He waited several more seconds, clearly expecting her to continue. When she didn’t, he just shook his head in disgust and stared away from her until they reached their destination less than a minute later. Corso took the lead again once they disembarked.

The med-bay was much more up-to-date than the Hyperion’s had been. Even though the Mjollnir had been constructed centuries ago, she had clearly undergone a thorough refit.

Dakota gazed down at Lamoureaux through the transparent lid of a medbox. Another medbox nearby contained a distinguished-looking man in late middle-age.

She heard a soft hum and looked over to see that Corso had activated the examination table. Its bottom edge slowly tilted towards the deck, while a tangle of ceiling-mounted diagnostic equipment whirred and clicked as it dropped into place above the table’s headrest.

‘Who is he?’ asked Dakota.

‘That’s Eduard Martinez, who led the expedition to find the Mos Hadroch. On the table, please, Dakota. I want to run a full scan on you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we can’t afford you keeling over the way Ted Lamoureaux did.’

‘You don’t actually need a machine-head navigator to make a superluminal jump,’ she pointed out. ‘You could just set the parameters yourself

‘Yes, but we still need you to tell us which way we’re heading, and you can’t do that if you wind up in a coma or worse.’

Conceding this point, Dakota reluctantly climbed up on to the examination table and lay back, sliding her fingers around thick moulded plastic handholds on either side. She watched the diagnostic gear move slowly down the length of her body, imaging her internal organs while simultaneously mapping her nervous system.

‘I don’t suppose there’s a real doctor anywhere on this ship?’

Corso didn’t reply, instead pushing himself away from the table and towards the desk and chair that formed the nurse’s station. He grabbed hold of the back of the chair as he studied whatever analysis the med-bay’s computers were now coming up with.

‘Okay, Dakota.’ He turned and glanced at her. ‘I think it’s time we talked. What did you mean when you said you destroyed your ship to get free?’

‘I told you, I wasn’t ready to—’

‘Bullshit. You just don’t want to talk about it, full stop. I don’t care, but I want an explanation. I deserve an explanation.’ He nodded towards the two occupied medboxes. ‘Those two wouldn’t be in there if they didn’t believe in what we’ve been trying to achieve over the last couple of years. People got killed when we boarded this frigate. Most of them weren’t bad people either, Dakota. They were just doing their job, and now they’re dead. So don’t try and feed me any more crap about not being ready.’