She grinned and slithered expertly on top of him, quickly sliding him inside her. She was already wet. Her hands pressed down hard on his chest, the sensation almost painful, then she began to move, her hips grinding slowly.

Even the building’s basement generators, augmented by their tiny heater unit, could not together quite keep the cold out, and soon he shivered, his skin prickling in the frigid air. He thought of the bodies he’d seen floating along the canal, picked out by the rover’s unforgiving searchlights, and felt his ardour begin to fade.

‘I’m not sure I can,’ he muttered, and felt a sudden wave of fatigue wash over him. It had been, as she had said, a long day. ‘Maybe we should try and get some sleep.’

‘Shut up,’ she said, her voice ragged, hands pressing ever more forcefully against his chest. ‘Don’t disobey the orders of a superior officer.’

I’m not in your fucking army, he thought. But he dutifully held on to her plump thighs and banished those images of death and decay from his mind, concentrating instead on the tumble of her hair across her shoulders and the moistness of her lips when she leaned down to kiss him. To his surprise it worked, and he listened to the increasing hoarseness of her breath just before she climaxed and came to a gasping halt. Her head tipped back, before she finally collapsed against his chest.

‘Oh fuck, I needed that,’ she moaned.

‘You’re welcome,’ Nathan muttered. He glanced towards the window, where he could see the underside of a sky glowing a dull red.

Karen slid back down beside him and lay there for a few moments, her head resting on his shoulder. He sensed something else was on her mind and, after a few minutes of silence, she pushed herself up on one elbow and stared down at him.

‘So who was she?’ she asked, regarding him with a serious intensity.

Nathan gazed at her blankly until he realized she meant Ilsa. ‘What makes you think I was looking for a she?’

‘Intuition.’ Karen’s expression softened a little and she smiled. ‘I’m not saying you have to answer. I’m just curious.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘You know, Nathan, it doesn’t take a genius to guess you’re hiding something.’ She rolled on to her back beside him and sighed. ‘I guess there’s never going to be a good time to tell you this.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘I’m being reassigned. They’re sending several new expeditions into the rest of the coreship, and I’ve been asked to join one. We might even try to penetrate the command core this time round. It’ll be a joint operation, undertaken with the surviving Skelites and Bandati in the other zones.’