She did not answer. Exhaustion had begun to fall on her like the blow of a hammer. Her head was throbbing with pain.

‘Nilus,’ he said.

She raised her head.

‘My name is Nilus,’ he repeated and gave a smile. ‘Nilus of House Yeshar.’

He keyed a control. The blast doors to the external void shook, trembling as power-starved systems fought to obey. A crack opened, grew wider and stopped. The air in the hangar drained out, rocking the shuttle in its cradle.

‘Mersadie,’ she said, eyes fixed on the doors. ‘I am Mersadie Oliton.’

Nilus grinned. ‘Well, Mersadie Oliton, I am not sure this thing will fit through that gap, so I may have begun introductions prematurely.’ As the shuttle’s engines roared to life, the spilled fuel soaking the hangar deck ignited in the last of the air. Flames streamed past the shuttle through the open doors. Mersadie found her hands were gripping the controls hard.

The docking cradle released, and the shuttle shot forwards, through the gap, fins almost catching the doors. Behind them, the chewed stern of the ship that had been their prison tumbled on through a cloud of its own debris.

G-force punched through her, draining blood from her sight, forcing the breath from her lungs in a gasp. She had a brief image of smeared stars and flashes of white fire. Nilus had gone still, his long-fingered hands locked on the controls.

‘Sweet blood of the ancestors…’ he breathed. Then the world went black and she could feel the burning void reaching out to greet them.

Four

Burning heaven
Prisoners
The Falcon and the cage

Cordelia Void Habitat, Uranus high orbit

The stream of plasma flicked across the domed viewport, touched the next dock spar along from the Antius, and cut it from the habitat in a silent burst of fire. A kilometre-long arm of stone and metal hinged free of the station, then began to tumble away, scattering molten debris. The ships locked into the docks on the severed spar fell with it. One ship fired its engines to try to get free and ripped the skin from its hull. It flew into the void, spinning, scattering its guts to glitter against the light of the planet. A blast wave of micro debris hit the Antius a second later. The hauler’s hull rang as though it were a tin roof in a hail storm.

Cadmus Vek saw cracks spread across the dome as pieces of shrapnel struck it. The ship was shaking in its dock clamps.

‘Get us loose!’ he shouted.

‘We have to wait for the captain,’ called Sub-mistress Koln. ‘She was on the main dock limb.’

‘You are the captain now – get us free!’ he shouted.

‘But–’

‘Now!’

Koln hesitated. Her lined face was pale, eyes wide with growing panic. Some of the crew around her had stopped; some even looked like they were about to make for the bridge doors.

‘No, I can’t,’ began Koln. ‘The captain–’