“You were off your face on military-grade speed. And maybe you had some kind of psychotic episode.” Laura’s fingers picked at the blanket’s hem. “You’ve been under a lot of stress.” She gave a small shrug. “I think the drugs were too much for you. You were twitching and sweating like a man on fire.”

For a moment, she continued worrying the blanket’s seam. Then she folded her hands and her expression softened.

“Listen,” she said, “you’ve been trapped on the fringes of a particularly nasty civil war, running supply drops through the mountains. You’ve lost pilots and other colleagues, and been wounded yourself, getting that shrapnel fragment through your bladder. I know you hated every minute of it. And then you’re out of the jungle for one day, and some ignorant fucking bartender puts a pellet in your spleen. All of that would be enough to send most people gibbering over the paranoid edge. But add to it the physical strain of wearing a suit like that, coupled with enough pharmaceuticals to power an illegal rave, and it’s not surprising you lost your shit. Give a persecuted man a sudden feeling of power, and he’s going to lash out.”

She stopped speaking and, to my shame, I had to swallow back a sob. Everything she had said was true. I felt hot, bitter tears roll from the corners of my eyes. They ran into my ears and hair, and I flexed against my restraints. I wanted to wipe my face, but couldn’t move my arm. The suit had become a prison.

“Was anybody hurt?”

“You threw the captain over a table.”

“Is she all right?”

“If by ‘all right’ you mean royally pissed off, then, yeah, she’s just peachy.”

“What do you think she’s going to do?”

“I have no idea. But she’s locked herself onto the bridge for the night, so I guess she’s still worried you might get free and have another crack at taking the ship.”

I sniffed miserably. “I wouldn’t…”

“You did.”

I could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines coming up through the deck plates, transmitted via the welds to my arms and legs.

“Help me out of this thing.” I wanted to hide my face but, with my arms immobilised, I couldn’t reach the fastenings to release the straps holding in place the suit’s carbon-fibre ribs.

Laura turned her face away. The overhead light caught the lines around her eyes and mouth, the tendril of white in her hair.

“Sorry, but no.”

“Oh, come on.” My voice cracked. “Please?”