I glared at the picture of the Hobo. How the hell had it ended up in the sea in the first place? And how had it been allowed to flood? There were safeguards in place to prevent both airlock doors opening simultaneously. In order to flood the ship, those safeguards would have had to be overridden or destroyed.

I tapped a fingernail on the screen, magnifying the image of the submerged vessel. “Could it have been sabotaged?”

“Insufficient data.”

I turned to a smaller side screen and pulled up a tactical view of the space surrounding the planet. “Were there any other ships in the system when the Hobo went down?”

The main screen rippled and a face appeared. The Trouble Dog’s primary crew interface, or avatar, manifested as a simulated human visage of such average and symmetrical beauty it was almost impossible to tell if it had been designed to be either male or female. She had shaggy, shoulder-length black hair and dark eyes with just a hint of an epicanthic fold, and she wore a white shirt and a black tie.

“I have no way to tell.”

“No sign of anyone else while we were down there?”

“None.” The Trouble Dog was being patient with me. If another ship had been present in this system, she would already have assessed it as a potential threat. The very fact she had not yet activated her defensive screens and countermeasures should have been enough to tell me that, so far, she had found nothing out of the ordinary.

We had two survivors. If and when they felt able to talk, I would question them. Until then, my responsibility was to get the Trouble Dog back to Camrose Station. I activated the internal communications system. “Clay, are you ready to leave?”

Her voice came back over my earbud. “All strapped in, Captain.”

“Okay then, departure in one minute. Ship, set a countdown.”

“Yes, Captain.”

We never usually bothered with the formalities, but I wanted to do this flight by the book, for George’s sake. I felt I owed him at least that much. I sat back and watched the timer on the main screen reduce itself towards zero.

Twenty seconds in, the Trouble Dog paused the countdown.

“I’m receiving a priority signal,” she said.

I knew what that meant.

“Another ship in trouble?”

Three-dimensional representations of the stellar neighbourhood appeared on the main screens. A bright yellow circle flashed, indicating a small blue star a couple of dozen lights spinward of our current position.

“The Geest van Amsterdam.” A peripheral screen lit with the schematics of a long, streamlined cylinder. “She’s under attack in the Gallery. She’s a medium-range passenger liner registered out of Glimmer Holme. Two hundred crew, four hundred passengers, three hundred permanent residents.”

“Shit.”

“And we’re the nearest vessel.”