“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.