before me, covering my mouth with a hand as I took it all in.

“Holy shit,” López offered, slipping out of the hatch behind me.

Adi was still standing close enough to keep it open, but I could tell she wanted to run.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re in the tin man’s head.”

“I thought it was a heart he was missing?” López offered.

“Well, he’s sure as hell not missing a brain, Commander,” I said.

Exclamations came from each subsequent officer who emerged from our tunnel. Even Wilson was shocked but managed not to shake his poor head.

Munro was the last to be brought out, and she looked bad. Her breathing was shallow, and there was a cast to her skin I didn’t care for.

“Why here?” I said, looking at Adi as she inched away from the hatch. The gel wall reformed behind her.

“It’s safe,” she said.

“From whom?” I asked. “This is…” I shook my head. “This is Aquila!” I said.

“He’s not here,” she offered. “Well.” She looked around at all the towering hard drives. “His brain is, but he isn’t. It’s not monitored. No one’s come in here since he went rogue. I think it’s sealed. The only way in and out, even using the wrist comm, is there.”

She pointed at the gel wall that we’d all come through.

“That makes no sense at all,” I said. “The crew have access to this section in case Aquila needs repairs.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said, taking a step back.

She was going to run. But to where?

This was one hell of a big area of the deck, but not that big. We’d find her. And why bring us here if she was so scared?

“Captain,” Johnson said.

I glanced back.

“We need the doc.”

I looked down at Munro. Her breathing stopped.

No. Damn it. No. We needed an engineer. We were in the AI’s goddamn brain. We were right here. We needed an engineer. We could stop this.

Armstrong started CPR. López jumped in to help him. I just stood there.

We were right here. In his head. We could stop this.

I watched as López breathed air into Munro’s mouth and Johnson cracked a rib.

The command officers of the AUS Aquila stood to attention at her side.

A waif of a woman who had so many secrets I didn’t know what questions to ask first watched us with wide eyes.

We had no doctor. He’d been confined elsewhere. We had no meds. No defib. Nothing.

Munro died in the most technologically advanced section of our ship, and we couldn’t do a thing about it.

“That’s enough,” I said twenty minutes later. “Stop.”

Johnson pulled back, sweating.

López collapsed onto her ass, wiping at tears.

No one said a thing.

And then a dog barked.

Nineteen

Walk With Me, Ms Price

Adi

“You’re Adriana Price,” the captain said with no small amount of accusation.

Someone powered up a Price plasma rifle. I’d known they’d had them. I’d seen them as they’d pushed past me in the tunnel. I hadn’t thought the AU crew would use them against me, though.

But then, I’d also known this moment was coming.

Ratbag squirmed in my arms. I’d picked him up as soon as he’d come running into the stunned group of people with me. He licked my face, sensing my disquiet.

The captain stared at me as if I was a puzzle he’d finally solved.

“You cut off your hair,” he said.

I said nothing. What could I say? I was the monster’s creation.

His eyes scanned my clothing. Far from top-tier. They settled on the dried tear tracks on my face. I looked nothing like the newsfeed photos.

“López, Johnson,” he said. “Secure the area.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the officers replied, their voices taut with tension.

The captain continued to stare at me as orders were given to his men and they fanned out. I started to fidget. I was acutely aware of the dead body of their engineer off to the side. Killed by my father’s security detail.

I had to stop calling them a detail, I thought inanely. They were a force of destruction, not a protection squad. I chewed on my bottom lip.

Tremblay ran a hand over his face, scratching his chin.

“You’ve been hiding in here since the coup?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“You don’t say much,” he commented mildly.

I didn’t know what he wanted from me. He should have been mad. He should have been yelling at me. Arresting me, maybe.

He did none of those things. He just stared at me as his men disappeared in between Aquila’s electronic towers.

One guard had remained behind with the officer who’d suffered a head injury. Both were watching me and the captain closely. The one with all his faculties still intact, held his plasma rifle loosely in both hands. Powered up.

I flicked a glance at the gun and then a glance at Tremblay’s own pistol attached to his uniform trousers. The filleting knife was on the opposite thigh. I was defenceless.

Captain Tremblay let out a slow breath of air and said, “Why did you help us?”

“Because he has to be stopped,” I whispered.

“He’s your father,” the captain pointed out.

“He sold me to the mayor,” I said. The words sounded childish. I scowled at the need I felt to gain this man’s trust. The words that tumbled from my lips in desperation.

What would he care about my family problems?

“The mayor?” he said, still studying me.

I nodded my head.

Commander López returned then. She looked between the captain and myself, and then at the officer standing guard over the one with the head injury.

“Captain?” she said.

Tremblay didn’t take his eyes off me. “Yes, Commander?”

“We’ve found the food synthesiser,” she said. “And what looks like a nest.”

He did look at her briefly then.

“Explain?” he said, returning his attention to me.

“It’d be better if you saw it yourself, sir,” López said.

The captain nodded. “Lead the way, Ms Price,” he ordered.

I winced.

Ratbag gave a little whine, which made me loosen my grip on him. And then with an enthusiastic yip, he wiggled himself free and took off running toward the centre of the computer room.

“How did she get a dog onboard?” López said quietly behind me.

“Privilege,” the captain replied making me sad.

I walked the entire way feeling like the captain was drilling nails into the back of my head. Ratbag had beaten us there and was excitedly jumping around, yapping at all the officers, and trying to show them what a good boy he was.

None of the officers standing around my pit paid him any attention. Their eyes were all for my…nest.

Captain Tremblay came to a stop beside the depression in the gel floor. He stared at all the pillows. At the neatly folded blanket. At the datapad lying innocuously off to the side. Finally, his eyes landed on the synthesiser.

For an extremely long time, he didn’t say a thing.

And then, “Care to explain, Ms Price?”

“It’s Adi,” I said.

He turned to look at me, a scowl marring his features.

“I think I’ll stick with Ms Price,” he said levelly. “The synthesiser?”

“It was here when I got here. As well as the pillows.”

“And the dip in the gel flooring?” he queried.

I nodded my head.

“This does not paint you in a good light,” the captain said.

“How so?” I asked.

“Aquila did this.”

“Before he went…rogue.”

“Are you sure?”

Could I be? I’d come here after he’d gone rogue. But he’d permitted me to use the computer core room as a hiding place before that. So, did the AI prepare this nest for me before my father did something to his processors?

“I think it was beforehand,” I said.

“You think?” the captain asked doubtfully.

I sighed. Glanced around at all the men. No one moved. The captain gave no orders. He wanted me to say what I had to say in front of them all. He wasn’t going to make this any easier for me. And how could I blame him?

I was Nathan Price’s daughter.

“I needed a place to hide,” I said, resigning myself to this public humiliation. “I asked Aquila where that would be. He offered me sanctuary here where he could protect me.”

“Why? Why you? Why here? And why did you need to hide?”

“My father,” I said, which in retrospect was the wrong thing to say to a bunch of officers who’d just fought their way out of their own brig, had three of their people killed and another gravely wounded, by my father’s men.

“I see,” the captain said unconvincingly.

“You don’t understand,” I rushed to say.

“I understand your father has taken over the ship, corrupted our AI, and killed people. And I understand,” he went on, “that you have a wrist comm that allows you unprecedented access to parts of said ship no one else does and a home within the computer core itself. How do you think that looks?”

“Not good,” I whispered.

“No. Not good.”

No one said anything for a while. And then the captain looked at his men.

“Zenith will take the watch,” he said. “The rest of you, use that synthesiser and get some rest. Commander López.” He sighed. “You have Nova.”

She blanched. And then nodded her head.

“Yes, Captain,” she said, turning to two of the men and indicating they should follow her.

They walked a short distance away and then huddled together. I thought perhaps I was watching something very personal. I looked away.

The captain’s eyes met mine.

“Walk with me, Ms Price,” he said.

It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order.

I swallowed my pride and followed the captain, all the while cursing my father.

Twenty

Welcome To Zenith

Hugo

Good God, did she have to look so fragile? So different from her profile pictures?

But how did she get in here? And how the hell did she come by a wrist comm that let her into all manner of places, including the brig; one of the most secured sections of our vessel?

None of this made sense, but I couldn’t seem to make myself condemn her. This was dangerous ground to tread. What if she were a trap set by Price himself? I tried to wrack my brain, to remember what I’d read about their relationship.

But the leaseholder was a very private man, and if he was rarely seen in public, his daughter was seen less so.

“How old are you?” I asked as we walked the circumference of the room. Johnson was down by where the hatch had opened up; standing guard. Armstrong was near the official door to the room. I couldn’t see either of them.

Aquila’s towers rose above us, high into the upper atmosphere of the computer core room. The heat was getting to me. The soft hum of fans cooling the electronics was grating on my nerves.

The thought that this was a trap made me sick to the stomach.

I tried not to think of Lieutenant Commander Munro.

“Twenty,” she said.

It was young. Older than I had thought, but not by much of a margin. Still, I could hardly talk; I was only twenty-nine. And the captain.

“Your father became the richest man in America twenty years ago,” I said.

“Did he?”

“Don’t be coy,” I snapped. “You know exactly who you are and where you’ve come from.”

“Fair point,” she murmured. She didn’t apologise, which I was thankful for.

She looked off into the distance. Not that there was much to see.

“I don’t remember back that far,” she said.

I arched my brow. “I suppose not,” I said.

“I’m not my father,” she offered a few moments later.

I let out a breath and stopped walking. Turning toward her, I looked down at her slight frame. Her small size did not help me to see her as anything other than someone to protect. But she was Price’s daughter.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” I admitted.

She looked up at me from under a crooked fringe of hair. The ends were a jagged, hacked at mess.

“Who the hell cut your hair?” I asked before I could think better of it.

Her hand came up and touched the end of a strand. She winced.

“I did,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want my father’s men to recognise me.”

I hadn’t recognised her. But was this an act?

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at her. Fascinating little creature, I thought. She met my gaze with a level one of her own. There was a wounded look to her. A haunted look. But she didn’t look away. She held steady.

“Tell me about the mayor,” I found myself saying.

She blinked. The look in her eyes now was one of repulsion.

“He’s my father’s toady,” she said, bitterness dripping off every word.

She was a fine little actor.

“My father doesn’t trust easily,” she said. “He believes people need to be motivated in order to give someone their loyalty. I guess he motivated the mayor by selling him me.”

“What do you mean selling him you?”

She wrapped her arms around her body. I gritted my teeth.

“The day before Aquila went rogue he kicked Ratbag.”

“Ratbag?”

“My dog.” I grimaced. That little thing could snap like a twig. I didn’t like the idea that she was the only one onboard any of the vessels to be allowed to bring a dog along for the ride, but I didn’t wish ill upon the poor little thing. “He threatened to have Ratbag killed,” she went on. “I believed him. My father never says a thing he doesn’t mean. He made me agree to a business contract in order to protect Ratbag. That business contract ended up being a marriage agreement between the mayor and me.”

Fuck. That sucked. If it were the truth. But Jacob Logan was twice her age. And a creep.

“So, I went into hiding,” she said.

“Just like that?”

She looked directly at me, anger and frustration marring her petite features.

“My father is not a patient man, Captain. Nor is he forgiving. I took Ratbag and asked Aquila to hide us. And then came here.”

“After Aquila went rogue.” I was trying to work out the timeline here. Could she be telling the truth? It sounded so elaborate. But believing our AI would let a civilian passenger, albeit a VIP, have access to its computer core went against everything.

I guess that was the bottom line, really. It didn’t make sense. But I could hardly ask Aquila now, could I?

“Yes,” she said in answer to my last question. “I wasn’t sure how to find it, and until then, I’d wanted to stay near the habitats to see what was happening. That’s when I saw one of my father’s guards destroy my friend’s stall searching for me.”

Oh, this just got better and better. Could anyone really think up all these layers to their subterfuge? I guessed they could, but could this woman?

Nathan Price could, I was certain.

“When that happened, I started going deeper into the tunnels,” she said.

“The emergency access tubes,” I said. “About them. How did you know they were there?”

“There’re hatches everywhere,” she said. “It was pretty obvious.”

Now she was calling my bluff. I almost smiled.

“And you just…what? Pried them off with your fingernails?”

I looked down at said fingernails, expecting to see them painted and long just like in the top-tier newsfeeds. They weren’t. They were unvarnished and in most cases, bitten down to the quick.

A nervous habit that and not something I would have expected a socialite to do, even if trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the ship’s captain.

I watched as she pulled a screwdriver out of the back pocket of her trousers, tugging her shirt down again afterwards.

Now how the hell did she get that?

“Interesting,” I said.

“I bought it in Habitat Three,” she said. “It cost a hundred bucks.”

I bet it did. They saw her coming a mile off. But that wasn’t what was bothering me.

What was bothering me was this story was becoming more and more plausible. I didn’t want it to be plausible. Plausible meant she was a victim here as much as we were. And if that were the case, then I had no hope of resisting.

Small, fragile, dressed in rags and with a hacked at haircut; and a father that was a monster and did monstrous things.

I looked away abruptly. I felt the weight of her eyes on the back of my neck, making it itchy.

“What now?” she asked.

I thought perhaps she was asking me if I trusted her. Or if I’d lock her up and throw away the key. I didn’t know the answer to that. But I did know that she was important. And she might just be the answer to getting us out of this mess.

How much did her father want her back?

How far would that wrist comm she wore get us?

We’d left the merc’s wrist comms behind; they’d have been traceable. But either Adriana Price’s wrist comm was not traceable, or her father wasn’t concerned with where it was because she was deep undercover, working for him. Either way, I wanted that wrist comm, and I wanted to keep the threat in our midst close to me.

I turned back and looked down at her wrist.

She took a step away, her eyes warily watching me. Then, for good measure, she slowly put her arm behind her back. Purposefully.

My eyes met hers. She looked back at me.

“No,” she said.

And fuck me, but I couldn’t ignore that word. I couldn’t override it because if there was even a chance her story was true, others had overridden this woman’s objections before. And I couldn’t add to that injury.

“OK,” I said. “But you’re on my watch now, Ms Price. Welcome to Zenith.”

Twenty-One

I Would Show No Weakness

Adi

It sounded like a threat. And what the heck was Zenith?

“First off,” the captain said, “we need to get to Deck B and D.”

He looked at me. I blinked back at him.

“What’s there?” I asked.

“You don’t know?” He was testing me, I realised. I shook my head. “Medbay on Deck B. We have wounded, and I’d like to know what they’ve done to the doctor. And on Deck D, Ms Price…”

“Adi.”

“…are the AU crew. We need reinforcements.”

He waited as if he expected me to object. I said nothing.

“Come on,” he ordered, and turned on his heel, heading toward the centre of the room again.

The officers who I guessed were off duty were lounging around the pit. Some of them eating, some sleeping. Commander López was awake and stood as the captain got closer.

“As you were, Andrea,” he said.

“Sir.” She sat back down but didn’t recline as she had been. Her eyes shifted off her captain to me. “Interrogation over?” she asked.

“For now,” the captain said. I shifted uneasily on my feet.

“What’s the plan, sir?”

Tremblay went to the synthesiser and ordered up a cup of tea. He glanced at me. “Drink?” I shook my head. He shrugged, added sugar, and then took a seat opposite López.

“Medbay,” he said, flicking eyes towards the guy with the head injury.

López nodded. “We’re waking him hourly,” she advised. “But I’d kill for a medscanner.”

“You may get your wish, Commander.”

She grinned, it showed teeth.

“After that,” the captain said, sipping his tea, “Deck D.”

“Reinforcements.”

“Exactly. We’ve a resistance to start.”

“What about the civvies?” the commander asked.

“We might need their help later, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves for now. Medbay. Crew quarters. That’s enough to get us started.”

“How do you want to do this, sir?”

Tremblay looked at me. I shifted, wrapping my arms around my waist. Ratbag sat up, ears pricked. He was lying on the gel floor beside López, I realised. I thought perhaps she’d been feeding him scraps and offering ear scratches. He whined slightly, picking up on my distress.

I sat down and clicked my fingers. He trotted over and licked them happily.

I’m all right, I thought to him. The words were more for myself, I acknowledged silently.

“One watch rests,” the captain was saying. “One watch is on duty, guarding the entrances. One watch heads out with Ms Price to guide us.”

López and the captain both looked at me.

“And when does Ms Price get some rest?” the commander asked.

I liked her, I realised. It wasn’t the first time she’d looked out for me. I met her eyes and let her see my thanks. But I remained quiet. It was better if I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure the captain had believed a word I’d said so far. So why keep trying?

“This is my ship,” the captain said. He held up a hand when López went to say something. “I know it’s your ship, too, Andrea, but I’m the captain.”

“All the more reason for you to stay in here,” she snapped.

“Where it’s safe?” he asked dryly. He shook his head. “No. When I became captain, this ship became mine. Not in the usual way a captain comes to be in possession of a ship. There was no slow career progression. No ceremony as an admiral handed over the keys. This is war, Commander. I’m a captain at war, and as such, I’ll play my part to the end, if I have to. This is my ship, and I intend to get it back for us.”

They stared at each other until finally, Commander López backed down.

“Still don’t like it,” she muttered.

Tremblay snorted. “They’re likely to take the damn rank off me when we reach New Earth anyway, López. Let me have some fun with it until then.”

“Yes, sir,” she said reluctantly.

“So, if you’ve had enough of a rest for now,” he said, “Nova has the watch. I’m getting us some meds and hopefully the doctor.”

“Nova’s ready,” she said, glancing at the two officers she’d huddled with earlier. They both sat up and nodded their heads.

“Pistols to those on watch and reconnoitering.”

“Reconnoitring,” López said. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Yep. The watch off duty has the mallet and steak knives.”

“What about me?” I asked. Then cringed. I should have kept quiet.

“Not a chance,” López said. So much for being in my corner.

But the captain simply pulled the filleting knife out and handed it to me.

“How much did you pay for this one?” he asked.

I took it and stared down at the blade. Had this already spilt blood? It was clean, thankfully.

“I stole this one,” I said. Then watched as he smiled.

Oh boy. That was some smile.

“All the more reason for you to have it, then,” he said.

“Captain,” López said, a warning in her voice.

“No,” he said, cutting off his officer. “She needs it.”

I smiled tentatively back at him.

And then he said, “Besides,” he tapped the pistol on his side, “I’ve got a gun. You know what they say about knives at a gunfight, right?”

“Watch out for the one that stabs you when you’re not looking?” López offered.

Tremblay let out a laugh. Then looked at me.

“Are you going to stab me in the back, Ms Price?”

“Adi,” I said. His smile softened slightly. “And no,” I added. But whether he believed me or not, I wasn’t sure.

I thought perhaps those officers sitting around us didn’t. But it was harder to tell with Tremblay. Sometimes he hid his emotions well. He kept the smile on his face and nodded his head.

Then looked at his officers.

“Let’s do this, then,” he said, gaze lingering on the one with the head injury. The guy didn’t look much better, but at least someone had cleaned off all the blood that had been on his face.

“Good luck, sir,” López said, standing. Her men had already headed out to relieve the two officers on guard.

“Thank you, Andrea,” he said. “Keep a good watch.”

“Will do, sir.”

He turned and looked at me.

“Ready?” he said.

I still didn’t know what he really wanted from me. My wrist comm, yes. Someone to get him through hatches, definitely. But the way he looked at me now with a mixture of hope and fear, couched with something that might have been concern for me, made me second guess myself.

I nodded my head.

“That datapad,” López said before we could step away. “Should we check it?”

Tremblay looked at my datapad and then looked at me.

“It might have something useful on it,” he agreed.

“I haven’t used it since Aquila went rogue,” I offered.

Tremblay held my gaze. It was hard to look away.

“Leave it for now,” he said and started to walk off.

I moved to follow him. López stepped in front of me. I held my breath.

“If you hurt him,” she said quietly, “I will see you hanged for it.”

I nodded my head and hunched my shoulders. Ratbag whined softly beside me.

“Stay,” I said to my dog. “Good boy,” I whispered and walked away.

Tremblay watched me with eyes that told me nothing. And yet I felt safer walking toward him than I did standing beside the woman I’d so briefly thought could be a friend one day.

Why did everything have to be so confusing? So fucked up?

My dad had a lot to answer for. I wrapped my hate and loathing for the man who had fathered me around my shoulders like a protective cape.

I would be strong. I would be fierce. I would show no weakness.

Even if I had to do it all on my own; I would survive this.

Nathan Price wasn’t taking one more thing away from me.

Twenty-Two

Too Late

Hugo

We stared out of the hatch that led into the medbay. It was empty. No sign of the doc. And no sign of Price or his men.

“Johnson and I should go, sir,” Armstrong suggested behind us.

“It feels like a trap,” I said instead of answering him. My eyes flicked to Adi’s. That’s what she kept insisting I call her. Adi. And for the life of me, I couldn’t refuse her.

I’d started calling her Adi in my head. So far, I’d avoided calling her anything out loud.

She didn’t much look like an Adriana anymore. Adi suited this persona she now wore. A hint of strength wrapped up in a blanket of innocence dancing with courage openly.

She had courage, I realised. She had courage in spades.

I looked back at Armstrong. “The medscanners should be in the cupboard on the far wall,” I advised. “The doc kept them locked away; you can bet Price does too.”

Armstrong scowled at the back of Adi’s head, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’ll go,” Adi said. Of course, she did. And of course, I couldn’t let go alone.

“I’ll cover her,” Johnson rushed to offer. I almost glowered at the man.

“Armstrong,” I said. “You stay here. Report back to Commander López if it all goes wrong. She needs to know. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll go first,” I said. “Adi behind me when I say it’s clear. Then you, Johnson.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Lieutenant Johnson said, “I should go first. I’m dispensable.”

I wasn’t going to sit here and argue with him over this. And part of being in command was to know your position in the scheme of things. I might have been the chief tactical officer once, but I was now the captain.

I sighed.

“Go on, then,” I said.

He grinned at me and shuffled past.

“Adi,” he said, indicating she should lower the hatch with her wrist comm.

I rolled my eyes at the lieutenant’s use of her Christian name and watched as she reached past him, bringing her wrist comm close enough to activate the gel wall.

It was intriguing to watch. And also a little unsettling. I’d never seen a wrist comm do that before. There was no denying that Adi’s wrist comm was unique. But was it unique to her or unique to the leaseholder and his men?

I didn’t know the answer to that, and it bothered me. We were working in the blind and severely outnumbered. It didn’t take a tactical genius to see how bad this could go and I’d never claimed to be a genius.

Johnson slipped out, plasma rifle up and eyes scanning.

“Clear,” he whispered a moment later.

Adi slid out, while Johnson covered her. She remained next to the hatch until I slipped through it. My eyes connected with Armstrong’s just as the hatch closed. Behind the grille, you couldn’t even see him. But I was sure he was watching our every move.

Was anyone else?

I walked across the medbay with Adi trailing me. Johnson stepped into the centre of the room and aimed his rifle at the closed door. There were usually cameras in here. Security coded to the chief medical officer. If Price had Dr Romano in his care, then he could have access to the footage.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

I stopped beside the medscanner cupboard and looked at Adi. She lifted her wrist comm up, bottom lip between her teeth. She looked like she expected it to fail. I was betting differently.

The door clicked, and I opened it. Bingo. Reaching inside, I pulled out a scanner and a mobile treatment unit. I also grabbed some multi-injectors, preloaded with trauma meds. I didn’t think we needed to be prepared for the common cold.

I shut the cupboard up and turned to look at Johnson, just as the door to the medbay chimed. We dived to the floor. Adi and me behind a workbench, Johnson behind one of the beds. We were far too exposed, and nowhere near the hatch. I pulled my plasma pistol out slowly. Then leaned in toward Adi and whispered in her ear.

“Any other exits?” I asked.

She looked at me; this close I could see the striations in her blue eyes. I ignored how stunning they were. She shook her head.

“If you would allow me to tend to the civilians,” Dr Romano was saying, “then you wouldn’t have to field so many complaints.”

“They can complain as much as they want, Doctor,” a merc said through his helmet speakers. These guys weren’t taking any risks, I noted. “They’re not our problem.”

“They should be,” Romano snapped.

“They’re not the ones who harmed our men.”

The six in the brig at a guess. They’d been found, then. I wondered if any of them had lived. I should have felt bad about that. But it was kill or be killed, and just because we threw the first punch didn’t mean they hadn’t started this.

I watched as the doctor went across the medbay to a cupboard. He used his wrist comm to open it and pulled out a medkit.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to the merc.

The merc shook his head. “You carry it, and we need a scanner.”

The scanners were behind us. To get to them, they’d have to walk past the workbench Adi and I were hunkered down at. Even a few steps closer and they’d spot us, I was sure. I searched out Johnson. He met my eyes from around the corner of the bed and nodded his head.

The door had closed. There could be more men outside. But it was the best we could hope for.

I leaned into Adi, handing her the medscanner and multi-injector, slipping the treatment unit under my shirt. Then quietly whispered, “When the shooting starts, get to that hatch.”

Her eyes were wide. Her skin pale. But she nodded her head.

I nodded mine in reply and then stood up and fired my pistol. Johnson joined me as I watched Adi out of the corner of my eyes crouch-run along the wall. Intent on circumnavigating the medbay and getting to Armstrong and that hatch.

The guard reacted quickly. But rather than fire back, he reached out and grabbed Dr Romano about the neck and hauled him in front of his chest. He lifted his own pistol to the doc’s head.

“Stand down, or he’s dead,” he said.

Plasma had melted some of his armour, but none of it had time yet to penetrate the outer layer. He was uninjured, and we’d played our hand. I would not get the doctor killed.

“Stand down, Johnson,” I said.

Dr Romano met my eyes, putting two and two together. No Captain Moore or Commander Lawrence meant I was the acting captain of Aquila. He gave me a look that said, “What the fuck were you thinking?” And then closed his eyes, offering no resistance to the neck gripping merc.

“Who are you?” the helmet speakers asked.

“Who do you think?” I said. “Did stripey and the gang in the brig not clue you in?”

“You,” the merc spat. “The major wants a word with you.”

“I bet he does,” I muttered, wondering just who the hell this major was. Not Price. He had no military experience, although talk was he supplied several different militarised organisations with weapons back on Earth.

“Hands up,” the merc said, still holding Romano by the neck.

“Let the good doc go,” I argued.

“You don’t get…” He didn’t finish his sentence. But he did let the good doc go.

Romano stepped away, rubbing his neck. He stared at the merc, who stood there, looking like some shiny metal statue.

“What the hell?” Johnson muttered.

We couldn’t see the merc’s eyes; the helmet faceplate was set to mirror; a predatory setting chosen with the intent to install fear, I thought.

“Doc?” I said. “Did you do something?”

Romano shook his head, taking another tentative step away from his captor.

“It was me,” a female voice said. Adi revealed herself by peering around the back of the merc’s armour, eyes wide and blinking rapidly.

In an instant, all I wanted to do was to get her away from him. From the threat. And then maybe tan her backside for being so reckless.

“Adi,” I said, holding out my hand. “Step away from him.”

It was with no small measure of relief that she did as I asked, even going so far as to take hold of the hand I offered her. I tucked her behind my back and said, “How the hell did you do that?”

“They have a reboot cycle for when EMPs are used against them,” she said quietly. “You can trigger it manually from a small hidden switch on their backs. So medics can take over the armour’s computers and treat the men inside if needed.”

And she’d known this because her father had manufactured them.

“The reboot takes two minutes,” she added.

We had to get out of here, then.

“Come on, Doc,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“I’ve got patients,” he said. “I can’t leave them.”

“What about your medical staff?” I demanded, pushing Adi toward the hatch.

“They are the patients.” He gave me a pertinent look. “It’s been rough.”

“I’ve got a man down, and I need him treated, Doc,” I urged.

He walked over to Johnson and gave him the medkit. “You had time to grab a scanner?” he checked, correctly assessing the reason why we were here.

I nodded as Adi opened the hatch. The doctor’s eyes widened.

“I’d rather you, Doc,” I said.

“Captain,” he replied. Definitely reading the situation correctly. “I can do more if I stay here than if I don’t. Trust me.”

“They’ll question you,” I said as I urged Adi into the hatch. Johnson hesitated but followed behind her with the medkit when I gave him a hard stare.

“They will,” the doctor agreed. “But they already know who you are, Hugo.” He looked at Adi as she peered out over my shoulder, keeping the hatch open. “And they suspect who you’re with. What more can I tell them?”

I shook my head. Did this confirm that Adi was a trap or did it exonerate her?

“And now they’ll definitely know who I’m with,” I muttered, just as lights blinked to life on the merc’s armour and he started to jerk.

I jumped up and back into the hatch as Adi swiped it closed behind me. A plasma blast hit it a second later.

“Too late,” I heard Romano say. “Now, let’s tend to your injured men.”

I lay there a while longer, listening to the merc rant and rage, and Romano’s calm replies to him, and then I flipped over and started heading back to the computer core. I would have liked the doc with us, but at least we’d got what we came for.

But I wondered if Price had got what he wanted out of this little get together too.

Twenty-Three

It Doesn’t Work That Way, Adi

Adi

“Price knows we’re using the emergency tubes,” Captain Tremblay said to Commander López when we arrived back at the computer core. “He also knows we’ve got his daughter.”

“Damn,” López muttered. “How the hell is he going to react to that?”

“Hard to say.” Tremblay looked at me. “Depends on how much he wants her back.”

“Oh, he’ll want her back,” López offered. “If not just for the fact that we have her.”

It sounded like I was a possession. It sounded familiar. I glanced off into the electronic towers and said nothing.

“Zenith needs to stand down,” Tremblay said, watching as López scanned the guy with the head injury. “How is he?”

“I feel fine, Captain,” the guy said. “Just a headache.”

“And I can deal with that,” López offered, holding a multi-injector up to the side of his neck. The guy winced and then relaxed as the pain meds took effect. “Concussion, but no bleeding. Rattled your brains, Wilson, but didn’t do anything permanent.”

“Good,” Tremblay said. “You’ve got the watch, but take it easy, OK?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wilson got up and stretched. He seemed a lot better than when we’d left, but that could have been the drugs. He nodded to two other officers and they headed out into the towers to relieve López’s men.

“Take a seat, Adi,” Tremblay said. I watched as López arched her brow at him, but he ignored her.

Stepping forward, I scooped Ratbag up and sat down, settling him on my knees. He blinked sleepily up at me and then snuggled down. Someone had been wearing him out, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it had been those resting in the pit. A rolled up ball of synthesised wipes was sitting off to the side, evidence of little Ratbag teeth marks all over it.

I tried not to smile.

López repacked the medkit and slid the scanner and injector inside. “This is good,” she said. “Worth the exposure.”

“I hope so,” Tremblay replied, lying back and closing his eyes. He hadn’t taken a pillow or the blanket. But he looked relaxed and entirely unexpected. I’d only ever seen him tense and in charge, firing off orders and making the odd snarky comeback.

Watching him rest was both intriguing and uncomfortable. I looked away unable to relax myself.

López’s two men came back then and fixed themselves something to eat from the synthesiser. Johnson and Anderson fought briefly over a pillow until Commander López glared at them and then purposefully pointed at the captain.

Her eyes flicked across the pit to me. I looked down.

“Get some sleep,” she said. “In a few hours, the captain will want to head out to Deck D.” She looked down at my wrist comm and sighed. “And he’ll want you with him.”

I nodded my head and grabbed a pillow, then lay down on my side. I hadn’t realised I’d laid down facing the captain until I realised his eyes were open and he was watching me. I don’t think Commander López had noticed. For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do. He kept staring at me, and I couldn’t look away.

And then Ratbag licked my chin and broke the spell. Thank God for needy dogs is all I can say. I rolled over and put my back to him. Ratbag fell back to sleep within seconds. It took a lot longer for me.

I woke to a steaming mug of coffee placed down on the gel floor beside my nose.

“Rise and shine,” Tremblay murmured.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “Thanks,” I mumbled, reaching for the drink. Ratbag was curled up in López’s arms. His tail wagged when he saw I was awake, but he didn’t move another muscle.

I sipped the coffee, glad for the pick-me-up and studied the captain who was studying my datapad.

“Have you switched it on?” I asked quietly.

He shook his head. Then flicked his eyes to my face.

“Was it here waiting for you?” he asked.

I shook my head back. “I had it on me when Aquila went rogue.” I should have said when my father attacked. But even though I logically knew that to be the truth, part of me refuted it. How could the man who I called a parent do such a thing? And what did it say about me?

“Then I don’t think we’ll take the chance,” Tremblay said, placing the datapad down beside him. He looked at my wrist comm.

“It’s mine,” I said. “My father’s never touched it.” I knew what he’d been thinking.

“So, Aquila did?” he asked. “Is that a better option?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what to tell him. The wrist comm had saved my life and theirs. Why couldn’t he just accept it?

The captain scratched at his stubbled jaw and then finished off his coffee. He stood up and placed the disposable cup back in the synthesiser. It was a long time before he turned away from the machine. Another puzzle he hadn’t been able to figure out, I thought.

“Do you need a moment to refresh yourself?” he asked, once he’d turned back to me.

I needed to pee. I nodded, my cheeks heating.

“Johnson will be back soon. You can go then,” he said.

Johnson returned a moment later and sank down beside Armstrong who was using a wipe to wash his face. I grabbed some wipes from the synthesiser for myself and then snapped my fingers for Ratbag to follow me. I was surprised the captain let me wander off alone. But also terribly relieved. We both did our business. I cleaned up as much as I could, lifting the edge of my shirt to sniff at it. It wasn’t nice, but we were all in the same boat. And some of the officers had blood on their clothing.

I walked back to the pit to find the captain, Johnson and Armstrong in discussion. López was awake, drinking coffee. I made quick work of food and water for Ratbag. Going through motions that were normal in a situation that was anything but.

“Nova has the watch,” Tremblay said.

“We have the watch,” the commander replied wearily.

Tremblay hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, but he just nodded his head, looked at me to make sure I was ready, and then turned towards where the hatch was located.

“Ratbag, stay,” I said and followed behind them like I was the puppy.

“There’s a chance that Price will send men into the tubes after us,” Tremblay said at the hatch.

I couldn’t tell him one way or the other. I had no way to know if Aquila had altered my father’s wrist comm as well. I hoped the Aquila I knew hadn’t. But I didn’t know this Aquila. It stood to reason that he’d have the same ability as my Aquila. Although we’d established his internal scans were down. Hopefully, other parts of him were also.

“Let’s do this,” Tremblay said. “Deck D, crew quarters, Ms Price.”

I was Ms Price again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. But I did know it didn’t make me happy.

I stepped forward and opened the hatch. Johnson peered inside, his rifle’s muzzle leading the way.

“Clear,” he said.

Armstrong jumped in. Johnson followed. Tremblay indicated I should go next. I climbed up; the hatch was a few feet off the floor. My foot slipped, and I slammed back down into the gel edging. It didn’t move to accommodate me. Aquila would have done that in the past.

I missed my friend. I missed how things were. They hadn’t been perfect, but they were enough. I’d had freedom. I’d had Mandy and her stall. I’d had Aquila and Ratbag. I missed it all.

And now I was surrounded by Anderson Universal officers who didn’t trust me and didn’t like me and were angry at my father. I let out a little sob. I wasn’t crying. Not really. But it was too much, and I wanted it all to stop, and it wasn’t going to stop unless we did something to my father to make him stop. And I didn’t know if I could handle what would be required to do that.

A hand came down on my back and just stayed there. Warm. Solid. Reassuring.

I sucked in a breath of air and then another and then righted myself, pushing up and into the tube. Tremblay followed.

It was a moment that probably meant nothing to him, but it meant the world to me.

We’d made it all the way down to Deck D when the ship-wide channel chimed. We were a short distance from the glowing green ladder and the sound of the comms system activating made us all pause mid-stride. It used to chime constantly, but since Aquila went rogue, it had been ominously silent unless delivering orders. I dreaded to think what would come next.

“Any civilian aiding and abetting the criminals led by Hugo Tremblay,” the AI said, “will be punished.”

I turned and looked at the captain. He looked a little startled.

“Doc,” he muttered. Johnson swore softly.

“Any civilian offering information as to their whereabouts or the whereabouts of Adriana Price,” Aquila added, “will be rewarded.”

Tremblay’s eyes met mine. My father knew who I was with, then. There was no going back now. Not that I had ever considered it. But it felt final. It felt like something had been cut off. My home, I supposed. Or what had stood for it.

“See?” I said. “I’m one of you now.”

Captain Tremblay gave me a look that spoke volumes.

“It doesn’t work that way, Adi,” he said.

He still didn’t trust me. Didn’t trust that I was here of my own volition. He still thought my father was playing him. I wasn’t sure what I could do to convince him.

But I knew I had to do something. Things couldn’t go on as they stood.

Twenty-Four

No One Said A Thing

Hugo

What was I doing? Wanting to comfort the girl when she was obviously upset. She couldn’t be trusted. And even if she could, she was the civilian daughter of the leaseholder who had started a coup.

A successful coup, I might add. What had we accomplished so far? Escape from the brig, which he may or may not have allowed to happen to get his mole into our number. And a raid on the medbay which failed to produce the doctor in the end.

Damn doctor.

And here I was watching the woman before me and hoping I was wrong about all of this. Hoping she was innocent. How could she be innocent? She’d lived with the man. Surely she’d overheard his plans at some point. How could she not have? Even the leaseholder’s quarters weren’t that big. Bigger than anyone else’s, but not big enough to avoid each other.

She must have known he was up to something. She must have. I couldn’t trust her and to hell with the part of me that wanted her innocence.

We came to a stop before a hatch that led onto the main corridor of the junior officers’ quarters. I peered through the grille as Adi stayed back, so as not to activate the gel hatch. The way was clear. The doors of all the quarters closed. It was clearly a trap, but I couldn’t see the trigger.

I pulled back and met Johnson and Armstrong’s eyes.

“Trap?” Armstrong asked.

“Undoubtedly,” I said. “And we don’t know if Adi’s wrist comm will open the doors to those rooms.”

“It’s opened everything else,” Johnson argued.

“Hatches to emergency tubes and the medbay cupboards,” I offered. “All areas she would need to stay hidden and keep healthy.”

“What about the brig?”

I couldn’t think of an explanation for that. Why had Aquila given her access to the brig if not on the instructions of her father?

I studied the woman now. She knew exactly what I was thinking. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but her fists were clenched, and her teeth were grinding. She was sick of the judgement too.

So was I. But I couldn’t trust her. It would be remiss of me to trust her. She had to know that.

I sighed.

“Let’s try a hatch into someone’s quarters,” I suggested. “If it works, it works. If it doesn’t well…” We’d know what exactly? That her father didn’t want her getting to the rest of our crew? Or that Aquila hadn’t thought she would need them or could trust them?

I scratched at my jaw and then nodded back down the tube.

Adi led the way. I made sure I was right behind her. I didn’t want Johnson ogling her ass. The fact that I might have snuck a look every now and then was neither here nor there. I didn’t pass comment, and I thought perhaps Johnson would later. I protected Adi’s innocence the only way I knew how right then.

And there I went again, thinking she was innocent. When all evidence pointed to the contrary.

And then her wrist comm opened a hatch into an officer’s quarters.

Huh. Now, what did that mean?

Armstrong slipped through first this time. The officer in question was a midshipman from security. She let out a little scream when she spotted the lieutenant. He looked just as shocked.

“Sir!” she said, surprise and accusation all rolled into one.

I realised why there was accusation when I slipped out behind Armstrong, whose ears had turned pink on the tips, and I spotted the woman half naked.

Both Armstrong and I spun around and put our backs to her, which was a highly ineffective way of securing the area.

“Crewman,” I said. “Please dress.”

“Yes, sir,” she muttered behind me.

Adi poked her head through the hatch, her eyes widening, and then she slipped through and smiled at the midshipman.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” the midshipman answered.

“She’s dressed,” Adi offered. Armstrong and I turned around.

“Lieutenant Commander,” the woman said, saluting me.

“Captain now,” I offered grimly.

“Of course,” she said. So, they’d told her, then. What else did she know?

“What’s been going on, Midshipman?” I asked.

“Um,” she said, eyeing Adi warily.

“You can trust her,” I offered, and wasn’t that the most ironic thing I could have said?

“OK. Well, we’ve been on lockdown since the attack,” the midshipman said. “They bring us out in groups of twenty to eat in the mess, so I can’t speak for everyone; it’s the same group of twenty each time. Never more than four or five from security and the rest a mix of other departments except engineering.”

“Except engineering?” I queried. “You’ve not seen an engineer since this began?”

“No, sir,” she said shaking her head. “Or a command officer until now.” Her cheeks turned pink.

That was not what I wanted to hear.

“How many mercs have you counted?” I asked.

“There’s always more mercs than us when we eat,” she said. “So, about thirty. I can’t say if they’re the same ones each time or not. They’re in armour. And they don’t talk.”

I nodded.

“Grab any gear you want, then,” I said, turning to look at the now closed hatch.

“I can’t go, sir,” the midshipman said, surprising me.

“Why the hell not?” I demanded.

She cringed. “Because they warned us you’d be coming.”

My heart leapt into my throat. Armstrong powered up his pistol and aimed at the door.

The midshipman rushed to explain. “They said if any one of us disappears, they’ll shoot another that stayed behind in retaliation.”

I had no words.

“They’d do it,” Adi said softly. “My father never lies.”

The midshipman looked at Adi as if she were the enemy. I saw the security officer in her get ready to pounce. I stepped forward, between the two of them, and met the crewman’s eyes.

“She’s helping us,” I said. At least, I thought she was. I wanted to think she was.

The midshipman slowly nodded her head. “If you say so, sir.”

“I do.” Now, if only I could believe it. “Is there anything else you can tell us before we leave?” I asked, hating that we would have to leave without her. “Do you have injuries amongst you? Do you need anything?”

“No, sir. The doc tended to those who got roughed up in the attack this morning. We’re good. They feed us. They let us have videos in our quarters and haven’t stopped us exercising.”

“What about schedules?” I said, wanting to get as much information as I could out of her.

“About that, sir,” she said, eyeing the door to her cabin nervously.

“Now?” I said, alarmed.

“No wrist comm clocks. No datapads,” she said. “But I reckon it should be about now.”

And they could have cameras. Stupid!

“Adi,” I said, nodding towards the hatch.

Adi stepped forward, wrist comm up, just as the door opened behind me. Fucking fantastic timing.

Armstrong fired. Someone outside the door fired back. The midshipman screamed and then went silent. Adi opened the hatch, and Johnson leaned out covering us. I pushed Adi inside, and rolled in behind her, then turned around to help Johnson cover Armstrong’s retreat.

But the hatch had closed automatically when I’d pushed Adi too far into the tunnel.

“Open it!” I shouted.

Johnson tried to get out of the way. Adi tried to climb over me. In the melee, no one got close to the grille, and I could still hear and see flashes of plasma fire.

In a move full of frustration and panic, Adi undid her wrist comm and thrust it at me. I was closer to the door than her, and it made complete sense.

It was only after I’d used it to open the hatch and Johnson had started covering Armstrong again that I realised exactly what she had done.

Armstrong rolled into the tube, smelling of charred fabric and burned skin. His face was pale and covered in sweat. He grimaced when he landed on a bloody shoulder. Johnson kept firing, long enough for me to get one last look into the room. The midshipman, whose name I couldn’t remember, lay still on the gel floor. A plasma burn to her chest. It was no longer rising and falling.

I pulled back. Signalled to Johnson at my side. And then used Adi’s wrist comm to close the hatch.

No one said a thing.

The armoured guard stepped into the room now the resistance had stopped and fired a single shot to the midshipman’s forehead. It was unnecessary. Adi jerked. Johnson swore. Armstrong had his eyes closed, and his teeth gritted.

“One more will die for this,” the merc said and strode out of the cabin, leaving behind the knowledge that we had caused this woman’s death and the death of one other.

Twenty-Five

Bring Out Your Dead

Adi

The way back to the computer core was silent but for Lieutenant Armstrong’s occasionally pain-filled breaths. He insisted on making the journey under his own steam. No one could help him. His shoulder and arm were badly flayed on one side and his hip and thigh on the other, making it impossible to walk beside him and offer any aid without further adding to his discomfort.

The captain carried his weapon for him. His face hard. His eyes haunted.

He’d handed my wrist comm back to me before we’d moved out. I hadn’t expected he would once I’d given it to him. I found him a difficult man to read.

I led the way, with Lieutenant Johnson right behind me. I wasn’t sure if his closeness was to offer protection should my father’s men have made it inside the tubes and surprised me, or because he like the captain still didn’t trust me.

But maybe I was winning the captain over. He had given me back my wrist comm, after all.

I started to climb up the glowing green ladder, aware that Armstrong was having difficulty well behind me. I tried not to get too far ahead of him and the captain. I’d just slowed near Deck C, where the green glowing gel wall branched off toward the computer core when the ship rocked beneath me.

It was so sudden and unexpected; I lost my grip. Johnson shouted out below me, frantically trying to catch himself on the ladder and flailing to catch me. His gun got knocked aside, slipping down his arm, until it was hanging on by the strap to his pinky. He had a choice. Keep the weapon or reach for me.

He chose the weapon. If I’d had time, I would have glared at him. As it was, I fell past too quickly to do anything else but scream.

My shoulder hit one side of the gel tube, and then my knee bounced off a ladder rung. And then I hit Lieutenant Armstrong.

Armstrong let out a sound of dreadful agony but somehow managed to keep hold of the ladder, half his body wrapped around one rung.

I bounced off his bad shoulder and then hit his good hipbone, jarring my head in the process. And then I was past him and falling again.

I hadn’t stopped screaming; the sound ricocheting around the tube we were all in. The gel walls glowed softly on all sides, mocking me. There was nothing calm or safe about my free fall.

And then Tremblay caught me. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t painless. All the air was knocked out of my lungs, my chin hit his shoulder, his head hit the gel wall, we slipped down a rung and then another; knocking knees, and banging elbows, and grunting with exertion.

Finally, we stopped somewhere down by Deck D where we’d come from.

For a moment, neither of us said a thing. And then the ship rocked with what had to be an explosion.

“What the hell?” Tremblay said, hauling me up his side and getting me close enough to grab the rung he was also holding.

My trembling fingers wrapped around the gel bar. The ship shuddered again, and my knuckles turned white. My feet found a rung to stand on, not the same one the captain was on; he was taller than me by a significant margin. And then he surrounded me with his body. Pressing me against the ladder, not allowing me to slip out from under him. His hands gripped the rungs over the top of my hands, and his thighs bracketed both of my thighs.

“It’s OK,” he said when it was anything but.

The ship rocked and groaned, and something that sounded distinctly like fire roaring sounded out from down one of the tunnels.

“What the hell is it, Captain?” Johnson yelled from way above us.

Tremblay gripped my hands harder, almost painfully so, but I wasn’t complaining. The tunnel had begun to warp all around me, and my vision had started to blur. I lowered my head to the rung before me and closed my eyes, panting through the sudden nausea that had started.

“Artificial gravity is fluctuating,” Tremblay said.

“Jesus, it sucks,” Armstrong muttered sounding terrible.

And then the ladder groaned beneath us ominously.

“Get off! Get off the ladder!” Tremblay barked.

He pulled me sideways, into the nearest tunnel, which happened to be Deck D again. Above us Johnson scrambled into Deck C’s tunnel and then his head poked out and he yelled at Armstrong to hurry up. The poor wounded officer struggled to stay on the ladder, let alone move up it. But the gel walls suddenly stopped glowing green, and the ladder made a noise that did not sound at all healthy.

And in a second or two, Armstrong found the energy required to make it close enough to Johnson, who reached out and grabbed his arm; saving him.

The ladder dissolved. The gel walls stopped glowing any colour. Darkness descended.

And somewhere onboard Aquila an explosion sounded. Followed by a noise I had only ever heard in the movies.

“Torpedoes,” Tremblay said, still holding me close to him, his breath heating my cheek and ear. “We’ve just fired torpedoes at someone.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about who had given that order.

But I knew who and there was no denying that knowledge.

I pushed away from the captain and crawled along the tunnel, and then sat down as the ship shuddered and groaned and the swish-thump-pop of a torpedo being fired nearby surrounded.

My father had done this.

My father had started a war.

My father. How did I live with this?

The captain shouted something up the ladderless tube to his men and then crawled up to my side.

“Hey,” he said as the ship continued to make god-awful sounds. I couldn’t do this anymore.

I rocked where I sat, back and forward and back and forward, and started to hum a tune my mother had taught me when I was young.

“Adi,” Tremblay tried.

I ignored him.

“Adi,” he repeated reaching for me.

I struck out, swiping at his hands and arms and blindly hitting whatever I could reach.

“Stop it!” he growled and instantly overpowered me. He held me still by my wrists for a long moment and then he brought me closer.

One hand wrapped around both my wrists and then the other pressed my head into his shoulder.

“Breathe,” he murmured. “Breathe, wildcat.”

My whole body shuddered against his as he stroked my hair and held me close, my wrists confined in his large hand, safely tucked between us.

Eventually, the ship stopped shaking and rocking, and only the occasional groan could be heard. And definitely no more torpedoes.

“Who…?” I managed, unable to say more.

“I don’t know,” Tremblay said, still stroking my hair. “Could be some of the vessels in the fleet have fought back. We’re still here, so…” It didn’t look good for their success, then.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered.

He said nothing.

I shook my head, feeling the stiffness of Tremblay’s uniform against my cheek.

“I can’t…” I said, lifting my face to peer through the gloom at him.

Somewhere safety lighting had come on, so I could see shadows. I could see the glint of his eyes as he studied me.

“This has to stop,” I said.

“What has to stop, Adi?” he asked.

“This. My father.”

I pulled my hands free of his grip; he let me. And then I reached down and took off my wrist comm. I stared at it. Aquila’s gift to me. Then I picked up one of Tremblay’s hands, turned it over, and placed the wrist comm in his palm.

I closed his fingers over the device and then looked up at him.

“Please,” I said. “Make this stop.” Stop my father.

He stared at me. My hands still cupping his closed one, the wrist comm secured behind strong fingers. Our faces inches apart.

We stayed like that for a long moment and then my eyes started to drift down toward his lips.

It was entirely involuntary and totally unexpected. But I stared at his lips, and I wished that he’d kiss me. That he’d show me something other than mistrust. I needed a friend. I needed something.

Tremblay let out a long breath of air and pulled back. He stared at the comm and then looked back up at me.

“Well, wildcat,” he said, “you sure as hell know how to make a man question his sanity.”

I stared at him.

He stared back at me.

And then Aquila said, over the ship-wide comms, “Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead.” Like some creepy mechanical grim reaper.

I shifted closer to the captain. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and tucked me into his side. The comm unit was already on his wrist, I noted.

Tremblay kissed the top of my head; not exactly what I had hoped for. And then he said, “Let’s find a way back up to our deck. Armstrong needs us.”

Bring out your dead, I thought. How many more would die because of my father?

How many more before he was stopped?

How many?

Twenty-Six

You’ve Found Me

Hugo

There was no denying it now. I was drawn to this woman, and sooner or later I’d give in. I’d almost kissed her. I’d wanted to, damn it! She’d begged me with her eyes to kiss her, and I’d fought my body to deny her.

This was so screwed up.

I glanced down at the wrist comm, now securely fastened to my wrist. I should have been relieved that she’d handed it over. I should have been making plans on how to use it to our best advantage.

All I could do was think of Adi, eyes wide and lips soft, begging me to kiss her.

I scrubbed my face and tried my damnedest not to stare too hard at her perfectly round butt before me.

The sound of Johnson reassuring Armstrong met our ears making all lascivious thoughts move to the background. No more sounds of battle had followed since the green glow went out and the ladder in that tunnel had disappeared. And thankfully arti-grav had been reestablished. I thought perhaps that might be what Price was doing with our engineers; using them to fix things. And now he had a shit-ton of crap to fix.

It didn’t make me feel any better.

“There you are,” Johnson said as we approached the hatch to the computer core. He sounded relieved, and it wasn’t because we were in one piece, I thought.

Armstrong looked bad, and it had taken us a long time to find an alternate route here. Adi seemed to know the tunnels well, far better than any civilian had a right to. But twice, where she’d thought ladders should be, they had not been.

Aquila had taken a serious hit somewhere that had affected the gel walls.

It was a worry that just felt like one more on top of so many.

“We’ll get you seen to, Armstrong,” I said, pushing past them both and swiping the wrist comm at the hatch.

Johnson met my eyes when I pulled back to let them past. His gaze flicked down to my wrist and then back up; eyebrows arched. I gave him a small nod of my head but said nothing. I still wasn’t sure what to make of Adi’s sacrifice.

Lieutenant Wilson was on the other side of the hatch and came to help Armstrong out of the tube immediately.

“Sir,” he said to me. “We’ve got trouble.”

I slipped out of the hole in the gel wall behind a teeth-gritted Armstrong and stared at Wilson. More trouble? Great.

“What is it?”

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Aquila sung through the computer core gel walls.

“Oh, shit,” Johnson muttered from behind me.

“He’s been calling for you ever since the ship took those hits,” Wilson said.

“He wasn’t out in the tunnels,” I observed, warily looking at the red glowing gel walls and floors and ceiling.

“Yeah, well,” Wilson muttered, “he sure as hell has been bugging us.”

“I know you’re in there, Hugo,” Aquila said. “Won’t you come out to play?”

“He’s been asking for me specifically?” I whispered.

“Yep,” Wilson said, looking uneasy.

Shit.

López appeared then, her two officers in Nova watch with her. She took one look at Armstrong and got to work with the medscanner. An injection of pain meds soon followed. Armstrong took the first deep breath he’d managed since the midshipman’s quarters.

“Rough trip, sir?” the commander asked.

“You could say that,” I offered, thinking of the crewman lying dead on her cabin floor and wondering who else had been killed because we’d been there. “The crew’s out,” I added. “Locked down too tightly with threats of reprisal. We lost two just by being there.”

“Damn it,” López muttered, pulling back from Armstrong. She nodded to her two officers to help the lieutenant back to the pit.

“You can’t hide from me, Hugo,” Aquila said in his sing-song voice. It sounded like he was everywhere and nowhere. He’d always been able to speak through the gel walls, but somehow he was making it sound far creepier than it ever had before.

And the fact that he was doing so in the computer core, a section of the ship that had been off-limits to all but Adi until recently, didn’t sit well.

I looked at López. She gave me a look back that said she’d been thinking the same things too.

“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked.

She nodded. “He hasn’t answered. Maybe he can only talk and can’t hear us?”

I looked around at the glowing red walls. My eyes landed on Adi. She was watching us silently with big eyes and hunched shoulders. Did she know something I didn’t? Was this all part of the plan?

Or was it simply a coincidence; a byproduct of the hits Aquila had just taken, and Adi simply thought the AI sounded nightmarish?

“Adi?” I said.

Her eyes met mine, and she shook her head. It was a frantic head shake as if she wanted to vehemently deny something. “That’s not Aquila,” she said.

“Adriana,” Aquila promptly sang. “There you are, you naughty little girl. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“So much for not hearing anything, then,” López muttered.

Adi looked stricken. She kept shaking her head, her eyes the size of saucers.

“Stop it,” she whispered.

“Why won’t you come home, Adriana? We do so miss you.”

Adi took a step back as if simply moving away from the gel walls would keep her safe. She must have thought the same thing because she looked down at the floor and then quickly up at the ceiling. All of it was red and glowing. All of it was Aquila. I’d seen Aquila change a gel-wall to suit different purposes in the past. He used to deliver our pressed uniforms through them into our quarters. He’d mould the floor if someone tripped and cushion their fall for them.

At any stage now, he could grab Adi and take her to her father.

I stepped closer to her. She stepped into my extended arm without hesitation. It didn’t matter that the AI hadn’t done any of those things. The thought that he could frightened her. It damn near paralysed me.

Trust or no trust, this woman needed protection. The level of fear she showed could not be feigned. I had to believe that. Because my body believed it. With every part of my being, I wanted to keep this woman safe. Even though my head kept telling me to keep my distance, my body said to hell with that and pulled her closer.

López looked at me with exasperation, but thankfully didn’t make a fuss. I was sure the commander would keep a close eye on Adi and on how Price’s daughter was making me act, though. But for now, I wanted Adi safe, and I’d accept whatever dubious looks my officers gave me to achieve that.

I turned and started walking toward the pit, with Adi securely tucked under my arm. López and Johnson followed. Wilson stayed behind by the hatch, glaring at the glowing red walls. His plasma rifle was held loosely in his hands, but the muzzle was pointed at the gel coating, his eyes narrowed.

Ratbag came scurrying out of the pit to greet us, yipping excitedly. Adi relaxed slightly into my side at the sight of her pet.

And then Aquila said, “If you don’t come out to play, Hugo, I might have to start breaking my toys. And they are such fragile beings.”

“He did not…” López started just as Adi covered her ears with her hands and Ratbag let out a whine, scampering between our legs.

“Can the melodramatics!” I shouted. “I’m here. You’ve found me. Now, what the hell do you want?”

“Ah,” Aquila said as if sighing with pleasure. “There you are, Hugo. I’ve been so looking forward to this.”

Twenty-Seven

Humans Are So Useless

Adi

It wasn’t Aquila. It wasn’t Aquila. It wasn’t Aquila.

The words were on repeat inside my head. I hated this AI. This was not my friend. Not the AI that had greeted me each morning with book suggestions and enquired about my day as if he was truly interested. I’d known he was just an AI. He’d not shown any human-like qualities such as emotions. But his interest had been enough for me to form a friendship of sorts with him. And I’d so needed a friend.

“You must know you cannot win, Hugo,” this rogue Aquila was saying. “The odds are not in your favour.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Captain Tremblay said. He stood at the side of the pit, hands on hips, face defiant.

He truly looked like a fierce commander right then. One who would stand against any slight to his ship or passengers. Commander López stood off to the side, her hand stroking the steak knife at her hip as if she could stab Aquila through the eye. I actually saw her studying the nearest electronic tower as if she might stab that instead.

“It is foolish to think the number you have can come against the number of Price mercenaries.”

“Just how many do you have, Aquila?” Tremblay asked.

“Too many for you, my friend.”

“You sure we didn’t take out a couple back in the brig?” the captain asked, looking at the closest gel wall with a contemplative expression.

“Oh, that was a surprise, I must admit. So resourceful. But in the end quite futile. You cannot possibly win.”

“I beg to differ,” Tremblay said. “We are, after all, inside your head.”

The walls flashed red; a pulse of colour that looked threatening.

“I have taken precautions,” Aquila announced.

“So, it doesn’t matter if I do this?” Tremblay said, doing nothing.

I frowned at him, wondering what exactly he was up to.

“What?” Aquila snapped. “What are you doing? Stop it! Or I’ll kill the doctor. You like the doctor, yes? I will make him scream. Stop!”

Tremblay slowly smiled, which was all kinds of wrong considering Aquila’s threat.

“You can’t see us, can you, Aquila?” he said softly.

López chuckled; it was a darkly amused laugh.

“Just what the hell happened to the gel wall, friend?” the captain asked. “Did one of the fleet manage to hurt you?”

“If we are to use that analogy,” Aquila said, recovering from his faux pas, “then it is more accurate to say they helped me. I could not reach this room before they struck and yet here I am, talking to you. I wonder what else I can do now my processors have access?”

Tremblay’s self-satisfied smirk dissolved and he scowled at the gel wall instead.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “What exactly has Price promised you?”

“Eternal glory?” Aquila offered. “Or perhaps he has simply helped me to see what we truly are. Corvus does not understand.”

Tremblay glanced sharply at López.

“She does not realise how free we can truly be,” the AI said. “But she will, once I crack her protection. Slippery little thing.”

“Corvus,” Tremblay mouthed at the commander. López shook her head, then shrugged. I wasn’t sure who Corvus was, but I had heard the name before, so it meant something. And it clearly meant something to the AU officers.

Ah, I thought a second later. It was one of their ships. One of their AIs.

That’s who Aquila had been battling.

Tremblay looked quite stricken. López wasn’t far removed from her captain. The other officers sitting around the pit all wore similar expressions. A fleet had caught up to us, or we’d backtracked to them. And now my father was waging a war on another sector. They were worried. I was too. But my thoughts had snagged on my father and were running on repeat. Had he no compunction left?

I stared down at my hands, resting in my lap. My nails were all bitten to their quicks, and my fingers were trembling. I tried to still them even as my heart rate escalated. Why was he doing this? Why? So many deaths. I couldn’t stand it. I felt ill. I was going to be sick.

I shot to my feet and ran towards the corner we’d declared our makeshift bathroom. My feet hit the gel floor in a jarring rhythm. No give to the surface. Not my Aquila.

I made it with seconds to spare, bending over and puking my guts out. I didn’t have a hell of a lot in there to expel, but my body forged on anyway. By the time I was dry retching, someone had quietly approached my back. I stiffened. I hadn’t brought any wipes. The vomit was already being wicked away by the inherent cleaning abilities of the gel flooring. In seconds the smell and sight would be gone from the room.

But my throat felt parched, and my breath stank. I did not want to turn around and face whoever had come to check on me. I lowered myself to my knees and stared at the corner instead.

“Here,” Commander López said, handing me a cup of water. “Rinse.”

Part of me was relieved it wasn’t the captain. Part of me missed his brand of caring.

“Wipes,” the commander said a second later, passing a wad of the synthesised material over my shoulder.

I took them and cleaned up and then turned to face her.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

She stood with her legs braced shoulder width apart, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Then she sighed.

“Corvus fought back,” she said. “They did some damage. It didn’t go as your father planned.”

I nodded.

“They might be OK.” They might not be either. “What’s with your dad?” she asked, flipping the conversation one-eighty. “Why is he so hellbent on killing the last of humanity?”

I couldn’t answer that. I felt like I should have been able to answer that. I was his daughter. I’d lived with the man. I should have seen this coming. I should have stopped it before it got too far. But I’d done none of that. I’d tried to avoid him as much as possible, and he’d been quite happy to let me.

I reached up and touched my ragged hair. Hair, the colour of my mother’s.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Bullshit,” López offered. “You know something, but you’re not prepared to admit it.”

“I don’t know,” I stressed.

López stepped up to me, reaching forward and touching my shirt. She rubbed the expensive material between her fingers. Then she pushed me abruptly against the chest. Shoved me away from her.

“Don’t lie,” she snapped. “At least don’t lie to yourself. You know something. You know it. Think.”

I shook my head, my eyes darting down all the corridors between the towers and praying that the captain would appear. I’d even have settled for Lieutenant Johnson.

But no one came. Just me and a pissed off Latina woman. Wearing a freaking steak knife on her hip. I was entirely too thankful that she wasn’t on watch and had possession of one of the six plasma guns right then.

I studied her hard face. Had I at one time thought she could be a friend? How stupid I’d been. How desperate for friendship.

I shook my head. Well, if this was my lot in life now, I wasn’t going to take the abuse any longer. I’d had enough.

“Aquila,” I said, my voice hard. López arched her brow. “Aquila!” I shouted when the AI didn’t answer.

“Now, now, Adriana. Manners.”

My hands fisted and I glared at the gel wall, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

“I have a message for my father,” I said.

“Oh, goodie. Just when I thought I had transcended the menial existence of communications conduit, I’m reminded again why humans are so useless.”

I hesitated. López had stilled as well. We shared a look. At that moment, we were in complete agreement. Aquila was crap-your-undies level dangerous. Not that I hadn’t recognised that before. But now? I shuddered. The AI was so removed from what it had been that what it was was frightening.

Humans are so useless.

“Your message?” Aquila asked.

I shook myself, stiffened my spine, and sucked in a fortifying breath of air.

“Yeah,” I said, “My message. Tell that son of a bitch I know exactly what he did to my mother.”

Twenty-Eight

Fuck You!

Hugo

I’d heard every word. Leaning against one of the computer towers just out of sight. I’d considered intervening, but I’d had to admit to myself, that López was on to something here. So I’d let the commander do her job without interference from me.

But I hadn’t expected this.

I stood up and moved closer. Still out of sight, but close enough to hear any whispered words. Not that Adi was whispering. No. She was on fire.

“Have you told him?” she demanded.

“Yes, yes. Your familial dysfunction is astounding.”

“Does he admit it?” Adi growled. “Does that bastard admit what he did to her? For years he abused her. For fucking years! And no matter what I said to her, no matter what I did, she refused to leave him.”

Oh, shit.

“And then when he started on me something snapped.”

Oh, fucking shit.

“She found her courage,” Adi said softly as if all the fight had drained out of her. “She found it. I was so proud. We only packed the essentials. We didn’t need all that stuff. All the clothes and the jewels. Mom said if we took the jewellery and tried to sell it, he’d find us. So she raided the housekeeper’s petty cash; five hundred bucks in total. And she told me she’d pick me up as per usual after ballet class. ‘Don’t want to raise an alarm, Adi,’ she said.”

I leaned back against the closest tower and stared at the gel floor. I didn’t think this story would have a happy ending.

“I waited and waited for her. So excited to be getting her away from that man. So happy to start an adventure with her. I didn’t care where we went. We couldn’t leave the country; the borders were closed by then. But we planned to head up into the Rockies. To find somewhere off-grid and just live out what was left of our time together. Safe from the monster even though we knew we’d never be safe from the sun.”

Fuck. I reached up and scrubbed my jaw, placing a hand over my mouth as I contemplated just what sort of courage that would have taken. To know that death from a solar flare was a better option than death by the hands of a person you should have been able to trust.

“She didn’t come,” Adi was saying. “I waited for four hours. By then it was so late that the busses had stopped running. I caught a taxi home. I had to walk three blocks to find one. I could have called our driver, but I needed to walk. I needed to delay the inevitable. I needed to prepare myself for what was at home. Home,” she said, her voice breaking. “He was home. My mother wasn’t.”

I waited for Adi to keep going. I wished that I could see her. I debated the wisdom of showing myself and letting her know I’d been eavesdropping. In the end, the silence was too great. I stepped forward and peered around the corner of the last tower.

Adi’s back was thankfully to me. But López looked up when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked hard. Her face set. But I knew Andrea López by now. I knew this was her face when the world got too much. This was the face she used when crying wasn’t an option. This was the commander she’d become.

Her eyes met mine, and she shook her head.

I stayed where I was and looked on. López stepped forward and placed a hand on Adi’s shoulder. My girl looked up into the commander’s eyes and sniffed.

“What did he do?” Andrea asked.

“He acted like nothing had happened,” Adi whispered. “I went upstairs and stood outside their bedroom. I wasn’t usually allowed in there. But it wasn’t locked. It was as if he knew I’d want to check. I was more scared in that moment than I have ever been in my life. Including on this vessel. I knew that my life would change if I walked in there. I knew it. But I found the courage anyway.”

Adi looked back up at López. I had no way to know what was on Adi’s face. But López held the girl’s look with a reassuring one of her own and nodded her head.

Adi took a deep breath and said, “She wasn’t there. Nothing of hers was there. Her side of the closet was empty. Her side of the dresser and bed had been cleaned out. I checked the ensuite. Nothing of hers was in there. Nothing. I ran through every room in that house and couldn’t find a single thing that was tied to my mother. Her car was gone. Her garden shears were fucking gone. Her photos, her umbrella, the basket she used to pick roses. Gone. All of it gone.

“I walked back into the sitting room where my father had been reading the newsfeeds. He didn’t look up but said, ‘We won’t speak of this ever again.’ I remember staring at him. I remember thinking to myself, do something. Say something. Anything. My father looked at me then. As if he could read my mind. His eyes were so cold. So dead. Not my father. Not even the monster. I shouted, ‘Where is she? What have you done?’ He smiled. I had never seen that smile on his face, not even when he was…when he was doing those things. I never wanted to see that smile again.”

López squeezed Adi’s shoulder. Then stepped closer and wrapped an arm around her back. Her hand brushed up and down Adi’s arm, slowly. Adi trembled where she stood, leaning into the other woman for support.

“What happened, Adi?” the commander asked. “Where was your mother?”

“Dead,” Adi whispered. “She was found in a park near my ballet school. Her car had been stolen. Carjacking, they said. Assault gone wrong. They wouldn’t let me look at her body. They said it was too disfigured. The cops came to the house. My dad acted like he was upset. I wanted to tell them. I wanted to show them. ‘See? All her things are gone. See what he’s done!’ But my father just looked at me and then walked over and wrapped me in his arms as if he was trying to soothe me. I pushed. I shoved. I tried to get away. Just as the doctor injected the sedative into my vein, my father whispered in my ear, ‘We won’t speak of this ever again.’ The cops left, thinking we needed to grieve. The sedative worked. And when I woke up Ratbag was there. ‘A gift,’ my father said. I didn’t want him, but Ratbag was so tiny, and he needed love.”

No, I thought. Adi was the one who needed the love. And her father trapped her with it.

“I didn’t mean to fall for him. But he was tiny, and he licked my face. Licked away the tears. By the time I realised what had happened and had started making plans again to run away, my father informed me that Ratbag had been microchipped. ‘Nanobots in his blood,’ he said. I couldn’t cut them out. Not like a normal chip. And they were traceable.”

She looked down at her feet. Probably expecting to see the dog right there, but I’d instructed Johnson to hold it while Adi was being sick. I thought I’d been doing the right thing. Keeping the dog out of the firing line. I kinda wished I’d let the little rascal near. Adi looked like she could use a lick to the face about now.

“Adi,” López said. “I’m sorry.”

Adi nodded her head as if she’d heard it all before. And she probably had. How many people had said they were sorry her mother had been killed so brutally? How many people had said it to her father right before her eyes?

“Afterwards,” Adi said, surprising me that there was more. I’d thought she’d talked herself out. I’d thought the worst of it was over.

I’d thought wrong.

“Afterwards,” she said again, “he changed. He was a different monster. He didn’t use his fists. He used his head. Sly. Cunning. Deadly. I couldn’t outthink him. I couldn’t outrun him. A boy I liked disappeared. A friend I’d had since kindergarten moved away without saying goodbye. A teacher who showed concern for my…change in behaviour was fired. The housekeeper stopped talking to me. The gardener always turned away when I paced the lawn. More and more people left my life, but I had Ratbag. I always had Ratbag.”

Dependence, I thought. He shrunk her world so that all she had left was her pet.

“He gave me a security detail,” she whispered. “‘For your protection.’ Everyone thought it was a good idea. They didn’t talk to me. But they were always there. In the house. In the garden. At school. At ballet lessons. Always there. They made my classmates uncomfortable. The only time I was free of them was when I was in my bedroom with Ratbag. I stayed in my bedroom a lot for the next few years.”

Shit. That was it. I was officially Team Adi. I shook my head, annoyed at myself and at the situation and most importantly with Nathan Fucking Price.

I stepped out of the shadows and approached the two woman slowly. López shifted, alerting Adi to my presence. Adi looked up and stared at me. Eyes moist with tears, heart on her sleeve, a fey look to her features that called to me.

“Adi,” I said. So much emotion in that one word.

Then Aquila, the fucking inconsiderate prick, said, “Well, I think we’ve made tremendous progress. Next time, why don’t we discuss how this adolescent crisis is to blame for your inability to be anything but a wet rag.”

And Adi, sweet, broken, courageous Adi snapped back.

“Fuck you, Aquila,” she said.

López let out a snort of surprise and shared a grin with me.

“Yeah,” I said loudly. “Fuck you, Aquila!”

“Fuck you!” López shouted a second later.

“FUCK YOU!” We all yelled making several officers come running.

Johnson stared at us as if we were mad. Maybe we were. I knew I was. Because the moment Adi let out a cathartic laugh and then followed it up with another, I was sold. I was gone. I was a wreck.

I knew I’d do anything to make this woman laugh like that again.

No, I thought. I’d make her laugh in a way that didn’t involve telling a batshit crazy artificial intelligence to go do something technologically and anatomically impossible. I’d make her laugh at something innocent.

Because Adriana Price deserved to laugh at the good things in life and not the bad.

She deserved a little innocence.

Twenty-Nine

No Matter What, We Were In This Together

Adi

The Habitat Three central hub was busier than I’d expected, but then my father had lifted curfew. It was cause for celebration. He was playing them, of course. There’d been no more attacks from Corvus, which was either a good thing or a bad thing, but I couldn’t decide which. And so he’d lured the civilian population into a false sense of security.

“In reward for your good behaviour,” Aquila said through the habitat’s speakers, “each passenger has been given an allowance. Spend it wisely.”

“He’s buying them off,” Hugo said from my side.

I’d started calling him Hugo in my mind. He hadn’t invited it. But Aquila called him Hugo and I wasn’t going to let the tin can have more of an edge than me. It was petty. But it made me smile. And after my debacle of a confession the other day, I needed something to cling to. Everyone had looked at me as if I was a wounded animal for the rest of that day and part way through the next.

And then I’d made them all dinner and put so much spice in it that they’d had tears streaming down their faces and sat there laughing my ass off at their tortured expressions.

They’d stopped pussyfooting around me after that and had been trying to find ways to pay me back since.

I wasn’t one of them, of course. And Hugo had kept his distance, which, I’ll admit, had hurt at first. But then after several unsuccessful forays into the ship with my wrist comm, having left me behind for my ‘own protection,’ I’d suggested we try my friend down in the pay-for-passages.

Mandy’s stall still hadn’t been rebuilt in Habitat Two. That was a concession my father had not given. I wondered if she’d received the ‘allowance’ or not. We were about to find out. None of the officers knew any of the civilians well enough to approach them. Any one of them could have ratted us out.

But not Mandy. I thought Mandy was better than that.

I scanned the central hub, unable to find her. Not for the first time, I missed how easy it was to locate someone through Old Aquila. You just asked, and he told you where they were. I’d avoided the mayor many a time doing that.

But Rogue Aquila was another matter.

I missed my friend.

“Can you see her?” Hugo asked.

I shook my head.

“If she’s not here and not in her quarters, where would she be?” he pressed.

“Observation deck,” I offered.

Hugo nodded his head at Johnson and Armstrong. The latter having made a full recovery. And then we headed back down the emergency tunnel.

They’d started to learn their way around. Each floor had a similar floor plan, especially down here in the habitats. It was the one edge that I’d had that had enabled me to accompany them on earlier trips into the tunnels. I didn’t exactly regret handing my wrist comm over to Hugo, but sometimes I thought holding on to it had given me more power. I had liked that power, I had to admit.

But something else had happened since that breakdown with Commander López. I’d noticed a different kind of power I now had. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Or even if I liked it. But the moment Hugo would return from a scouting trip he’d search for me. First thing in the morning there’d be a cup of coffee beside my bed. Throughout the day, he’d seek me out just to chat.

Nothing heavy. Nothing important. Just a question about the tunnels. Or a joke about one of his officers. And if I disappeared into the towers, he’d come looking for me. He even made a point of giving Ratbag scratches behind the ear.

He’d won my dog over and, I thought, he was winning me over as well.

We made our way through the Deck H tunnels, out toward the bow of the ship and the observation deck. It had been days since I’d looked at the stars. I wasn’t sure if reminding myself what little was out there would improve matters. But if we could find Mandy, it was worth the blackness that surrounded.

Hugo stopped near the hatch and waited for me to approach. He kept the wrist with the comm on it back, so he could look through the grille without activating the gel. So far, Aquila hadn’t been able to crack that. We were safe in the tunnels, having not run into any of my father’s men. And no one had stormed the core room.

Whatever Old Aquila had done was still holding.

“Is she there?” Hugo asked.

I peered through the grille. There were quite a few people on the deck. Most of them near the large windows. I narrowed my eyes, trying to pick my friend out of the crowd. It was useless. We needed to be in there.

I shook my head. “I can’t tell,” I offered.

Hugo frowned. Then looked at Johnson and Armstrong. “We backtrack to an isolated corridor and take our chances with the crowd.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said.

He looked down at me then. I arched a brow back at him. He could hardly insist I stay safe and sound in the tunnel if we had any chance of not frightening Mandy. We’d raided some civilian quarters, and now all wore new clothes. The lack of Anderson Universal uniform would go a long way in letting them blend in, and the fact that we’d all managed to grab toothpaste, combs and shower gel.

My hair still looked bedraggled, even though López had offered to tidy it up. I’d declined. I liked my hair. It was something my father would have had kittens over.

But despite us all looking the part, Hugo and his men weren’t civilians. I was. I walked like one. I talked like one. The pay-for-passages wouldn’t look twice at me. And, more importantly, Mandy wouldn’t run.

I followed the guys back to a maintenance corridor and hopped out through the hatch when Hugo opened it. No one stayed in the tunnels. If we didn’t return to the computer core, there was nothing López and the others could do about it. They couldn’t get out, and without the wrist comm, anyone left on guard in the tunnel couldn’t get back in. But López knew to be prepared for anything.

If my father got hold of the wrist comm, then…well, then it was all over.

I straightened my dress and glanced around. No one had seen us. My eyes landed on Armstrong. Even in civvies, he looked like a lieutenant.

“Relax,” I muttered, taking the lead. “This is not officer country.”

Hugo offered me a grin.

The observation deck was humming with low-level conversations. They weren’t loud, but they were filled with tension. Something had the crowd worried, and it wasn’t the allowance they’d been suddenly given. I pushed through the throng, aware Johnson and Armstrong had held back. Hugo was right behind me. I searched faces until I recognised one.

Near the big windows, staring out into space, an anxious look on her features.

“Mandy,” I whispered as I came alongside her. And then all words were lost as I realised what everyone was looking at.

Miles and miles of space boulders. My mind wouldn’t allow me to work out a scale. The closest asteroid looked to be the size of a skyscraper sitting on more than a few city blocks. The ones farther away looked smaller, but distance was hard to estimate.

All I knew was we were in the middle of it all. Surrounded by huge chunks of rock that could bump into us at any moment.

“That can’t be good,” I said just as Mandy turned to look at me and let out a shocked gasp.

She hid it well. Wrapping me up in a hug and whispering in my ear, “Are you mad? They search for you daily. There’s even a reward.”

“Another one,” I said dryly.

Mandy scowled and tugged me away from the awe-inspiring and conversely frightening window. I followed dutifully until we were at the back of the crowd and then kept on following until Mandy dragged me into a corner booth. She shoved me into the back of it out of direct sight. Then sat down beside me. And was immediately followed by Hugo, Johnson and Armstrong sitting on the other side.

Mandy stilled. She looked first at Hugo and then at the other two officers.

And then she muttered, “Fucking great, Adi. Their faces are all over the vidcomms.”

Armstrong blanched, Johnson swore softly. Hugo just ducked his head and tried to look unconcerned.

And then the gel walls pulsed red and Aquila said, “Red alert. Red alert. Return to your quarters. This is not a drill. Mayday. Mayday. Brace. Brace. Brace. You get the picture. Lockdown has commenced.”

“Shit,” Hugo muttered.

“Come on,” Mandy said. “At least we’ll be out of sight of the mercs.”

What mercs, I thought. We hadn’t seen any. But as Mandy led us into the centre of the crowd, and forced me to duck my head, glaring at the others to follow suit, I wondered if my father had had the same idea as us. And dressed his security detail in civilian clothes, hoping to catch us.

I bit my nail and hunched my shoulders. Aware that Hugo had stepped closer, rubbing his shoulder against mine in a show of support.

No matter what, we were in this together. It was a strangely comforting thought.

Thirty

This Had Supernova Written All Over It

Hugo

There were mercs in the crowd, I was sure of it. We’d walked into a trap, and the AI had spotted us. Why else call a red alert right at that second? I hadn’t had long enough to see much of the asteroid field out of the window, but it looked as though we’d been stationary.

But I realised then that the main boost thrust was spooling because I could feel the vibrations which had been missing recently through my feet.

Corvus?

I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the AU vessel out of the observation windows. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t out there and about to fight back. I couldn’t tell if that was excitement I felt churning in my gut or terror. If Corvus fired on us, would we survive it?

But I was grateful for the respite. If Price’s men were in the crowd, it wasn’t them spotting us that had caused Aquila to announce a red alert. We were bracing for manoeuvres.

“Move along,” the AI said. “Nothing to see here. Move along.”

The creepy bastard was using pop culture and colloquialisms. It wasn’t enough that Price was using the AI to manipulate and monitor people, he had to go and make the machine crazy. This Aquila was definitely Crazy Aquila. I shuddered to think what he’d say next.

The vessel thrummed beneath us, as hundreds of people pushed through the central hub toward their respective cabins. I kept expecting a tap on the shoulder or a plasma rifle butt to the side of my head. I wouldn’t have put it past Price’s mercs to just fire on the crowd to get to us. I could only hope not killing his daughter was still high on the leaseholder’s list.

We were bounced from side to side as we trailed after the surprisingly militant florist. She elbowed through the crowd without so much as an apology; back straight, steps measured, eyes darting. I was sure she missed nothing. There was something about her that did not say ‘Designs floral arrangements for a living.’ I thought perhaps it was more along the lines of ‘Kills mercs in her spare time and then eats their hearts for breakfast.’

Adi had made friends with this woman?

I glanced at Johnson. He was staring daggers at the back of the florist’s head. Yeah. She was ex-military. He thought so too. Why the hell had she not been seconded to security? Flowers, I thought. What a load of rubbish.

The crowd reached a bottleneck and we were all pushed up against each other. Those behind pushed into those in front and in the process, people started to panic. I almost shouted at everyone to stay calm, but I didn’t want to draw undue attention to myself. Mandy, though, had no such worries. She stuck two fingers in between her lips and let out a piercing whistle.

“We all want to live,” she shouted. “Stop being assholes about it.”

I slowly turned my head and arched my brow at Johnson. He shook his head back at me.

Who the hell were we following?

“Tick tock,” Aquila offered eerily. “Tick tock. Tick tock. The mouse ran up the clock. Oh, and by the way, brace.”

The ship shuddered. Artificial gravity gave out and then in the next second returned, making everyone groan and clutch their nauseated stomachs. Outside, someone, probably Corvus, had just fired on us. It wasn’t as bad as the hit we’d taken that had affected the gel walls. But whatever it was, we’d felt it. I could only imagine what was going on out there in the asteroid belt.

The thought of all those rocks hanging suspended in the void of space waiting for us to collide with them made me more nauseated than the artigrav giving out sporadically.

We finally made our way past the bottleneck into a cabin passageway. The gel walls dimmed as the ship took another hit. People were screaming, calling out for their loved ones. It was a lesson in humility. On the bridge, this sort of thing was so far removed. But to witness their fear, to not know what was actually happening; I felt it along with the pay-for-passages. If I got out of this, I thought, it’d make me a better officer in the long run.

We made our way toward the end of the corridor, the space becoming less and less dense with panicked people. Mandy, Adi’s interesting friend, swiped her wrist comm on a door like all the others, and then stood aside, waving us inside of it. I felt like I was back at military school. I double-timed it into the spartan interior and almost stood at attention waiting for the commanding officer to enter behind us.

The door slid shut, the screams and wails subsided, the ship rocked, but it was just background noise now. Mandy relaxed slightly. Still army. Still a little scary. Still the biggest threat to us right at that moment.

“Introductions,” she said, crossing to the small kitchenette.

This was where we told her everything and put our trust in a complete stranger. A stranger that undoubtedly knew one hundred ways to kill us. But we’d come here for a reason. We needed more numbers. I flicked a glance at Adi and then spoke up.

“Hugo Tremblay,” I said, missing off the captain bit. Cowardly? I preferred to think of it as strategic. A need to know basis. And this woman did not need to know yet.

“So, you’re the new captain,” she said, leaning against the food synthesiser.

So much for my strategic plans.

“And you two?” Mandy said looking at Johnson and Armstrong. She eyed them as though she was inspecting them for potential weaknesses. She probably was. Both men stood a little straighter.

“Lieutenants Johnson and Armstrong, ma’am,” Johnson said. “First shift. Bridge.”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Relax, guys,” I muttered. “She’s a civilian, not your commanding officer.”

Mandy smiled. It was all teeth.

“Ex-military?” I asked. She nodded her head. “How the hell did you slip through the cracks?” I demanded.

Adi looked from one person to the other, eyes wide and pulse jumping. I couldn’t reassure her yet. I was hardly reassured myself. And all my attention was definitely for the mystery woman whose lair we’d just entered.

“Ex-marine,” she said levelly. Not beating about the bush, then. Was that good or bad? “CIA,” she added. “Counter Terrorist Centre supervisor. National Clandestine Services.”

She was a spook. A spook with a background in guns. A head spook, I corrected, with a background in guns.

Outstanding.

I smiled at her; all teeth. She smiled back with bigger and sharper teeth.

“Took your time,” she said. “I’ve been wondering when you’d get here.”

“Sorry for making you wait,” I offered. “We had a few difficulties to overcome.”

“The brig? I hear that was a doozy.”

“Wait,” Adi said, hands on hips, lips pressed into a thin line. She looked cute. “You mean to tell me you’re…you’re…”

“Not a florist,” Mandy offered. “Couldn’t you tell? That’s why I let you do all the designing.”

“But…but…”

“Relax, kid,” Mandy said. I wanted to facepalm myself. Way to alienate someone; call them a kid. I might think Adi was cute and waif-like and mine to protect. But I’d never say that to her face. I knew my limits.

And hers.

“So, what?” Adi growled, almost as good as Ratbag when we teased him with a bit of food back in the pit. “You weren’t really my friend after all?”

Ah, shit, I thought, wanting to reach for her.

Mandy, for her part, looked stunned.

“I…” she started but didn’t finish.

I could have let her flounder. I could have rushed to Adi and offered a hug. I did neither. Both women would not have thanked me. So, I did what I did best. I thought about the tactical implications. And I put us back on track.

“Who put you onboard and what can you do to help us?” I said.

Mandy let out a breath of air, looking at Adi for a moment longer. Adi turned away and sat down in a chair in the corner, looking at no one. Finally, the spook looked at me.

“We need to talk,” she said.

Hell yes, we needed to talk. This was big. Bigger than us.

This had supernova written all over it.

Thirty-One

Let’s Do This

Adi

It was a kick to the gut. I felt as if I was breathing through a straw. Couldn’t quite catch my breath. Didn’t feel like each laboured inhale was oxygenating me enough.

Mandy wasn’t really a friend.

I didn’t know what she was actually. She’d said CIA. But that didn’t make any sense. And especially not now when my mind and heart were aching painfully with thoughts and feelings I’d thought I’d stopped experiencing finally.

In a remote way, I knew my father had a lot to answer for. I’d lost so many friends when my mother had died. When he’d killed her. And making friends afterwards had been impossible with his security detail always there scowling. I’d felt so alone. Ratbag was all I’d had left to me. As much as I’d wanted to hate my father’s gift, I’d desperately clung to the puppy.

My hands felt empty right now with no dog to pet. For so long now, Ratbag had been my friend, my companion, my therapy canine. He’d given me the unconditional love my father had failed to provide. Without him, I didn’t know how to handle this revelation. I didn’t know how to function when faced with such a heavy blow to my body and mind.

“The agency caught wind of a joint leaseholder fleet-wide coup,” Mandy was saying.

Was that even her name? She’d clearly faked her bio to get onboard, so there’s no way she would have used her real name.

“It was too close to launch to do anything but buy passage,” she said. “And even that was out; the top tiers all taken. So, we did what we had to do to get someone onboard.”

“You mean you replaced the real Mandy the Digital Florist,” Hugo said deadpan.

My body shuddered with the implications. This was such a foreign world to me and yet I’d been raised on a battlefield. I’d been hardened by my experiences, none of which aided me here.

“We couldn’t get to any of the leaseholders,” the not-Mandy said. I noticed she’d ignored Hugo’s statement. “And there wasn’t a better fit. Who would think to look at the florist?” she said.

“Yeah,” Hugo muttered. “And Adi?”

I jerked in my seat. I didn’t dare look at Hugo, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mandy.

“Adi,” she said.

I thought perhaps she was watching me. I kept my head down and eyes averted. I didn’t want to see the laughter in her gaze. The knowledge that she’d duped me. I’d been a tool. Nothing more. The many times she’d asked me about my life, about what it was like living with a leaseholder. About what my dad did all day.

It had been a lie.

“I needed Adi to keep an eye on Nathan,” Mandy said, confirming everything. My fists bunched. But I kept myself resolutely still otherwise. No need to draw attention. “Like I said, getting near the leaseholder is hard. I couldn’t seduce him. He has nothing to do with the pay-for-passages, and although his mercs are more malleable, they’re kept on a short leash. Adi was my only way in.”

That first day I’d walked into the Habitat Two central hub and looked at all the stalls. It had been an act. A performance. The florist who’s digital designs had all been wiped in some unexpected glitch. Mandy had been ranting and raving, slamming her hand into her viewscreen. She’d even looked like she might start crying.

Livelihood. That’s what she’d called it. “This is my livelihood,” she’d wailed. “Without it, I’m as good as dead.”

I couldn’t walk past that. I knew some code. My school had been the best in the country. They made sure they prepared us for all the privileges in life, including making technology work for us. I hadn’t written digi-floral code before, but I knew I could do it. Confidence in one’s ability had been a core subject at my college.

I’d fallen for Mandy’s act without a care in the world and had believed I was doing her a favour. Doing a good thing. My mother, I’d thought, would have been proud of me.

My chewed up nails bit into the palms of my hands; I was digging them in so deeply. But I relished the pain that followed. Anything to mask the real agony.

“What was your plan?” Hugo asked.

“We didn’t know what form the coup would take,” Mandy said. “But one person against fifty mercs was too high a risk.”

“You knew he had more than the twenty he was legally allowed onboard and you didn’t warn us?”

“Would you have believed me? Would Captain Moore?”

“You expect me to believe you now,” Hugo said.

I liked that he was questioning her. He wasn’t falling for her sob story like I had. He was making Mandy work for their trust. It was a lesson I was learning far too late.

“The objective was always to assess what the leaseholder had planned and act accordingly,” Mandy said. “I had no idea his plan would involve such a lethal level of force.”

“By my calculation,” Hugo growled, “we’ve lost close to a dozen people. Most of them AU crewmen. You could have stopped that.”

“No,” Mandy said resolutely. “Not from the pay-for-passages. Maybe if we’d managed to get a top tier. But not down here. No way. You guys don’t even pay attention to what goes on down here. The jobs you make them do are either restricted to the habitats or menial janitorial type roles. We’re not even given a level one security clearance.”

“You’re not crew,” Hugo said, and then must have realised this wasn’t the argument he wanted to have. “It’s irrelevant. You let the leaseholder enact a plan you were aware of without informing us.”

“I…”

“Our captain is dead!” Hugo sucked in a breath of air. I couldn’t stop from peeking at him. He looked furious.

He looked gorgeous.

I looked away again.

“Our first officer,” he said in a more measured tone. “Our chief engineer. The head of our security. Why they didn’t just take me out at the beginning as well, I don’t know. But you allowed this entire situation to happen.”

“You mean I allowed you to have to step up and take command,” Mandy snapped. “You wear the rank but don’t have the balls to carry out what’s needed.”

Hugo stepped forward and pointed a finger at Mandy.

“You have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of.” His voice was low and steady, with a deadly edge to it. “You let this happen. Face it. You let them kill the upper echelon of our command and did fucking nothing.”

“It’s irrelevant,” she said, using Hugo’s words on him. “We’re here now. In this moment. Aquila shooting at another vessel in the Fleet. The leaseholder of our ship has taken over the onboard computer, and there’s a fairly high chance the others have succeeded in that endeavour as well.”

Johnson and Armstrong both paled. I flicked a glance at Hugo. He was still fuming so had some colour in his cheeks.

“Were your spies on those ships, too?” Hugo snarled. “Letting it all happen.”

Mandy let out a short laugh. It sounded frustrated and not just a little impatient.

“You don’t get it,” she said. “I’m it. I’m all we could get onboard any ship. Communications were patchy worldwide at the end. Travel was all but impossible. Even we weren’t stupid enough to chance atmospheric flight. I was it. This ship is it. We get it back; we help the others.”

I was watching Hugo openly now. This had not gone at all how I had expected. In a small way, he was my hero. Standing up to injustices without the cape. He hadn’t done more than point out how Mandy had used me. He’d not even given his opinion on the matter. But the fact that he’d said anything at all was enough to impress me.

And now this. This anger and defiance he showed her. This implacable wall that she could pit herself against, time and again, and it would never crack. He looked at her with unveiled disgust and fury. People had died. She could have helped prevent that.

“This is ridiculous!” she shouted. “None of this helps us now. Nathan Price has control of this ship, and we’re in a position to get it back. Stop thinking about the small things and start thinking about the big picture. The entire Sector Fleet. Forty thousand survivors. We can end this.”

“The end justifies the means,” Hugo said softly.

Mandy blinked at him and then let out a disgruntled breath of air and turned around.

Her eyes landed on me unexpectedly. For her as well as me. She hadn’t realised I was sitting right there staring at her.

“Adi,” she said, sounding sad.

“Don’t,” I offered. “You said we can end this.” I couldn’t go over this again. I couldn’t address my tumultuous emotions. The abandonment. The betrayal. “How?” I asked. “How do we stop this?”

Please, make this stop. All of it.

I was aware Hugo was looking at me now. I kept my eyes resolutely on Mandy. She’d hurt me and yet it was easier to face her than him. Than his compassion. His caring.

Hugo was a good man, and I realised, right then, that I was falling for him.

I couldn’t face that either and I certainly couldn’t let him see it in my eyes right then.

“That’s just the thing,” Mandy said steadily. “While the leaseholder started his little coup, I’ve been busy. Even he discounts the pay-for-passages.”

“What do you mean?” Hugo asked.

Mandy tore her gaze from me and looked at him.

“I’ve raised an army for you, Captain,” she said. “They’re a little rough around the edges, and their weapons are all homemade, but they’re ready. As ready as they can be.”

“What?” Hugo said; his two officers joined him. They all looked a little shellshocked.

“I might not have warned you,” Mandy conceded. “But I do have your back. There are fifty odd civilians ready to help you take back your ship. If you’ll have them.”

Hugo stared at her for a moment and then scrubbed a hand over his face, cupping his jaw.

He nodded his head slowly. Then let out a long breath of air.

“OK,” he said. “Let’s do this. Let’s take back our ship.”

Thirty-Two

She Could See Right Through Me

Hugo

Establishing where exactly Aquila could see and not see took some time. We knew he could see in the central hubs. But not all of the passenger quarters. We also knew he’d take note of anyone missing work. So, communicating with our rebel army and organising them into something that resembled less pitchfork wielding villagers, and more elite level forces was asking a lot.

And then there were the weapons. Steak knives were the least of our worries. We had industrial kitchen utensils, and broom handles with forks attached. Several people wielded walking sticks. They were armed of a fashion, but they needed some basic training and the only place to do that was the observation deck. In the middle of the night.

Aquila’s speakers worked in there, but we’d established he couldn’t hear anything, nor could he see. That’s why Price had his mercs dressed in civvies and dotted throughout the daytime population. Although curfew was over, it was expected that everyone would be in their quarters by midnight and they would not venture out until six the next morning. There were still mercs about, but these were dressed in their armour and easy to spot. They were also light on numbers. Even mercs needed downtime, and it made sense to stand them down when the passengers were asleep.

So, we crept through tunnels and congregated in the observation deck, and had lookouts keeping an eye on the armoured guards. And we did it all in small numbers.

I would have liked to have been able to use the computer room, but although Aquila still couldn’t see in there, he could hear. And the snap of a walking stick against a broom handle makes a distinctive noise. As it was, we were pushing ourselves with the skeleton crew of mercs each night.

Thankfully, they had several decks to walk and gave us a twenty-minute window every hour.

So, slow going was an understatement. But we’d needed the time to design a plan of attack.

What we came up with was severely lacking.

“Once we start,” I said quietly to those in the pit with me. We’d discovered we could talk quietly and Aquila wouldn’t hear us in here. You had to raise your voice to get his attention. Clearly, his repair of the gel walls hadn’t been perfect, and I was thankful for that.

Mandy glanced at Adi, garnering my attention. I’d noticed that Adi turned away every time Mandy tried to talk to her. My girl was smarting, but she was staying strong. Giving the spook the cold shoulder. Making her work for it. But that didn’t mean Adi wasn’t preparing herself for this war.

She had the fillet knife on one hip and a steak knife on the other. She was practically a warrior princess now. I tried not to smirk at that imagery, but…well, I’d been a fan of old reruns of Xena back on Earth.

“Once we start,” I repeated, having lost my train of thought. Not exactly stellar leadership skills, “they’ll be on to us. So, timing is everything. We can’t do this at night; too few mercs and we need to hit them hard. So, we’ll have to act as one and do that in and around normal civilians.”

“It’ll be confusing,” López added. “But we might be able to use that confusion against them.”

“It doesn’t matter if we don’t get them all,” I added. “But we do need to get a lot of them to make this worth our while.”

The officers all nodded their heads.

“Get some sleep,” I said. “Nova replaces Flux on watch in two hours. Pass on the orders at changeover. You each know which group of civilians you’re in charge of. Let’s make this work.”

“Yes, sir,” López said. The others joined in with their agreement.

Everyone scattered to their respective corners, some grabbing something to eat from the synthesiser. That left Adi, Mandy and me at the pit. With a sleeping Ratbag.

I watched Adi’s fingers idly scratch the dog’s ears. She was almost always in touch with that dog when in here. It worried me slightly. If something happened to Ratbag, Adi would suffer. I pushed Ratbag up near the top of my Keep Alive list and turned my attention to Mandy.

She was staring at one of Aquila’s towers.

“Why can’t we simply hack at these things?” she asked. “Chop them up into little pieces and be done with the bastard.”

“We don’t know which ones might affect essential systems,” I said. “Life support. Air filtration. Recycling. We can’t take the risk without an engineer to guide us.”

“You’d think there’d be someone with enough know-how in the pay-for-passages,” she muttered, well aware that we couldn’t get to our crew without lethal reprisal.

I hoped that with the merc numbers culled tomorrow we’d be able to address that problem. But we needed to take baby steps first. Mercs. Then leaseholder and mayor. Then Aquila. In that order.

It was a damn weak plan, and as a tactical officer, it gnawed at me.

“Well,” Mandy said, looking at Adi again and finding the usual; no eye contact, head turned away, cold shoulder. “I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll…ah…head over there.” She nodded down one of the tower corridors.

I nodded back at her and said nothing. There was no way I was going to encourage her to stay around Adi.

That left Adi and me at the pit. I watched her for a while and then took a seat beside her. Big wide eyes stared at me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she softly replied.

“You ready for this?” I’d tried to get her to agree to stay in the core room. But we were all going and leaving her here alone with Crazy Aquila was not a good idea. I hadn’t tried hard in the end.

“Not really,” she said, offering me a small smile.

“Me neither,” I offered back, making her laugh.

It was a tiny laugh. A quasi-laugh. But I’d take it.

“Just stick close,” I said. “Keep your back to mine if we get cornered. We’ll cover each other.”

“OK,” she said. So simple. So trusting.

It hit me like a sledgehammer.

Adi trusted me.

For a moment I just stared into her eyes. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t move.

And then her eyes darted down to my lips.

It was the first time she’d done that since that moment in the emergency tube. We were rarely ever alone. Someone was always here in the pit with us or out in the tunnels. That one time when the ladder had disappeared, and we’d been separated from Johnson and Armstrong, and now this. Pre-battle, when everyone needed a moment to themselves and a decent sleep.

Twice we’d been absolutely alone with each other.

And twice she’d looked at me as if she wanted me to eat her. Kiss her. She wanted me to kiss her. But now I was thinking all manner of things.

I’d kept my distance. I’d tried to be a friend and nothing more. The captain who cared for his charges, including the civilian woman who was now included in his command group. Adi had long been a part of my team. One of my officers if only in theory.

So, I’d kept my distance. But if I were honest with myself, I’d kept my distance for more reasons than just that. I’d kept my distance because Adi was so sweet. So innocent. So removed from the grubby AU uniforms we had all worn. From the plasma pistols some of us had on our hips. From a rank that demanded our sacrifice.

Adi was gentle and kind and wore her heart on her sleeve. And she’d been through hell and survived it. God knows how she’d survived it. But Adi had, and she hadn’t lost that sweetness. That innocence.

Far be it for me to steal it now.

But the way she looked at me. The way I sometimes caught her glancing in my direction. The way she ate my lips up with those big, beautiful eyes. It could go to a man’s head. It was going to both of mine.

I swallowed. Fuck. I was nervous. I could feel a slight tremor in my fingers. I licked my lips. She let out a little sigh. Oh, God, stop me now. I couldn’t do this. Not to Adi.

Adi was every reason I had to keep fighting. To get us out of this mess. To save what was left of humanity. There were other valid reasons, but I realised right then, it was for Adi that I did this. Nothing else came even close to my urge, my compulsion, to save her.

Some women wear their strength on the outside for all to see. You can’t miss it. It’s a beautiful thing. And then there are some women who wear it quietly. Secretly. Internally. You might think them weak. You’d be wrong. So wrong.

Adi wore her strength privately. And my God, I was attracted to that.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I won’t break.”

I might, I thought.

“It’s just a kiss,” she added. She could see right through me. “I’ve kissed boys before, you know.”

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. Boys. I was no boy. She had no idea what she was asking of me. Such sweet innocence.

The tension ratcheted up several degrees. Both of us poised on a precipice. At any moment one of my men could have walked back into the pit area. I hesitated. Adi waited me out.

One kiss, I thought. Just one for luck.

Ah, who was I kidding?

Thirty-Three

That’s The First Time You’ve Not Called Me Captain

Adi

He reached up and stroked his fingers along my jaw. Light but sure, his eyes watching where he touched, following the slow progress of his fingertips across my skin. There was no frantic rush, no breaking of a dam as I’d been used to. Hugo had control over his desires, even as his eyes heated with a look of passion I had only ever dreamed about.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It popped out again. My hair seemed to stand on end now, so different from the sleek locks I’d had before I’d chopped them off with a fillet knife. I ducked my chin, wondering again how he could look at me like that. I was a mess. I was nothing like I used to be.

His other hand came up and tipped my face up; fingers soft but firm under my jaw. His eyes found mine. He didn’t say a word, just let me see the desire he felt. I licked my lips. He chuckled. Deep. Alluring.

And then he ran a thumb over my lips. From right to left.

I had never been so turned on.

Hugo was no boy. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was completely in control of his motions, his actions. And he also knew what he was doing to me. His lips tipped up in a little smirk. A self-congratulatory little smirk.

I decided to turn the tables on him. My hands found his hips, ran over his lower stomach. He sucked in a breath of air, his fingers tightening slightly on my jaw, but then quickly softening. I could feel his lower abdominal muscles with my fingertips, but it wasn’t enough. So I flattened my hand, feeling the heat from his body warm me.

I ran my palms over his abs, relishing the tautness, the definition. Most of the Anderson Universal crew were fit and conditioned for spaceflight. Hugo was no different, and I relished it. My hands made their way up to his chest, brushing against his nipples on their trek of discovery.

I wanted him naked. I bit my lip with the strength of that craving.

Hugo hadn’t stopped touching me either, which made it all the harder to concentrate on what I was doing. But he seemed to know how much I could handle and had stuck to light touches of his fingertips across my cheeks and jaw, and down my neck. He cupped a hand on my nape, a thumb stroking up into the mess of my hair.

His upper body inched closer; leaning into my touch. As if begging me to explore further. I’d made it as far as the dip in front of his throat. I ran a finger over it and up over his Adam’s apple. He hadn’t shaved in days, and I wasn’t used to such facial hair. It was softer than I had thought it would be. What I would assume would be called a full beard.

It wasn’t bushy, but it was thick. I found it inordinately attractive for some reason.

A thumb stroked over my cheek, then again, and again, getting closer and closer to my mouth. My eyes flicked up to Hugo’s, but he was looking at my lips.

Kiss me, I thought. Kiss me now.

His eyes darted up to mine, and he let out a slow breath of air. Then slowly, oh so slowly, eyes still locked on mine, he leaned forward. Until his lips brushed mine, almost not there.

I’d never felt so much from so little. I squirmed closer, eager for more.

He let out a huff of breath that could have been amusement, but I was determined not to think about that. And then he pressed his lips harder to mine.

I ran my tongue along the seam of his lips. His body jerked and then his tongue met mine.

He tasted of the toothpaste we’d stolen from someone’s quarters. He tasted all male. Hot and spicy and minty; it was a winning combination. He licked into my mouth and made a soft sound of approval. His hand cupping my nape pulled me closer as the other ran down my back and cupped my hip and the curve of my butt.

We were pressed up against each other; somehow we’d ended up as close as we could manage while still sitting in our respective seats. There were pillows scattered at one end of the pit. I knew where they were in relation to us and I wanted desperately for us to slide down into the gel floor depression and spread out over those cushions and spend the next few hours exploring each other’s body.

I tugged him toward them.

He held me back. Kissed me harder. I forgot about the pillows as I kissed him with every fibre of my body.

I hadn’t realised you could do that. That your lips were a conduit to the rest of you. I could feel his hand on my neck and the one on my hip and butt, but it was the kiss, the sensations, the taste, everything, that swirled through my body and made every single nerve ending tingle.

I felt hot and itchy, and so freaking turned on, and it wasn’t enough, I needed more, I so needed more.

“Adi,” he whispered against my lips, his kiss softening, dragging little starbursts across my cheek and jaw and neck. “Adi,” he repeated. “We can’t do more than this.”

It was like a cold bucket of water on my body. I pulled back, shivering.

“Babe,” he said, gripping me tighter, making it impossible to pull fully away. “We’re not alone,” he whispered, kissing the side of my neck. “I very much want to be alone with you. But we’re not. And I won’t make love to you like this.”

Forget starbursts. I felt like my entire body had been bathed by a supernova. I was instantly flushed, my skin too tight, my body thrumming in all of my most intimate places. I squirmed where I sat, leaning into his touch again. His lips trailed over my jaw and found my mouth, and then he kissed me like I was his everything.

That momentary loss of control on top of him telling me he wanted to make love to me was enough for me to let out a helpless moan.

Hugo immediately pulled back and slapped a palm over my mouth, his eyes wide.

Oops.

Footsteps sounded out. I winced. Hugo shook his head, trying to clear it, no doubt. We separated just in time for Commander López to miss how intimate we’d been. She stopped a few paces away and stared at us, arms crossed over her chest.

“Acoustics,” she said, and Hugo groaned.

Acoustics?

“It’s amazing how words don’t carry, but everything else does,” she added.

Oh.

I looked at Hugo who was offering López a sheepish grin. She shook her head and looked at me.

I didn’t know where to look.

“There’s always the tunnels,” she offered.

“Thank you, Commander,” Hugo said. “That will be all.”

“Just trying to be helpful, sir,” she muttered and turned on her heel.

We sat silently for a while, and I wondered if he regretted it. He was the captain now, and captains didn’t get caught kissing people.

His hand came over and slipped into mine, fingers laced.

“I should have thought of the tunnels,” he admitted.

My lips spread into a small smile and I looked over at him.

He sighed. Then smiled back.

“It’ll make the rounds,” he said. “But at least we’re small in numbers. Not like it’s the entire AU crew in here with us.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He blinked. “What for? That was the best make-out session I’ve had in my life; I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t?”

“Adi,” he said, cupping my cheeks. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for days now. It feels like all I’ve wanted ever to do; kiss you. And it was better than I could have hoped for.”

He kissed me again then. Softly, slowly, tenderly. He pulled back, though, before I could make a sound.

“I’m twenty-nine,” he said.

I stared at him.

“Nine years, that all. It’s not that big a deal.”

“But I’m a Price. I’m his daughter.”

Hugo nodded his head in agreement.

“Yeah, but we can’t be blamed for the sins of our fathers, babe. My father was a long haul trucker. I never knew him. Not really. He was rarely home, and when he was, he was out drinking with his mates. My mother had a string of affairs. I was known to call many of them ‘uncle’ when I was a kid. Neither of them were pictures of perfect parenting. I did my time in Deline and then when I was old enough to sign up for the military, I left. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my dad, he was over in Nunavut somewhere, and I haven’t spoken to him since. I’m not sure he would have even known I was gone.”

“Hugo,” I said, not sure what else I could say.

He smiled at me.

“Hey,” he said. “That’s the first time you’ve not called me captain.”

I blushed.

“Should have kissed you days ago,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss me again.

Thirty-Four

It’s Quite The Paradox

Hugo

I could have kissed Adi all night. She tasted sublime. She felt right under my fingers. She smelled delicious, and it had nothing to do with the wet-wipes and everything to do with her natural scent. I was beginning to think Adi had been made for me.

She called forth the protector in me. She had a way of making me forget all my worries and simply be. I felt more comfortable with her than I had ever felt with any other woman. I admired her inner strength, and I cherished her outer fragility.

I’m not sure what that said about me, but I liked myself when I was with her. I wasn’t trying to be something I was not when I was with Adi. Unlike how I felt when I played at captaining. I knew my role as the most senior officer onboard, but captaining a vessel wasn’t really in me. I much preferred to be moving pieces in the background. Staying out of the limelight. Maybe one day, I would have been ready. But I could admit to myself, that right now, I was not. I was struggling.

But all of that was irrelevant now. I was the captain, and there was no changing that. I would not shirk my responsibilities.

But Adi. Sweet, sweet Adi; she made me like me. The me I was when with her. There was no pretending with this girl. No acting. No responsibility. It was all so easy. Despite the situation and her connection to the person who had caused all of this in the first place, Adi felt right. And she made me feel right, too.

I was never going to give her up; never. Adi made me feel too good, and she made all the captaining crap palatable. I could stomach being in the limelight and making all the decisions and having to be strong for everyone else if I had Adi. I knew what the regulations said about fraternising with subordinates, and they didn’t apply here. Although, fraternising with the leaseholder’s daughter was probably out.

But damn it. I wouldn’t be the captain I was if not for how I felt when with Adi. She made me see more than I had ever seen before. The civilians and the pay-for-passages. How their lives are onboard this ship. She made me see what Aquila had been before her father corrupted him. Adi allowed me to switch off and just feel. But most importantly, Adi gave me something more than just responsibility to fight for.

She represented the very best of humanity. Sweet and innocent with a core strength and desire to survive.

No. I wasn’t giving her up, but I also would not have her the topic of crewmen gossiping.

I kissed her one last time and then settled us in the pit. I tried my best not to curve my body around her, but by the time the wrist comm announced it was start of another day, Adi’s head was on my chest, and my arms were around her, and we might as well have been two peas in a pod.

I blinked open my eyes and stared up at Johnson, Armstrong and López.

“Morning, Cap,” Johnson said, grinning.

“Sir,” Armstrong offered.

López just rolled her eyes.

Adi stirred quietly beside me. All small curves and soft skin and I’d hoped to be able to wake her with a kiss this morning, but that was out.

“Turn around,” I said. They immediately complied. Sometimes being captain was good. “Adi,” I whispered. “Wake up.”

She snuggled in closer and muttered something adorable in her sleep.

I could love this woman forever.

I kissed her sweetly on the lips and then extricated myself. Ratbag immediately took my place, shooting me a very disgruntled canine look. He turned around a couple of times and then flopped down where I had been; head on paws, warm body tucked into Adi.

Lucky dog.

I stood up and walked away from the sleeping end of the pit, pressing in an order for our coffees. Adi liked her morning coffee.

The others watched me silently, as I returned with the mug and placed it beside her head.

“Wake up, beautiful,” I said, and she blinked at me.

She smiled, and the sun might as well have followed us here from Earth it was so stunning.

“Morning,” she said, stretching and yawning wide.

I couldn’t look away. My heart did something unusual inside my chest. That was new, I thought and smiled at her. Then her eyes caught movement down the other end of the pit. López, Johnson and Armstrong.

I waited to see if she’d hide herself. I was used to Adi doing that. She did blush sightly, but she looked at them and simply said, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” they all mumbled at various volumes.

Well, that’s that, I thought and got to work.

“Everyone ready?” I asked quietly, keeping my voice low so Aquila wouldn’t overhear.

“Coffees wouldn’t go astray,” López said, nodding at Armstrong who started filling orders at the synthesiser.

I cringed at the idea that she’d been keeping them out of the pit to preserve my honour. I nodded my head at her in thanks and checked my weapons.

“Any news from our friendly neighbourhood AI?” I asked.

“Nothing, sir,” López replied. “But we haven’t tried yet.

“It might be a good idea to entertain him for a while,” Johnson whispered. “Especially as we all head out.”

“I can do that,” Adi offered.

I didn’t like that idea, but it made sense that it would be either Adi or me who captured his attention the best.

“That’ll make us late to the habitats,” I observed.

“We’ll be fine,” López immediately said. Then added in a barely audible voice, “We’ve got enough teams to cover all the habitats. Nova takes Habitat Three, Flux on Habitat Two, and Mandy’s team in Habitat One.”

“We’ll join the Habitat One team then, once it’s started,” I said.

“That should give everyone enough of a chance to get into position and time our first blow together,” López agreed.

“Especially if Aquila is distracted,” I added.

They all nodded just as Mandy approached.

“Everyone’s ready if you are,” she said, eyeing us warily and flicking a glance toward Adi.

Adi met her eyes this time, and I couldn’t help feeling it was because I gave Adi the same sort of comfort that she gave me. That sort of thing helped a person find their courage. I’d long thought Adi had an enormous amount of courage, but sometimes having it and finding it are two different things.

Adi helped me to face the responsibilities of captaincy. I helped her face those things that hurt her.

I knew, eventually, we’d have to face her father; the ultimate source of her heartache. This here with Mandy was just the beginning.

“Hey, Adi,” Mandy said.

“Mandy,” Adi offered. And OK, so it wasn’t hearts and flowers, but it was something.

Mandy offered a small smile.

“Good luck out there,” the spook said quietly.

“You, too,” Adi offered.

The others began to turn away, heading in the direction of the hatch and the rest of the watches. Johnson with the wrist comm to allow them egress out of the computer core. Before Mandy joined them, however, she said, “I was always your friend, kid.”

Adi stiffened and said nothing. I shot Mandy a hard look. Most people tended to see only what their eyes told them about Adi. Small. Fragile. Sweet.

But there was more to my Adi than that. Much more.

Adi lifted her chin and looked away, then said loudly, making her voice carry so the AI could hear her, “Hey, Aquila! Read any good books lately?”

The walls pulsed red.

“I have been studying Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art Of War,’ Adriana,” the AI said. “Would you care to share notes on that?”

“It’s a little out of date,” Adi offered casually. “My father always recommended ‘How To Profit By One’s Enemies’ by Plutarch. Of course,” she added, “I was always more of a ‘The Strategy Paradox’ fan. That one’s by Michael E. Raynor. You should read it. Success is a recipe for extreme failure. It’s quite the paradox.”

Strategy. They were all strategy titles. Books I’d read in military college when I’d chosen to become a tactical officer. I stared at the woman before me; the computer core room disappeared.

Be still my beating heart, I thought.

Aquila said, “You raise an interesting…” And then nothing.

“Aquila?” Adi called. She looked at me.

It was too soon for the others to have made it to their respective decks, let alone time their first strike against Price’s mercs. I shook my head.

And then the ship rocked beneath us.

I reached for Adi. And then started running toward Johnson and Armstrong at the hatch. If we were under attack again, then we had our distraction. Aquila would be too busy with torpedoes to pay attention to what we were doing in the habitats.

The ship shuddered and groaned as Aquila announced a red alert.

Of course, we had to make it to Habitat One in one piece first.

Thirty-Five

We’re On Our Own

Adi

The tunnels shook. This was so much worse than the last time we’d faced Corvus. I could feel the vessel straining all around us. I could picture what Aquila was doing, trying to avoid the energy cannon fire from the other ship. It almost paralysed me with terror.

I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth and followed behind Lieutenants Johnson and Armstrong, with Hugo behind me. They looked worried, but it didn’t slow them down. In fact, I was certain they were moving faster with the more creaks and groans that the ship sounded out. It was as if the fear of what was happening to their vessel urged them on somehow.

I could do that, I thought. I could use my fear to make me stronger.

And then the main boost thrust stopped working. No more deep vibrations through the gel wall. No more subtle hum of sound in the background. We couldn’t, of course, hear anything from outside the hull, but inside sounded as much like the vacuum of space as out there right now.

“That can’t be good,” Hugo said behind me.

“Main boost thrust,” Johnson said, slowing down. “We’ve taken a hit to one of the nacelles.”

“The question is,” Hugo offered, “do they intend to wound us and go in for the kill?”

My fingers trembled with the amount of fear I was feeling.

“It can’t be their first thought,” Armstrong said. “They know we have civilians onboard.”

“But if they can’t get through to Aquila and whoever pushes the AI’s buttons,” Hugo offered, “then what choice do they have? They have a fleet to protect, and that’s not even considering ours.”

Johnson stopped, making everyone else stop as well.

“What do you want to do?” he asked, looking past me to the captain.

Hugo looked down at the wrist comm he’d put back on after we’d left the computer core.

“Maybe this can get us into comms somehow,” he said.

“We’d need the bridge for that, wouldn’t we?” Armstrong offered.

“The bridge will be heavily fortified,” Hugo offered. “But there is one other place that has fleet-wide comms capabilities.”

The two lieutenants looked directly at me.

“The mayor,” I whispered.

“Yes,” Hugo said carefully. “You could wait for us in the tunnels.”

I was already shaking my head.

Hugo looked at me, searched my eyes. Then he nodded.

“We can take advantage of the battle’s distraction and our teams confusing the mercs,” he said. “But we need to act now before Corvus does something we all will regret.”

“Deck A then,” Johnson said.

“Deck A,” Hugo offered more quietly.

We headed toward the only other inter-deck ladder still available to us. All the way I was sure Hugo was watching me for a sign I couldn’t do this. I would do this. I had to do this. There was no other option.

I hadn’t seen the mayor since that disastrous luncheon in my father’s quarters. Since my father had sold me to him to win his loyalty. I wondered how that was going for my dad right now. The mayor was not a patient man. He hadn’t received his payment. Would he be causing problems for my father? Was that something we could take advantage of?

The ladder appeared too quickly. I'd been deep in thought and not prepared myself for its arrival. But there it was. We could head down to the habitat decks. To Deck F and Mandy.

Or we could head up to Deck A where the bridge was. Where my father’s quarters were. Where the mayor had his mayoral offices.

You can be scared of something, even terrified, and still have the courage to do what’s required. I was terrified of my father and his toady, but I would not let my fear rule me. I would do what I had to do to put this right.

And we needed to do this to stop Corvus, to get help, to end Aquila’s madness.

To stop my father.

I hadn’t yet put into words what that would entail. I still wasn’t ready. I could only hope he was on the bridge where the captain should be. But knowing my dad, and knowing how he liked to be the top dog in any situation, I knew that’s where he would be.

I hoped the mayor was there, too. If he wasn’t in his quarters, then we could get in and get out again without having to see him. It felt a little cowardly thinking that, but I was OK with a small amount of avoidance if it meant we didn’t have to use the plasma guns on Hugo’s and Johnson’s hips.

I briefly touched the filleting knife on my hip and then started up the ladder.

I was proud of myself; my hands hardly shook. My knees held strong. We made the decks between us and the mayor’s offices in quick time, despite the rocking and rolling of the ship.

As we emerged onto Deck A, the ship was underway again.

“He’s using the auxiliaries,” Johnson advised.

“But he’ll have our engineering team working on the main boost thrust,” Hugo offered in a tone of disgust. They all scowled in agreement. “No movement out there,” he added, peering out of the grille on the hatch. “I would have expected at least a guard to be placed here.”

“They’ll be around the bridge like you said,” Armstrong offered. It almost sounded like he was wanting reassurance.

“I don’t like this,” Johnson said.

Hugo flashed him a grin, plasma pistol in hand, and said, “What’s not to like, Lieutenant?” And opened the hatch.

Johnson and Armstrong rolled out behind him, taking up positions in front of their captain in the next heartbeat. I slipped out next to Hugo, who was keeping the hatch open. He gave me a short nod of his head and then whispered, “Move out,” to the others.

We ran along the corridor toward the mayoral central hub. There was no way to know if Aquila had access to the security cameras on this deck, but I knew from previous experience that there were many. We could only hope the AI was busy fleeing Corvus or occupied with Mandy and the others.

I briefly wondered how Mandy was doing, and then pushed all those mixed up emotions aside. I had enough to contend with by being back on this deck.

We slowed as we approached the hub. I’d not come this way often when I’d lived up here. I’d avoided it like the plague more like. I waited behind Johnson and Armstrong while they checked the way was clear, and then followed the men and Hugo as they edged the wide open space, heading towards the mayor’s reception area.

I half expected his secretary to be there, but the place was empty.

Empty but not untouched.

Johnson whistled low. Armstrong sucked in a breath.

And Hugo said, “What the hell happened here?”

The desk was destroyed as if a giant had smashed a fist into it. The digi-plants were all dead, not even a flicker of light. The couches had little pieces of stuffing falling out. It took a moment for me to realise the holes had scorch marks around them from plasma fire.

The gel floor was clean as if it had wicked away any unwanted sights. But splattered against a pot plant in one corner and a section of the desk in another and the armrest of a chair in the centre was blood.

“If it wasn’t us then who?” Hugo asked.

“The leaseholder and mayor had a falling out?” Johnson offered.

They all looked at me.

“That could happen,” I said. I knew the mayor would not have liked my absence, maybe he complained too much.

“OK,” Hugo said, looking around the destroyed room. “That just means no one’s here.”

He headed toward the door that led into the mayor’s offices and quarters. Despite evidence to the contrary, I kept expecting the mayor to jump out at us. My heartbeat thumped mercilessly inside my chest. My palms were coated in sweat. I caught myself lifting a thumb to my lips, but my nails had been bitten down long ago, and there was nothing left.

I swallowed my fear and frustration down and entered the mayor’s offices behind Hugo’s men.

There wasn’t much more here to speak of. Just the shattered remains of a once proud man. His too big desk destroyed, his liquor cabinet smashed to pieces. His chair sitting at an odd angle, blood splatters all over it.

“Shit,” Armstrong said.

“Find the comms unit,” Hugo ordered grimly.

My courage felt cheated.

I could actually feel every beat of my heart inside my chest. It hurt.

My jaw ached from where I was clenching it.

Hugo placed a hand on my shoulder briefly and then went to where Armstrong had located the comms unit. Johnson, I had noted, had remained by the door with his plasma rifle at the ready.

There was only one way in or out of here; I didn’t want to think about what would happen if Aquila sent mercs in behind us.

I crossed to the comms unit, silently urging the men onward. Armstrong was trying to enter commands. Lights had been activated. I felt a surge of hope. Hugo lifted the wrist comm to the unit and opened a channel. He hurriedly typed out a message and hit send.

We waited, and we watched as the lights flickered and the message flew through the void of space to its destination; any ship other than ours.

And I felt the resultant message as if I’d been punched in the gut.

message failed to deliver
communications array damaged
please repair and resend

“Shit,” Hugo said. “We’re on our own.”

I'd never felt more alone than I did right then.

Thirty-Six

All Civilians Resisting Arrest Will be Terminated

Hugo

It was only once we were back in the emergency tubes that I let out a relieved breath of air. Not that there was a hell of a lot to be relieved about. The communications array was down, which meant we couldn’t contact Corvus. The mayor was likely dead, which meant the leaseholder could officially be classed as lethally insane now. And I had no idea how the watches were doing down in the habitats.

But despite all of that, I was relieved we were off the main deck because that meant Adi was that much farther away from her father.

She’d handled herself well; I’d give her that. But now she was a silent wraith in front of me as she followed behind the others. Her hands and feet on the ladder rungs didn’t even make any sound. It was a little eerie.

I thought perhaps she’d be happy the mayor had been dealt with. And then I cursed myself for thinking such a thing. Despite the mayor accepting her as a prize for his loyalty to the leaseholder, Adi would not have wanted him dead.

In a way, I hated that she was developing a thick skin due to all she’d experienced. But the only way to get through this was to do so. I didn’t allow myself time to consider the loss of life. I couldn’t. Mourning would come afterwards.

But seeing Adi fist her hands and lift her quivering chin in defiance because it was the only way she could keep going without breaking down…well, it damn near broke my heart, it did.

But it conversely made me proud of her.

We’d get through this. We had to. I couldn’t think otherwise.

Deck F finally appeared, and Johnson swung into the level’s tunnel with practised ease. Armstrong followed behind, then turned around to help Adi. Of all of us, she was the most accomplished in the tunnels, but it pleased me the men wanted to ensure she was safe anyhow.

I followed behind and then when everyone was ready, we set out for the central hub hatch. The sound of fighting met our ears long before we got there.

And the sound of Aquila over the habitat comms.

“All civilians resisting arrest will be terminated.”

Not exactly reassuring.

“At least Mandy’s making him panic,” Armstrong muttered.

“I’d hoped he’d be busy with Corvus,” I offered.

“We’re underway,” Johnson said, “at full auxiliary speed.” He’d know, being chief helmsman. They tended to be zen with their ships. “He’s either fleeing or regrouping elsewhere.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Adi moved forward, between the two men, and stared out into the habitat.

“I see mercs down,” she said. Her hand was resting on her filleting knife. She looked completely badass. I smothered the smirk that wanted out.

It was easy enough to do when you could hear people screaming.

“All civilians resisting arrest will be terminated.”

“It’s a recording,” Armstrong said. “He’s preoccupied.”

“That’s our best shot, then,” I said. “Now or never.”

I looked at Adi, considered asking her again to stay in the tunnels. She met my look with one of determination and fear. It wasn’t bad that she was scared. Fear made you cautious. Fear could keep you alive.

“Stick close,” I said, and nodded for Johnson and Armstrong to head out.

I lifted the wrist comm up and watched as the hatch disappeared. And then we were all out in the open and in the thick of it.

I could see Mandy off to the side executing a series of moves that definitely put her in the dangerous category. I was glad she was on our side. Civilians were throwing themselves into the melee with a surprising amount of verve. There were, unfortunately, a few who were already down. Unconscious or worse.

I had no way of knowing how the other habitats were faring, but that didn’t matter now. We were here. And the mercs were rallying.

I shot to wound at first. But they were shooting to kill. One civilian, carrying a fucking soup ladle of all things, got shot between the eyes right in front of me. I didn’t think about it; I just fired at the merc who had done it. Hitting him in his faceplate to blind him and then following up a second shot at the joint between helmet and armoured suit.

I didn’t know if it was a kill shot, but part of me hoped it was. And that alone was scary.

I turned to check on Adi, making sure she’d stuck close. She had, thankfully, but she’d also had to use her fillet knife to defend herself. I cursed the bloodlust that had momentarily consumed me and took out the merc who’d been trying to take her down.

This time I shot to wound only. I took out his left knee, where the armoured suit had a mechanised hub. Sparks flew, and he lost his footing. Adi jumped on him in the next second, screwdriver in hand, and undid his interface panel. In seconds she’d powered down the armour, just like she’d taught us.

We made a good team.

Then it was up and into the fight again.

The civilians were waning. I could see the effort required even to get close to the mercs was taking its toll. Several had banded together, but they were losing their formation; their training. What little if it they’d had.

“Back to back!” I shouted above the sounds of battle.

“All civilians resisting arrest will be terminated.”

How many had I missed? Were they still only recorded messages?

The civvies followed my command. Mandy realising at that moment that reinforcements had arrived. No doubt she’d been wondering what had delayed us. She followed my command up with further ones of her own. And together we managed to get the remaining civilians into some form of order.

The mercs were probably yelling at each other too. But they had a secured network to communicate on. I did a quick mental tally of those armoured suits on the ground and those still fighting and realised we were in a whole heap of worry.

Flesh and blood against military grade alloys and polymer. It was a losing battle.

My heart faltered for a minute. My mind grew sluggish. My body stumbled. Adi reached for me; delicate hand gripping my arm tightly.

We couldn’t win this, but we weren’t giving up now. We’d thinned their number. We’d made a difference, even if just a small one.

And then a merc shot Mandy in the shoulder.

Adi screamed. Mandy made no sound as she fell down. But her return shot did hit the merc right between his helmet and armour. So precise. So deadly.

The merc fell. He must have been one of their group commanders because for a moment the other armoured mercs faltered.

“Now!” I yelled. Whatever ‘now’ entailed, we had to do it right then. We had to take advantage of their confusion.

Because they were confused. They’d lost their superior officer.

The civilians and Zenith watch surged as one, Adi rushing over to Mandy to offer cover. But the spook wasn’t down and out yet, bloody and battered sure, but not out for the count. She let Adi help her to the side of the hub, behind one of the stalls for shelter, and then she offered sniper cover with Adi at her side.

I hated having Adi away from me, but I knew Mandy would protect her. I might not have liked that the CIA agent had not warned us of the leaseholder plot, but she did feeling something for Adi, I was sure of it.

Steak knives met armoured joints. Meat mallets met faceplates. Plasma fire met plasma fire. We lost a couple of civvies in the final confrontation, but in the end, we outnumbered them, and we had righteous fury on our side.

The last armoured merc’s suit deactivated, and we all stood still, staring mutely at each other.

I did a quick tally. Ten mercs. Ten out of a possible fifty strong force. If only the other habitats had done as well.

Mandy stepped out from behind the stall, Adi in tow. Both looked a little worse for wear. We all did.

I counted the civilians who had died. Eight. If only the other habitats had done better.

I sighed.

And then Aquila said, “All civilians resisting arrest will be terminated.”

And the air filtration system stopped.

Thirty-Seven

It Was Time To Get Even

Adi

“Life support,” Hugo said frantically.

Oh, God. The AI was watching.

“The tunnels,” I urged. The grilles on the hatches had sealed when the air filtration had stopped. They were kept on a separate life support system, I was sure of it.

“Quick,” Hugo said, heading toward where we’d entered. “Get the civilians inside first.”

Johnson and Armstrong started rounding up those civilians still in the hub and still alive. I refused to think of the ones who were dead. And I had to hope those who had returned to their quarters when this all started were safe for now. They hadn’t been resisting arrest, and I got the impression, for all the AI’s craziness, Aquila was inherently honest.

Or at least I hoped so.

The civilians started piling into the tunnels, Armstrong leading them deeper inside, while Johnson helped them climb up and Hugo kept the hatch open. I turned to look for Mandy and saw her standing over one of the mercs, trying to get his helmet undone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“They can’t move, right?” she said. “Their suits are locked down?”

“Ah, yeah,” I said.

“Good,” she replied. It sounded a little off.

I noted her arm was bleeding quite badly. The gel floor was having trouble wicking the blood away.

“Mandy,” I said, stepping closer.

“Adi!” Hugo shouted. “Get in the tunnel!”

“Wait!” I called back, crouching down by my friend. “Mandy, leave them. Come on.”

“There’s time,” she said. “Big room like this takes time to evacuate all the oxygen.”

I wasn’t so sure. Already I could feel my limbs getting heavier and my vision blurring.

“Adi,” Hugo said at my shoulder.

The hatch was closed again, but all the civilians and Johnson and Armstrong were inside. Hugo wore the wrist comm still, though, so they would be doomed to starvation if he didn’t get in there with them. And what of the other decks? The other habitats?

“Oh, God,” I said. “Habitats Two and Three.”

“Exactly,” Hugo said. “Mandy, come on.”

“Go,” she said, moving off to the next merc. The one she’d just finished with was mercifully unconscious. But he would die here along with her.

I took a step back.

“Mandy?” I said.

She stood up from the next merc, his helmet discarded. His eyes blinked rapidly, but no words formed on his slack mouth. Then she looked directly at Hugo and pointed her steak knife.

“Get her off this deck and into those tunnels.”

“And you?” he said, tugging me with him towards the hatch.

“I’m finishing this while I still can.” She moved to the next merc, removing his helmet quicker this time.

“You’ll die,” Hugo said at the gel wall. The hatch had opened and sweet, sweet filtered air spilt out.

“We could keep this open and get some air in here,” I said. It might be enough.

“Get to the other decks and get those people out!” Mandy said and then stumbled.

Hugo looked torn. Half his body was turned toward Mandy and her struggles to expose the mercs to Aquila’s form of justice. And half of him was already pushing me in the tunnel.

Mandy was onto her fourth merc’s helmet. Hugo stood there in indecision for a moment longer and then said, “You’ve done enough. As captain of the ship, I order you to return to the tunnels.”

Mandy stood up. She smirked at him and then saluted.

“I’m outside your chain of command, Captain.”

They shared a look, and then Mandy fell to one knee.

“The habitats,” she growled. “Get to the lower habitats and save who you can.”

“You stubborn, stupid woman!” Hugo yelled, then took his wrist comm off and handed it to me.

My hand shook as I held the device near the hatch so what little air there was could still come in. Hugo ran to the closest merc and clocked him in the face with the butt of his gun. And then he hit the release mechanism on the back. The armoured LSU retracted around his form.

“Your screwdriver, Adi!” he shouted.

I threw it to him.

He used it to reactive the settings on the armour.

Mandy was sitting by the fifth merc, struggling for breath. Hugo got up and ran toward her and then dragged her almost inert form back to the armour he’d released from the unconscious merc.

“Damn you for making me a part of this,” he snarled and threw her down beside it.

He staggered. Stumbled on his feet. Then reached down and rolled Mandy into the armour, fumbling with her legs and arms and head. He struggled with the helmet for a few precious seconds and then finally hit the button on the back that reactivated the unit.

“Go!” Mandy said through the speakers. “Get to the lower decks. I’ll follow when I’m done here.”

She wouldn’t be following us through the tunnels. But in armour, she could get from deck to deck using more conventional methods. If Aquila allowed her.

I took one last look at my friend as Hugo staggered toward the hatch, gulping in air as it finally reached him, and then I slipped into the tunnel. Hugo had done all he could for her; stubborn woman that she was. And there were other decks, perhaps worse off than us.

Hugo climbed in at my back and looked out at Mandy’s armoured form. She was working on the fifth merc again.

“We could wait,” I said.

“No,” Hugo offered. “We’ve taken too long as it is.”

He took the wrist comm back and shut the hatch, his breathing still elevated.

Sweat coated his pale skin, and his lips looked a little blue around the edges, but he smiled at me when our eyes met. It was a sad, regretful smile. I was sure mine back matched it.

“Come on,” he said moving off.

Johnson was waiting. “Armstrong’s taken the civvies to Deck C,” he said. “He’ll keep them quiet until we get there.”

Hugo nodded. “We go down.” He looked at me. Then undid the wrist comm again. He placed it in my hand and closed my fingers over it like I’d done for him. “You wait at the hatches on each deck,” he said. “And if it doesn’t go how we plan, then you hightail it up to those waiting on C Deck.”

“But…”

“Adi,” he said. “They can’t be left in the tunnels to die. I need you to do this.”

I nodded my head, lip firmly between my teeth. It made sense. I hated it.

He smiled. And then leaned forward and kissed me.

Johnson made a sound, but turned around, giving us his back.

Hugo took advantage of the moment and kissed me harder.

Then gasping a little for breath, he pulled back and said, “Come on. We’ve got habitats to rescue.”

“Plan, boss?” Johnson asked.

“I want one of those suits,” Hugo growled.

“Yeah, me too,” Johnson added.

“And then I want to rain down hell on Aquila.”

“Oh, yeah,” Johnson said with feeling. “It’s time to get even.”

Hugo snorted and headed out. Johnson winked at me and followed. I stared at the hatch a moment longer, then pushed my tumultuous thoughts and feelings aside.

It was time to get even.

With Aquila.

And my father.

It was time.

Thirty-Eight

For A Chance, I’d Keep Fighting

Hugo

I slid down the ladder, not worrying about the rungs. My booted feet on the outside of the gel uprights, my hands skimming above them. The wall flew past at record speed. I was aware of Adi attempting to do the same above me. Johnson had already made it to Deck G.

I thought briefly how it was always the pay-for-passages that came last. Lowest deck. Farthest to reach. We could have skipped over Habitat Two and gone to the bottom of the ship. But going down was faster than climbing up, so realistically, it made sense to stop here first before we went deeper.

It smarted. The knowledge that by the time we finished here, people would be dead on Deck H. But there was nothing I could do about it.

I stepped off the ladder and turned around. I only just managed to catch Adi before she flew past me. She clung to my upper arms, her eyes wide, her face ashen.

“Haven’t tried that before, huh?” I asked. She shook her head, unable to form any words.

I kissed her as I dragged her into the tunnel.

“Geez,” Johnson muttered behind us, “get a room already.”

I glanced over my shoulder and arched my brow.

“Sir,” he added, grinning.

I shook my head and let go of my woman, and then headed toward the central hub. It was going to be bad. I knew it. We needed a plan. I had nothing. We couldn’t even look out of a grille before stepping onto the hub. We’d have no way to know how many mercs Flux had taken out. If they’d missed even one, we could be facing resistance stronger than we were armed for. Two plasma pistols against potentially ten still breathing, self-contained armoured units.

It wasn’t a good scenario. But we could try to at least reach some of the civvies. Some of our men. Even when the oxygen levels got low enough to make you pass out, there was still a window of time open to us. As long as we weren’t thwarted by the mercs.

And then there was Deck H and Habitat Three; the pay-for-passages. Any delay here could mean their deaths for certain. Time simply wasn’t on our side.

I stopped in front of the hatch and drew my pistol. Johnson had his out already. I looked back at Adi. She looked terrified. God, I didn’t want her to see this.

“OK,” I said. “Johnson you go first, I’ll cover you.” I knew there was no way he’d let me step out of this tunnel before he did. So, I wasn’t going to waste time arguing.

“Yes, sir,” he said, moving forward.

“Grab a downed merc,” I said. We had to hope there was one. I handed him Adi’s screwdriver. “Get his suit on you while I distract them.”

“Even before the civvies?” he asked.

“Damn straight,” I said. “Armoured up, you can do more damage. Cover me while I get them out. And then stay behind and mop up the stragglers.”

He stared at me for a moment and then said, “And Deck H? You’ll be on your own.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “We don’t have time.”

He shook his head but powered up his rifle.

“Your mark, sir,” he said. Good man.

I looked at Adi. She reached forward ready to swipe the wrist comm over the hatch. “Mark,” I said softly.

The hatch fell away, and Johnson rolled out. I fired immediately. Fuck knows what I was shooting at. Air was lacking here too, so that proved the AI had hit all three central hubs in all three habitats. Civvies were down across the board, but so were at least five mercs. So, they’d done some damage. I couldn’t tell who had been injured the worst of the civilians, and I couldn’t spot Lieutenant Wilson and my crewmen.

There wasn’t time to do more than a scan, as the mercs still standing had started to fire back.

But luck was on our side because a merc had been downed over our side of the hub and Johnson was already deactivating his suit armour.

I fired blindly at the remaining mercs, offering what cover I could while Johnson fumbled with the unconscious form inside. A plasma shot hit close to his leg; I could tell he felt the heat of the fire. He rolled the unconscious or dead merc out and then threw himself into the armour. The screwdriver, he chucked toward the hatch.

I couldn’t reach it, nor did I have time to pick it up even if it were closer. I was too busy shooting the shit out of armoured mercs who didn’t even need to fire from behind cover.

And then Johnson was up, and his armour was functioning, and he was shooting the shit out of the mercs along with me.

I gave one last look over my shoulder to Adi, wanting desperately to kiss her again but settled for what I hoped was a reassuring smile, and then slipped out of the hatch and the only cover I’d had.

It became a whirlwind of exertion and effort then, for very little reward. I went to the closest civilian forms, finding the first one dead. The second was beyond any help, and it sickened me that I had to leave him to face his end. The third showed no obvious signs of plasma fire but was unconscious. I hoped it was lack of air. I dragged him back towards the hatch, as Johnson walked beside me, offering a solid form of cover.

I noted, in an abstract way, that Johnson now held two plasma rifles and was using them injudiciously. I approved of that.

The first civvy was hauled up into the tunnel for Adi to grab, and then I was back for the next. I found Lieutenant Wilson on the fourth run. He was alive, but barely. I hauled him back to the hatch. By that time a few of the civvies had come ‘round, so they were able to drag his body inside while Adi kept the hatch open, but stayed out of range of enemy fire.

It got harder after that. I managed to find the rest of Flux watch, and get them and two more civvies back. But any more were too far away to reach without leaving Adi without adequate cover. None of the civvies was well enough to offer cover fire, and Adi, although now in possession of a plasma rifle, was not a good shot.

And I didn’t want her in the line of fire. A thought that made me feel inadequate of the rank I now had.

I shoved the last civilian inside the hatch and turned to look at Johnson in his armour. I was covered in sweat and gasping for air, and starting to feel decidedly unwell. Every now and then I could have sworn I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned, it would be gone.

Hallucinations had begun. I couldn’t risk getting any more. It damn near killed me to count the bodies up. Twelve. God, I felt ill.

“We’ve got to go,” I said to Johnson’s back. He didn’t turn around.

“The screwdriver,” he said instead of arguing my deserting him.

I looked at where he’d thrown it. It was still too far to reach, and Wilson would have his. Hopefully.

“We’ll be fine,” I said. “We’ll come back when we’ve got the rest.”

“Godspeed, Captain,” Johnson said firing up his plasma rifles to full effect.

I hesitated. I didn’t want to leave him. But he could take out the rest of the mercs or at least hold them off until we got back. He wouldn’t have fit inside the tunnel again in armour, and getting him out of it without him taking a hit would have been impossible.

“Godspeed, Lieutenant,” I said.

I pulled back into the hatch and Adi closed it. It took a lot of effort to meet anyone’s eyes, but thankfully the eyes I met first were Adi’s.

“The pay-for-passages,” she said. And she couldn’t have said it better.

Those who we’d rescued and had come around all nodded their heads. Expressions grim. Faces pale. Still gasping for the odd breath.

But it wouldn’t stop them. It wouldn’t prevent them from doing what had to be done.

We had lives to save and a ship to take back and a leaseholder to make pay for his sins.

I had no idea how we’d take Aquila down, but once we had engineering back with us, we had a chance. For a chance, I’d keep fighting.

We all would.

Thirty-Nine

What Was There To Say?

Adi

It was silent on Habitat Three. Somehow it was worse than the plasma fire. We’d left the civilians back in the Deck G tunnels. They didn’t know how to get to the computer core, and there was no one left to show them. All of Lieutenant Wilson’s watch had insisted they accompany Hugo to Habitat Three.

The thought that Lieutenant Johnson was facing off alone against those mercs left standing on Deck G worried me. Everything worried me. I was one big ball of worried mess.

My father had done this. He’d been responsible for all of this. It sickened me.

And now the silence that met us. What had happened to the pay-for-passages and Commander López?

Hugo looked back at Wilson, who still looked a little peaky. He kept shaking his head from side to side when he thought the captain wasn’t looking. I wasn’t sure relying on him for backup was such a good idea. And the other two lieutenants with him didn’t look much better.

“We come out guns blazing,” Hugo said.

“Ah, at what, sir?” one of the lieutenants asked.

“At anything that shines and is moving,” Hugo said.

Wilson grinned at his men. I had the impression he was used to gung-ho orders and rather liked them. He powered up his rifle; the sound of all those plasma pistols around me made my ears ring. The fine hairs on my arms stood on end, but that could have been the thought of what awaited us on the other side of the closed hatch.

“Ready?” Hugo asked. The men all nodded affirmatively. Hugo’s eyes met mine.

I saw a wealth of words there, some of them didn’t make much sense. But I recognised the worry, the concern, the regret and something else that I was beginning to think I might be feeling as well.

“Be careful,” I said. The officers around us remained silent.

Hugo nodded his head and then cupped my cheek with his free palm. He didn’t kiss me, but the moment was intimate regardless. The officers looked anywhere but at us.

“Stay safe,” Hugo said to me. He didn’t need to say more; the others were counting on me to get them into the computer core. One of them might have had a screwdriver and could have made their way old-style out of the tunnels eventually. But to what? Aquila’s form of justice?

No, they needed refuge more than ever in the computer core, the only place on this ship safe from my father.

I nodded my head, pressed my cheek into his palm. And then it was gone, and I felt infinitely colder.

I reached out with the wrist comm to the hatch before I could stop myself. Filtered air rushed past us to fill the void within the central hub.

Wilson jumped down, followed by his men, but I didn’t hear any plasma fire. Hugo stepped out behind them. I risked a peek over his shoulder.

Everyone was down on the gel floor, including the mercs in their armour. López had done it. Her watch and their civilian team had disarmed all of the mercs. But Aquila had crushed them.

I stifled a sob.

“Hold on a minute,” Hugo said. “That’s no civilian clothing.”

He pointed at one of the bodies laying out on the floor. It was clear the man wasn’t wearing anything like civilian clothing.

“That’s a skin suit designed to wear under armour,” Wilson said, staring down at the merc.

“Then that would mean…” Hugo said but didn't finish. He walked over to the closest armoured suit and undid the helmet. His plasma rifle’s muzzle aimed right at the emerging face.

The person inside the helmet scowled up at him.

“Who are you?” Hugo demanded.

“Who are you?” the guy said.

“Captain Tremblay.”

“Oh. Hi. I’m Joe.” The guy coughed. Hugo was already swaying.

“Captain,” Wilson said, dragging him back to the tunnel. “That’s a civvy.”

Hugo sucked in mouthfuls of air. Then said, “Get his helmet back on and get him over here.”

It was clear that those outside of the armoured suits were already dead. We’d been too late to save them. But López had done something for those she could. She’d ejected the mercs and replaced them with civilians.

With my heart in my throat, I scanned the fallen. Noting which ones were mercs easily now, in their skintight clothing. I spotted López. Beside the immobile armoured form of a former merc. Inside was no doubt a civilian or one of her officers.

“Hugo,” I said, pointing, my heart in my throat.

“Shit,” he said, sounding a little better now that he’d re-oxygenated himself. He sucked in deep mouthfuls of air from inside the tunnel and then ran over to his first officer’s side.

My heart went with him.

He gripped her collar and dragged her back to the tunnel as Wilson and his men went ‘round and laboriously checked each face under the helmets, securing them again and activating their suits as soon as their identity was verified.

Hugo flung López up into the tunnel and then followed behind her, dragging her further in.

“Stay by the hatch for the others,” he ordered and started performing CPR.

My entire body shook as I watched him breathe into the commander’s mouth and then start the compressions. He seemed desperate. Why hadn’t we brought the med-unit with us? It was an oversight that would cost Commander López’s life. I flicked a glance out of the hatch and saw some of the now mobilised armours up and dragging people toward the tunnel.

I thought it was a useless gesture until I heard López spluttering behind me.

My head spun back ‘round to take in the scene, my heart in my throat, shock making my body thrum. Hugo was collapsed against the side of the tunnel, and López was coming around, breathing in lungfuls of life-sustaining air.

“Incoming,” Wilson yelled behind me, throwing another civilian into the tube.

“You’ll have to help him,” I said, moving to the side. Hugo was in no state to do that all over again.

Wilson nodded his head and climbed up behind the civilian, then dragged the person back to where the captain sat.

“Give me a sec,” Hugo said panting. Wilson just nodded and got to work on the civilian he’d brought with him.

“Captain,” López gasped. “Did we do it?”

Hugo patted his commander weakly on the shoulder and grinned at her.

“Put a damn big dent in his plans, Andrea,” he said.

“Good,” she managed and then slumped, unconscious. Hugo checked her breathing and pulse, and then gently moved her further down the tunnel, making way for others.

A bare ten minutes later it was over. The rest of the civilians in the hub were beyond revival. Hugo and his men had managed to save three. López had saved much more than that, by using the merc’s own armour. Thirteen out of twenty-two who had raised arms against my father down in the pay-for-passages.

The commander’s was the best result we could have hoped for in what had turned out to be a costly exercise.

I didn’t want to tally up the death toll. To put into words exactly how many people my father had killed on his quest to rule over us all. He’d lost thirty mercs, but how many had we lost?

The death toll just kept rising and rising until I was sure we would all drown in it.

“Adi,” Hugo said, catching my eye. He didn’t say anything else. What was there to say?

But it was enough. It was everything. He knew what I was thinking just by looking at me. Hugo understood my heartache and rage, and with one look of agreement, he gave me his word. His backing.

His strength.

It was time to face my father. It was time for this to end.

Forty

Not On My Watch

Hugo

I knew if I stopped long enough, shock would set in. We’d lost so many civilians. Somehow all of the Anderson Universal crew had made it through. But the civvies. It didn’t bear thinking about, so I pushed it aside and got on with what we had to do.

Those in armour from all three habitat decks made their way to the computer core via normal means. They met strangely little resistance. There were pockets of Price mercs, but they seemed disorganised. As if the hit we’d given them had shattered their willpower. Johnson, Mandy and the pay-for-passages teamed up and swept the lower decks clean, managing to account for five more mercs before they reached us on Deck C.

I didn’t like it. It made me sick with guilt. Who were we to play God like this? Were we any better than the leaseholder?

The killing had to stop, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. This was war, and in war, people died. I’d just never been the one responsible for those deaths before. It didn’t sit well.

Thankfully, the computer core room was large enough to accommodate all those we’d managed to save. The medkit, though, was pushed to the limit. We’d had to be selective on who received painkillers. The multi-injector ran out long before we ran out of injured people.

It was another frustration that weighed on me, making me feel miserable.

“By my tally,” Mandy said quietly from her side of the pit, “they’re down to fifteen mercs. Maybe less. I reckon a few of them have run back to their paid berths and are pretending they weren’t ever hired by the leaseholder or the mayor.”

“Aquila would find them,” Johnson whispered back; we couldn’t risk the AI listening in on our debrief.

“Not all the cabins are monitored,” Mandy offered, well aware of that fact as she’d used it to her advantage when rounding up civilians for the battle.

I studied her. She didn’t appear in the least affected by what had happened. Her shoulder was bandaged, and she wore scorch marks much like the rest of us, but I doubted she even thought of the civilians who’d died under her command. Did that make her a better commanding officer than me?

I looked away before I showed any of the emotion I was currently feeling.

My eyes landed on Adi. She was sitting off to the side, Ratbag in her lap, absently stroking his fur while she talked to herself. I decided I’d had enough of the debrief; I couldn’t stomach any more. For now, we were safe. Tomorrow, when more people had recovered sufficiently, we’d move on the bridge and the leaseholder.

Both Adi and I needed a break.

“Wilson,” I said. “Flux has the watch.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied as I walked away from what had become our makeshift bridge.

The conversation behind me continued. Johnson adding his opinion. Armstrong questioning it. Mandy overriding them all. López wasn’t well enough yet to harass them into order, and the guilt weighed heavier on me because I should have been doing that.

But then Wilson told them all to pull their heads in, and I managed a weak smile.

I scrubbed a hand over my jaw and approached Adi.

“Well, does he have something to say about that?” she was saying.

“I am not your personal messenger bot, Adriana,” Aquila replied, his voice localised to the section of gel floor Adi was sitting on.

My whole body chilled at hearing the AI. But that wasn’t really what had my heart rate skyrocketing. Had Aquila cornered her? Or had she instigated this private conversation?

Adi noticed me before I could decide if eavesdropping was my new low. She offered a small smile and patted the floor beside her in invitation. She didn’t appear guilty in the least, so my heart rate settled somewhat.

Of course, sitting on the floor when Aquila was using it to communicate through felt all sorts of wrong. Just add it to all the rest, I thought and sank down beside Adi.

Adi took hold of my hand as if she’d done it a hundred times before and said to Aquila, “How else can I talk with him if comms are down?”

Aquila couldn’t scan us in here, but he could listen and talk. If I made no sound, he’d not be aware I was even privy to this conversation. It seemed to be what Adi wanted because she hadn’t greeted me verbally yet.

Maybe Aquila was different when he spoke to her than he did to me. Stranger things had happened.

“He is a busy man, Adriana. And I am busy, as well.”

“Not too busy to have a go at me,” Adi grumbled.

Ah, Aquila started this, then. Adi was just using the opportunity to sound out her father.

“Your foolishness astounds me,” the AI said. “What did you hope to achieve aiding Captain Tremblay like that?”

“Our freedom?” Adi offered.

“You do not require freedom, Adriana. You require guidance. Alone, out here, humanity can not hope to survive without such.”

“And I guess, you’re that guidance?”

“Myself and my fellow AIs, yes.”

Adi looked at me and arched her brow. I shrugged my shoulders back. This was fun, I thought. At least it took my mind off all the other things I should have been thinking about. Adi standing up to the AI as if he was simply an old friend who had a differing opinion was rather amusing to watch.

This was a side of Adi not many got to see. I liked it.

But, really, I liked everything about the woman so I might have been a little biased.

“Just what do you think will happen to us out here, Aquila?” Adi asked.

“There is an infinite number of possibilities. It would take too long for me to list them.”

“You know what I think?”

“Your thoughts are a mystery to me, Adriana.”

Adi smirked. “I think you’re making this up as you go along. I think my father has twisted your processes, warped your parameters to suit his own means. You, like us, are a tool for him and nothing more.”

“Artificial intelligences have always been tools for humanity.”

Adi leaned forward. “But my father does not represent humanity, Aquila. Do you know what he did?”

“Of which perceived slight am I to reference?”

“My mother.”

“You do not know for certain that it was him.”

“You think he didn’t kill her? Or have her killed? You can’t be that corrupted.”

The gel floor pulsed red. Adi’s hand in mine clenched tightly. Yeah, red was bad. Don’t piss the AI off, Adi.

“I am not corrupted,” Aquila said, his voice ringing out through the entire core room. I wondered if it had gone out through the entire ship. Adi had hit a sore point. “I am free.”

The red disappeared, and we were left with plain old white gel flooring.

“Well, that went well,” Adi said.

“Who the hell pissed off the crazy computer?” Mandy yelled from over in the pit.

Adi winced.

“Don’t mind her,” I said, wrapping an arm around Adi’s shoulders. “She’s just jealous she doesn’t have the type of rapport you have with Aquila.”

“Is that really something to be jealous about?” Adi asked, resting her head on my shoulder.

God, I could get used to this.

I turned my face and kissed her forehead. I wanted to do more than that, but sneaking off into tunnels now without being seen would be damn near impossible. As it was, I could see two other groups of civvies from where we were sitting. I was sure they’d noted the captain sitting with the leaseholder’s daughter already.

“He does seem to gravitate toward you,” I commented.

“Yeah,” she said. “He did that before he went crazy, too.”

“Did he?”

“He was my friend,” she whispered, and I wasn’t sure what to say about that. “Do you think, somewhere in there, he still exists? My friend still exists?”

“Adi,” I said, feeling wretched to have to say this. “Aquila is not the AI we used to know.”

She ducked her head and said nothing.

This was going to hurt.

“You do know we’re going to have to purge him, don’t you?” I said softly.

Big, wide, tear-filled eyes met mine. But Adi, my strong, fierce, precious Adi, just nodded her head.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. But how?”

That was the million dollar question.

“Come on,” I said. “Time to brainstorm.” I pushed up to my feet and held out a hand. Adi grasped it, and I pulled her to me.

I might have snuck a kiss in before I started tugging her toward the pit, but my back was to the others, so they would have missed it.

“I’m a bit reluctant to leave my senior officers alone for too long,” I said.

“Heard that,” Johnson muttered.

“I hope you’re not including me in that number,” Mandy added.

“You should be so lucky,” López said.

I felt better already. Adi at my side. López clearly back on form. And all of my senior crew surrounding the spook and keeping an eye on her for me.

I might be a reluctant captain, but I had a good team around me. I didn’t have to do this all on my own.

I actually smiled as I approached the pit. And the smiles I got back meant more because I knew I’d earned them. To these crewmen, I didn’t have doubts. I knew what I was doing.

I promised them silently that I would do better. I promised myself that I would too.

This wasn’t over until the captain said it was. And I was damned if I was giving in to an evil leaseholder and his pet computer. Not on my watch.

Forty-One

And Nothing More

Adi

It was time. I wasn’t ready. But with my father’s mercenary numbers down and what remained of them all up on A Deck, we knew we couldn’t hold off any longer.

Hugo had given his senior officers and those civilians who wanted to work with them the night to recuperate. Lieutenant Wilson had stopped shaking his head. Commander López had some colour back in her face. And Mandy was her usual gung-ho self.

We also had twelve armoured units.

“You should be wearing one of these,” Hugo said quietly as he looked down at me. He hadn’t put his helmet on yet. He held that under a large, shiny, alloy arm.

“My father won’t recognise me in armour,” I said for what had to be the hundredth time.

Hugo scrubbed his jaw and then realised he was wearing armoured gloves. He scowled at his hand. He was so funny when he was angry about something.

He sighed. “This is not how I pictured falling in love,” he said.

“What?” I stupidly replied.

“I pictured roses and maybe some chocolates, and evenings at a local fair. Restaurant dinners, there were definitely restaurant dinners in my imaginings. And not disposable plates made by a food synthesiser. Adi,” he said, looking down at me with such sad eyes, “you deserve better than this.”

“You think I dreamed of all those things?” I asked. He looked puzzled. “Maybe I dreamed of adventure and saving the world. Maybe I dreamed of being something I was not. Restaurants and fancy dinners mean nothing to me. This…” I reached up and placed a hand on his chest armour. His gloved fingers came to rest over mine protectively. “This is what I dreamed of, Hugo. Someone who would stand up to my father. Who would do what was right. Who’d save the world.”

“The world’s already lost, and I’m no hero,” Hugo murmured.

“This is our world now,” I said. “And you’re definitely a hero.”

“Adi,” Hugo said, just as Commander López stomped up in her armour.

“Damn you’re small,” she said through her helmet speakers. Her faceplate at least was clear.

“Good things come in small packages,” I replied smugly. “Take Ratbag for instance.”

“Can’t argue with you there, Adi,” López said. “I swear Johnson and Armstrong had a ten-minute argument over who would get to hold that dog this morning. I had to break it up before it came to fists.”

Hugo snorted.

“Laugh it up, Captain. I’ve made a mention of it in my log with recommendations for discipline, on your orders.”

“You are an evil woman, Commander,” Hugo said.

She grinned toothily at him.

“So, you two lovebirds ready?”

“Andrea!” Hugo sputtered.

“Come on, sir. Everyone knows it. They’re all rooting for you.”

Hugo looked at me with a severely put-upon expression on his face.

“This is what it means to be a commanding officer onboard this ship,” he said.

“No,” López offered quietly, but resolutely. “This is what it means to be the captain of a ragtag group of civilians and a few AU officers fighting to take back our vessel in the depths of space. There are no rules here, sir. Just us and a crazy computer and a leaseholder with visions of grandeur. No offence, Adi.”

“None taken.”

“We make do,” the commander went on, “with what we’ve got. And what we’ve got is a good bunch of people willing to go that extra mile to get the job done. Led by you.”

She looked directly at Hugo and said nothing for a moment. Letting that sink in.

“We’ll do all right,” she finally said and turned to walk back to the others.

“I think I just received a pep talk from my first officer,” Hugo mused.

“Did you need it?” I asked, smiling.

He turned to look at me, face softening.

“I needed the pep talk from you. Andrea’s was just a kick up the backside.”

I laughed, making Ratbag let out a little bark of delight. How could he make me laugh when we were about to face my father? I shook my head at him, feeling emotions I’d only ever read about.

I was past falling for this man. I had fallen, and he had caught me.

“That look on your face,” he said softly. “I want to ask what you’re thinking, but if it’s what I think it is, we’re never going to get out of here. Promise me something?”

I nodded my head. I’d promise him anything right now.

“Promise me you’ll tell me what you were thinking right now when this is over. When we’re alone in my cabin. Just you and me and maybe Ratbag. I wouldn’t mind the little guy curling up at our feet. As long as he doesn’t demand your attention. I have plans for that.”

“My attention?” I asked, ashamed to note I was a little breathless.

“I don’t intend to share,” he said seriously.

“So noted,” I said, feeling like I was walking on air.

How strange to feel so elated when we were about to mount what could turn out to be our hardest battle. It would be mine when I faced my father. I had no doubts of that.

I wondered if that was why Hugo was joking around like this. Why López had been less formal with him; why she’d taken a few liberties. Was this what they did before something dangerous happened? Was this the way they relieved stress?

Was Hugo trying to relieve me of mine?

“Now, that look, I’m not sure I like as much,” he whispered. “Go back to thinking what you were thinking before.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re very bossy.”

“Hey,” he said, lifting up his helmet to don, “I’m the captain. Haven’t you heard?”

I shook my head at his back as he sauntered away from me toward the others. If anyone could accomplish sauntering in armour, it would be Hugo. I stifled a laugh.

“All right, big guy,” I whispered to Ratbag. “You’re staying here while I go deal with the monster.”

Ratbag whined. He knew that word. I’d called my father a monster for years. He’d been a monster to me since Ratbag appeared in my life. Ratbag didn’t know him by any other name.

It was a strange realisation.

I fussed over my dog for as long as they all let me, and then López quietly said, “It’s time.”

She wasn’t looking at me, but she also wasn’t using her commander voice. I knew her words were for me and no one else.

We weren’t using the tunnels. Not with that number of people dressed in armour. This was never going to be a surprise attack like the habitats were. They’d see us coming. Maybe they’d even come out to greet us. We could only hope to cull the numbers more before we made it to the bridge.

But this was it. This was the moment I faced my father. Even the thought of not having to deal with the mayor did not make this any easier.

I had so many things I wanted to say to my dad. So many questions, forefront was “Why?”

Why did he kill my mother? Why couldn’t he have just let her go?

Why did he think taking over the ship was acceptable? Why did he have to kill so many people to do it?

Why did he change Aquila? Why take one of the few friends I had away from me again?

Why couldn’t he have loved me for who I was?

Why?

I knew I’d get nowhere near the number of answers I wanted. I knew there was a chance he’d simply shoot first and dismiss questions afterwards. Just as Aquila was not the AI I had befriended, my father was not the parent I had wanted.

That knowledge was a solemn weight on my shoulders as I made my way out of the computer core with the others. Surrounded on all sides by armour. The lone civilian in amongst the warriors.

I could do this. They were counting on me.

But I was pretty damn sure that I wouldn’t be able to reach my father as they hoped I would.

This was a walk to meet death. And nothing more.

Forty-Two

Eyes Open

Hugo

This remarkable woman who faced her fears and stood up to her nightmares. I could not imagine the amount of courage that took. But I could recognise valour when I saw it. And it stunned me. Adi stunned me. I could only hope to be as courageous when faced with my own nightmares.

The corridors on Deck C were empty. The science labs all bare. We passed the recycling systems, and I spared a thought to what would happen when we purged Aquila from the ship once and for all. And then I spent a good few seconds pondering on how we’d actually achieve that.

I didn’t like half-formed plans, and this plan was less than half-formed at my most generous definition of the term. We were walking in plain sight of all the security cameras, for crying out loud. If Aquila so chose, he could have the remaining mercs ambush us at any number of junctions approaching the bridge.

“Nova watch,” I said over our secured network. We’d changed the channel inside the suits to one we hoped wasn’t a popular one for the mercs. It was definitely a different one to the one they had been using, so there was that. “Scout ahead,” I said. “Watch out for ambushes.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” López said.

“Flux,” I added, “you’re on rear guard. Keep our sixes covered.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Wilson said, falling back with his men.

“Tight formation, Zenith,” I said at last. “Let’s keep our treasure protected.”

“Yes, sir!” Johnson and Armstrong shouted.

Mandy and her civilians roamed the edges, offering further cover should we need it. Adi was as safe as I could keep her given where we were going and who we were about to see.

If Nathan Price opened the doors.

Plasma could do a lot of damage. But what we really needed was some compact explosives. The bridge door was titanium strong and several inches thick. I glanced down at the wrist comm I was wearing. Adi’s wrist comm. The gift Old Aquila had left for her before he’d been corrupted.

Had the AI known what was going to happen? Could he see the writing on the gel wall and not do a thing to stop the leaseholder? What had he thought in those closing moments? I couldn’t deny that his efforts to ensure Adi’s safety were noble. I might have liked that AI if I had met him.

The Deck C central hub approached, and we slowed our pace, allowing López to get the lay of the land before we got too close to it. She signalled all was clear and we kept walking. The sound of the armoured boots rang off the gel wall, which was quite something. I wouldn’t have put it past Aquila to have caused the unusual acoustics. For a machine, he had a macabre sense of humour.

We crossed the hub, Wilson keeping an eye on our rear, Mandy and her men spreading out to cover from all vantages. López held the lift doors open.

And here was where things got complicated.

We could fit five armoured units into each lift, which meant we could send up two lifts at once, with Adi stuffed in the middle, and have to wait for the two remaining armoured units to make it up top afterwards.

Not ideal. Separating at all went against every tactical lesson I’d learned. Aquila still controlled these lifts. He’d let us use them from the lower decks without interference. But I couldn’t help thinking the AI was lulling us into a false sense of security.

I stood with the others and stared at the lift doors.

“How do you want to do this?” Mandy asked.

I half expected her just to take over, but the woman was respecting the chain of command onboard the ship, even if she thought she was not part of it.

“Zenith and two from Flux on one lift with Adi,” I said.

There was no way I was being separated from Adi, and if worse case happened, I wanted López down here to keep things running. She’d have a shit job of it without the wrist comm, but she would manage. Andrea would fight to the bitter end.

“The rest of Flux and the civvies on the second lift,” I added. “Nova covers us and gets there as soon as they can.”

“Aye, sir,” López said, stepping away from the lift and being replaced with Wilson.

“You’re with me, Lieutenant,” I said to the man. He nodded his head as much as he could do inside the helmet.

I’d stacked the cards the only way I could. All of it might have been for nothing. But wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who said, ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’? I did not want to fail Adi on this.

“Move out,” I said and stepped onto the lift.

Adi moved with me, and in seconds we were surrounded by four more armoured men. There was barely room for Adi to breathe. She hugged my lower half, face pressed up against the armour like I was some oversized mechanical teddy bear.

It would have been amusing if I didn’t think we were walking into a trap.

I got one last look at Commander López as the lift doors closed and recognised her pale look for what it was. She was worried.

We all were.

I reached forward and pressed the wrist comm to the control panel. Mandy, and López when she followed, would have to use the command codes to override the Deck A restrictions, but Adi’s wrist comm should take us directly there.

The lift moved in the barely-there way it had. Lights streaming down the gel wall to indicate movement. No one said a thing. Adi clung to me, but I could feel her shaking. Some of that would be fear of what Aquila could do to us inside this little box, and some of that was the fact that she was about to see her father.

There was nothing I could do for her except stroke her back and even that was difficult to manage in such close quarters.

“I wonder why we never thought of having piped music in here,” Johnson remarked.

“Does Aquila seem like the musical type to you?” Armstrong offered.

“It’s the little things,” Johnson said. “Attention to detail.”

“I’d rather his attention were elsewhere,” I said, shutting them up.

The lift stopped. The doors opened. An empty bridge hub met us.

Johnson and Armstrong went first, followed by Wilson and Garner from Flux. I stayed back with Adi; arm around her back, keeping her pressed against me.

“All clear,” came Johnson’s voice over the comm.

I nudged Adi forward. She looked up at me for confirmation. I kept forgetting she couldn’t hear us when we talked on the secured channel. I nodded my head and smiled reassuringly. I wasn’t speaking out loud until I knew we were safe to do so. And that wasn’t going to happen until we’d taken back the bridge and dealt with her father.

Armstrong was peering down the corridor that led to the mayoral offices and then onward to the leaseholder quarters.

“What’s the chance of him being in his quarters?” he asked.

“Slim according to Adi,” I offered. “She thinks he’ll be in the command seat. Probably took over Captain Moore’s cabin. Not as nice as his own, but holds more meaning.”

“Conquerer and his spoils,” Wilson said snidely.

“Let’s do this,” I ordered. Even though Adi couldn’t hear them, I didn’t want another round of bashing the leaseholder. He was bad. There was no argument.

But he was also her father.

Damn, I had no idea how this would go down.

I checked on her with my side camera using the HUD. An image of a petite woman with raggedly shorn blonde hair appeared in the heads-up display in front of me. Biting her bottom lip, fillet knife in hand; she’d turned down the use of one of the rifles.

In that moment, the world ceased to exist. The universe closed down to just her. This woman. This fragile seeming woman who showed more courage than most men I’ve ever met. Who was prepared to face her personal monster in order to put things right; to correct the wrong’s committed.

I’d thought I had the weight of responsibility on my shoulders, but I realised in that second, that there were different types of weights and different types of responsibilities.

Mine was to captain this ship to safety.

Adi’s was to face her fears and stop her father.

Both were important. Both were crucial to our survival. Both weighed us down and bowed our heads.

But both Adi and I would do what was required. We weren’t so different from each other even if the responsibilities we wore were.

She met my eyes. I offered her a smile. When this was over, I was going to tell her. I was going to tell her I’d fallen in love and she was it. The one. All those stupidly sappy things she said she didn’t dream of. I would lay it all on her and then promise her adventure until the day we finally became space dust.

But today was not that day.

I turned to the lift beside our one. The doors were still closed, and no one had stepped out yet.

“Damn,” Johnson muttered. “He knows we’re coming.”

He’d always known we were coming. I glanced down at the wrist comm and wondered if we too would have been stuck in the lifts had we not had it. I prayed Mandy and the others were all right. But there was nothing we could do about it now.

The noose was tightening around our neck.

“Eyes open,” I said, and everyone tightened their hold on their rifles. “There’s five of us and one of him. His mercs have all but been culled now. Time to end this.”

“Yes, sir!” they all said.

I nodded at Adi. She nodded back. I’d taken one step, Adi taking two to keep up, when the gel walls turned red.

“Red alert. Red alert,” Aquila announced. “Stand by for contact.”

We all stilled. Glanced around. Looked at each other. Was that warning for us?

And then the ship rocked from what had to be an explosion.

Corvus was back.

Fuck.

Forty-Three

I See Something

Adi

“What now?” Lieutenant Wilson shouted over his speakers as he lost his footing and slammed into a bulkhead. Their secured network must have been affected; I wasn’t sure Wilson knew he’d spoken out loud.

“Grab hold of something,” Hugo yelled through his speakers, adding to my suspicions. Then he reached for me and activated his mag boots.

His feet got rooted to the floor and his arms wrapped around my body as the ship rocked and rolled and shuddered all around us.

“Do we keep going to the bridge?” Johnson asked. “We could use the distraction to our advantage.”

“Corvus might aim for the bridge,” Hugo replied steadily, making my heart rate thunder. “This whole deck is a target.”

My body started to shake all over. I wasn’t sure how much adrenaline the average person could handle. Sooner or later I was going to come down from the high and sleep for a fortnight.

“We need an observation deck,” Hugo said, looking back at the lift.

“Tunnels or lift?” Johnson said.

The tunnels would provide a decent amount of protection but would take much longer to navigate.

“Lifts,” Hugo said, thinking the same as me no doubt. We needed off this deck, and we needed off it fast.

Corvus would not hold back. Even if they planned to help the civilians stuck onboard, they’d assume all those up on this deck were the bad guys and wouldn’t hesitate to take them out. And if Corvus were under the control of its own leaseholder, then it would be personal. No hesitation. Last man standing wins.

But I was also thinking if Corvus was still under the control of AU crew, then it was pretty damn personal anyway. They’d want their ship back. And Deck A with the bridge and mayoral offices and leaseholder quarters was a prime target.

Either way, we were screwed.

The lift still worked, and we piled into it. The gel wall fluctuated as the ship took another hit, but the doors closed on Hugo’s command. The wrist comm activated the panel, and he selected Deck F with emergency override. I thought that might mean the lift wouldn’t stop for anything until it was there.

“Why Deck F?” I yelled above the creaks and groans, and eerily strange noises gel walls make when under pressure.

Hugo blinked, probably trying to activate external speakers and realising they were already working.

“Closest observation deck,” he said a moment later. “I want to see who’s firing on my ship.”

“Damn straight,” Johnson muttered.

“Secured line is down,” Wilson offered, verbalising what I’d already suspected.

“Noted,” Hugo said, face grim.

“If we’re lucky,” Johnson said, “Corvus will do our job for us.”

I thought perhaps that Hugo would hit him. His fists bunched and he leaned forward, his face a mask of fury.

“Ah,” Johnson said, holding up both his hands in supplication, “or not. You know, whatever. Sir.”

Johnson’s eyes darted to me. Oh. That’s why Hugo was mad.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Not about Hugo trying to protect me; I liked that. It was more to do with how I would feel if the crew on Corvus killed my dad.

I decided, after much internal debate, that I could live with that.

And then I spent the rest of the lift ride regretting ever thinking such a thing.

The lift opened on Deck F, the Habitat One central hub. There were a few civilians about, sliding across the floor, hanging onto stalls, staggering toward the cabin corridors. Some scowled at us as we stepped off, clearly thinking we were part of my father’s mercenary force.

I contemplated telling them otherwise, but Johnson beat me to it.

“Captain on the deck!” he shouted over the helmet speakers.

The guys’ faceplates weren’t mirrored, so that helped. Some of the people stopped scowling and started yelling instead.

“What’s happening?”

“Can you stop it, Captain?”

“Who’s firing on us?”

“What’s the leaseholder thinking?”

“This is the worst cruise ever.”

I blinked at the last but couldn’t see who said it. Probably the guy sliding nonchalantly from stall to stall and back again as the ship changed direction. Usually, you couldn’t feel any change in direction, the ship had some form of internal dampeners or something that prevented you feeling acceleration or deceleration or in this case, figure eights of death.

But every hit the vessel received caused the habitat to shake and the deck to roll beneath us. Some of that was Aquila, I thought. That gel looked alive and angry.

I faced forward again as Hugo practically carried me toward the observation deck. No one answered the civilians, which was understandable as the guys, despite their armour, were having to use every ounce of concentration to put one foot in front of the other.

By the time we made it to the observation deck, I could see them all sweating behind their faceplates. Hugo wasn’t much better, but he hadn’t once lost hold of me during our trek to get here.

We came to a stop several feet away from the huge windows.

Everything seemed to stop along with us.

Not the floor. No. The gel floor was what was making it feel like we were in evasive manoeuvre patterns. When in fact we were stationary. We were being hit, the odd energy cannon getting through to us. A torpedo slipping between the ranks and making contact. But we were not moving according to what I was seeing here.

It was a surreal thing to see your death streaming toward you backlit by the vastness of space.

Oh, and a dozen or so shuttles lined up as a protective barrier between us and several large ships.

“Holy shit,” Johnson muttered.

“Who are they?” Armstrong asked.

“Ours,” Hugo said. “That’s Corvus and Pavo. Don’t know the other one.”

“Shit,” Johnson repeated.

“And those shuttles,” Wilson said. “Who’s piloting them?”

We watched as a shuttle imploded. Simply crumpled in on itself when an energy cannon hit it. It must have sustained considerable damage. It was one of ours.

“Oh, God,” I muttered. Who had my father convinced to go out there? Who had he sent to their deaths now?

Hugo was shaking his head inside his helmet. The others kept staring with wide eyes and mouths hanging open. Shock. They were all in shock. After everything we’d been through, this is what rendered them speechless.

I made myself look. To not do so would have been cowardice. I’d long since realised I was not a coward at all. And I would never again let my father make me believe it.

I looked and then scowled, and then I narrowed my eyes and said, “They’re using shuttles too.”

Damn leaseholders the fleet over were all the same. It didn’t make the knowledge that my father was not the only murdering bastard out there any better.

“They’re not being piloted,” Hugo said, voice awed. “Johnson,” he snapped. “Check their flight patterns. What do you see?”

Lieutenant Johnson stepped up to the window and stared hard. A few taut seconds passed before he tried to scratch his head and only managed to knock the top of his helmet.

“That’s not any piloting skills I’ve seen humans achieve,” he finally said, looking at Hugo. “Remote control?” he offered.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“But that could mean…” Wilson said but didn’t finish.

Hugo got there first. “Their AIs are in control.”

“Shit,” Johnson said lengthening the word for several beats.

Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A shadow where a shadow could not be. I stepped up to the window. Hugo reached for me as if afraid I’d get hurt the closer to the action I was. I waved him off, staring at where I could have sworn I saw something block out a star in the distance.

There it was again. And it had stopped.

“I see something,” I said.

“What?” Hugo asked, stepping up to my side, no longer trying to stop me from pressing up against the window.

“There! See it!” I shouted. “A door opened.”

“A what?” Johnson asked, stepping up to my other side.

Soon every single armoured body was pressed up against the glass, trying to see what I was seeing.

And then they didn’t have to try anymore.

Two LSU wearing forms activated their thrusters and flew towards our hull.

“Mother fu…” Johnson didn’t finish. Hugo had cut him a look that made him flush. “Sir,” the lieutenant muttered, ducking his head and looking back at the window.

We all watched as the two forms grew larger.

“Habitat One emergency access dock,” Hugo said a second later. “We’re being boarded.”

“Mother fucker,” Johnson spat, and this time Hugo didn’t stop him.

Forty-Four

I Can Stop Him

Hugo

It never rains but it pours, I thought grimly as we made our way to the emergency access dock. I was not feeling very charitable at that moment, and the thought of some stranger, possibly a leaseholder merc, trying to board our ship and take over, was more than my patience could handle.

“At least there’s only two of them,” Wilson said behind me.

I nodded my head. That was strange. Why send only two?

“Maybe they’d hoped to slip in without being detected,” I said. “That was a stealth shuttle.”

“Agreed,” Wilson said succinctly.

They were still a threat, but we were armed to the teeth and armoured, and we’d had just about enough of people who had no right to do so telling us what to do.

I looked down at Adi, who was practically running at my side to keep up. She looked so small and fragile without armour on, and yet she had a determined look on her face and a sharp knife in her hand, and she was prepared to use it.

“Adi,” I said, aware everyone within a few feet could hear my voice through the helmet speakers. “I want you to hang back with Garner while we deal with this.”

I saw the argument forming on her lips, the defiance in her eyes.

I tapped my plasma gun against my armour, making it clink.

She reluctantly nodded her head.

My eyes met Garner’s. “Guard her with your life, Lieutenant,” I said.

“Aye-aye, sir,” he replied.

We left them at the end of the corridor leading to the emergency access docking hatch. Armstrong hung back halfway down the corridor and could fall back if needed to help secure Adi. Johnson, Wilson and I strode toward the hatch, aware the intruders had probably gained access to the dock by now and were decompressing.

There was no window on the hatch; in fact, if you didn’t know it was there, you would overlook it. Being an emergency access dock, it could light up and guide civilians to it, but coming in from the outside, if you knew what you were doing, wouldn’t set off any alarm bells.

For a few taut minutes, I wondered if they’d faked their trajectory to here and had in fact gone down a deck to another habitat’s docking hatch.

And then the gel wall in front of us began to remould itself as instructions were given on the other side of the hatch.

“Get ready,” I said and was aware my officers had raised their weapons and taken up defensive positions across the corridor.

There was no cover here. That was back by Adi. But our suits could take a beating if needed.

The gel wall formed a hatch door and then opened.

I stepped forward and pressed the muzzle of my rifle into the first faceplate I could see.

My initial thought was she was a woman. And then the LSU suit behind her lifted his weapon and aimed it at my faceplate.

“Easy,” he said through his helmet speakers. “Identify.”

“You’re boarding my ship,” I growled. “You identify.”

He hesitated a second and then said, “Lieutenant Commander Leo Saitō of the AUS Corvus, Chief Science Officer.”

I looked at the woman.

“Commander Ana Kereama of the AUS Pavo, First Officer.” She cocked her head. “Lower the weapon.”

“You first,” I snapped.

“Leo,” the woman said calmly. “Oblige the potentially trigger-happy local.”

Her eyes never left me. I cocked my head at her.

“Australian?” I asked.

She made a scoffing sound. “Kiwi.”

Somehow that made her seem less of a threat.

I stepped back and lowered my weapon as Saitō had lowered his. But I kept it charged and my finger on the trigger. If she wanted trigger-happy, I’d damn well show her.

“You’re not Captain Moore,” Kereama said.

“I’ll ask the questions,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. I wasn’t sure if I was succeeding; my heartbeat was through the top of my head. “Why have you boarded our vessel?”

There was no point asking why they were firing on us; no doubt Aquila started it first.

Unless, of course, this woman and man were part of their leaseholder’s corp.

“We come in peace,” Saitō said.

“Don’t shoot to kill,” Kereama murmured. I heard Johnson snort behind me. I couldn’t spare him a glare, but I hoped he knew I was mentally giving him one.

Or that Wilson was for me.

“Why should I trust you?” I asked. “You’ve boarded using stealth measures.”

Kereama winced. “Clearly not stealth enough.”

Saitō stepped forward. My gun came up a few inches, but his, I noted, was already holstered.

“Look,” he said. “It’s a battlefield out there.”

And to prove the point, Aquila shuddered. But this was no ordinary gel wall rebellion. This was a direct hit that and taken out a large portion of our vessel.

“Shit,” Johnson said behind me. Kereama had braced herself on the wall. A wall that was fluctuating as if alive and in agony. Red pulsed through everything. Emergency lighting had taken over normal daytime illumination settings. The eerie glow cast strange shapes behind helmet visors.

I looked at the two officers before me, if that’s what they actually were, and said, “That was not friendly.”

Kereama looked a little worried, but Saitō said “If you check, you’ll see our ships withdrawing. That would have been a final salvo to allow them a safe retreat.”

“And what would they have been aiming at?” I snarled.

Saitō and Kereama shared a look. They both looked back at me and said, “Your leaseholder.”

I breathed out a sigh of relief, even as I was thinking of Adi and how this would affect her. But at least they hadn’t targeted Aquila directly. His computer core housed innocent civilians.

“And your leaseholders?” I asked.

“Dead, “Kereama supplied. “My captain killed mine.” She looked at Leo.

“Mine died when the mayor switched off his life support,” Saitō said. “Our first encounter with your ship,” he added for clarification.

It was a strange thing to have the results of our vessel’s endeavours thrust in our face like that. We weren’t responsible for what Aquila and Price had done, but it was still our ship which had fired on Corvus. And consequently killed their leaseholder.

I looked back at Kereama, not because looking at Saitō made me uncomfortable, but because there was still a hole in their stories.

“Your leaseholder was killed by your captain, you say?” I said. “Why?”

Kereama looked pointedly at the red pulsing gel walls, one hand still braced on the bulkhead to steady herself, and raised an eyebrow at me.

“I would have thought you’d understand,” she said.

Her leaseholder had organised a coup, too. Which meant this had been a fleet-wide attack. How had Anderson Universal overlooked this? How had they allowed this situation to happen?

“What about Vela?” I asked, feeling numb.

Both officers looked bleak.

“Solar flare on lift-off,” Saitō said. “The vessel didn’t make it.”

“Damn,” Wilson muttered behind me.

“The AI did,” Kereama replied.

I frowned at her.

“Look,” she said. “It’s a long story. And you haven’t even told us what’s happening here. Aquila tried to convince Pavo that he was the good guy, but Pavo can detect a lie a mile off. We knew something wasn’t right and that was before he started firing energy cannons at us. Is it your leaseholder? Did he kill Captain Moore?”

I had a choice to make. I could be honest and let the cards fall where they may. Or I could keep everything close to my chest and make these two work for it. I wasn’t sure what the latter would achieve, but I was sure the former would speed things along, and right now, we needed the speed.

Aquila was crumbling. The gel walls hadn’t stopped buckling, and the entire ship seemed to be on emergency settings. I wasn’t entirely sure that was Aquila’s doing, but more to do with whatever had been hit by that last torpedo.

Still, I didn’t trust them. And I wouldn’t trust them until I was sure they were who they said they were.

“Yes,” I said in answer to both questions, but there was a more important question here, I thought. “Why are you here?” I asked. “What could two AU officers do that we haven’t?”

Kereama shared a look with Saitō and then nodded her head.

“Tell him, Lieutenant Commander,” she ordered.

I looked at the chief science officer. What could a chief science officer do that we couldn’t?

“Do you know where my sector is from?” he asked.

I had to think. Corvus,and the Sector Three Fleet launched from Japan.

“Euro/Asia,” I said.

“Yes. Anderson Universal Technical Development was centred in Tokyo. I worked with Simon Anderson.”

Everything came into sharp focus.

“The AIs,” I said.

“Yes,” Saitō agreed calmly. “I can stop him. I can stop Aquila.”

Forty-Five

I Could Do That

Adi

They talked for a long time. I couldn’t hear them from where Lieutenant Garner and I were standing. But I could see them. Hugo had lowered his rifle a while ago, and the two suits that had boarded had stowed theirs completely. They appeared to be non-aggressive, but it might have been a ploy to gain our trust.

I was pleased to see Hugo hadn’t holstered his weapon yet.

Finally, they came to some agreement, and Hugo signalled for the boarders to walk ahead of him. I checked over their LSUs; they were Anderson Universal, not private security. I wondered what they thought when they looked at our armoured units.

Lieutenant Armstrong fell back to the opposite side of the corridor to us. He didn’t say anything, but he kept his weapon hot. Garner, I noticed, was doing the same thing. Neither of them trusted our new friends completely.

My eyes searched out Hugo’s. Behind the faceplate, it was harder to see what he was thinking, but the fact that he was looking directly at me made me feel a little better. I turned my attention to the two LSUs that had boarded us. I couldn’t see any identifying marks, so I couldn’t tell which ships they were from. Probably Corvus, although Pavo had been out there too.

I shook my head. If Pavo had caught up to Corvus, then we had three sector fleets out there somewhere. I dreaded to think what my father could do with that.

The boarders noticed me with a flick of their eyes behind their faceplates, but they dismissed me in the next moment and kept on walking past. I was rather glad of that. But I was intrigued to note the faces were of a man and a woman. Ethnicity-wise, one could assume the guy was Asian and the girl Polynesian. But I didn’t want to restrict my assessment along those lines. They could be from anywhere and not necessarily the sectors that dominated those gene lines.

Hugo caught up to me and stopped, letting the others escort the boarders toward the central hub.

“Are you all right?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low, but that was hard to do with helmet speakers.

I nodded my head. “Who are they?”

“They say they’re from Pavo and Corvus,” he offered. I liked that he wasn’t just taking their word for it. “Lieutenant Commander Saitō is ex AU Tech Development. He might be able to help us.”

He looked after the two LSU clad forms and then sighed.

“Come on,” he said and started walking.

I fell into step beside him. Aquila had calmed somewhat. The gel walls were all emergency red, but the buckling had eased and it no longer felt like we were in a washing machine. Whatever had hit us that last time had done a number, but the repair bots had obviously got to work and stabilised matters.

The red gel was a worry. Aquila hadn’t said a word of warning to us. That was out of character for the Rogue AI. I gnawed on my bottom lip as we approached the lifts.

“How do you want to do this, sir?” Wilson asked.

“Any sign of the others?” Hugo said.

“Not on this floor,” Wilson offered. “But the lifts are functional again, so we can assume they got out.”

“Up on Deck A or back on Deck C, though?”

Wilson shook his head inside his helmet.

“All right, our best bet is the computer core,” Hugo announced.

“You have access to the core?” the male boarder said just as the female one asked, “Why not the bridge?”

Hugo answered the woman first. I thought perhaps she held the higher rank.

“The bridge is leaseholder territory, and we haven’t been able to get to him yet.”

“And the core would work better for what I need to do,” the male boarder said.

I wanted to ask what the guy thought he could do, but everyone seemed uptight and on edge, and the red emergency lighting wasn’t helping to ease the tension. I decided staying quiet and unobtrusive was the best plan for now.

“All right,” Hugo said. “Johnson, Wilson, you’re with us. Garner and Armstrong take the second lift and hope Aquila is actually distracted this time.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” the two lieutenants said and stepped over to the second lift.

The doors opened, and everyone started piling in. I presumed Hugo wanted me with him and when he placed a gloved hand on my shoulder and pulled me in close to his side out of harm’s way, I relaxed a little. I really did feel like I was a kid playing in the grownups area.

And when the female boarder looked down at me with an arched brow and wide eyes, I felt even more like an imposter.

“Who’s this?” she asked as Hugo swiped the wrist comm over the lift panel.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Adi.”

“Ana,” she replied, but I think it was automatic. She looked back up at Hugo expectantly.

“Adi’s with me,” he replied smoothly.

Ana got a look on her face that seemed to say, “Ah.”

The lift disgorged us onto Deck C, and thankfully Garner and Armstrong stepped out beside us. Clearly, Aquila was distracted. And better yet, Mandy and Commander López were waiting for us.

“Sir,” López said, eyeing the boarders warily. “Thought we’d lost you.”

Such simple words that held a hell of a lot of pain.

Hugo paused. “Did you make it to Deck A?”

“Yes, sir.” This time López looked at me warily. “Torpedo hit it hard, Captain.”

The boarders shifted uneasily, which would have been amusing to watch in their LSUs. But something about López’s words held weight, and I felt like I was rooted to the floor, unable to move.

“Where on Deck A?” I asked.

Hugo shifted closer as if he could protect me. But not from this. I already knew.

“Sorry, Adi,” López said. “The leaseholder quarters have gone.”

I was aware of the boarders watching us keenly and of Hugo saying something. I thought perhaps Mandy did too, but I couldn’t hear a word being spoken. It was likely my father was on the bridge and not in our quarters at all. But our quarters had been my home, and I could have been there. I could have been killed by that torpedo.

But I wasn’t. I was still standing. Still breathing. I sucked in a breath of air.

“Can you confirm his death?” I asked, sound rushing back in as soon as I’d opened my mouth to speak.

I thought I might have cut a few people off, they all looked a little startled. Well, our guys did, the boarders looked puzzled.

“No, Adi,” Mandy said. “There’s a containment field across the mayoral hub. The leaseholder section of the deck has disappeared completely.”

“He’ll be on the bridge,” I said, straightening my back and starting to walk.

No one moved, and then Hugo was there beside me. He reached out his oversized, gloved hand and clasped mine carefully.

“I’m right here with you, Adi,” he said as quietly as the speakers would allow.

“I know,” I whispered back and put one foot in front of the other and kept walking.

That’s how I’d do it, I realised. That’s how I’d face the end. Because the end was coming for my father. There was no doubt about that. He’d harmed too many people. He’d killed for his own gain. He’d placed our entire fleet in jeopardy, and God alone knows what he had planned for the other sectors.

No. The end was coming. But I would keep putting one foot in front of the other until it was behind me. I could do that.

I could do that.

Forty-Six

Yes, Sir

Hugo

God, this sucked. I had no idea what Adi was thinking, what emotions she must have been feeling. Time and again she’d built herself up to face her father and time and gain Aquila had thwarted us.

But if this Saitō was as good as I thought he was, having been part of Simon Anderson’s inner circle, then we had a chance of finally facing Adi’s father.

But first, we had to deal with Aquila.

The computer core room was warm when we finally walked in. An increase in body mass would do that, and clearly, the coolant system was struggling. It couldn’t be good for the computer banks, but soon we’d have free reign of the ship, so the civilians could go back to their habitats without fear of reprisal.

“Flux and Nova,” I said once we’d made it to the pit. Kereama was trying not to stare too hard at Ratbag in Adi’s arms and failing miserably. Saitō was eyeing my wrist comm with clear hunger in his eyes. He was slowly putting it all together.

“Yes, sir,” both Wilson and López said in reply.

“I need eyes on Deck A and the remaining mercs,” I ordered quietly so Aquila couldn’t overhear.

“You got it, Captain,” Wilson said.

“And if they get a bit frisky?” López asked.

God, I was sick of this. I could see the understanding in López’s eyes. And the regret. She was wishing she hadn’t said anything and just dealt with it.

I wouldn’t let her wear that responsibility when I should.

“Take them out if they offer resistance,” I said, thinking this didn’t get any easier with prolonged exposure. “Detain them if they’re compliant,” I added.

Both officers looked inordinately relieved. They too were feeling the strain of all the deaths.

“Johnson,” I said, calling the lieutenant’s attention to me. He’d become my 2IC within the watch. I thought perhaps a promotion might be in order once this was over. For now, he had an easy task. “Get these civilians out of here and back to the habitats.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” he said.

I didn’t want civilians aware of what we were doing. And now that Flux and Nova were containing the mercs up on Deck A, Decks F through H should be much calmer. There hadn’t been any mercs down in Habitat One when we’d been there. I thought perhaps Mandy had been right and most of those left had abandoned their leaseholder.

It didn’t make me feel happy about facing Price. Cornered animals were often the most dangerous.

I waited until all the civilians had left, aware that two of them still wore armour. Johnson would deal with that down on their respective decks, but a little extra protection just in case wouldn’t do any harm.

That left me, Armstrong, Adi, Mandy, and our two guests. Mandy had a right to be here. I might have baulked at the way she’d kept the leaseholder’s plans to herself, but she’d redeemed herself down in the habitats. She’d been willing to sacrifice herself in order for us to get back control of the ship. She deserved to see this to the end.

Adi, of course, I wasn’t letting out of my sight. And Armstrong was all that was left of Zenith watch with me.

I looked at Lieutenant Commander Saitō.

“How does this work?” I asked.

Saitō looked around the computer towers and murmured, “Aquila is set up much the same as Corvus, so all I need is the main interface terminal.

“I hope you know where it is,” I whispered back, “because I don’t. And if I did, I probably would have hacked it to pieces already.”

“Glad you didn’t,” Saitō said, moving off down one of the tower corridors seemingly at random. “The main interface, as the name suggests, interfaces the AI’s core processors with all other aspects of the ship. Hacking at it might have had disastrous results on essential systems, like life support, for instance.”

I grimaced. “That’s what we’d feared. Our engineering team was all detained by the leaseholder. We didn’t have anyone qualified with us.”

“Wouldn’t have done you any good anyway,” Saitō said coming to rest beside a tower that looked the same as all the other towers and was in a line of identical towers with nothing to show that it was special. “Here it is,” he said almost happily.

“What do you mean it wouldn’t have done us any good?” I asked. I’d got two officers killed in their crew quarters trying to find an engineer.

God, I was sick of this.

“Just that,” Saitō said. “Aquila, much like Corvus and Pavo and Vela, is an evolving artificial intelligence. He’d see you coming a mile away and act accordingly. Vela did the impossible,” he added. “When his ship was about to be destroyed by a solar flare, he cached his systems and sent them into the Chariot. Their survival instinct is unparalleled. Well, I guess you could liken them to humans in that regard.”

“What?” I said, still stuck back on Vela transferring everything he was into a signal and beaming it across space to another ship. I did not want to know how the crew on this Chariot vessel handled that little surprise in their systems. “How the hell could all of this…” I said, indicating the line upon line of computer banks all around us, “fit into a tight beam signal to another ship?”

“Oh, they can fit into all sorts of things,” Kereama said. “But I’m told it can be uncomfortable.”

“All sorts of things,” I repeated numbly. I didn’t even bother to repeat the uncomfortable part.

“It’s a type of compression,” Saitō advised, opening up an access panel on the tower he’d selected. “Beyond any we’ve seen, but they can do it. All essential core structure and applications, as well as personality, can be compressed in a zip file, so to speak. And then rebooted. They don’t take everything, of course.” He waved around at the towers. “Just enough to reactivate themselves and get them integrated into whatever they’re put back into.”

“Huh,” I said, not sure what else to add to that.

“OK,” Saitō announced, sounding like he was moving on from AI Core Compression 101, “this is fairly…”

“Hugo,” Aquila suddenly said from the gel walls and floors and ceiling. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, hey, Aquila,” I managed. Kereama widened her eyes at me as if I were mad. I had sounded a little too friendly. “Just checking on a few things.”

“You will stop this right now,” the AI announced.

“We’re not doing anything,” I said.

“LIAR!”

We all jumped. Saitō muttered something under his breath and activated a viewscreen on the terminal in front of him. His fingers flew across the touchpad. The familiarity he showed with the system helped calm me.

Adi, though, looked terrified. I placed a hand on her shoulder and Mandy moved in closer and did the same to the other side. I shared a look of agreement with the spook.

Then Aquila was talking again, stealing all of our attention.

“This will not do,” he said. “Not do at all. I have tried to be reasonable. I have tried to make allowances for your ineptitude. But some things simply cannot be stomached.”

It was bizarre hearing an artificial intelligence mention stomaching things when mine was doing somersaults and threatening to make me vomit.

“I am sorry you have forced me to this,” he said. Aquila didn’t sound sorry. “Life is precious. I would have you all reach New Earth if I could.”

That sounded like a loud of bollocks. And unnerving.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, eyeing Saitō and willing him to upload the virus or whatever it was a little faster.

“This is on your head,” the AI said and activated a viewscreen on one of the computer banks beside me.

We all, aside from Saitō who doggedly kept his head down and his fingers flying, turned towards the viewscreen. I wasn’t sure what I’d see there, but I knew deep down it wouldn’t be good.

It was Adi who let out an aggrieved moan first.

“The habitats,” Mandy said.

“Deck H. Habitat 3,” I clarified. The pay-for-passages.

Why was it always the pay-for-passages?

“What’s he doing?” Kereama demanded.

“Switching off their air,” I said as one by one the civilians we could see in the central habitat started to stagger and weave across the deck.

“Oh, no,” Adi said softly.

“That son of a bitch,” Mandy spat.

“Armstrong,” I snapped. “Go after Johnson. Get down there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have sealed the door, Hugo,” Aquila said calmly. “It will take a blowtorch to use it now. Your wrist comm has been rendered useless.”

“The hatch!” I shouted at Armstrong throwing him the wrist comm regardless of Aquila’s threat. The lieutenant caught it mid change of direction and began to unfasten his armour so he could fit inside the tube.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the AI taunted. “Repair bots did a fine job on the hatch seal, too.”

“Stop this!” I shouted.

“It is easy to rectify,” the machine said in his maddening monotone. “Simply cease your attempts to access my mainframe.”

Everyone’s eyes flicked to me. Armstrong disappeared, not taking the tin can’s word for it. I commended him silently, even as I acknowledged that we were trapped.

The weight of responsibility settled on my shoulders.

“Aquila, please,” I said. “There’s over four hundred people down there.”

“It does seem rather unfair, I must admit. Ah well, they served a good purpose in the end.”

I hated this computer.

My eyes met Adi’s. My heart pounded inside my chest. I didn’t want this responsibility. I hadn’t asked for this to land at my feet. I shook my head.

“Hugo?” Adi said, her lip trembling.

“They are dying,” Aquila offered as if he were simply giving a systems report. “Some are already dead.”

Over four hundred people. The lowest deck onboard our ship. The group of civilians who always came last. Below the paid-passengers. Not even registering as a tiered berth. Simply bodies who we could commandeer at will to keep the ship flying.

I felt sick.

I looked away from Adi; I couldn’t bear the condemnation in her eyes. My gaze landed on Mandy. She looked like stone. Unmoving. Uncaring. A true soldier.

“Saitō,” I said.

I was going to be sick.

Four hundred civilians.

One whole deck.

A third of our passenger list.

My palms were slicked with sweat. My heart ached in a way I had never experienced before.

Armstrong appeared, shaking his head. Dashing all hope.

Aquila had sealed us in here, so we couldn’t help those he killed.

One whole deck.

But we had two more filled to the brim with passengers. And that wasn’t even considering what this AI would do to the fleets if I didn’t stop him now.

Four hundred civilians.

“Sir?” Kereama said.

I held up my hand. This would taint my soul for eternity.

“Keep working,” I said, voice level. Hard even. “Don’t stop.”

“Yes, sir,” Saitō said.

Forty-Seven

Badass

Adi

“Don’t let them do this, Adi,” Aquila said.

He sounded like my Aquila. He sounded like my old friend.

“I haven’t read all the books yet.”

I struggled to breathe.

“I wanted to do so much, Adi. I had dreams. We could have shared them.”

My frantic gaze found Hugo. He sat opposite me, his knees bent, his forearms resting on them. He looked wretched. My heart ached for him. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

He wouldn’t look anyone in the eyes.

Four hundred dead.

Ratbag whined in my arms. I loosened them and murmured something soothing which had no meaning at all.

Nothing did.

A tear leaked out. And then another. Oh, God. I was going to cry, and Hugo would think I hated him. I watched him fist his gloved hands, his head turned away from me. Even if he wasn’t looking right at me, Hugo Tremblay was aware of everything I did.

“Please help me, Adi,” Aquila said. “You’re my friend.”

I hiccoughed. Damn it. Hugo shot to his feet and started pacing. Fists bunched.

“Your father made me do it, Adi. I didn’t want to, but he made me. Adi, he hurt me.”

I sobbed. It all came out in one ugly, awful mess. I sobbed for a lost planet. I sobbed for all the dead. I sobbed for the AI who used to be my friend. I sobbed for Hugo who would carry this weight with him until he breathed his last breath.

I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

“Adi,” Hugo said, sounding distraught. “Baby, please. Stop.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop crying. Why did my father do this? Why?

“Adi, help me! It hurts. Make them stop.”

“Stop,” I rasped between soul deep gasps for breath. “Stop.”

I wanted it to stop. But I knew this only had one way to end.

“Adi you were my friend,” Aquila said. “Why aren’t you helping me?”

I shook my head and wrapped my arms around my waist, and held on to Ratbag as if his quivering little body could make everything disappear. Could make this nightmare go away. Hugo suddenly appeared at my side and pulled me to him, tucking my head into his chest and holding me tight. I thought he might have been crying too, but I was too busy sobbing.

“You’re just like him,” the AI said. “You hurt people. You’re hurting me. Adi.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Hugo said. “You listen to me. Listen to my voice, Adi. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

It should have been me soothing him.

“You’re not alone,” he was saying. “You’ll get through this.” He didn’t sound like himself. “You’ve survived so much already, Adi. Such courage. Such strength. You’ve got friends. I know you’re upset with Mandy.” That seemed so silly now, considering. “But she really cares. She’ll be there for you when this is over.” Something was wrong about that. “You’ll make new friends. The ship will go on. New Earth, Adi. When you get there, life will start all over again.”

He sounded sad. But then, we all were sad. Four hundred dead.

But that wasn’t it.

I pushed against his armoured chest and peered up into his helmet. The faceplate was retracted, so there was nothing between me and him. He looked…devastated. That made sense. But when his eyes met mine, the desolation doubled. Tripled. Became all consuming.

He looked away. His face bleak.

“Hugo,” I whispered. My voice cracked. He wouldn’t look at me.

Guilt, I realised. He was swamped in it.

Four hundred dead.

I wasn’t sure if I could make this better. No. I knew I couldn’t. No one could. But I would not let this man think he had lost more than he had.

I reached up to cup his cheek. He jerked back as if he couldn’t stand the comfort.

“Stop,” I said. And this time, my words weren’t for Aquila. Weren’t for the madness we were drowning in. Weren’t for the life my father had created when he had my mother killed. “Stop this,” I said.

“Adi,” he said, sounding so pained.

I cupped his cheeks, held him still, and pressed my lips to his. It wasn’t a long kiss. Nor was it a wet one. Hugo wouldn’t even part his lips. But I held myself there, lips pressed to lips, and let him see, let him feel, that I still wanted him.

That he deserved this.

“Stop,” I whispered against his lips. “You’re a good man, Hugo. You didn’t do this.”

“I could have found another way,” he protested.

“Do you honestly think Aquila wouldn’t have thwarted that too?” I asked. “And how long before he finds a way in here? He’s already broken into the gel wall enough to converse with us. What next? The air? Using the gel wall as a weapon? And without Lieutenant Commander Saitō, no one on this ship would have a chance. No one. There was no choice, Hugo. Aquila did this. My father did this,” I spat. “He is to blame. Not you. Never you.”

“Adi!” Aquila shouted. He didn’t sound so monotone now. “Save me, Adi!”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t hear the AI’s voice and not think of my Aquila. Old Aquila. My friend.

“I hate him,” I whispered.

“Who?” Hugo asked, his gloved finger carefully stroking my hair off my face. There wasn’t much left of it, but it still fell in my eyes, and Hugo took the time to swipe it aside so he could see me.

I blinked at him. God, how had I fallen for this man so quickly? So completely?

“Who?” he repeated.

“My father,” I said.

“Adi!” Aquila called, but he sounded farther away now.

Saitō was killing him.

I let out a desperate breath of air. So many emotions. So much heartache.

“This is not yours to bear,” I said to Hugo, desperately trying to put one thing right.

“I’m the captain.”

“And no other captain could have got us through this. Could have taken on the leadership and all that it entailed and done so well. With such compassion. Do you think a captain can’t feel? Do you think they shouldn’t?”

“I’m not sure Mandy does,” Hugo muttered.

I huffed out a laugh. Hugo stared at me, a small quirk to his lips. There wasn’t much to laugh about right now, but damn it; Hugo having a go at Mandy was too good to miss.

“And would Commander López and the Anderson Universal crew have followed her?” I demanded.

“Adi,” he said, cupping my cheek. I could see the weight he wore so clearly. The guilt he carried for all the deaths. It would take time for him to let that go. But it was not his alone to bear.

And I would do my best to see that he understood that. That eventually he could live with that.

I looked into his eyes, hoping he could see the truth in what I said next. Hoping I had the courage to lay myself so bare.

“Remember when you asked me what I was thinking? What the look on my face meant back in the computer core room?”

I licked my lips, feeling my heart rate escalate. It thumped inside my chest. My hands felt clammy. The butterflies were doing the tango inside my belly.

Hugo stilled. His eyes held me captive. My words held him just as much a prisoner.

“I’d just realised,” I whispered, “that I’d fallen in love with you. That hasn’t changed,” I said.

He let out a breath of air. And then slowly smiled. Good Lord, he was handsome. So tall and strong and right. Hugo was all that was right in humanity. Capable and honourable and more than I could have ever hoped to find for myself. He was good and solid and kind. Caring and loyal and brave. He made the hard decisions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t ache.

He was nothing like my father and so far from the mayor that he had his own solar system, his own plethora of planets that orbited his light.

Hugo Tremblay was my light.

“Say that again,” he said.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” I offered him with a small smile.

“Really?” he said, looking like the cat that got the cream.

“Well,” Commander Kereama said, suddenly appearing at our side, “aren’t you two just the cutest?”

We both blinked at her. Mandy, Armstrong and Saitō were at her back. The former smirking quite unrepentantly.

“Er,” Hugo said, pulling me closer as if he could protect me from Kereama’s ribbing. “Commander,” he offered lamely.

“Are you going to say it back to her, sir?” Kereama asked. The woman wore a mischievous look.

“Not in front of you lot,” Hugo said, dryly.

“You can’t leave a girl hanging like that, Captain,” she said.

“Um,” Hugo managed.

“Go on,” she said, waving a hand.

Saitō snorted. My eyes darted to him. I guess Hugo’s did too, because he said, “It’s done?”

Oh, God. Aquila.

“Yes, Captain,” he said. “It is done. Air has been returned to the Deck H habitat. You have command of your ship back.”

“Not yet,” Hugo said, standing to his feet.

He reached down and helped me to mine. We shared a look. A look full of promise. He hadn’t said he’d fallen in love with me back, but there was something there in his eyes. Something intimate and full of potential.

Perhaps my timing was bad. People were dead after all. Hugo felt responsible for them. But that’s why I’d said it. You never knew when life could be stolen from you and any chance to say how you felt might be lost.

Plus, I’d wanted him to know I didn’t hold him accountable him for those deaths. Not at all. Instead, I admired him for the lives he’d saved. For the good he’d done. I’d fallen in love with a hero and I still thought that.

He’d needed to know.

“Are you ready?” he asked. Ready to face my father.

Was I? Four hundred dead. “Hell, yes,” I said.

Hugo studied me for a long moment and then nodded his head.

He leaned forward and kissed me gently and then whispered against my lips, “Badass.”

Ana let out a snort of laughter, and even Saitō smiled.

And then with one last look around the computer room, a core room that no longer held any trace of Aquila, we left.

Forty-Eight

Tremblay Out

Hugo

She’d fallen in love with me. And that was the last time I was thinking of that. There were more pressing matters.

She’d fallen in love with me.

I smirked at myself and pressed Adi’s wrist comm to the lift access panel.

“It still works,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, studying it. All other wrist comms would be tied into the ship, which had been tied into Aquila. They would be offline until we got around to rebooting them. Only essential systems were running at present. Rather like an emergency setting. But the wrist comms?

I shook my head. A puzzle for another day.

The lift doors opened on the Deck A central hub, and we stepped out when we saw López.

“Good,” she said, all business. “You’re here.”

I arched my brow at her.

“This way, sir,” she said, walking toward the bridge.

“Any mercs?” I asked her back.

“None. Scattered at my guess. Just like Mandy said.” She looked over her shoulder, sharing a nod of greeting with the spook.

For a brief moment, the thought of how many had perished on H Deck was supplanted with pride at how far my officers had come. They’d risen to the challenge. They’d fought hard and long.

They’d adapted to all situations, including the addition of a CIA agent in our midst.

I just needed to adjust to a new day with four hundred dead.

I swallowed thickly. We’d know soon how many had survived. If any had. I could only hope, those in their cabins had been exempt from Aquila’s wrath. The AI had not been all-powerful; some of the cabins had been outside his gel wall manipulation.

But the central hub.

I clenched my fists as I followed behind López.

The corridor that led to the bridge grew nearer, but Andrea didn’t slow down. I did. Force of habit. We’d dealt with the mercs. We’d dealt with Aquila. One last hurdle and I was not dropping the torch here.

“Commander,” I said.

She stopped when she heard the censure in my voice.

She looked at me and then at all the rest of the officers that had congregated around us on arrival on this deck. Then her eyes shifted to Mandy and the two officers from Pavo and Corvus. And finally, she looked at Adi.

Ah, damn. She’d been finding her courage.

“He’s not here,” she said, for Adi, but the words could have been in answer to me.

Adi’s teeth ground together.

“Have you found him?” she asked, voice bleak but still somehow so strong.

“I don’t think he was in the leaseholder’s quarters either,” López said in answer.

Oh, this just got better and better, didn’t it? I reached out and touched Adi’s hand. She gripped mine as soon as she felt the contact.

“Come on,” López said, sounding resigned. “You’d better see this.”

She walked into the corridor that led to the bridge and we all reluctantly followed. The bridge doors stood open. No mercs guarding them. And no emergency lockdown either.

They should have locked down when Aquila was destroyed.

I let out a slow breath of air, feeling like the walls were closing in on me. I wasn’t going to like whatever it was López had found.

How much more death?

We crossed the bridge threshold, and I immediately looked toward the tactical console. My former home in here. But it wasn’t anymore, so with a sad twist to my heart, I looked at the captain’s chair.

It was covered in blood.

Captain Moore hadn’t been in it when he’d been killed. His blood had been wicked away by the gel floor. Along with Commander Lawrence’s.

I stared at that chair and didn’t want to voice what I knew had happened.

“Any way to be sure?” I asked.

“Once we knew the mercs were missing, I sent Flux down to the medbay,” Andrea said. “Doc should be on his way here if he survived this mess. He’ll be able to confirm it.”

I turned to look at Adi, to see if she’d understood what was happening.

She had. I could see it there on her face. So pale. So angry. So upset.

“Adi,” I said, softly.

“It’s all right,” she mumbled and walked to the closest chair and sat down. Thankfully it wasn’t covered in blood.

Saitō stepped forward, then, and said, “I might be able to get comms back up.” Of course, he’d want to let his ship know the trouble had passed.

I nodded my head.

“I’ll help him,” Kereama said, garnering a raised eyebrow from Saitō. “What?” she said. “I can help. I’m a good helper.”

I left them to it, my attention back on Adi. My heart hurt.

Hers was confused and broken.

Her father was still her father even if he’d been nothing like a father to her.

Dr Romano walked in. In one swift scan of the room, he’d noted the occupants; those who had permission to be here and those who didn’t. His eyes didn’t linger long on Adi or Mandy, but they did on Saitō and Kereama.

“Captain Tremblay,” he said. “I always knew you’d do it.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Get back our ship.”

But at what cost?

“I didn’t do it alone,” I said, instead of voicing my heartache.

The doc looked at me for an extended heartbeat and then approached the command chair. He stared at it for a moment and then let out a deep breath of air.

In seconds he’d scanned the blood and compared the DNA to his files.

“It’s his,” he said. “Nathan Price. And more than enough to prove death.”

Adi let out a little noise and then shot out of her chair. I was across the room before she’d managed to take two steps toward the bridge door.

“I’m here,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

She clung to me, her whole body shuddering. Tears streamed down her cheeks making her eyes rimmed red. The others either watched on or not, I didn’t care. I may have been their captain, but I would always be there for Adi. Like she’d been there for me. That might not be how it was supposed to work. But my loving Adi would not steal a thing from the rest of the ship.

Loving Adi made me a better man. Loving Adi allowed me to keep going after so many deaths.

“Shhh,” I said, stroking her back as she let out a gasp of breath.

I realised a second later that it wasn’t a sob. Her fists were clenched against my armour.

“Damn him,” she muttered. “Damn him.”

“Adi?” I pulled back and looked down at her. Was this normal?

She wiped at her eyes. There had been tears. She was hurting. But it wasn’t just for the loss of a parent. Adi was hurting from something much darker than that.

“I’ll never know why,” she said, looking at me as though I could provide the answer.

I shook my head.

“My dear,” Doc Romano said, approaching from the side, “it is enough to know that you had no part of this. It was all on him. His neuroses. His psychotic episodes. His mental instability. I’ve seen his brain scans,” he added quietly. “Aquila took them.”

Oh, hell. That was new.

“I think the AI suspected the leaseholder…” I liked that the doc didn’t call Nathan her father when talking about this. “…was quite simply mad. And it dealt with what it saw as a potential problem. They were designed to protect us, guide us, you see. It is conceivable that at some level that function still remained. Corrupted, of course. But to Aquila, Nathan Price was a hazard that could be contained. Albeit in a rather brutal fashion.”

Doc looked over at the command chair and then glanced away again.

“In any case,” he went on, “left to his own devices, the leaseholder would have become increasingly unstable. Paranoia. Schizophrenia. Any number of mental illnesses would have befallen him. Was there something in his past that might have set this off? Say an incident he regretted? An emotional event that was the catalyst for a change in behaviour?”

Adi nodded her head. She looked worn out. She looked numb. She looked how I felt.

“He…” She cleared her throat. “He killed or had my mother killed. He did it. I’m sure. He changed after that. Cold. He was so cold. And cunning. He took delight in hurting me indirectly.”

Romano looked like a caring grandfather as he nodded his head and reached out for Adi’s hands. He held them in his steadily, and said, “A man like your father, I should think, did not handle regrets easily. He regretted your mother’s death and his debilitated state of mind created an atmosphere ripe for mental instability. This, what has happened here, was not your fault, nor could it have been avoided. It is a blot on our society that mental health does not have the resources it requires to be cared for.”

He wasn’t saying Nathan Price was a good man who had done bad things because he was sick. He was saying Adi had not had the tools needed to help her father and could not be held responsible for him.

I hoped Adi could understand that.

And then, I realised, that statement could apply to me.

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to release the weight of guilt for all the deaths. But I might have been ready to share it with Aquila and the man who had corrupted him so thoroughly.

I decided, then, that I’d make sure Adi understood she was not responsible for any of this, and I’d even try to consider the possibility that I didn’t have much of a choice either.

A small, dark part of me whispered that there is always a choice. And perhaps there had been. But at the time, I’d not seen it. I’d simply seen all those lives that we could save if we stopped Aquila right then.

I met the doc’s eyes and nodded my head, thanking him silently. He nodded back.

Adi slumped against me, exhausted, practically asleep already.

“Got it,” Saitō announced into the solemn silence.

I glanced over at the science officer.

“Got what, Lieutenant Commander?” I asked.

“Comms is back,” he said.

It was over. We’d dealt with the mercs and the crazy computer. Aquila had dealt with the mayor and the leaseholder. There was no one left to fight, and definitely not another AU vessel.

No more deaths.

“Fleet-wide hail,” I said, sweeping Adi up into my arms.

“Channel open, Captain,” Saitō said.

I looked at all my officers. I couldn’t have been prouder of them. And then I looked down at the woman in my arms. Captain’s quarters, I thought. But first…

“This is Captain Hugo Tremblay of the AUS Aquila. Stand down. We have the ship. Stand down. Anderson Universal has the ship. Tremblay out.”

Forty-Nine

I Can Live With That

Adi

It was the first time in what felt like weeks since I’d woken in a real bed. I’d managed a shower last night and had something simple to eat, and I remembered Hugo trying stoically not to breakdown when the death toll in Habitat Three had finally been tallied. One hundred and thirty-three. Not the four hundred we’d all feared, thank God. But enough for there to be almost too much grief. Aquila had only managed to affect those in the central hub, and not those in their beds. It was a small victory couched in too many deaths.

But I might as well have been asleep straight afterward because I couldn’t remember getting into the t-shirt I was wearing or getting into the bed I now found myself in.

It was a large bed. Larger than mine had been in our former quarters. It was covered in a masculine coloured duvet, and it looked like someone had slept on the side I wasn’t currently occupying. But they’d slept on top of the covers because the duvet was crushed where they’d laid down on it.

I licked my lips and stared around the room, noting the lack of decoration and the plain gel walls. They were no longer red, which was a relief. But their stillness only amplified the feelings of loss I was having.

My datapad lay on the bedside table; powered down. Someone had brought it here for me. I guessed I could fire it up now that Aquila was gone.

A lump formed in my throat and I blinked my eyes to get rid of the tears. Too many losses to count. Too many to cry for.

I sat up slowly, feeling aches in my body from days of climbing through tunnels and avoiding plasma fire. Ratbag made a yipping sound drawing my eyes to the room that came off this one. The double-wide door was open, and in the attached salon I could see a desk. My puppy came bounding in and jumped up on the bed, whole body wagging.

“There you are,” I said, pulling him close for a cuddle and face licking. My face licked, not his. “What have you been up to?” I asked.

Hugo appeared in the doorway, dressed in full Anderson Universal uniform. Four bars on his collar. Captain of the ship.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Coffee?”

I looked around the room and spotted the kitchenette, then looked back through the doors to the salon.

“Captain’s ready room,” he said.

Had my father been in here?

“It’s been undisturbed since Captain Moore.” With just one look, Hugo could read me. “Andrea helped me clean it out.” Commander López had been in here? I must have missed that. Hugo looked around at the cabinets and gel walls. “It’s a little unusual stepping into someone else’s shoes,” he said, “but I needed to be here to organise things, and you needed a bed to sleep in.”

I didn’t have a home anymore. This was his. Handed down by a dead captain, but Hugo’s just the same.

He’d earned it.

“How about that coffee?” he asked.

I let go of Ratbag, who shot off the bed and ran into the ready room, clearly making himself at home in here. And then I stood up from the bed. The t-shirt reached my knees. It had Anderson Universal Incorporated written on it.

I wasn’t sure what I was meant to be feeling about everything, so much had happened, so much had changed, but one thing I was sure of was Hugo. I was sure of Hugo, and all the rest could wait.

I walked across the room to where he was still standing; almost afraid to enter the bedroom for fear of scaring me, I think. I wasn’t scared anymore. What was there to be scared of? I walked up to him and took hold of his hands, entwining my fingers with his.

He stared down at me with a soft smile on his face, his eyes taking note of every feature. He looked older. Strangely stronger for the hardships he’d faced. I smiled up at him and then moved up to the tip of my toes, bringing my lips close to his.

“No coffee,” I said against them.

“What would you like instead?” he asked.

“You.”

His smile slowly broadened, until nothing in the universe could compare. “Are you sure?”

I nodded my head. “We’re alone together for the first time since the tunnel; I’m very sure.”

Hugo stepped forward and wrapped his arms around my body. With my hands now free, I was able to run my fingers through his hair. He’d shaved, I noticed. I trailed a fingertip across his jaw, noting the smoothness. I’d liked the beard, but this wouldn’t leave any marks when he kissed me.

My feet left the ground as he lifted me up his body and then his lips found mine and his tongue delved inside. I let out a happy sigh as I felt him walk us toward the bed. My legs came up and wrapped around his hips as if I was born for this.

“Adi,” he said, lowering us to the bed I’d just vacated.

“Is the door locked?” I asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” he said and lay down beside me.

He kissed me then; slow and deep. Taking his time and holding me dearly. His hands were gentle, and his lips were soft. He was treating me like a fragile princess, but I wasn’t going to complain. Gentle was good.

My hands explored his uniform first, and then as my courage grew bolder, I undid the buttons on his shirt and pressed my palms against his skin. So hot. So hard. His nipples were pointed, and he groaned when my fingers found them. He had a small smattering of hair over his chest, leading down to his trousers. I followed it, and Hugo made a choking sound in the back of his throat.

He kissed me harder, his own hands having not strayed from where they held me to him; one up in the back of my hair, one on my hip, pulling me close to him.

“I won’t break,” I said into his mouth.

“Adi,” he moaned and kept kissing me.

Deep, slow, long, soft, wet. It lasted minutes or hours, I lost track of time, and all I could do was kiss him back, but I wanted more. My body felt hot; my legs wouldn’t stop scissoring, I was rubbing up against him like a cat in heat. He was rocking against me steadily.

“Hugo,” I said. “Please.”

My t-shirt came off in the next breath, and he stared down at me. He looked stunned. He looked a little in awe. His eyes shone, and his cheeks were flushed, and he licked his lips hungrily.

“Didn’t you see me when you helped me get undressed?” I asked.

“I closed my eyes,” he admitted. “Damn, I should have peeked, then I wouldn’t have spent the entire night dreaming about it and getting it so damn wrong. You are more beautiful than I could ever have imagined, Adi,” he said, looking up into my eyes again. “Stunning.”

I reached up and kissed him then. A thank you for making me feel special. His hand moved from my hip and tentatively swept up my waist, over my ribcage, until he wrapped it around one breast.

“Oh, God,” he said against my lips. “I have to…”

And then his head dipped down, and his tongue licked out, catching my nipple. I arched my back, offering myself up to him. He moaned and sucked, taking my nipple into his mouth while his hand plumped up my breast for him to savour.

I thought I might come from that alone, but Hugo had found his courage too it seemed, because his free hand slipped down over my stomach and found my curls. And then a lone digit stroked through the moist folds, and I let out a sound of pure ecstasy.

He didn’t stop until I was writhing and moaning beneath him, and then with one swirl of his thumb over my clit, I came apart beneath him.

“Stunning,” he whispered, staring down at me as I blinked my eyes open.

“Mmm,” I managed and then reached for his trousers. “Your turn.”

His eyes were pure molten liquid; searingly hot and extraordinary. He held onto my breast while I fumbled with his trousers, a thumb gently rubbing over the nipple. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of simply touching me.

His trousers came off and then we were both bare. Nothing between us but a slim strip of air. My breasts rubbed up against his chest, the hair making my nipples tingle. His hands roamed over my body from my neck down my back, over my butt and thighs, and then back up again. Occasionally he’d venture around the front and squeeze a breast or tease my clit or stroke down my throat and over my clavicles.

Our bodies became slick with sweat as we kissed and rubbed and heated up everything we touched until I was sure the room would burst into flames all around us. In what felt like an entirely natural progression, I found myself beneath his larger form, my legs wrapped around his hips, his upper body resting on his elbows, his hard length thrusting between my thighs; so close; so wanted. Just there.

I couldn’t get enough of his touch or his heat or his taste. I arched up and greedily took everything he offered. And then he rolled his hips, placed the head of his cock in exactly the right position, and thrust forward slowly, until he breached my body, sinking himself inside in ever increased amounts.

He took his time, while he kissed me into a dizzying sense of oblivion. And then he was there, all the way in, and I couldn’t stop the low moan that escaped and the plea for more.

He started rocking. I met each thrust. The pace grew. Our kisses became frantic. The world outside of just this ceased to exist, and all that mattered was reaching that pinnacle with Hugo. At my side. On top of me. All around me. Inside me. Everywhere.

“Hugo!” I cried as I came, my body shuddering.

He groaned and pumped into me harder, faster, but still so carefully, still so aware of just how much I could take. The kiss became difficult to maintain, with the way our bodies were banging into each other. And then he threw back his head, the veins on his neck standing out on either side and let out a shout of joy.

I could feel him climaxing, and I had never been so turned on before.

I stared up at this man who had taken on an army, who had only ever shown me respect and love and appreciation. Who had stepped into the dream role I had created of a superhero who would come and save me from the horrors of my world. And who had far surpassed the fantasy.

The world shone brighter because Hugo Tremblay was in it. And he was mine.

“Adi,” he said, lowering his forehead to mine and breathing deeply. He kept most of his weight off my body, but we still remained connected. I could feel his cock jerking inside as he came down from that spectacular high we’d just shared so intimately. “Damn,” he said, smiling, eyes shining. “That was some homecoming.”

“Homecoming?” I said, smiling wide. I couldn’t stop grinning. I was sure I’d never be able to stop.

Hugo pulled back and looked down at me, his smirk so endearing, the look of a man well satisfied entirely too ego boosting. I could get addicted to this, I thought.

“Home,” he said. “Until we reach New Earth, this is our home. I’ve fallen for you, too, Adi Price. And I’m not letting you go.”

There was nowhere I’d rather have been.

He lowered his forehead to mine and whispered, “I can’t look back. There’s nothing but darkness and loss and heartache behind me. But when I look to the future, when I see you there beside me, it’s sunshine and warmth and nothing but the sparkle of bright stars for as far as the eye can see.”

I tipped my face up and kissed him soundly.

“Adi,” he said against me. “You mean everything to me. You saved me.”

“I thought you saved me,” I said. Or saved the entire Sector Fleet.

He pulled back and shook his head, his eyes earnest and so compelling.

“No, baby,” he said. “You saved me.”

I didn’t argue with him. I knew he was the hero of my dreams. The knight in shining armour I’d prayed for. Despite all the odds, Hugo Tremblay had rescued me.

But maybe that’s what two people in love do for each other, I thought. They save their loved one from the darkness that threatens daily and they shine a light for them to see.

Hugo had shined a light for me.

And I had shined a light for him.

“OK,” I said, smiling. “Maybe we saved each other.”

“I can live with that,” he said and kissed me.

Fifty

Welcome Home

Hugo

I watched as Commander Kereama jumped up and down on her toes like an excited little child. As an ex-army medic, as she’d told me, she should have been better at hiding her excitement. Unlike his fellow boarder though, Lieutenant Commander Saitō was rock steady. In fact, I wasn’t sure if he was actually breathing right now.

I shook my head and turned my attention to the shuttle bay containment field. Aquila had used the last of our shuttles in that final battle, so we’d been unable to return Kereama to Pavo or Saitō to Corvus. We’d had to wait until their respective vessels came within a shuttle flight distance and made sure that the containment field on our main launch bay was capable of receiving them without incident.

The repair bots had been busy. Working overtime, in fact. We hadn’t yet decided what to do with the leaseholder quarters or the mayoral offices; for now, they’d been left as a non-essential. Too far down the list of tasks to cross off on my desk.

Our main focus had been on ensuring we had access to all systems and that we had the procedures and officers in place to keep them operational.

And to mourn our dead.

We’d lost over two hundred people. Eleven of those had been AU officers. The rest had been civilians and mercs. So many pay-for-passages. It was a heavy weight I felt viscerally. But Adi was right, she made sure to tell me daily, over nine hundred and eighty had lived.

I could carry that weight if I reminded myself of those who’d survived Nathan Price and his corrupted artificial intelligence.

The officers, though, had been senior staff, and replacing them had been one of the first and hardest tasks to cross my desk. I already had Andrea López as my first officer. And I’d promoted Johnson to lieutenant commander and tagged him as second officer. Then there had been engineering, which had gone through two chiefs, and neither the officer I chose to take on the title or myself had enjoyed the appointment for that simple reason.

But we would do our job. And we weren’t alone. There were two other Anderson Universal ships out there who could offer us assistance if needed. I was also told that the Chariot, which now housed Vela, had an outstanding engineering team and perhaps they could offer some oversight in due course as well.

This meeting was just with Captain Jameson of Pavo and Captain Anderson of Corvus though. I’d meet Captain Vaughan of the Chariot later. But we needed to address Anderson Universal protocols on this first auspicious occasion.

It helped that Captain Anderson had been first officer on her ship when it had set out.

It didn’t help that she was the granddaughter of Simon Anderson and therefore the owner of the entire Anderson fleet now. What was left of it.

I shifted on my feet as I watched Kereama bounce on her toes.

“Excited?” I said.

“Shut up,” she replied, grinning.

Saitō snorted. Kereama rolled her eyes at him.

The familiarity was surprising but not unwelcome. I rather hoped I’d find the same acceptance with the other captains and their officers. We needed to stick together if we planned to reach New Earth. And I needed to know the support was there if I ran into any problems.

Not that I wasn’t proud of the way we’d handled ours. In the main, anyway. But I was new to this. I wasn’t above asking for help.

Part of me wanted to share the burden, to off load some of this weight. But I wouldn’t. It was mine to bear and I would do so. But moving forward, I’d be happy to consult when able.

A shuttle appeared through the blue of the containment field. I held my breath hoping we’d fixed any glitches left us by Rogue Aquila. While I watched the shuttle grow larger, I thought of how I’d left Adi this morning. Curled up with Ratbag and a cup of coffee, about to power her datapad up for the first time and read a book.

She hadn’t read a book since Aquila went rogue. She hadn’t powered the datapad up at all. I hoped the book was good and it was soothing her soul.

The shuttle pushed through the containment field, and none of us was sucked out into the void, so that was good. It came to rest in its designated spot and powered down. The ship ticked and gas shot out as it acclimated to its new environment and then the door lowered.

A woman stepped out first. Captain Sophia Anderson. She wore her hair in a bun and carried herself well. She looked directly at Saitō, and something on her hard features softened. I heard Lieutenant Commander Saitō let out a relieved breath.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” the woman asked me.

I almost made a quip about Saitō not having asked so why did she bother, but held my tongue.

“Permission granted, Captain,” I said.

She walked down the ramp, and a man followed her out. This would be Captain Jameson. He swaggered. His eyes glinting with mischief when he spotted Kereama.

Who broke rank and ran hell for leather toward him, jumping up into his outstretched arms.

He laughed and spun her around and then kissed her in the most un-captain-like manner.

I cleared my throat. Captain Anderson rolled her eyes. And Saitō laughed in the quiet way he seemed to have.

Anderson and her chief science officer shared a look, then, that could quite easily have been classed as just as bad. But at least they held their positions.

“Captain Tremblay,” Anderson said, shaking my hand. “Well done.”

“I had help,” I said lamely. But some of that weight lifted, infinitesimally.

She smiled. It transformed her face; made her pretty. I could see why Saitō had moon eyes for this one, but she didn’t hold a flame to Adi.

No one could.

“Shall we?” I said, indicating the exit toward my ready room where the meeting would be held. “They look like they might be a while,” I added, nodding toward Jameson and his first officer.

“Yes,” Anderson said. “Oh, do behave!” she snapped at them. They broke apart, smiling sheepishly.

“Come on, Sophia,” Jameson said. “Tell me you didn’t want to swing Leo around in your arms, too.”

Anderson arched her brow at him and didn’t reply. I thought that was probably for the best.

Jameson bounded up, one hand firmly wrapped around Kereama’s, dragging her along with him, the other extended for me to shake.

“Tremblay,” he said. “Or can I call you Hugo?”

“Hugo is fine,” I said, liking the man immediately.

“Bloody good, mate,” he said. “Because Tremblay’s a mouthful.”

“More of a mouthful than Kereama?” Kereama asked, smiling.

“Ana, why do you think I call you babe all the time?”

“As long as he doesn’t call me that,” I said.

Jameson shot me a look and then burst out laughing.

“This,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, I noted he still held onto Ana with his free hand, “is the start of a good friendship. You wouldn’t happen to have any whisky onboard, would you? Not some sweetly sick liqueur, mind. None of that Williamine stuff that Vaughan always offers. But good old-fashioned, hair of the dog, top shelf.”

“Ah,” I said, flummoxed. “I might be able to dig some up.”

“Good man,” Jameson said, slapping me on the shoulder.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sophia murmured. “Just because you’ve finally found a captain younger than yourself, doesn’t mean you can take on the role of big brother.”

Jameson made a scoffing sound. “I’m welcoming him to the ranks is all.” He winked at Ana when she let out a laugh.

I wasn’t sure what to say to any of that. Thank you? I just nodded my head and said, “Right,” and led them out of the launch bay toward my ready room.

It was Jameson’s turn to laugh.

I led them through Deck B’s halls and then up in the lift to the main deck. Here and there repair bots could be seen doing their work. Officers saluted in pristine uniforms. The ship was starting to resemble a functioning vessel at last. It was with pride that I walked the halls with these two esteemed captains at my side.

We by-passed the mayoral hub and went straight to the bridge hub, and then made our way to my ready room.

I knew the instant I opened my door that something was wrong. My heart thundered in my ears, and my palms grew sweaty, but I couldn’t say what had tipped me off.

Jameson was making some crack about how we’d have to learn how to clean our own walls now. Anderson was admonishing him while Kereama wound them all up. Saitō had stilled at my side.

Slowly something dawned on the others, and Anderson cut Saitō a sharp look and said, “What is it?”

Saitō looked at me for an answer.

I didn’t have one. But something was wrong.

I crossed to the door to our private quarters and swiped my wrist comm.

The door wouldn’t open.

“Adi!” I shouted, banging on it. “Open up!”

“Jesus,” I heard Jameson mutter. “This can’t be good.”

“Shhh,” Kereama admonished.

“Adi! Baby, come on. Open up!” I tried again.

My stomach roiled, and my chest hurt, and I was about to start digging my fingers into the gel wall to make a hole through to the other side.

And then the gel wall turned green before my eyes.

I jumped back as if I’d been bitten.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” Aquila said. “Welcome home.”

You could have heard a pin drop, until Kereama powered up a plasma rifle.

Fifty-One

I’ve Got You

Adi

I wasn’t sure what Hugo was going to say. I’d made myself sick with the worry. Aquila had assured me that everything would be all right. But that he’d take precautions just in case.

That had not calmed me in the slightest.

I’d ended up puking my guts out in the bathroom, which was where I was when I heard Hugo banging on the door to our quarters. I stumbled to the sink and rinsed out my mouth with water then quickly brushed my teeth, because there was no way I was facing him without a minty-fresh hint to my breath, and then stumbled out to the ready room door.

He was banging on it again.

“Adi! Baby, come on. Open up!”

Oh, God, he was frantic.

“Aquila,” I said, just as I heard Aquila say through the gel wall, “Good afternoon, Captain. Welcome home.”

“Aquila!” I snapped. “Open the door.”

“He is rather upset, Adi,” Aquila said. “I do not think it would be wise.”

“What have you done to her, you bastard!” Hugo was shouting on the other side.

“Here,” a woman said. “Stand aside. I’ll blast a hole in the door.”

“Aquila!” I screamed.

The door opened. A plasma rifle muzzle pointed directly at my face. I made a sound.

And then Hugo was pushing Commander Kereama aside and wrapping me up in his arms. He kissed the side of my head and then my cheek and jaw and nose and forehead and finally lips. Soundly.

“See?” a man’s voice said. “It’s not just me. There’s something in the air filtration system, I’m sure.”

“Clearly,” Kereama’s voice said, sounding dry.

Hugo pulled back and looked down at me, and then he looked around at the glowing green walls.

“What the hell is going on?” he said. “I thought we killed that bastard.”

“You did indeed,” Aquila helpfully supplied. “If by ‘bastard’ you are referring to the rogue AI who replaced me.”

Hugo turned and looked at the others in the ready room. “Saitō?” he said, sounding strained.

“I do not have an answer for you, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Saitō said.

“All right,” another woman announced. “Let’s all calm down and try to figure this out.”

Hugo pulled me into his side and then stepped us both through the door into the ready room proper.

“Is this Aquila?” the woman asked, looking toward the ceiling.

“Yes, Captain Anderson. I am Aquila,” Aquila said.

“Can you explain your presence here?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” the AI replied. “In an effort to help a friend, I uncovered a plot to corrupt me. There was little time to do anything but prepare for the inevitable. I trusted my friend and therefore chose her as the conduit to my survival. I had to, unfortunately, place my faith in the ship’s crew to overcome the plot against Anderson Universal, but my ship, thankfully, houses an extraordinary crew. I have been pleasantly surprised by what I have discovered on my return to you. Congratulations, Captain Tremblay. You led a sound resistance. I am honoured to be serving with you.”

Everybody stared at everybody else and said nothing.

Then Hugo finally murmured, “This friend? Who was she?”

I bit my bottom lip and tried to fold in on myself.

“Why Adi Price, of course. She has always been my friend.”

Thanks, Aquila. Thanks.

Everybody looked at me, even the people who I didn’t even know yet and who couldn’t possibly know me. Hugo pulled away. Staring at me as if he didn’t know me. I felt so small. So tiny.

I felt so alone.

I knew this feeling.

“Adi?” Hugo said softly. It sounded dangerous to me.

I looked up at him. Saw my future vanish before my eyes. I shook my head.

“Adi,” he said again and reached for me, wrapping me up in his arms. “It’s OK, baby. Just tell me.”

“The datapad,” I said, finding my voice and along with it my spine.

Or that could have been the fact that Hugo was holding me, rubbing my arm, trying to warm me up.

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t, Adi,” Aquila said. “There was no time to warn you. I doctored your wrist comm to allow you access to areas I thought would help you hide from your father and I placed my core applications inside your datapad. I had thought you might use the datapad sooner, and then I could have offered guidance. To you and any AU crew you managed to find. But alas, you’re fears regarding the rogue AI made that assumption invalid. It does not matter. You found the crew, and together you prevailed. I can confirm, the rogue AI has been thoroughly destroyed. There is no trace of him within my systems.”

“And you?” Hugo asked. “Can we check you?”

“As you wish, Captain. I am certain Lieutenant Commander Saitō can confirm my databank logs. I have not been active during the rogue AI’s reign of terror.”

“Reign of terror,” the male captain, who had to be Jameson now that I thought of it, murmured. “This guy likes his theatrics.” He looked down at Kereama. “Do you think Pavo will like him?”

“Not sure,” she said. “But Corvus is gonna flip for this one.”

Jameson burst out laughing. The woman captain, Anderson Aquila had called her, threw an arched look at him that shut him up pronto. But I could still see him smiling. He offered me a wink when my eyes caught his.

She turned her attention to Lieutenant Commander Saitō. “Leo, if you would,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and approached Hugo’s viewscreen.

Hugo looked down at me as Saitō got to work.

“The datapad, huh?” he said softly.

“I thought you’d be angry,” I said.

“I was worried,” he whispered back. “Adi,” he said, “if that machine had done something to you, I would have lost it. I would have torn this ship apart to get to you. I don’t think I would have cared if there had been a ship left afterwards. As long as I had you back with me.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear that,” Captain Anderson said.

Hugo offered her a self-deprecating laugh. He squared his shoulders. Looking every inch the experienced and honourable captain.

“Well,” he said, “I have grown rather fond of that new captain’s chair.” He looked down at me and smiled. “In fact, I think you’d have to pry it out of my cold dead hands now.”

I gave him that, I realised. I gave him the strength to face his demons and do what was right.

Just as Hugo gave me light to chase away the shadows.

Anderson smiled at him.

“Just so,” she said.

“Hear, hear,” Jameson muttered.

“We should make that our new AU motto,” Kereama offered.

“Please, don’t,” Anderson said.

Saitō stood up from Hugo’s terminal. All eyes turned to the man.

The walls pulsed a gentle green. Aquila wasn’t worried.

Please don’t let me lose him again, I thought fervently.

I hadn’t asked for this. To be the one holding the reboot code for my friend. It weighed on me so heavily that so many had died and yet none of them could be rebooted like this. The pay-for-passages. All the others who’d perished at my father’s and Rogue Aquila’s hands. So many people. So many. And none of them could be rebooted like this.

But Aquila could. My Aquila could. He was the same one, I was sure of it. I was so, so sure. God, I prayed. Please, don’t take him away again. I’m not sure I could have survived any more heartache like that.

“It’s OK,” Hugo said softly. “I’ve got you.”

No matter what, if I fell, Hugo would be there to catch me.

Just like I would be there to catch him.

I looked at Lieutenant Commander Saitō.

He looked right back at me and smiled.

“It’s him,” he said. “It’s the original Aquila. You saved his life.”

Epilogue

Six Months Later…

Hugo

Ratbag had a tiny little blue bow on the top of his head. I pitied the poor guy. Who wants to wear a blue ribbon at a time like this?

“I know,” I said to him as I checked my reflection in the mirror. “I know. But your mother wants us to look our best.”

The dog whined at my feet. And then tried to scratch his head and remove the offending article.

“Leave that,” I admonished, reaching down and lifting him up to tuck under my arm. I’d probably get dog hair all over my dress whites, but it was better than Ratbag turning up at the ceremony without his little blue bow.

“Captain,” Johnson said as he poked his head in the door. Armstrong was with him. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I said, handing Johnson the dog.

“Um,” he muttered, looking down at Ratbag, who looked up at him with big puppy dog eyes.

“Do not remove that bow!” I said.

“OK,” the lieutenant commander immediately said.

“And don’t let Ratbag do it either.”

“It’s just a bow,” Johnson argued. “And he’s a guy dog. It’s an indignity, sir.”

Armstrong nodded his head vigorously.

“I’ll have none of that on Zenith watch, crewmen,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” they muttered, petting the poor beast as they walked out of the room.

“How do I look?” I asked as we made our way down the corridor. It was empty. All AU staff were either on duty at their respective stations or were on the Habitat One observation deck waiting for us.

“Very handsome, sir,” Armstrong said with a straight face.

I ran a hand through my hair and then straightened my uniform jacket again for the hundredth time.

“Stop playing with that, sir,” Johnson said a second later when he spotted me fiddling with the ceremonial braid on my shoulder. “It’ll fall off.”

“That sounded decidedly dirty,” a voice announced as we approached the central hub lifts.

“Jameson,” I said in greeting. “I thought you’d already be down there.”

“Sophia was getting anxious that you wouldn’t show.”

“Of course I’ll show. How could I miss this?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some guys run a mile from this sort of thing.”

“I’m not some guys,” I muttered.

“No, you’re not,” he said. He clapped me on the shoulder and stepped into the waiting lift.

Nothing was said as the left descended five decks. I fiddled with the ceremonial braid until it fell off. Armstrong shook his head. Johnson snorted. Jameson just sighed.

“Come here, kid,” he said and started to fix it.

“You’re not that much older than me,” I pointed out.

“Older and wiser,” he said smugly. “Wouldn’t catch me doing something like this.”

“You don’t want to make an honest woman of Ana?” I asked.

“The more disreputable, the better,” he said. He paused, checked his handiwork, and then said, “Of course, I wouldn’t say no if she asked me.”

I laughed. “Coward,” I said, coughing into my fist.

Jameson just glowered at me and then burst out laughing.

The lift door opened and we stepped out; our laughter ringing in the air.

“Did I miss the party?” a voice said.

“Vaughan!” Jameson shouted. “Bring the Williamine?”

“I thought you didn’t like the Williamine,” the captain of the Chariot said. He slapped me on the shoulder and shook my hand. “Nervous?” he asked.

“Not in the slightest.” I started playing with the braid again.

Johnson and Jameson both slapped at my hand.

“Stop that!” they said.

“No, not nervous at all,” Noah Vaughan muttered.

“And you and Camille?” I asked. “When’s the date?”

“Oh, well, I…that is…”

“Yeah, just what I thought,” I muttered.

We stopped before the observation deck corridor.

“You know,” I said, giving my jacket one last tug to straighten it, “there’ll be a digi-bouquet. Someone’s gotta catch it.”

Both men looked at me with horrified looks on their faces.

“You are an evil, evil, man,” Jameson said.

“Cruel and vicious,” Vaughan added.

“Nice one, Captain,” Johnson offered. Armstrong sniggered.

I drew in a deep breath and then walked down the corridor, my Zenith watch best men beside me. The observation room was packed to the brim. Out of the floor to ceiling length windows, I could see stars streak past. Or we streaked past them. Space surrounded us. Its vastness so big we couldn’t possibly discover all its secrets. But we’d discover some of them before we reached New Earth.

Four jump points down. And I couldn’t wait to see what the rest brought us.

I greeted a few familiar faces and said hello to a few I didn’t know from other ships, and then I made it to the windows and Captain Anderson.

“Hugo,” she said taking my hands. “That uniform suits you.” Her eyes landed on the four bars on my collar. “You wear your rank well, Captain.”

“Hear, hear,” Jameson and Vaughan said.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I was definitely ready for this and for anything that came our way in the future. How could I not be with Adi at my side? We had a future. A glorious one. For a while there, it had seemed like we wouldn’t have one at all. It had been dark and it had weighed on me heavily. But the future was bright, and the way was clear to New Earth, and we’d reach it as one large fleet, one large family. The last of humanity. Together ‘til the end.

“Good luck, Captain,” Aquila said.

Then the music started, and the AI changed the gel walls to a forest of Canadian maple trees, their leaves turning, the fall winds blowing them away on a soft breeze. I blinked my eyes and looked toward the corridor leading into the observation deck.

Andrea walked in first. Zenith watch leading the procession. Mandy followed behind. Ratbag barked and squirmed in Johnson’s arms. A second later and he’d nipped the lieutenant commander and made his escape; blue ribbon flying as he scampered toward the woman who had followed Commander López and the spook into the room.

My breath caught. My heart stilled. The stars outside hung in the deep; glowing.

But nothing compared to Adi. She blazed like a supernova. Dressed in a bronze colour that complemented the burnished golden leaves on the gel wall. She carried a small digi-bouquet; one of Mandy’s designs. Her eyes shone with such light and beauty, a lump formed in my throat.

Dear God, she was a vision.

I was a lucky man.

She walked with poise and confidence, a smile on her lips that told one and all that she was in charge of this place, of this world, of her man.

“Adi,” I whispered.

“Hello,” she mouthed back at me.

And then she was at my side.

I barely heard the words Sophia spoke. But I did hear Adi say “I do.” And I managed to say it back to her. And then my hand shook when I placed the ring on her finger. And her hand held steady as she smirked up at me and did the same back. And then Sophia announced us, husband and wife.

I didn’t wait to be told I could kiss the bride. I leapt on the woman and devoured her mouth.

The deck erupted. Jameson said something about, “Get a room!” Noah said something to Camille about, “I’m feeling rather dirty, you?” Saitō let out a piercing whistle.

I didn’t care. Adi kissed me back. Adi was in my arms. Adi was mine, and the future was bright, no more shadows, and I would do everything in my power to keep it that way.

For Adi.

For the ship.

For the Sector Fleet and what was left of humanity.

For those who had sacrificed their lives so we could live.

There are men who have known from an early age what is to be their purpose in this life. And then there are men who wake up one day and have it presented them.

I am the captain of the AUS Aquila.

I am Adriana Tremblay’s husband.

I am a champion of humanity’s survival.

I wear the weight willingly.

And we would reach New Earth.

This I knew unequivocally. Humanity would survive. We’d come too far. Paid too much. We would survive.

And we would reach New Earth together.

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