Running programs to determine the strength of the USER field, Orlandine quickly realized the USER device itself lay somewhere within that inner system, and estimated a travel time of more than a year before she could distance herself far enough from it to drop back into U-space. Heliotrope possessed cold coffins, so for her the journey would not be so interminable, however she did not much relish the idea of leaving herself that vulnerable. Other ECS ships could jump to the interference field’s perimeter within that time, then come in on conventional drives. The longer the field remained functional, the more defences ECS would install around its perimeter, and it seemed likely they might possess weapons capable of knocking other ships out of U-space once the field shut down. So, the longer she remained in this area, the more likely would be her capture.

Checking her scans of the distant battle, she realized that travelling insystem to find somewhere to hide was no tenable option. Hundreds of alien ships swarmed in the area. She did not expect the Polity ships there to survive, nor did she think her presence here would go undetected for long. But another option remained: the asteroid field.

Orlandine fired up the Heliotrope’s fusion engine, turned the vessel, and headed away just as fast as she could. Somewhere amid those cold stones she should be able to find a place to hide her ship, and there power it down to avoid detection while she awaited the conclusion to events now occurring in the inner system.

‘Why are they holding off?’ Thorn enquired. He plugged a monocular into his visor to gaze out over the red jungle towards the enormous spiral ship.

The sky was growing darker now, taking on a milky green hue as the sun descended behind the cloud cover like a heavy rucked-up blanket. In the jungle around the alien ship, things were moving about, and occasionally half-seen shapes drifted high above. To Cormac’s left, where some cataclysm had denuded the ground cover, swirled errant lights like St Elmo’s fire.

Cormac glanced across at Blegg, who now squatted beside the nearest of those strange cubic ruins, which seemed like short sections cut from a square granite pipe with sides a yard thick. Seven cubes altogether were scattered over the area—just some unknowable ruin.

‘What do you think?’ Cormac asked the old Oriental.

Blegg squinted down the slope at the red foliage. ‘We know that if they wanted to wipe us out, it would be no problem to them: they could just drop a warhead. I would say they are reluctant to destroy a possible source of information, potentially valuable, and certainly easier to obtain than, say, trying to capture a Centurion.’

‘So they’ll still try to grab us?’Thorn enquired.