Breisch was right: if this had been the real thing, he’d be dead by now. He was slipping badly, and the reasons were all too obvious.

A priority alert then appeared in the form of a softly glowing lozenge of light projected from a ceiling-mounted mechanism. Breisch saw it and immediately relaxed into a non-combat posture, legs straight, hands clasped behind his back. His skin was slick with sweat, so at least Corso knew he hadn’t made it too easy for his teacher.

‘That was a bad slip you made,’ Breisch told him calmly. ‘We’re going to have to work on your response times. It’s a weakness that any half-decent fighter could exploit, Senator.’

‘I appreciate that, Mr Breisch,’ Corso replied, picking up his shirt and using it to wipe the sweat from his neck and face. Breisch was one of the best deadly-combat trainers in the Freehold, and it had taken a lot of money to persuade him to leave Redstone and become his personal trainer.

‘The gravity here on Eugenia may also be an issue,’ Breisch added. ‘We may have to work on more strategies for coping with different strengths of gravity, particularly if you keep moving around as much as you have been.’

‘Noted,’ Corso replied. ‘We’ll pick up from here tomorrow morning.’

Breisch nodded and left the room. Corso stepped through to a shower room and washed the blood and sweat away, then used some coagulant to stop the bleeding before applying a strip of bandage to the wound.

‘Report,’ he said to the air, once the water had shut off.

There was a soft chime in his right ear, and a female voice with rounded tones began to speak. ‘Nisha here, Senator Corso. There’s been another sabotage attempt. A robot cargo transport deviated and made straight for Eugenia. The good news is that we caught it long before it got anywhere near us.’

‘You’re certain it was sabotage? Not just a systems failure?’

‘The platform’s brain had been very expertly hacked, Senator. There’s no doubt it was deliberate.’

Corso groaned silently, and started to towel himself dry. Another crisis to deal with. ‘Anything else?’

‘An urgent request from Ted Lamoureaux, who wants a meeting with you straight away. Something for your ears only, he said.’

‘First things first.’ Anger flowed like heat through his thoughts; there had to be some way to make people understand he wouldn’t tolerate these constant acts of terrorism. ‘We need to be seen to be reacting to this strongly and positively. Do we have any idea at all who’s responsible for the sabotage?’

‘Nothing clear as yet, but we’ve got analysts taking the transport’s brain apart right now.’