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.”