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.