Into the Light by Jane Wallace

The Coalition team stared at the three humanoids who accosted them from the top of the bridge.

‘Avatars,’ said Marik. ‘They can’t be real.’

’Not all of them, two are morphs at least,’ said Sevin.

The lead female repeated the question: ‘What are you doing on my ship?’

Her accent was educated with the Altan system’s drawling pronunciation not far under the surface. If it was a simulation, it was a very good one. Sevin drew himself taller, feeling the comforting weight of a real blaster bounce against his spine.

‘Your ship? And who are you?’

‘First Scientist Professor Xin, Xin Xiaoli.’

‘That’s interesting, Professor, because we just went to a lot of trouble to make it our ship.’

‘Yeah lady, back off,’ Lauden added, rising from his seat. ‘We ain’t giving it up now!’

’Enough!’ The white diamond she held suddenly kicked back in her hands and Lauden sucked in a hiss as a soundless charge whipped past his hip, slitting the lartex of his bodysuit to the skin. Turning around, he saw the arm of his chair was missing.

’Easy, easy!’ said Lauden, inspecting the cut. His eyes strayed to the blaster he had dropped earlier two metres away.

‘Gather up all your weapons and put them at the bottom of the stairs,’ the professor ordered. ‘Slowly, where I can see them.’

Reluctantly, Lauden retrieved the blaster and did as he was told.

‘And yours, the one on your back.’ Xin pointed her strange gun at Sevin. ‘Bring it to the front.’

Sevin marched forward, casting Xin a defiant look as he threw the last of their artillery on to the heap. He kept the old crabclaw stowed in his boot.

Xin picked her way down the stairs with feline propriety, her eyes touching on the hardware before she addressed Sevin again. ‘The Thorn Odal 55, a twin-function, polonium-powered laser blaster,’ she stated. She nudged one of the barrels sticking out of the pile with the toe of a finely-crafted boot. ‘Gharst standard issue for sturmganger, Silver Brigade, this serial released twenty-eight standard months ago.’

Sevin regarded the dump, unfamiliar with the finer aspects of the models. ‘And so?’

‘And so, Major,’ she replied, noting the pips on his sleeve, ‘what is a pack of Coalition jump-monkeys doing with them – if you are Coalition, that is,’ she added, taking in the motley uniforms around her.

‘Cleaning our teeth, what d’you think?’ said Marik from the pilot station.

Xin scowled at him, then frowned as she recognised the epaulettes on his Gharst merchant-fleet jacket. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a Captain.’

Marik puffed out his chest. ‘I am.’

’No doubt you’re the hot-shot who activated the Infinity drive.’

’The Infinity drive?’

‘You overrode the launch programme!’ she accused, slinking down the remaining steps. She skirted past Sevin at the bottom and rounded the podium of the flight deck to starboard, keeping her back to the windows and the white gun on the huddle of Zendra, Hauki and Lauden on the back row. Above, the two morphs were also on the move. No-one seemed to have given them any orders but they descended to the mezzanine level and took positions on the balcony overlooking the flight deck.

‘The launch programme? We didn’t know there was one,’ said Sevin. ‘You must have known a Scorpion was about to explode. If this really is your ship, you should have been on the bridge for take-off.’

’There was a problem with the photonic blast delivery. I had to manage the launch from the engine room. When I detected your presence, I shut down the bridge interface but you still managed to compromise the launch,’ she said, glaring at Marik. ’The Infinity drive is untested, you could have killed us all and destroyed the ship!’

Sevin pretended not to see Marik’s pained looks. ‘We got off the ground and to safety, mission complete,’ he said.

‘Mission! You are nothing more than hijackers, terrorists! You killed senior officers and are now attempting to take control of a Gharst ship! This is an act of treason and it is my duty to hand you over to the relevant authorities at the next opportunity.’

‘The war is over, we can go free,’ said Zendra.

Xin smiled tightly. ‘That depends on who you are. What were you doing here in the first place? Tian is a Gharst protectorate. The surrender had not been declared long enough for you to be making a diplomatic visit. You were here to set the Scorpion - that makes you war criminals.’

Sevin let his eyes trail over the neat shoulders and down, past the shapely legs, to the heeled boots planted so resolutely on the floor. Tiny and tough was his evaluation, rather like a crystal herself: flawless, cold and absolutely hard. He wondered what it would take to break her.

‘You’re Tian and you work for the Gharst,’ he said. ‘What does that make you?’

She flushed angrily but, before she could reply, a piercing beep started to issue from the pilot station. Instinctively Marik bent over the back of the pilot’s seat, searching the control panel for the source of the noise.

‘Move away from the holoscreen!’ Xin’s voice rose to a shriek. In a single movement she was by his side, the sharp end of her gun driving into his appendix. He looked down at her in astonishment.

‘Stand with the others by the foot of the stairs,’ she instructed, one eye on the flickering monitors.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Marik, lifting his hands in the air. He stepped backwards slowly, trying to watch the viewer. She pressed the silver torque into her head, looking towards the morphs. A silent command must have passed between them because, as Xin climbed into the pilot seat, adjusting the head and arm rests to her shape, they began to descend from the mezzanine level. The male stopped halfway down, the female continued to the ground and stood opposite Sevin.

‘Over here,’ said the female, beckoning to Marik. He sauntered over to stand next to Sevin, hands in the air.

‘Raefnschips. Three, incoming,’ he told Sevin out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Silence!’ said the male morph. ‘Walk up the stairs. Slowly.’

As the others grudgingly complied, Sevin glanced back at the pilot station. Only a few centimetres of Xin’s head were visible over the chair back; she seemed to have forgotten the presence of her prisoners. The approaching Gharst ships were clearly more important. With her distracted, he thought, and the two morphs overpowered, perhaps the Coalition party could regain control.

’Move it,’ said the female morph from behind, her genuskin face pulled into a grimace. Sevin decided to play along and shuffled forward. He lifted his foot on to the first step and looked up. Zendra was in front, within two metres of the male morph who was climbing backwards, keeping his gun aimed at them. Hauki tailed her and Lauden plodded behind. Reaching half-way up, Zendra paused and looked around, her eyes locking on to Sevin’s. ’Do something,’ they said.

Sevin looked over his shoulder at Marik and made a discreet chopping motion with his hand to signal that he should attack the female morph on Sevin’s cue. Then he sprang up the handful of steps between himself and Lauden and poked his sergeant’s left buttock.

‘Watch your step, jowser. You trod on my foot!’

‘You are mistaken, buddy. I did no such thing.’

‘You damn well did.’

‘I damn well did not.’ Lauden turned to face his provoker.

‘Silence! Keep walking,’ said the male morph, turning around on the penultimate step to take aim at the feuding pair. Avoiding the line of fire, Zendra and Hauki dropped into a crouch on the stairs below.

‘I’ll tell you what you did.’ Sevin marched up to the step below Lauden and grabbed two handfuls of his bodysuit.

‘No, you won’t.’ Lauden seized Sevin’s wrists and the two men began a tussle, Sevin pushing from below, Lauden trying to steady himself as well as fend off the attack.

‘Stop it, stop it,’ shouted the male morph, sending off an energy bolt from his white gun which cracked over their heads. They ignored it, continuing to struggle. Sevin drove his knees into Lauden’s shins as the big man attempted to unshackle Sevin’s grip on his clothes.

‘Break it up!’ shouted the male morph, firing off another pulse which sailed over Lauden’s shoulder.

His command went unheeded. Sevin began to beat Lauden’s chest and a final kick at the knee saw the sergeant buckle then topple over, clasping Sevin to him as they tumbled down to the bottom of the stairs.

‘Desist or I will disintegrate you!’ cried the female morph. It elbowed past Marik to stand over the wrangling men. Left unobserved, Marik took the opportunity to grab the morph from behind and twist its gun arm behind its back, forcing it to its knees. Clinging to the weapon, the morph’s response was to begin firing, shooting off half of its own ear in the process and sending a plume of watery plasma into Marik’s face. He held on until Sevin and Lauden picked themselves up and Lauden hurried over to help. Sevin let them get on with it to see if he was needed elsewhere. One glance at the pilot station told him it was not there. Professor Xin was totally absorbed in the screens. Either she had complete confidence in the morphs or the advent of the Gharst was more of a problem than anyone assumed.

The women had their situation under control too. As soon as she saw the men fall, Zendra sprung up from the steps and cannoned into the male morph’s stomach, knocking it backwards on to the stairs. In another leap she was on top of it, straddling its thorax as it squirmed uselessly between her thighs, its carbon fibre shell no match for Zendra’s real muscle and bone. The morph tried to aim its gun at Zendra’s head before she pinioned its right arm to the ground. She repeatedly shook the wrist and scratched deep into its flesh, but the morph wouldn’t drop the weapon. She had to slam its hand against the edge of the nearest step several times with no effect before she realised it had no pain sensors.

‘Get the gun!’ she shouted to Hauki, fending off the morph’s left hand that was scrabbling to catch her pony tail. Hauki scrambled up the steps to where Zendra had pinned the morph’s right arm to the ground and untangled its fingers from the weapon’s handhold.

‘Kill it!’

‘No, wait,’ said Hauki, looking down the stairs to where Lauden stood over the fallen female morph, the white gun in his hand. Sevin and Marik had picked up a blaster each from the pile and were marching on to the podium of the flight deck.

Xin did not turn around as they approached, concentrating on the pilot station’s viewer. Three blips of red in delta formation were converging on a white lozenge in its centre.

‘Turn off the morphs,’ Sevin instructed the crown of Xin’s head.

‘I did it already.’

‘And your weapon.’

‘On my lap.’ She didn’t resist as Sevin reached around to gently lift the gun. It wasn’t heavy or large, but its shape made it cumbersome enough not to stick in a belt. Sevin shoved it nose-down into his trouser pocket.

Marik was watching the specks on the scanner.

‘Raefnschips still on our tail, Munin class by the look of them,’ he said to Sevin. ‘You’ll have to go faster than this if you want to lose them,’ he told Xin, ‘crank it up a few Vs.’

‘Excuse me, but I can fly my own ship, thank you.’

‘We’re trying to lose them?’ Sevin asked, checking the viewer for himself and seeing they were on an evasion course.’ He rammed his blaster into the back of Xin’s neck. ‘Funny way to treat a friend,’ he said in her ear. ‘If you’re so close with the gribs, why are we running away from them?’

‘This is a Gharst ship,’ she said, pushing back against the gun.

‘That you’re trying to steal from us!’

Her shoulders tensed and then sank. ‘Alright, alright.’ She swivelled around in the chair, brushing away the nose of the blaster. ‘Skulldur ordered me to prepare the ship for launch, he was going to pilot it himself into orbit to preserve it from the Scorpion fallout. It occurred to me that, with the morphs, I could disable Skulldur and his aides and take over the ship.’

‘And then what?’ asked Zendra. She and the others joined the semi-circle around the pilot station to listen to the story.

‘I was going to rescue my mother from the Hellenhaus.’

‘The Hellenhaus?’ repeated Sevin. He looked around the appalled faces of the others. Everyone knew the name of the Gharst’s notorious death camp. Images of the fortress, with its growth of spindly towers like witch’s fingers, were frequently used in Gharst propaganda to spread fear. Marooned in the glacial wastes of Isvarld’s winterscape, the prison was inescapable, except by death, to which most inmates submitted in time due to malnutrition, disease and any one of the tortures inflicted on them, including the speciality of the house, known as brainstorming. The procedure used adrenochrome, a psychotropic drug, to terrify the victim with artificially induced hallucinations. More often than not, the phantasmagoria tipped the victim into insanity. Another effect was death through heart attack brought on by massively increased blood pressure.

‘What happened?’ Sevin asked, relaxing his hold on the blaster.

‘Mother and I were the lead scientists on the Infinity project. We worked on it for several years - under duress, I would like to point out. We were practically prisoners: never allowed to leave the complex; our every move monitored; our calls tapped and every relationship screened.’ She glowered at her audience as if they were responsible. ‘When the project reached the initial testing phases, we saw an opportunity to escape, in the ship itself. But we were betrayed by a colleague. They took Mother to Isvarld and left me behind to finish the job. They said they would kill her if I did not.’

‘That’s terrible!’ said Hauki.

‘You heard anything of her since?’ asked Sevin.

‘No.’

‘You don’t even know if she’s alive?’

‘No.’

‘Right. So you and a couple of morphs are going to break into the Hellenhaus, the highest security jail in the Known Worlds, to spring your mother who you don’t even know is there?’

She stared at him, the mask of her face unreadable. ‘There are four morphs,’ she corrected him.

‘You know that’s not possible, even with all this.’ He gestured at the oscillating lights of the intangible displays, the mirages hanging in the air which were the command centre of the ship. The technology which enabled it was far in advance of anything he had ever experienced. He felt like a teenager again, dwarfed by the complexity of a ship’s operating system.

‘Major Sevin!’ said Marik. He was craning awkwardly over Xin’s head to see the monitors. ‘Those raefnschips will be in range in sixty seconds. We need to do something!’ He pushed past Xin to wriggle into the tiny space between the holoscreen and the back of her chair.

‘Alright, hold steady.’ Sevin looked down at the petite woman who was staring at him with renewed interest.

‘Sevin? Did he just call you Sevin?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Major Tem Sevin - the liberator of Gridon?’ she said, looking at Sevin’s torn trouser leg as if heroes should be better dressed.

‘I was there, yes, but I wouldn’t ...’

‘Sir!’ Marik interrupted. ‘Nothing’s working, I can’t even get the shields up.’ He jabbed a finger towards Xin’s head. ‘Someone has to release the controls!’

Sevin looked down at her. ‘You heard the Captain.’

She folded her hands in her lap, the admiration vanished. ‘I have increased our speed twice already.’

‘No, you haven’t. I haven’t seen you do anything.’

Xin touched the silver circlet on her forehead. ‘A basic undometer. It’s configured to read and analyse gamma and delta brainwaves and convey instructions to the ship’s master server.’

‘It reads your thoughts?’

‘Like this.’

She concentrated briefly.

‘Hey, it’s working! How did that happen?’ said Marik.

Xin smiled to herself, not altogether kindly.

‘Alright everyone, the bad news is that the nearest raefn is in range and we have no functioning beamers,’ said Marik. ‘The good news is we’ve got energy shields!’

Sevin hunkered down to Xin’s level. ‘I’m sure you’ve got lots of tricks up your sleeve, but they’re not going to be much help if we stay on this course. Those raefnschips will take us out, no questions asked. Release the controls.’

Her eyes dipped away from his. ‘The risk is too great - the weapons system isn’t fully tested yet. It’s better to divert all the power to the shields and the main drive. Our reserves are greater than theirs and we’re faster. Even on half-power we’ll leave them behind.’

The others were shifting behind him. Someone, probably Zendra, was marking time with the butt of a blaster against the floor. Around him, the bleeps and hums of a space craft in flight carried on regardless of the human action. To him, Infinity seemed to be fully functioning: Xin’s logic didn’t add up. He was wondering why the porcelain figure who sat so serenely in front of him was lying when a punch from starboard rocked the ship. He grabbed her chair arm for support.

‘Beamer attack from raefn one!’ said Marik. ‘The others are lining up.’

‘What’s the damage?’ asked Sevin.

‘We’re alright, energy shields are holding.’

’For now,’ Sevin said, watching Xin’s passive expression. Did she assume Infinity was inviolable because it was unique? Then she was a fool – the Gharst had even less respect for property than they did for life. Maybe there really was a problem with the systems, but Skulldur had been happy enough to launch and orbit the ship. Maybe she didn’t want to get it dirty on its first outing, he thought, letting his mind wander into irreverence, not to spoil it because…

He stood up abruptly. ’You don’t want to damage the goods, do you? That’s why you won’t fight. I should have worked it out sooner, there’s no way you could breach the Hellenhaus on your own. It’s going to be a trade-off - Infinity for your mother!’

She held his gaze, the black eyes molten.

’Listen to me. If you think the Gharst won’t touch this ship, you’re wrong. They’ve got your mother, they can build a thousand more ships like Infinity. It doesn’t matter to them about this one, except they don’t want anyone else to have it and if they have to take it out, they will. We won’t get out of this alive unless we do something.’

Another jolt shuddered through the hull, knocking them all off-balance.

‘Direct hit from raefn two,’ said Marik. ‘Shields took a big one – we’re on eighty per cent capacity.’

Sevin dropped his eyes to Xin. ‘Come on! We can do this together.’

‘But you don’t know the controls.’

‘You may have invented the controls but I’m sure you’ve never had to use them in a real-time combat situation. The team around you are Coalition Special Operations agents, crack troops, the best of the best. We’ll figure it out!’

She closed her eyes and gave a slight nod.

Marik whooped as he finally elicited a response from the steerstick. ‘On reverse course, preparing to attack.’

‘Do it,’ said Sevin.

Xin stood up from the chair stiffly and walked past Sevin, head in the air, leaving Marik to pat around blindly for the seat with one hand as he kept his attention on the controls in front. She took a stand between the two positions of the second row.

‘Where are the weapons stations?’ Sevin asked.

‘Up there,’ she said, indicating the bow.

‘How d’you activate them?’

‘Sit in the seat and place your arms on the rests.’

‘Controls?’

She tutted as Marik set off an error siren then turned to Sevin. ‘Standard layout with a few improvements. If you’re used to Space Command protocol, it’s self-explanatory.’

‘Good. Lauden, Zendra – you’re the woffers, get up front. What’s there?’ He pointed at the position to Xin’s left.

‘Navigation.’

‘Hauki, take that. What’s at the back?’ he asked, checking out the three empty seats in the rear row.

‘Systems, comms and a spare in the middle,’ she replied, settling down into the starboard seat of the second row.

‘And here?’ He indicated the space she had taken.

‘This is the captain’s seat.’

Sevin raised his eyebrows. So she wanted to play fast and hard, he could understand that. She had chosen the wrong opponent, she would understand that later. She was also in the wrong place to see the action. He turned his back on her, grasping the back of the pilot’s chair.

‘Alright Marik,’ he said, ‘take us in.’

’Going now,’ said Marik, seamlessly flipping the vessel into an about-turn. Confused by the sudden manoeuvre, the enemy craft held their fire until they realised Infinity was rounding on them. Then they let rip. Arcs of deadly light cut across the headway display on Marik’s viewer. Infinity careered from side to side as Marik negotiated the mesh of fatal tripwires spewing from the raefnschips’ forward beamers. There was a series of hard bumps as ray from the second raefnschip scraped against the shields.

Zendra and Lauden had taken the woffers’ seats in the bow and were busy figuring out how to manipulate the holographic controls.

‘I’ve got a lock on raefn two,’ shouted Zendra. ‘Firing now!’ She squeezed the targeting swizzle so hard she dug her fingernails into her own palm by mistake. ‘Got it!’ she cried. ‘Oh!’ Her victory cry turned into a yell as the ship was buffeted by a huge blow to the port bow.

‘Exterior damage sustained, auto repair is activated,’ said Hauki, reading from the datastreams on the navdesk. ‘Ten minutes for the shields to regenerate, until then we’re on sixty per cent efficiency.’

They took another hit. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ said Sevin.

‘Raefn two, it’s still there!’ said Hauki.

‘What? Zendra just shot it down.’

‘She didn’t, it’s still there, look!’

‘Plasma dart running from raefn one!’ said Hauki. ‘Impact in twenty-two seconds.’

‘Holy scrit, just what we don’t need,’ said Marik.

There was a commotion at the bow as Lauden exerted too much pressure on the diaphanous controls. Finally he triumphed. ‘Locked on to raefn three and firing.’ A red square on the viewer flashed. ‘Yeah – I got it!’

‘You didn’t,’ said Sevin.

‘Sir, I did! The computer said so.’

‘Three is still there. Something’s wrong with the system, it’s not delivering the charge.’ He turned to face Xin. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know.’ She consulted a subsidiary viewer by her left hand, practised fingers manipulating buttons on the touchpad. ‘It’s the wrong coding,’ she said, standing up and heading for the starboard seat of the back row. ‘I can fix it, just give me a minute.’

‘We haven’t got a minute,’ said Sevin as an almighty force smashed into the hull. The ship soared before dumping down back on course, pitching Sevin off the flight deck and landing him in the starboard gangway.

‘The plasma dart burnt out in the outer shield,’ said Hauki. ‘We’re left with the inner shield, the regeneration can’t keep up with the attacks.’

‘Xin, update!’ Sevin shouted.

‘Getting there,’ was her terse reply.

‘Marik, evasion strategy until we get firepower.’

‘Affirmative. Suggest you get strapped in, sir.’

Sevin took the nearest available seat, which happened to be the captain’s position, as Marik forced the ship into a weave of dodges and dives. After a giddying roll, Xin raised her head.

‘It’s done,’ she said.

Lauden and Zendra bent to the task. ‘I gotta lock, I gotta lock,’ chanted Lauden. ‘Locked on to raefn one. Arms away!’

As he hit the trigger, all eyes lifted to the forecam in the bow to see the result. They saw only black space.

‘Where’s the fireball?’ said Zendra.

Lauden slammed his fist against his knee. ‘Still not working. I was so sure I hit it.’

‘There’s no ship though, it’s disappeared,’ said Hauki, examining the navscreen.

‘Huh?’

‘You hit it,’ said Xin from the back row. ‘The controls you are using are conventional but the weapon is not. It’s a disintegrator, a very powerful and highly focused sonic beam. When the beam hits the target, it cavitates it at the atomic level. To the human eye, it looks like it evaporates.’

‘Gotcha,’ said Lauden, clearly not understanding.

‘We have conventional warheads we can use if necessary.’

Zendra turned back to her holostation. ‘Come on Lau, let’s get the others,’ she said, hungrily tracking the remaining ships. ‘There, I got it. Locked on to raefn three. Take that, jackface!’ The raefnschip dissolved off the viewer.

‘Yes!’ she crowed. ‘Now for the last one.’

‘I got it!’ said Lauden, concentrating hard on the viewer as he moved the square of the targeter over the icon of the enemy. ‘There!’

‘Ship down!’ cried Hauki. ‘All enemy craft are neutralised!’

‘Yay!’ The cheers echoed around the bridge.

‘Nice one, put it there!’ said Marik, extending his palm around the edge of his holoscreen. Lauden and Zendra got up from their seats to slap hands with him.

‘Great work everyone,’ Sevin said, sending a smile left to Hauki who returned a grin and a salute. He massaged the back of his neck, taking some long, deep breaths to prepare for the next confrontation – with Xin. He went to stand in front of her desk and she made him wait a good twenty seconds before she looked up.

‘I suppose you want congratulations,’ she said eventually.

‘No, but I’d like you to recognise the fact we just saved your ship – and you.’

‘You … helped.’

‘We did more than that. And now you’ve seen what we can do, I’ve got a proposition for you.’

‘Which is?’

‘We’ll help you free your mother.’

She frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because you can help us in return.’

‘With what?’

‘Safe passage to a homeworld of our choice.’

She looked sceptical. ‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’ It was for the moment. Sevin had plans for Xin and her ship. When he had worked out the details, he would put them into action.

She looked past him to the bow where Hauki and Marik had joined the party and were ribbing Lauden. The laughter was almost hysterical, a working-out of the stress of the recent engagement.

Xin’s gaze fixed on Marik. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Just keep speed-freak out of my way.’

Sevin nodded. ‘I can do that. There’s one more thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I give the orders.’

She opened her mouth to protest.

‘Good!’ he said before she could form a response. ‘Hauki,’ he called out, ‘set a course for the Rikke system, we’re going to Isvarld.’

β

When Sevin outlined the plan to them, Hauki looked worried, Marik was nonplussed, Zendra shook her head in disbelief but Lauden’s puppy-dog eyes said it all: ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, boss’.

‘Bah, no drama,’ Marik said between chews of the energy bars and protein sticks they had raided from the buffet on the mezzanine level, meant to sustain ship’s officers through important meetings rather than scavengers grabbing a meal. ‘It’ll take us at least a month to get there! Plenty of time for R&R.’

‘I like what I’m hearing, specially the R bit. Cabins through here, yeah?’ Lauden said before ambling off towards the Level 3 accommodation. The others followed, yawning.

Leaving Xin and the morphs on watch, Sevin decided to use the time exploring Infinity. Exiting the bridge at the top floor, he found himself in a short corridor in the eaves which was pierced at its centre by the spiral stairwell which cored the ship. Across the gangway, the pointed ceiling stretched away to the stern behind a wide door with a moulded frame. Hitting the wall contact, he entered a trapezium-shaped reception with a study and sleeping quarters behind partitions on either side. By the stern window, which was also the ceiling’s lowest point, there was a sunken table surrounded by turquoise plush couches, enough to seat twelve.

It was grand enough to be the captain’s cabin, but there was no sign of human habitation - Xin’s quarters must be elsewhere. Sevin lay down on the double bunk with the sole intention of stargazing through the ceiling’s panoramic skylights and awoke many hours later when there was a knock on the door.

Before he had time to say ‘come in’, a morph appeared in the break in the partition wall. Sevin hadn’t seen this one before, a female with dark, straight hair cut short in a way that flattered its round and gentle face. Draped over one arm were clothes similar to the morph’s own outfit: the pearlised fitted top and dark trousers of Infinity’s uniform. The glassy eyes regarded him kindly.

‘Good waking! I hope you slept well.’

‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, groggily fending off a corner of quilt which seemed to want a closer acquaintance with his face.

‘I am CX 28745 but you can call me Mimi,’ said the morph, bustling around the cabin. ‘I am a domestic biomorph created by Psi-Tech Corporation with valet, culinary and entertainment functions. I speak ten languages including Standard, Gharst and Gaian and I can play keyboard to professional standard.’ Setting switches in the partition, it turned the envirocon to warm and opened the blinds over the port windows.

Sevin watched Mimi suspiciously. ‘I think we met some of your friends yesterday.’

’Yes, there are four of us onboard. We all have different customisations. Our function is to assist the crew with all operations of Infinity. For your information, Peli, Roxi and I have comfort functionality.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘As you wish.’ It held up the suit. ‘Professor Xin asked me to bring this to you. I will hang it in the wardrobe for your future use.’

‘Right,’ said Sevin.

‘I apologise that we did not know your nutritional preferences so I have set a simple meal for you at the table next door,’ continued the morph. ‘If you require something else, please visit the canteen. It is on Level 3 towards the stern.’

‘I will.’

‘If I or my colleagues can be of any help to you whatsoever during the journey, please don’t hesitate to ask.’ Mimi backed out through the partition.

Sevin rolled over in the bunk and rubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw. He needed a wash, badly. Shedding his filthy grey fatigues, he threw himself in the ensuite steamer, turning it to full power, regretting that not even Infinity’s progressive technology could provide water hotter than tepid. After patting himself dry with an absorber, he took the uniform off its hanger. The silvery jacket, which folded over to fasten on the right, looked large enough for Lauden. The upper sleeve of the right arm bore the Infinity insignia, the number eight on its side in turquoise. He put it on, finding it was too big, but as soon as had he zippered it up to the tip of its mandarin collar, the fibres shrank to a perfect fit.

The trousers performed similarly, the neatness of the design making him smile. He ignored the pair of sure-grip slippers provided, preferring his Coalition boots. Dressed and refreshed, all he needed now was food. In the office area, Mimi had left a tray on the desk, a steaming cup of cha, white rice with grilled vegetables, and, what appeared to be and even tasted like, a real egg. He savoured the food as far as possible in the little time it took to demolish the meal. Sated, he stared at the empty tray and wondered what to do with it. Breakfast in bed was not the kind of leader he aspired to be. He snatched up the offending item with both hands and took off out of the room, down the stairwell to the refectory where he placed the dishes in washer before heading back to the bridge to find out what had become of the rest of his team.

γ

Zendra, Marik and Lauden were finishing a noisy and substantial meal on the bridge’s mezzanine level. Lauden sat in state at the head of the briefing table with an entourage of empty dishes and half-filled cups. He was demonstrating his repertoire of burps to Zendra on his right, who had covered her face in protest, and Marik on his left, who reciprocated by throwing cereal rounds. They straightened up immediately when Sevin appeared.

‘All present and correct?’ he asked, walking over to stand by Lauden.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Zendra.

‘Awesome!’ said Lauden, slapping his stomach.

Zendra elbowed him. ‘Please excuse the sergeant, sir, he’s having a sugar rush.’

‘The food’s great and the service is excellent,’ said Marik, accepting a cup of cha from a male morph, one of Xin’s blond henchbots from the day before. ‘Thanks! This is Ludi by the way.’ The morph bowed to Sevin, betraying no recognition of him, either as a friend or enemy.

‘For the gods’ sakes, what d’ you think you’re doing? Ordering room service?’ said Sevin, sweeping the cup out of Marik’s hands and giving it to the morph which he waved away. ‘You make your own snap on this ship – we’re crew doing a job, not guests on a cruise, act accordingly!’

‘Yes sir, sorry sir.’

‘Permission to speak, sir,’ said Lauden.

‘Go ahead.’

‘You said we were crew doing a job. We was wondering if, well, y’know …’

‘If what?’

‘He means, why are we going on this crazy mission to Isvarld?’ whispered Zendra. ‘Why are we helping Xin, why don’t we just take over the ship?’

‘Yeah, we could so easily be stitched up,’ said Marik, looking around. The morphs were out of earshot.

‘And we’d be right back in it when we only just got outta there!’ said Lauden.

‘That is the risk, but how else are we going to get back to Charis? It’s not like we can take public transport. Anyway, a deal’s a deal and if we can hurt the Gharst into the bargain, it’s a job worth doing. It’s a long trip to Isvarld. I want you to use the time getting to know every working part of this ship: systems, weapons, power supply and communications.’ Sevin turned to Lauden and said softly: ‘Everything that comes in and goes out, you hear?’

‘Wilco.’

‘Good. Where’s Hauki?’

‘Navdesk, down below,’ said Marik.