‘Like humans,’ Hella said. ‘They are fighting like humans, unified under a single command.’

The name hung unspoken between them: this was the work of the Black Ghost.

‘We’re losing the comms nets,’ Jul said, tense. ‘They’re isolating us.’

Hex glanced around the sky. The other needleships of Aleph Force were being enclosed by their own shells of Ghost hide; they hung in space like bizarre silvered fruit. She thought frantically. ‘If we try to ram that wall—’

‘They’ll just fall back and track us,’ Hella said.

‘What if we go to hyperdrive?’

Engineer Jul snapped, ‘Are you crazy? With all this turbulence in the gravity field, surrounded by a wall of reflective Ghost hide, you may as well just detonate the engines.’

Hella said, ‘It’s that or be destroyed anyhow.’

Borno said, ‘At least we will take down a lot of them with us. Millions, maybe.’

They fell silent for a heartbeat. Then Hella called, ‘Pilot? It’s your decision.’

Hex knew this was a war of economics. A great deal had been invested in her crew’s raising and training, and in the ship itself. But that investment had been made to be spent. The four of them and the ship, in exchange for millions of these strange swarming new Ghosts: it was a fair price.

‘It is our duty,’ she said. She brought up a bright, colour-coded display and began to work through the self-destruct procedure.

She heard Hella sigh.

Borno said grimly, ‘It’s been good to serve with you all.’

Jul said, ‘Not for long enough.’

Hex heard the tension in their voices. She had been trained for this, as for every other conceivable battlefield scenario. She knew that none of them really believed this was the end, not deep in their guts. If suicide was the only option, you did it quickly, before you had time to understand what you were doing. ‘I’ll set it to five seconds. Good luck, everybody.’ She reached out her gloved hand to finalise the sequence.

‘Wait.’ It was a new voice, smooth, toneless, coming from her command net.

In a visual before her was a Silver Ghost. It was one of the classic sort, a perfect sphere. The image was about the size of her head, a ball of silver turning slowly in the middle of her blister.

‘You hacked into our command net,’ Hex said.

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ the Ghost said. Its voice, translated by the Spear’s systems from some downloaded feed, was bland, without inflection. But did she detect a trace of sarcasm?

Jul spoke, her voice tremulous with fear. ‘Hex? What’s going on? Just get it over—’

‘Wait,’ Hex snapped.

The Ghost said, ‘I will let you live, in return for a service.’