I check their pulse, before pushing myself away. What if it’s true? That the General, my General, is nothing but a decoy? But she spoke of Tamane as if she had been there… I saw again the savage grief on her face as she stared at the dying ant, dragging the memory of thousands of souls behind it.

I could take the mule now and flee for the Barrens, supplies or no. I could leave her to her fate. Possibilities course through me, making my muscles twitch, my palm slick with sweat around the gun. I smile bitterly.

They know what I’m going to do. They know the tally demands it.

* * *

‘Halt!’

I bring the mule to a stop. The metal walls of the army base loom, gates firmly closed. I keep my face lowered, staring at the inches of wrist exposed by the too-small army jacket.

‘Sergeant Garnet?’ someone calls from the sentry box beside the gate. From the corner of my eye, I see a soldier emerge and move towards me, staring at the thick bandages wrapped about my neck. ‘What the hell happened? Shall I call the medic?’

‘No need.’

I fire the stun pistol.

The soldier falls back, straight into a second sentry who has come running. It’s the work of seconds to stun him too.

The gate – intimidating though it looks – is a cheap thing, card-operated. Either the base doesn’t have much to protect, or the Accord doesn’t think it worthwhile to invest in an outlying moon like this. More fools them. Within moments, I’m through the gate and into the compound.

As I ride I see a brightly lit parade ground, ringed by dust-battered buildings, the flag of the Accord flapping over it all. I swerve into the shadows.

Is the General still alive?

You are risking everything to find out.

A life is a life. And she is a child.

She is a murderer. At any other time, in any other place, she would kill you without remorse.

But we’re not in another place. We’re here.

You’ll die for a sick brat?

Who says anything about dying?

The clouds scud across the dark sky like oil on water. They want this, I tell the voice at the back of my mind, the woman from the past with no mercy. They will help me.

In the darkness, I listen. No alarms, no sounds of panic. That makes two things obvious: one, the base is understaffed and underequipped; and two, somewhere, something important is happening.

Where would she be? Bases like this come pre-fabricated, dropped from ships in the correct layout. The General is ill. That means the infirmary. I think back to the early days of FL training, though I don’t like to. Too many other things, down there in my memories: awful, clinging things that should never be dredged up.