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.