Their last jump had taken place fourteen hours before, with the drive-spines running at about 70 per cent efficiency. The frigate was now nearly three and a half thousand light-years from home, and the Consortium had been reduced to a barely discernible smudge of stars lying somewhere in the direction of the Core.

<Oh, right. I didn’t think of that. >

See why you need me? Dakota sent, now making for the locker next to his. He was making a typical hash of getting into his own suit here in zero gee.

Lamoureaux laughed at her expression, and Schiller snapped her head around to stare at them both.

‘I know you’re talking,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I don’t know it.’

Dakota turned to face her. ‘Is that a problem, Nancy?’

For a few seconds, the other woman looked like she might make something more of it, then she uttered a sound of disgust. ‘Just get ready,’ she muttered. ‘I want this over and done with.’

Nancy turned away and Dakota stared silently at her back for a few seconds. Then she began to strip off, throwing her discarded clothing into the open locker.

Lamoureaux meanwhile kept his gaze politely averted and concentrated on checking his own spacesuit’s integrity, once he had finally managed to pull himself inside it. When Dakota was completely naked, she padded towards the airlock entrance on bare feet.

Nancy’s face turned a stormy red. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re . . .’

Her jaw dropped open as the black tide of Dakota’s filmsuit spilled out of its hidden orifices, rapidly coating her skin overall in a thick layer that could protect her from the vacuum and radiation beyond the hull. Dakota swallowed as the same tide of black flowed down her throat and into her lungs, stilling them as their function was temporarily abrogated to tiny power units inside her spine.

She waited as the black slick faded to partial transparency over her eyes, then opened them and squinted over at Nancy. ‘Come on, surely someone told you about this already?’ she asked with a smile.

Nancy stared back at her in horrified fascination. ‘Yeah, but . . . look, you need to get into your suit.’

‘She doesn’t,’ intervened Lamoureaux. ‘That thing’s all the space-suit she needs, at least for the amount of time we’ll be out on the hull.’

Schiller switched her gaze between them. ‘How . . . ?’ she stammered.

‘A present from an old friend,’ said Dakota, gesturing towards the airlock. ‘It’s time we got started, don’t you think?’

Dakota and Ted had now reached the point where they swapped control of the frigate’s primary systems almost automatically: one keeping a watchful eye over the Mjollnir, while the other slept. As they pushed out of the airlock and on to the hull, Lamoureaux assumed primary control.