

Lexington

A Story from the Artemis Files Universe

Bradley Warnes

The Artemis Files Universe: Lexington A Story by Bradley Warnes

Copyright © 2013 Bradley Warnes

Published by Taslian Empire Publishing at Smashwords

All Rights Reserved

All characters, businesses and institutions in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to a real person, living, dead, or yet to be born is purely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Smashwords v01.01

For Nadia & Alexandra

Table of Contents

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Afterword

About the Author

#  Prelude

### Galway System, Britannic Kingdom

### December, 4283

Glittering lights were cast across the sky, sprinkled as if a giant hand had thrown them asunder so all could admire such wondrous splendour. Blinking, he tried to count the many shades and variations in colour, but there were too many and he quickly gave up at the futility of trying to measure such a miracle. Familiar smells of mulled wine and scented pine trees streamed across his face, carried upon a winter breeze so chilling it hurt the eyes. If it were warmer, it might have been perfect lying under the stars to reflect on life and the beauty of winter.

When an acrid smell of burning plastic, rubber, and flex wafted over him, he blinked in surprise. It was at odds to the surroundings, disjointed with the harmony of shining stars above. Mixed in to the aroma, ozone and oil caught his attention to break the spell of idle contemplation.

Turning his head to the side, he felt the hard surface of gravel and rock digging into his face, mixed with wet slush and the cold press of ice. A blinding sign sparked to life, obscuring his vision of the stars above for a moment until the sign went dark again. Dragging a hand to his face, he felt it scrape along cobblestones to bring grit and iced-water to his face.

Puzzled, he sat up and felt pain shoot through his left shoulder, running up the neck and into the base of his skull. Lightning flashed in his vision and a wave of dizziness threatened to send him back to the ground. Breathing deep and ignoring the frosty mist when he exhaled, he fought against rising nausea from the pit of his stomach.

"Where am I?" He asked aloud, the voice as gravelly as the surface beneath his body.

New aches and pains began assaulting him, and combined with everything else he just wanted to close his eyes to pretend it was a dream. His knee was skinned, the flesh cut open by gravel and oozing blood that was dark in the night. He didn't know if that hurt more than the pain in his shoulder and head. Pulling the hem of his kilt aside to stop it from brushing over the graze, he absent-mindedly reached down to pull up the white socks.

"Ye feckin gobshite! Ye killed me da!" A voice shouted in frustration. Her tone was dripping with anger and hate, the accent from the poorer parts of the city.

Spinning his head around, he groaned when a new torrent of pain shot into the back of his skull. While his eyes took in the sight before him, awareness came back in a rush.

It was carnage.

An armoured limousine lay crumpled against a row of parked cars with the front third collapsed beneath the weight of a large delivery truck. The rear door of the limousine was hanging open, and on the other side he could make out ragged edges of metal and fractured armoured flexi-glass where the rear of the passenger section had been blown open. It was supposed to be armoured against all but the heaviest of anti-tank rounds, and with the smoke rising through the air from the torn open section, he wondered how they had gotten their hands on one.

Bodies lay sprawled in what remained of the limousine. The woman's evening gown stained with blood and the remnants of her partner's body where he had thrown himself over her in protection from the blast. A quick glance showed they were both dead, the unreal angle of their heads and ripped open bodies confirming it. The driver of the limousine sat half inside the vehicle, pinned under the crushed remains of the engine compartment while his glass-splattered face registered shock at an intruding length of metal impaling the centre of his chest.

But there was someone missing, he realised with the fog slow to clear from his mind.

Ciara had been telling them about the pending visit in the morning by her father, Lord Andrew, the Duke of Exmouth. Her face glowed with pleasure while sharing that her father was in the system with his Armoured Cruiser and upset that he couldn't make it down in time to join them at the ballet. Speaking in rapid bursts, she told them that he was staying for Christmas before heading home to Britannia and his wife.

The man hated him. Every time they met, Lord Andrew never hesitated to let it be known to all and sundry how displeased of the fact that his daughter was dating a commoner. It was as if the man cared not that his precious daughter had been saved from a Ukie prison camp by the commoner now engaged to her these past six months. The lord's wife, a Taslian noble rescued after a failed diplomatic mission several years ago was more understanding. She at least, never cared whether he was noble by birth or not, and accepted him at face value.

Shaking his head, he looked around wildly as a single, sharp gunshot rang out, the sound making a whizz-crack tone with each pull of the trigger. The slugs ricocheted off cobblestones by his leg, causing small chips of stone to rattle against the ruined car and galvanising him into action. Rolling to the side, he ignored new stabs of pain and found his fingers latching onto the grip of the pistol.

It was slick with blood, but he tightened his grasp and forced his eyes to focus. Beside him, another body laid stretched out with a series of holes stitched across the midriff, a military issue gauss rifle still held in an arm stretched out to one side. It was one of the attackers. With the pool of blood spreading from beneath the body, he discarded it as an immediate threat.

"I'm gonna kill ye, so jest stop will ye?" The owner of the voice announced again, the strong accent reminding him of the run-down Liberties area of the city. "Come here, ye feckin traitor, I got a present fer ye."

Sirens blared in the distance, but they were too far away to make a difference. At the end of the ruined limousine, he saw a figure raising a pistol in the flashing of brilliance from the sign. Her long dark hair hung in lank, oily strands that reflected the light with dullness, while the pasty white skin of her face blared hatred. It was a rounded face, almost moon-like in form and the dark eyes searched for him as she brought the pistol around to aim in his direction.

Squeezing the trigger of his own weapon, he sent a burst of gauss slugs to strike the rear of the limousine. It sent a shower of sparks past her face from the impact and ricochets, but none hit. Ducking for cover, the movement gave him enough time to pull closer to the open door he'd dived out after the collision.

The door on the other side was blown open but there was no sign of his fiancée. She'd been sitting there before the truck had struck them, but was missing now. The body near his feet a reminder to his slowly recovering memory that he'd already used the pistol to take out one of the attackers. Presumably the woman's father according to the curses she continued to throw his way.

Through the window, he caught sight of his attacker creeping around the rear to shoot from the other side. Ducking his head lower, he saw the ground-skirt on the limousine blocking his sight-picture of her feet. Rising back up, he forced himself to his feet and saw her crablike crouching movements clearly. Her body was highlighted against the shop windows in the background where stunned onlookers watched the assassination attempt unfold, no one daring to intervene. Releasing his breath, he fired another stream of gauss slugs and watched as the top of her head exploded like a melon, fragments of bone, hair and flesh spraying into the cool night air.

Sliding back down to the road, he checked the clip in his pistol to see how many rounds remained. The illuminated display on the magazine gave a dim blue glow at the press of his finger on the indicator. It was half-full, ten rounds remaining.

There were three people in the truck that hit them, a dim memory surfaced while he rubbed his chin. One carried a rocket launcher that ripped open the armoured limousine after the collision, but he had been caught in the blowback from the weapon and killed by shrapnel in the blast. The other two with gauss rifles and pistols were down, but there was one more... the one who had been watching from the park when the attack unfolded.

He had been looking out the window at the time, studying the snow-lined trees and walls, thinking how nice it would be to wander through the gardens with Ciara after the ballet. Just a quiet, romantic moonlight walk in the snow-covered park to finish the evening; that was what he had been thinking. The sight of the watcher with a gauss rifle slung over his shoulder was so unexpected that he did a double take at the image. Before he could yell a warning, the truck hit them and it became a jumbled mess of noise, pain and screams. That man was still out there now, the fourth amongst however many other attackers.

Pushing to the rear of the limousine and the now dead female assassin, he kicked the pistol away from her lifeless fingers. Swivelling eyes around he looked quickly for signs of where the fourth attacker was hiding. Seeing no sign of the man or Ciara, only an ever growing number of onlookers, he slid back down to the road's icy surface. There was only one other place they could be, the park.

Pulling out his comlink, he cleared his throat as he hit the connect button.

"Duty Officer, this is Commander Montclare. Terrorists have attacked Governor Blaise and the limousine has crashed. We're on All Saints Road near the corner of Hilton Terrace... two blocks west of the Opera House." He spared a glance at the bloodied remains inside the vehicle and sighed. "The governor and his wife are dead. Duchess Langford is missing and I'm going in pursuit of the remaining attackers. Get the duty marines down here with medical assistance, have them lock onto my comlink for location."

So much for a quiet evening at the ballet to see 'The Nutcracker', he thought, as he climbed back to his feet. Holding the comlink up, he slipped through menus until the holo-display lit up with a map of the area. Zooming in, he saw the icon of Ciara's device showing she was behind him in the park. Pushing off, he launched into a sprint toward her location, leaping over the low gate at the edge of the park and feeling soft snow crunch beneath his dress shoes.

Wearing only a formal kilt and dinner dress uniform jacket, he wasn't prepared for the cold. It hit him hard, bringing pain to his lungs as he gasped for breath in the chilled air and raced through the mist of his breath. Each step on the snow crunched loudly, it was only a few inches thick and as he ran around a corner of the path, he felt himself sliding out of control. The weather planners had promised four weeks of snow for a White Christmas, and despite cheering the news last week, he was now cursing them when he fell to the ground.

Wet and covered with the fine powdery snow on one side, he pulled himself back up and studied the surroundings. The park wall was parallel to his path, and beyond that the scream of sirens with a blazing trail of light above highlighting the duty marines dropping from one of the orbital stations in a Landing Boat. They'd be another ten minutes at least, too long to help his fiancée. It was all up to him.

Sliding along the path, it was less than a minute later that he saw her. The attacker dragging her by the hair toward another gate with the rifle slung over a shoulder and a pistol pressing against her side, forcing her to move in ungainly sidesteps with his long paces. The man had long dark hair that matched the woman he'd shot, unkempt and oily in the reflected moonlight.

Ciara was in her lace evening dress, barely reaching mid-thigh and the top sliding off her shoulders. The cloak she'd been wearing had been discarded or lost, leaving her to shiver in the cold wind with no outer covering. With the tall heels, she tottered along with feeble struggles against her captor, the mass of blonde hair bouncing in the breeze at her movements. The gold and gems of her jewellery shone in the moonlight, casting bright reflections to the snowy ground in radiant patterns that bobbed with her movements.

They were close to fifty metres away, stumbling along with Ciara giving out whimpers as she was pushed and shoved along the path. Noting the man's clothes were normal street wear with no body armour or protection, he gave a silent breath of relief. The clip in his gauss pistol contained only flechette rounds, perfect for unarmoured flesh but hopeless against anyone in a combat skin or armour.

Without hesitation, he brought the pistol up and fired as the sight picture developed in his head, all movement completing in a planned reflex action. He'd practiced more times than he could remember and it was now a part of the muscle memory, each movement fluid and calculated without thought.

The gauss slugs cascaded in a rising row over the man's back, from hip to the back of the neck, throwing him forward into the snow. Ciara fell on top, dragged with the body as it fell. Surprised and shocked by the action, she wailed in terror. Still screaming, she pushed away from the body and turned with wild eyes to see who had been shooting. When her eyes fell on him, she scrambled into his arms with tears streaming down her face.

Folding his arms around her, they waited for help as she cried into his chest. Clutching her tight, his eyes swept around the surroundings. Watching for any more threats, he warily pulled them off the path and into semi-concealment of snow-covered trees. With pistol in hand, he turned around on the spot as she sobbed against him.

"It's okay, honey, the marines are coming. I've called Government House and the alert force will be here soon."

Pushing back and wearily looking for his eyes, she sighed. "All I wanted was a night at the ballet." The breath escaped her lips in a pale cloud, her hands making fists against his chest. "Just one night where I could relax and have some fun. Why did they have to spoil it?"

Staring over to the body, he gave his own sigh. Nothing would be the same, not now. He could feel it in his bones with a gut instinct that never failed him. Change was coming and like always, he didn't know where it would lead them.

Patting her on the back, he whispered encouragement while watching for help. "We've been through worse than this in the prison camp... it'll be okay, honey, honest."

#  Chapter 1

Blinking to stay awake, he stared up at the chandelier and focussed on the blinding light from the crystal arrangement. There were delicate shades of the rainbow displayed, reflecting from finely ground crystal that probably cost more than his yearly salary.

Ciara spun around, the action drawing his attention with the full brandy balloon spilling its contents from her motion. Ignoring the stain spilling down her robe and across the carpet, she thrust the glass toward him.

"Just one night, that's all I wanted, Bren!" The words dripped with the Merovingian accent from her finishing school, never quite lost over the years.

The accent appealed to him, although she might be shocked to learn that it was because of another woman long before their relationship flowered. After graduating from the naval flight school, his first tour in a torpedo boat squadron had been on deployment to the Merovingian worlds to lend support in a border war against neighbouring Franks. Over those long months he'd come to love the sound of the language while he and his fellow crews defended a key system and mixed with the local population. It had left a deep impression upon him, and was one of many reasons he'd been attracted to Ciara when duty and the navy brought them together on deployment.

Pulling his mind back to the present, he dragged himself up from the plush chair, ignoring the nagging ache of his earlier wounds. Taking the glass from her, he made to pull her close but she evaded him. Pushing her hand into his chest, she kept him at bay. Light framed the blonde curls like a halo, hiding the bleary red-rimmed eyes from his sight.

Taking a deep breath, she regained her composure after the outburst. "Listen, daddy called when you were in the bathroom. He's popping down in the morning. Apparently, it's all over the news-streams." She lifted her own glass of brandy and drank large gulps of the dark amber fluid as if quenching a parched throat. "He was ready to send all his marines down as well, bless his heart."

"Honey, I'm sorry." He said, taking a measured sip from his glass. "I know it was my idea to go with the governor tonight, but if I had known there were...."

Poised, with a hand on her hip, she regarded him through that piercing stare her family seemed to have mastered. "It's not as if it was your fault... however daddy told me what they're saying. Those assassins had Britannic military issue weapons and they knew the route we were taking... so everyone is speculating that an insider helped them."

He felt his chest go tight as her words sank in, knowing what she was going to say next. In a cold voice, he spoke before she did. "And because I'm from Galway and was involved with the rebels when I was a kid, they're thinking it was me?"

She shook her head, gulping down more of the brandy. "That's what the news-streams and gossip columns are saying. It has daddy mad. He wants me to come with him when his ship returns to Britannia, before we all become caught up in the lies and scandal. Honestly, we can't drag my uncle into this, not at the moment."

He stared at her, disbelief in his eyes. "Your uncle? What the blazes has the king got to do with this? We don't know anything about the attackers yet, whether they were after you or the governor, or even me! Don't forget, we were a last minute addition to the party, so it's more likely it was the governor they were after."

Reaching for her again, he softened his tone. "Ciara, this is just another of the random, disorganised attacks that's been going on for the last fifty years. You know me, and after what we went through in the Ukie prison camp with our escape. Surely you can't believe I'd be involved in something like this."

She nodded and let him pull her close. "I know, but it's the media. Everyone's so afraid of scandal at the moment, what with the Ukies rattling their sabres again and all the other disgraces breaking out about government corruption. Daddy is worried about our family name being dragged into ill-repute through misinformation and indiscretion."

Stunned, he visibly paled at her words. "I'm an indiscretion?"

Gulping large amounts from her brandy balloon, she nervously twirled a lock of the blonde curls he loved to stroke with his fingers.

"I didn't mean it like that... don't get upset. Oh, dammit!"

Her eyes searched for his in the pregnant silence, locking on and keeping him fixed in the stare. He was stunned by her words, feeling cast aside and betrayed.

Her family had never liked him and especially his background. An orphan from Galway that was once implicated in the rebellion and given the choice between prison or serving twenty years in the navy, he had none of the blue blood or pedigree the Royal Family preferred for their offspring. No matter that his father had been a well-respected inventor and his mother a distinguished biologist. The simple matter that he'd risen through the ranks and not been a member of the gentry excluded him from many of the Royal Family's private engagements. Ciara saw through all that, ignoring his past and the whispered accusations. At least he thought she had until now.

"Oh, dammit. I need a shag... now!" She announced suddenly, rubbing her body against his and forcing him to step back. With a hungry movement, she pushed him backwards to the bedroom, casting aside the brandy balloon as they passed a bookshelf. "Take me to bed or sleep on the sofa... it's your choice, mister."

Without waiting for a response, she pushed him onto the bed. Grinning hungrily while she cast off the robe and climbed atop, her blonde curls fell over her face and down past the naked shoulders. It was a distraction from all the trouble that he didn't mind, even if it wouldn't help solve the growing problems.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he could only hear the gentle whispers. She was saying his name over and over, making it into a chant. Bunching up the material of his shirt, she crumpled it in her hands while trying to pull his hands to her body.

He opened his eyes as their lips crushed together, her hands now supporting him as he slipped his own arms about her warm body. The perfume swept through his head, a sweet aroma of lilies and violets, and he could breathe nothing else but the fragrance. Trying to study her as red lips held him fast in a hypnotic pursing motion, he could only see the bright eyes staring back at him, stealing his soul and thoughts away.

As their breathing became laboured, she pulled her lips away to whisper words that were barely audible.

"I need you, darling, you're my sanity in every mad thing around me." Her speech became lost in the sighs between long, hungry kisses.

Mumbling a reply, he let the succulent lips drown him with their urgent need. They still had each other, and that was all that mattered.

#  Chapter 2

### Aran System, Britannic Kingdom

### January, 4284

"Commander Bren Caramar Montclare, Valentine Cross, Distinguished Service Cross, Meritorious Combat Cross, aide-de-camp to the late Governor General of Galway, and previous to that you were a Flight Leader in the Britannic Royal Flight Corps that succeeded the Naval Flight Corps. You have a dozen combat service ribbons, two command clusters, two wound badges and a long service record commencing seventeen years ago when you enlisted as a general entry recruit due to court orders... is this correct?"

"Yes, dammit! You know it is."

"Don't be insolent with me, Commander, this is a disgraceful business we are dealing with today helped through no thanks by the facetious remarks you made to news-streams following the Governor's assassination. Fortunately for the kingdom, we instituted an emergency D-Notice before your comments could spread beyond Galway, and time will tell if we are successful. It is only by the grace of God that the interim Governor saw fit to remove you from the world before the media frenzy reached manic proportions."

The man shook his head, the frown deepening over his face. "You've left us in an awful state, and the Royal Family have asked the Admiralty and Foreign Office to specifically deal with your situation, hence my presence at the behest of the Second Space Lord's Private Assistant."

Shaking his head, he stared at the rotund officer, studying the corpulent features and ruddy complexion. There was not a single decoration or award on his tunic other than for time in service or excellence in typing and drinking tea, there were no combat service awards or badges denoting a ship or shore command. The man was a bureaucrat like the rest of those that had ruined his life before.

Exasperated, he inclined his head to the officer. "Captain Pringle, how many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Eh, what?" The large hazel eyes flared open in confusion, caught unaware by the question. Puzzling out the words, Captain Jorsapeth Pringle frowned with one of the bushy eyebrows lifting in sudden concern.

"It should be none because we don't use them anymore, but the bureaucracy doesn't know that and specify it must be at least twenty-four people signing off on the change. I saw it in the Base Standing Orders today, officially routed from the Second Space Lord's office as a point of concern for Maintenance Officers' excessive light-bulb replacement claims. So are you one of them?"

"One of what?" The Captain puffed his cheeks at the question and just as quickly released the air with a quiet pop. "Oh, look never mind all that piddle, we have serious business to discuss. The allegations are that you conspired with rebels to assassinate the Governor, supplying weapons and intelligence of the route to the Opera House on the evening he was killed. The Judicial Branch opened an investigation, however pending new orders it has since been deferred."

The Captain held his hand up in protest at the imagined interruption, forestalling him from speaking.

"Yes, I know what you've been saying and how you were in the car and saved the Duchess. In light of the matter, there's been much discussion between those three offices I mentioned previously and we believe there a solution is at hand that can benefit all of us. There was talk of sending you away to one of our allies such as the Independent States of America and serving in a liaison role at the Lexington Naval Yard, or off to the Merovingian Kingdom for a similar task in La Rochelle, however there was fear you'd be dragged into the public eye with such generous postings. Instead, another solution came to light for which it was felt your unique talents and skills could be applied in a useful manner. Tell me, Commander, have you heard of the Aldanis System?"

"No, can't say that I have... should I?"

"Definitely not, the very existence of the world is beyond Top Secret Classification and I don't need to remind you of the Official Secrets Act that you signed upon your enlistment, and on subsequent commissioning as a King's Officer. The Aldanis system have been building a number of vessels for us, called the Artemis Class, all very high-tech and several generations beyond what we can build ourselves. For the purpose of... well, let's just say that the entire group of experimental vessels are being dispatched out to the Hinterlands region to observe, report and sometimes carry out work to further our interests in that area. To all intents and purposes, they will seem as mercenaries or merchants undertaking free trader operations, buying and selling cargo or moving passengers around the region. Project Artemis, is named after the lead vessel of the class and we have an opening aboard one of the vessels for you. In light of the media mania, the Admiralty and Foreign Office are ordering you to take command of the ship and head out on deployment for a period of no less than two years... possibly longer if you're up to the challenge."

"You're shafting me... is that what this is all about? I've had the Royal Family and Secret Service telling me to forget my fiancée and not even think about trying to find her while she's in hiding after the assassination. Then they rush me out to this world, or perhaps dragged here is a better way to say it, with a Marine escort and now you're telling me they want to send me to the arse end of known space. What do I do there, just hang around for a few years with an experimental ship, some crew I don't know anything about, on a mission that's a waste of my skills and experience?"

"Don't look at it in such a negative manner, Commander, this is an honourable assignment. The other Artemis Operatives have been chosen very carefully and selected from the best personnel available in the navy and marines, although in your case we will send you out alone without a crew. The ship carries an advanced artificial intelligence, and enough weaponry to take on warships ten times her size, you'll find it a challenging mission that will hone your talents and enable you to learn diplomacy and tact when dealing with our foreign missions in the region."

"Sure... so when am I supposed to go?"

"There's just one other thing we need you to do... it will produce an airtight cover that will allow you to undertake intelligence operations more effectively in the region. Commander, we need to court-martial you and discharge your commission. If we don't, the local media will continue to stream your past links with these rebels, and may bring dishonour to His Majesty's government and any activities you undertake on this mission will be seen as blatant provocation by the kingdom. Your true record will be kept in secure files back in Richmond at the Admiralty, and a flagged précis of your involvement in the Artemis Project issued in all datastore updates to the diplomatic missions in the region... viewable only on a need to know basis."

In the silence following the pronouncement, he turned away in disgust and focussed his eyes out the window. Aran was a winter world, the terraforming never moving beyond the basic stages of making the planet habitable and atmosphere breathable. Somehow, the population had survived the mountainous snow drifts and glacial conditions, keeping a light of civilisation shining on this world during the Long Night, even reaching out to the neighbouring systems of Perth, Galway and Manx to form a simple trading union.

Until the Britannic Kingdom decided to annex the Aran Union, this had been a simple and to modern standards, primitive world, but it was like the home he had grown up on in the Galway system and unfettered by the wider politics or warfare ravaging the sector.

Through the window and visible in the distance beyond the Naval Station, snow-capped mountains lined the horizon to offer this area respite from the sub-zero winds and blizzards. The crystal clear air gave the view a depth of clarity that made you perceive the mountains close enough to reach out and touch, even if the temperature was somewhere close to fifty below zero today. Beyond the protective screen of the mountains lay open plains extending several hundred klicks to the Berg Sea, haven of whales, seals, and other arctic wildlife seeded here fifteen hundred years ago by the first settlers.

Few human settlements were located on the peninsula used by the station, the isolation and tumultuous climactic conditions kept them away, which suited the service well for their goals. Aran Naval Station, primarily a watch keeping post with close to ten thousand personnel and dependants served an additional purpose; it was the regional headquarters for numerous Special Forces units of the Navy, Marines and Army. From mountainous terrain training to ice world operations and survival preparation, special operations teams had most of this peninsula for their own need with the close support of a well-equipped base facility.

When they had dragged him from Galway, literally minutes after his fiancée's father had taken her aboard his Cruiser; it had been a squad of Recon Marines based out of this world seeing to it that he went nowhere else, but here. The men and women in the squad had treated him fairly, even respecting his rank and the crimson ribbon of the VC on his tunic, unlike the terrorist he was personified to be in media streams. Despite that, it had still been an unsettling experience. Within the space of twenty-four hours, he'd gone from being in the back of the Governor's limousine when it was attacked, to fighting off assassins and saving his fiancée... and then to a virtual prisoner on a Packet Boat bound for this place.

Since arriving four weeks ago, there had been a carousel of visitors, from service psychologists to the Foreign Ministry and representatives of the Royal Family, interrogators and counter intelligence analysts, with even a naval chaplain attempting to counsel him. Amongst the entire circus, no one had told him why the navy weren't standing up and defending him. Despite seventeen years of meritorious service, the salad of brightly coloured decorations on his uniform or the sacrifices he'd made for the service, it was as if they all wished he would disappear into a black hole and remove the public relations nightmare with him. Now, it appeared they'd found a way to make him jump into the black hole voluntarily.

"Commander, are you still awake? I said there would be a number of processes we need to go through over the next few days to ensure the cover looks good. After that we'll ship you out to Lexington where you can begin familiarisation and conversion training to your ship."

He shook his head to bring his focus back into the room and away from the mountains and stray thoughts. Switching his attention to the officer, he processed the words.

"Lexington? I thought this was all hush-hush... why's the ship at an Indie naval base?"

The Captain gave a sigh as if he'd already explained the details, letting silence follow his exhale. After labouring the point with a roll of his eyes, the man waved a flex in the air.

"Like I've already mentioned, this is a joint operation with our closest allies... they also have a vested interest in the region and are deploying a handful of their own craft for a similar purpose. You'll find more details on this flex, basic information and overview documents only at this stage, and please remember it's keyed to your SSID with a shelf life of one week."

Frowning, he felt the tingle in his back about the words. There was something about this that was unsettling and he could feel it clearly in his bones. This instinct had served him well over the years in combat, saving his life and other members of his flight from ambushes or mistakes. But what was it telling him about all this? Was he being set up by the Admiralty or Foreign Office, used a sacrificial lamb for some esoteric purpose known only to the nobility?

Pointing to the flex, he cleared his throat. "What else is going on here, it just doesn't make sense that we'd build or buy high-tech ships and not use them to our advantage in the fleet at home? What aren't you telling me?"

The Captain shrugged his shoulders, looking uncomfortable at the very question being asked. He waved the flex around again as if to use it as a shield. "Read these first, and you'll then have a better understanding of everything. Aboard the Packet Boat there shall be a couple of specialists to help prepare you for the deployment. They can answer any questions that come up on the trip out to Lexington. Have you worked with the ISA before?"

Not pursuing his questioning of the officer, he gave a noncommittal grunt.

"You'll find them remarkably casual and informal, perhaps not so much as the colonials of Australis, but close enough at times. Some of them might be critical that you never went through the selection process for the mission, or have necessary Special Forces or Intelligence Officer training, but your experience in the fleet should overcome all this. Indeed, old chap, you'll be the only VC in the entire Artemis Project!"

"Nice honour considering there's few of us still living with it pinned on our uniform. Do I get any say in this?"

"No, not really. I have orders cut from the Admiralty here with me seconding you to special projects and Artemis. Plans have been set in motion on Britannia, so you don't have a choice in the matter. It's for your own good, giving you a chance to rest and see something that few people will have a chance to, out there in the wilderness of the Hinterlands."

"And if I refuse the secondment?"

"It would be seen as a career-wrecking decision and you'd find yourself on the beach for a long time, perhaps the rest of your life. It's been made clear from the very top and from certain... civil channels... that you need to take on this assignment. The Admiralty has also had orders from the Royal Family requesting you be removed for the immediate future, until this all blows over."

"Hah, I'm sure they do... So what about all my belongings, they're still back on Galway."

"Those have all been collected, including your personal grav vehicle and are being sent on a fast packet to Lexington. You'll be able to pick and choose what to take with you on this mission and we'll put the rest into storage at the fleet depot on Yarrow."

The Captain was anxious to leave, eyes diverting to the doorway in an obvious attempt to be out of here. He pondered whether to draw the meeting out, making the man suffer for bringing this burdensome duty his way. Shaking his head at the thought, he discarded the idea so he could be alone. Even though the man was a desk jockey, never seeing frontline service or knowing the pure, god-like adrenalin rush of battle, let alone the gut-wrenching aftermath, there was no point in torturing the man.

Pausing in mid-step, the man softened his voice in commiseration. "Commander, this is an honourable assignment considering the circumstances. Just remember it isn't forever, and when you return you'll be able to get on with life without the media being in your face."

The man smiled and reached into a pocket, pulling out a small item.

"There is one other item I've been asked to deliver. It's a package from Valentine's Gate in Windsor addressed to you personally. I don't know what's in it, but one of the Royal Equerries hand delivered it to me before boarding the Packet Boat to come out here."

Remaining silent, he reached out for the flex and the small box, knowing there were dozens of questions he wanted to ask, but biting his tongue. Between the bureaucrats, the Admiralty, and Royal Family, his fate had been determined without thought to what he wanted. He should be used to it after a career in the navy, but sometimes it just hit you in the face how callous the entire nature of service life could be to individuals.

"Well good luck, Commander and don't forget this is a very honourable duty being imparted to you, one that is going to make a difference. Tonight, when your commission is stripped from you while streamed to the media, be strong in the knowledge that you are doing the right thing. Now...."

Turning his attention to the view outside, he tuned out the officer and the shallow platitudes wishing good fortune and adventures, leaving the man to exit without a word in return. With his eyes fixed on the snow-capped mountains, he stared into the distance and tried to clear his mind. The answers would come soon. If only he could clear his mind, he might understand why this was happening to him again.

The sound of the door opening again disturbed the attempt to clear his mind. Ignoring it, he knew the Captain had returned with one more nugget of advice that would seal his fate.

"So you're the one." A different voice announced, the words spat out as if the speaker had swallowed gravel, chewed it for a day and was spitting out the remaining detritus after his teeth had ground it down.

He didn't recognise the man standing inside the doorway dressed in a military issue black combat skin replete with holstered weapons and fat fingers stabbing the air in his direction. Silver haired, the deeply lined and tanned face studied him carefully, blue-grey eyes sweeping up and down as if to assess his worth.

"I'm Farquhar, the unlucky bastard tasked as your babysitter. If you've finished daydreaming for today, I need to start your physical training. Come on, time's wasting while you sit there making moon faces out the window."

Scratching his chin, he shook his head. "I've only just found out about this, don't I have time to read the briefing flex first?"

The man stared at him as if he'd just been insulted. With heavily muscled arm lifting, he saw a finger stretch out and beckon him forward.

"There's three rules you need to learn while you're in my charge, son... One - I'm your God for the next few weeks and whatever I say, you do without question. Two - if you don't listen to what I say, you'll be given a new deployment inside a metal box on a decaying orbit bound for the closest sun. Three - whoever you were and whatever you did before today doesn't matter any more... you're mine and until I hand you over to the poor SOB's on Lexington, your worthless life is in my hands. Do you understand, Montclare?"

"No, I don't understand, and it's Commander Montclare, if you don't mind. I've given my life's blood to earn the rank and you can at least give me the benefit of addressing me by it."

The man's face split into a smile, one that sent a chill down his spine as brown-stained teeth were revealed and the grey eyes stared at him.

"You were a Commander in the Flying Corps, but now you're nothing but a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of my boot. Your life as a pampered, wallflower hanging around palaces or as a show-off, flyboy pilot is over, so get your arse into gear now. Otherwise, we can start your training with a hand to hand demonstration lesson... and I promise whatever you've learned in your misbegotten youth and service years, it won't be enough."

#  Chapter 3

"Can you understand what I'm telling you when I say the man is not fit for this operation? He was serving on Galway to recover from the injuries and treatment in a POW camp... sure it was at the personal request of Duchess Langford, but it's a fact nonetheless. Now she's broken-off the engagement by flex, he's in a fragile state. We can't send him out, not with one of these ships. He's liable to break or do something to reveal the nature of the mission. We...."

"How do you know she's dumped him?" The man's voice asked, interrupting the doctor.

"We found the engagement ring and flex in the garbage chute. You know all his waste materials are checked, so when I saw them I knew it's raising the warning threshold too high. It's making this a very risky prospect, so I want to...."

"Doctor, listen to me carefully. I'm only going to say it this once more, after that you'll be removed from this project and sent to some godforsaken posting out in the backwaters of the Frontier. I have it on good authority that if the Commander disappeared out there, people back home wouldn't mind. He's going, Doc, no matter what your findings tell you. Your job is just to make certain he doesn't go loco before we give him the ship and send him away."

He could hear the threat in the man's voice, even if she couldn't. He'd seen men like this before in his career, even before he was in the navy when only a young kid on Galway and mixed up with the rebellion. They were dangerous, focussed only on their orders and how to successfully execute the mission without care for anyone else being hurt in the process. During his time flying attack boats, pilots with the same attitude wouldn't last long and were soon killed, caught up in their own fixation on a target or strict adherence to mission objectives.

Over the past few weeks, he'd also come to learn more about him from too close a perspective, one that still left scars and bruises across his body from their training sessions.

"Mister Farquhar, you can't threaten me. Admiral Vanderlin appointed me specifically to review all our contributions to the project. So listen to me when I say Commander Montclare is a serious risk. At the first sign of a problem, he is likely to fight rather than run away, his record is clear about that point. All his OER's agree that he's immature and acts without giving correct analysis to a situation, charging in to battle without thinking of safer, more alternate solutions. The escapade with the POW camp is the clearest example... it was only pure luck he managed to pull Duchess Langford out of there before they discovered her identity."

"It doesn't matter what his efficiency reports say... he is being tasked with this assignment. It comes from a higher authority than either of us can control."

The man's voice lowered and he couldn't hear anything else that was said in response. But after several minutes and the Doctor's grunts, he heard her voice again.

"I'm making a note in his file and sending it up the chain. He's already under tremendous stress and the tasks he'll do while he's out there are only going to increase it. This makes him a risk, not only to his own frame of mind but to everyone else in the project. If he cracks, he's liable to develop any number of psychoses, and while not a risk of doing harm to others, he is very likely to disappear with one of our expensive spaceships. I can see it clearly, even if you can't."

The man's reply was muffled, and before he could strain himself to hear, the hatch opened. The man lingered in the doorway to study him, grey eyes flecked with blue looking him up and down.

After a significant pause, the man smiled. "What did you hear?"

Shrugging, he looked past to the Doctor, her face pale and wan. She avoided his eyes and stared at her comlink, fingers sliding through the holo-display.

"Not much... she wants me to stay and you want me to go, hopefully to never return. Is there anything I missed in that?"

"Don't be a smart-arse, Montclare, it will get you killed out there one day. Go in and see the Doc for your therapy session, after that I'll see you back in the cargo bay for more hand-to-hand training. Got it?"

"Sure...."

They stared at each other, neither giving ground. He knew the man would try to pummel him to pieces in the training, despite all the dirty tricks he'd learned on the streets as a teenager and in the ranks of the navy, but he wouldn't give him the satisfaction now. Setting his jaw, the older man pushed past and ambled slowly down the narrow corridor of the Packet Boat. Fixing a smile on his face, he entered the office and waited for the hatch to close before sitting.

Glancing up, her watery brown eyes avoided his and focussed on the bulkhead behind his shoulder. Reaching up, she padded her light brown hair to stall for time.

"Did you hear what I said?" She finally asked, her tone uncertain.

Since meeting her two weeks ago, he had learned that she tried to avoid confrontation where possible. A habit that was noticeable in her dealings with him in their daily sessions, although when pushed, she'd stubbornly stand up for her beliefs or opinion and lose the well-practiced calm.

"Yes, Doc, I heard most of it. I didn't know you went through my garbage... if I'd known; I would have just kept everything clean and tidy for your spies to collect."

Still avoiding his eyes, she leaned forward. "So how does that make you feel? What comes into your mind, considering we know about Duchess Langford breaking the engagement banns?"

He gave a shrug and leaned forward in a similar manner to herself. "How do you think it makes me feel?"

"I'm asking you... I can make an assumption, but I'd like to know what is going on in your mind. Throwing my questions back on me won't help the matter. So tell me...."

Giving a loud exhale, he leaned back and shook his head. "Look, Doc, if you want to know the truth it was probably on the cards for awhile. We rushed into a relationship while serving together on the carrier... she was flying one of the ASRAC boats, the Advanced System Reconnaissance and Control craft used to gather intelligence, provide jamming and early warning, or to cover the attack boats on their missions. After the POW camp, we just sort of fell into our engagement through romantic happenstance, but I guess it was never going to be more than a semi-serious fling. I'm not from a good pedigree or bloodline, so the Royal Family hated me because of that and made sure I knew it every day we were together. Another thing is that we never set a date for a wedding, or spoke of a life together outside of the service... we drifted together. I always thought it was from the circumstances of our meeting and her wanting to escape the rigours of nobility... but over the last few months I guess I knew it was coming one day."

"I see, and does that make you feel angry, resentful... do you harbour ill feelings toward the nobility or your fiancée?"

Releasing a sarcastic laugh, he rolled his eyes. "Listen, Doc, I heard you and Farquhar. Whatever my state of mind about all this, it doesn't matter in the big picture. Someone wants me to disappear out there in the Hinterlands, so whatever I'm feeling has no regard. Let's be honest here, there's more to this deployment than I gather from the initial briefing documents, can you tell me what the real scoop is?"

Crossing her arms about herself, he watched as she closed up. The body language was as clear as the frown appearing on her face.

"It's not my place to say, not that I even know the whole picture. I'm just part of the process for evaluating the potential crews. If this were a normal situation and you came under review for the mission, I can tell you that you wouldn't be selected. There are too many flags in your file from your past, then your manner of thinking without giving due thought to the bigger picture, or the innate distrust of the system. Bren, this is a team effort and you're too much of a solo player."

"If you've seen my file, then you know there is a reason for much of that. If you were press-ganged into the navy, blamed for a crime you didn't do... then you might be distrustful of the system too. It was only thanks to a deathbed confession that my past crimes were found to be made up so one of the rebels could escape the death penalty."

"For which the kingdom was very apologetic and offered you a commission and wide choice of assignments in reparation."

"I was a teenager and they'd already written me off as guilty of the bombing... doesn't matter what they do later to try to make up for it. I was judged and sentenced accordingly. Just like now, I've been judged for the Governor-General's assassination and sentenced accordingly, exiled to the Hinterlands. Where's the justice, Doc, when a bureaucratic system, the Royal Family, or people like Farquhar can just decide my fate without consideration of the facts?"

"Don't you think that's just a social construction of reality forcing those ideas upon you?"

"They seem real to me."

She regarded him in silence for a long minute, and then with a hand waving toward the porthole, she cleared her throat.

"This is a delicate mission, in which you will be the eyes and ears of the kingdom. You have to be careful out there, and as its been decided that you're to go alone it's going to be even more dangerous. You need to be slow to anger, clear of thought, showing caution in everything you do. You'll have a high-tech starship, one that will adjust itself to your behaviour and attitude over time, hence the questions I'm asking in these sessions. But in all of this, the role you'll undertake is as important as the strike missions you used to fly, the future of the kingdom is out there in those worlds and through careful judgement, you can guide its future. This is a big responsibility... do you understand what I'm saying?"

He gave her the nod she was seeking.

"You've been given information flexes about the region, but they don't paint the picture as well as experience. The Hinterlands is a desperate place, thousands of systems that have collapsed into barbarity and become de-civilised. You have some jewels that everyone in the core knows about like Elysium, Mithere, and so on... but most of the worlds will have people trying to kill you for your starship, perceived secrets of technology, or even because you dress in the wrong type of clothes. At Lexington, they'll provide a more in depth briefing on which worlds are safe and which to avoid, but in all of this you're going to be alone and the final judgement is up to you. Based on what I've heard from returning crews, you can't trust anybody out there."

"Pretty much sounds like here."

She snorted and shook her head. "That's why I don't think you're ready for this role! I believe you're too immature and carrying emotional baggage that will harm your perspective." She cleared her throat and avoided his eyes. "Listen to me, Bren, we aren't your enemies, and this isn't a sim... this is a real mission with important consequences."

"Sure, Doc...."

Giving a sigh, she watched him with those watery brown eyes finally meeting his. Finally, after the silence drew long enough to become uncomfortable, she offered a smile.

"There is a purpose to all these sessions we're doing, you know. It's important that we establish a baseline of your psych profile, analysing how you think and react to certain stimuli. Down the road, whenever you check in with the supply tender or return to Lexington, you'll undergo follow up sessions to verify your identity... just to make certain that you haven't been changed in some manner. The medical staff will be doing the same thing, ensuring that your physiology remains within current frames of tolerance."

He listened to her words, processing what she wasn't saying and not finding enough to form answers to satisfy his curiosity. They were going to a lot of trouble here just to send him out on exile, so what were they afraid of out there?

"One curiosity highlighted from our examinations this week is your latent psi potential. If you were in the ISA, they'd earmark you for specialised training in one of the intelligence departments or the military. Are you aware of your talents, have any powers manifested?"

"No... and I don't really hold much stock in psionics."

"You should, it's real enough. It's just a shame it wasn't discovered earlier because you might have received training to harness some of the potential. As it is, you're too old for the training regimen they give psionic adepts so it's just a note in your file to add to the baseline metrics." Observing his expression, she leaned forward and pointed to the comlink sitting on her desk. "It's even more important in your case that we have these baseline readings done. The other teams are made up of Special Forces or handpicked service personnel, and they'll have their own checks and balances aboard. For most of them, once selected for the mission, they go through six to twelve months preparation, not only for the ship but also for the activities they'll undertake as part of their cover. Again, concessions are being made for you and it's suggested that you should play the role of a merchant and rogue... something the initial sessions indicate should be right up your alley."

"Rogue?"

"Yes, and if I was you, I'd grow out your hair and dress accordingly. One of the team at Lexington will take you through a quick course in commerce broking and trading, but again it's going to be abbreviated from what we offer to the others."

"Okay, if you insist."

She frowned at him. "It's a suggestion... and one I'd listen to carefully. The other teams will on the main be acting as mercenaries or privateers, but in your case it's not possible."

"Of course."

Releasing a deep sigh, she leaned back in her chair.

"I know you hate these sessions, but we still have thirty minutes before your physical training with Mister Farquhar. I'd like to use this time to delve into more of your underlying motivations and value choices. The two examples I'm interested this time is the period at New Algiers when you were first deployed with the Britannic Royal Naval Flight Corps as a TAB pilot and before that when you were still an enlisted rating and encountered your first slaver."

"Um... both of those were long ago. I'm not sure I can remember enough that will be of use."

Her voice took on the calm, soothing tone she used when trying to get him to open up. "That's okay, Bren, let's just start with what you can remember. Tell me about the boarding action on that slaver when you were serving with the light cruiser, _Thor_ , what were your impressions of the Taslians and slavers?"

Holding back the sigh, he made himself comfortable in the chair and tried to order his thoughts, casting his mind back to those earlier years. They seemed so far away, almost like they had happened to someone else.

"I'd just been made an Able Spacer and I think I was about eighteen or nineteen at the time. Like I said, it's been some time since I've thought about those years. It was six months after I finished my training at Yarrow, and the _Thor_ was on an extended anti-piracy cruise in the Frontier, trying to stem some of the merchant losses. As a general duty rating and because of the nature of my past, the Petty Officer for my division gave me the honourable duty of ensuring the heads were kept clean."

He laughed to himself, remembering the extra duty they would assign him and the worst jobs imagined, all to try and break his spirit. It hadn't worked, instead it made him strive harder, just to prove to everybody that could be as good as any of them or better.

"The only saving grace for me was they always chose me for boarding parties, thanks to my weapon skills, and that's what happened the day the ship came across a Batavian Clipper trying to slip past our patrol. They'd come the long way down from where they'd bought the slaves at wholesale, trying to make it out to one of the slave centre planets in the Hinterlands.

"I wasn't in the first party sent across on the pinnaces, that was full of marines, but I came on the second with the naval contingent." He paused, sucking in his breath at the memory. "It was one of those epiphany moments, you know where everything you believe changes in an instant? It wasn't the combat, fighting off slavers that had hidden from the marines and then appeared when we stormed aboard.... It wasn't the sheer terror when you find yourself cut off from the others in the boarding party and surrounded by three desperate crewmen looking to stick you with their swords or daggers.... No, it was the slaves.

"There were hundreds of them, mostly Taslian but a few dozen from other worlds out on the rim of the Great Empty. They were stacked into cargo holds not fit for human passengers, where there wasn't even enough space for washing facilities or meeting any basic hygiene standard you'd expect to see in a tramp freighter, let alone for hundreds of slaves. Chained like cattle to each other and the bunks, they needed to bring a dozen others with them if they wanted to use the head out in the centre of the hold. And then, the slavers don't care if some of them die during the long journey because the profits made from selling one is a fortune and if half the cargo survives, it can keep a man in riches for the rest of his life. That's how valuable the Taslian slaves were... like living, breathing gold and almost worth their weight in the metal too! Not like the other slaves you hear about on the news from lesser fortunate systems out on the Frontier... the Taslians are seen as a valued treasure and you can understand why when you see them all cleaned up and fed properly.

"All of them on the ship were female, mostly young, but a few hitting forty or so although it's hard to tell with Taslians as they seem to have good genetics. I mean, any of them could be fifty and still look eighteen, but it's not from anagathic medication so I don't know why they seem to age really well. When you first see them on the slaver, you're struck dumb with shock at the way they've been treated, and the way those large, almond shape eyes peer back just rips the breath from your lungs.

"Imagine the sight, Doc, hundreds of eyes of different colours; amber, violet, red, or black watching you and wondering if you were going to kill them or sell them like cattle down the market. Every one of them pulling back in fear of the new arrivals, watching with those multi-hued, bright eyes and waiting anxiously as you took a half step into the hold. Most of them didn't even know basic Anglic at that stage, it's something they learn in the slave training later depending on which cartel or trading group buys them, so you can't even tell them that they're safe and sign language just doesn't convey the same meaning in a situation like that."

His voice tapered off, remembering the foul stench of humanity pressed together in horrid conditions with the barest of environmental systems functioning to keep them alive. The sight had stayed in his mind for a long time after that boarding action, horrified at the depths man could go against his fellow beings.

Looking up, he saw her making a note in the comlink and then peered up to catch him watching. He leaned forward, clenching his fists at the memory he was forced to dredge up for her benefit.

"Doctor, when you see something like that, especially when you've come from somewhere like I have and was still young and innocent... it rips you up. Your first emotion is to make the bastards pay that are doing this, but killing them is too merciful so you want to draw it out and make them suffer in turn for the suffering they cause. For some it hardens them and they get immune to sights like this... but tell me, how can a teenager be the same again when he sees that the first time?"

* * *

The thirty minutes had turned into another hour. When he finally made it out of the office and found his way to the cargo bay, Farquhar was on the temporary range that had been set up and was sending rapid bursts of gauss rifle fire downrange.

The Packet Boat they were aboard was one of the ubiquitous vessels keeping the numerous, far flung worlds of the kingdom up to date with dispatches and news. The kingdom was dispersed across more than two dozen worlds close to the centre of the Core Sector, and with travel between stars limited by the fundamentals of TEL physics, it came down to ships like this to keep news, data and mail flowing between worlds.

The TEL drive had been discovered back on old-Earth and it changed humanity for the better, or so they say. It enabled an overcrowded world to send out colony ships, offloading millions to new worlds to start fresh. Over time, clusters of cultures developed, mimicking old-Earth history and forming extensions of Earth's nations. Even today, you still have most of the Core Sector dominated by several of these, such as the Britannic Kingdom, Merovingian or Frankish kingdoms, the Independent and Federal States of America, and many others.

Due to the limitations of physics, starship drives were only able to traverse a maximum of seven parsecs at a time, taking a week or 168 hours in a different dimension called TEL Space. In practice, starships could travel a varied amount of distance based on the TEL generator model fitted inside the hull; a TEL-1 drive would travel one parsec in TEL space through the lowest layers of this dimension. A TEL-2 drive can take the ship up to two parsecs through TEL space, and so on through to the TEL-7 drives that likewise travel through higher layers of the dimension and greater distances, but never beyond the fixed limit of seven parsecs or that same immovable time period. It was as if nature had decried enough of playing outside the rules and set this limit, forcing mankind to obey the immutable laws of physics.

The restriction meant that communication was limited to the speed of travel by starship, necessitating the use of fast ships like this Packet Boat with a high-performance TEL drive. Displacing close to one thousand d-tons, the boat was larger than those commonly used by the government for diplomatic and civilian purposes, but smaller than the enormous freighters and merchantman carrying bulk cargo between worlds. Lightly armed with only two dual fusion cannon turrets on the dorsal surface, it depended on speed and agility to evade threats when traversing hostile reaches of space. Cabins and recreational facilities were sparse and small, most of the internals given over to carrying fuel for the TEL turbines and large powerplant, with any remaining space being used for the long and wide cargo bay that ran the length of the needle-shaped vessel's spine.

Casting his eyes down the cargo bay, he watched Farquhar squeeze off several more rounds. The range had been custom fitted into this Packet Boat, making him wonder if it was reserved just for Special Forces or related operational tasks to this project. This vessel was pennanted by the navy and carried only himself and several others destined for the Artemis Project facilities on Lexington, as well as the fifteen officers and crew who kept themselves separate from the passengers as much as possible.

With the sharp whoosh-crack of the gauss rifle firing drawing his attention, he observed the impacts of the flechette rounds downrange. The targets were the traditional human silhouette figures, and as his carefully aimed bursts tore one after another apart, he had to offer a grin at the sight. The man knew more about dirty brawling and hand to hand combat than he'd ever learned, but when it came time to shoot on the makeshift range, he knew he could hold his own. Ever since being forced into the navy, he'd focussed on his weapon skills whether pistol, rifle or blade. Even as an officer and a pilot, he'd borne the brunt of jokes from his squadron-mates for this dedication to perfecting weapon skills.

It was one of the holdovers from his young days, when he found himself outside the formal schooling system and resorted to learning from books or flex at his own pace. He used to thrill at the tales of ancient heroes on Earth flying ancient aircraft in combat, and one maxim that he'd learned from those stories was that to be a good combat pilot, you needed to learn how to shoot pistols and rifles. It wasn't enough knowing about physics and engineering, or trigonometry and calculus, but understanding how a weapon handled when firing at a fast moving target, whether on the range or out in the forest, was a valuable skill to master. It had stayed with him, and even when he was in the navy as a general service rating with no hope of ever seeing a fighter or attack boat, he continued the training. It had been one of the reasons he was always chosen for boarding parties or shore brigades when there was a risk of combat.

Casting his eyes over to the other weapons arrayed close by, he wished again that he had his trusty naval sabre with him to use in the bladed weapon training sessions, instead of the shorter cutlass. He preferred the longer weapon and the different martial art in using the sabre verse the cutlass, but that was somewhere else and if he was lucky it might be in Lexington when he arrived.

With the man 'safing' the weapon and turning to face him, he saw the customary frown set on the face. "You're late... again. These sessions might save your life, Montclare, so if you have any interest in staying alive out there in the black, it'll pay for you to show attention to your schedule. We only have a limited space of time until we arrive and you need to improve your skills if you want to stay in one piece."

He gave the man a wave in return and held back his sarcastic comment. Farquhar hadn't declared which branch of the military he served in, neither had he advertised if he was working for one of the alphabet soup government intelligence agencies. All he'd been told was that the man served the Artemis Project and was involved in the high-level planning and staffing of personnel. He could have been from the SSB, or Secret Service Bureau, the BJSIA or Britannic Joint Services Intelligence Agency, or one of the dozens of other agencies serving the interests of the kingdom against its many enemies. What he did know was that the man was highly skilled in unarmed and armed combat, with the many bruises from their brawling sessions owing testament to the knowledge and skill.

"You're too late for our unarmed combat session, so we'll follow that up after dinner tonight. For the moment, we're going to go over gauss weapons again, starting with the _Grail_ carbine, then the _Reaper_ rifle, and ending with your _Martina_ pistol. Your ship will have all those carried aboard, and that's why we're focussing on them so much."

He glanced over to the weapon in the man's hands and nodded.

"First up, I'm going to retest you on fieldstripping the carbine. You'll have two minutes to pull it apart ready for cleaning, and two minutes to put it back together."

He shrugged. "That's not too bad, we did that yesterday."

The man smiled, although there was no warmth in the expression. "Yes, except this time you'll be blindfolded and immersed in a combat environment sim. If you were a Marine, I'd demand you do it in less than thirty seconds. Now, come over here and show me that the sieve you call a brain can do a simple enough task for once."

#  Chapter 4

### Johnson System, Core Sector

"All hands, all hands, brace for scooping operations in ten minutes. Duty roster, secure internal hatches and rig for atmospheric turbulence."

He listened as the voice repeated itself, alerting the ship of the pending atmosphere dive into a Gas Giant to scoop for hydrogen and refine into fuel. They were in an intermediary system between the Britannic Kingdom and the Independent States of America, one that could be called a no man's land between the two domains. Cleansed of life during the Great War against the Genalts, the system's main world was nothing but a barren wasteland teeming with biological agents still hostile to normal humans.

The Core Sector had several worlds like this, but on the Frontier and further out in the Hinterlands there were dozens in each subsector. The Genalts had waged a scorched-earth war against humanity, ensuring that any world they left would be unusable and dangerous for anyone coming after them. In the Core Sector, instead of just using biological agents, the Genalts had also used different means to fight their wars, including widespread logic bombs and EMP weapons to destroy datastores and records. It was often said, this was the main contributor to the Long Night and de-civilisation of humanity for almost a thousand years after the war finally ended.

Over the last century, while the Core Sector worlds regrew into star-faring domains and formed alliances in a race to control the sector, a time known as the Reformation Wars, Britannia had emerged as one of the dominant powers. With allies from the Independent States of America, itself an offshoot from a larger American domain, the two had become closer diplomatically and through their military. Combined, the kingdom and the ISA struggled to resist all attempts by the United Systems Empire to control the sector.

The Ukies, as the United Systems Empire was known, had developed from a coalition of worlds forming into a kingdom, pulling together worlds with similar cultures and ideology, and now the main threat to peace within the region. The Ukies had a very different culture to most of the others in the Core Sector, deriving from scattered tribes and peoples of Turkic or Middle-Asian origin upon old Earth, they absorbed new worlds into their empire and forced them to adopt the rigid laws and rules that were an anathema to the ideals of democracy and freedom upheld by the Britannic Kingdom and ISA.

There were many other cultures and domains making up the realms of known space, he'd even been to some of them like the Merovingian Kingdom and Sitari Union, but this would be the first time he went to the free American worlds. The Indies had fought a war of succession from the Federal States about one hundred years ago, and with the support of the Britannic Kingdom gained their freedom from the totalitarian domain. As with much of the rest of the Core Sector, the Indies and the Feds continued on-again, off-again wars since their succession.

While he watched out the window as the bright purple and red hues of the Gas Giant grew ever closer, he smiled at the recollection of some of his earlier cruises and visits to other domains. It was one of the elements that had kept him serving in the navy all these years, enjoying the opportunity to see new worlds and different cultures. There was also the flying, and he had to admit that was one of the major reasons too, even if he was only flying the older _Swordfish_ class Torpedo Attack Boats.

Watching out the window, he smiled at the view. If it weren't for the navy, he wouldn't see sights like this all the time. Civilian travel was expensive and traditionally reserved for the very rich, although that seemed to be changing these days in the kingdom with budget merchants and transport services beginning to appear. Out in the Hinterlands and the Frontier, he knew it was still a rarity for starships on some worlds, just like his briefing flex and the comments from Farquhar or the Doc had illustrated.

The Packet Boat was about to dive into the Gas Giant's upper atmosphere, scooping hydrogen to replenish the tanks for the final set of transitions into Indie space. Diving for fuel was a common enough occurrence in naval vessels, almost all faced it as a normal activity, and although there were Fleet Support Units and Tankers that followed battlegroups and fleets to assist in fuel replenishment; Packet Boats and independent vessels didn't have such a luxury.

Beneath the ship on the ventral surfaces, wide scoops would be opening to gather the hydrogen, pulling it into the tanks to be refined and purified and then used to fuel the powerplant and drives. For a ship of this size and tankage, it would be several hours of a very uncomfortable and bumpy plunge through the atmosphere. The inertial compensators would buffer most of the turbulence effects, but there were always pockets of atmosphere or localised storms that seemed to make any ship undergoing in-the-wild scooping give it's crew a time that made amusement park rides pale in comparison.

Without a duty station on the Packet Boat, and as nothing but a piece of cargo for the crew to deliver, he was confined to his single berth cabin and strapped into the bunk, waiting for the wild ride to start. His eyes remained fixed on the window, taking in the view as the Gas Giant obscured the view of everything else. At any moment, it would start and those not used to this process would discover new reasons to hate space travel.

Wearing one of the generic black combat skins Farquhar also wore, he laid back and double-checked the seals. It could be closed for protection in vacuum or hostile environments, and with the ship about to throw itself into the upper atmosphere of the Gas Giant, he was glad for it. He would have preferred his flight suit, but this was the next best thing.

The tight fitting, tailored combat skins were designed for stealth operations rather than direct combat and he couldn't imagine getting used to the skin, not after wearing a flight suit for so many years. The combat skins were made of similar material to the flight suit, with hard-woven malex fibres offering protection against slug throwers and energy weapons, while the dark chameleon skin would reduce any infrared and thermal signature, allowing him to blend into background shadows whenever it was activated and he was on the ground undertaking a special mission.

There were other types of combat skins available, some lighter and thinner versions on the civilian market, while others were reinforced and given additional protection so they could be worn in normal combat operations. More commonly, Marines used combat skins as an underlying layer beneath combat armour, the thick, padded suit that was worn by the frontline forces of the kingdom. He had been told that he'd even be given several sessions in the use and equipping of combat armour, in case he ever needed to field it while serving on this deployment.

They way they were talking, he sometimes felt like he was being sent to the frontline of a warzone as a soldier or marine, rather than an on-going intelligence gathering operation way out past the frontiers of civilised space. At least there had been no mention of him learning to use powered battle armour, the heaviest protection used by the military for war. He'd learned enough during his time in the navy to know that mastering battle armour would take months, if not years to gain confidence in using it without putting a fist through a starship's hull or leaping into the top floor of a skyscraper.

An ear piercing 'whoop-whoop' siren echoed through the berth, and then he heard the same voice come over the tannoy. "All hands, all hands, brace for scooping operations. Department Heads, standby at your DC station."

The shudder in the hull began shortly after. First it was felt as a growing vibration, subtle and constant but managed by the inertial compensators to keep excessive g-force under control and maintain the standard one gravity environment aboard the ship. Within minutes, the first of the atmospheric turbulence hit the ship, either as it was passing through a high altitude storm cell, or influenced through the build-up of static charges and drawing a response from the Gas Giant's weather patterns.

A loud crash echoed from down the corridor, and as his stomach plunged into his throat when they suddenly dropped hundreds or thousands of metres in bare seconds, he braced himself for a rough ride that seemed to be getting worse. With short, sharp tapping sounds like someone was hammering on the external bulkhead with little hammers, they dropped deeper into the atmosphere and fought against the colossal pressures trying to crush the hull as the scoops pulled in the fuel while the ship cruised at high speed. It was only for five or six minutes, but the shaking and vibration soon stopped and the ride became gentler, no different to a standard cruise in space.

Closing his eyes and realising he was biting his lips, he discovered how much he hated relying upon someone else flying a ship when he was strapped in the back and unable to see what was going on. For a pilot, there was nothing worse than relying on a stranger flying the craft and you not being in control. Sighing to himself, he knew he'd have to relax and trust in the skills of whoever was flying the ship, to do otherwise would drive him mad.

With the hours flying past, he knew he should be studying but found this was one of those rare times where he could escape his routine for just a short time. He'd catch up on the reading once the refuelling had ended, but until then he had no choice but focus on surviving and practicing his meditation skills.

Almost six hours after starting the scooping operation, the ship finally pulled itself out of the mucky, multi-coloured atmosphere and headed for a high orbit. With the tanks topped up, they would spend the next day refining hydrogen from what had been scooped up and purifying it, until transferring over to the main tanks to be used by the powerplant turbine and TEL Drive. By this time tomorrow, they would probably be back in TEL Space on the final stages of the voyage to Lexington.

Stifling a yawn, he reached for his comlink to open up the next manual he was tasked to study before he could be trusted to fly his new starship. To his disgust, it was applied theory of TEL Space physics and one of his most hated topics. It was why he had become a TAB pilot, so he wouldn't have to learn more about engineering and drive physics, but here he was, forced to learn because his life would depend on understanding the theory.

When the siren began whooping again, he was expecting it to announce the refuelling and refining was over so the hands could stand down, but as the words were repeated a second time, he discovered he couldn't have been further from the truth.

"All hands, this is the Captain speaking... we're being given warning shots by a ship firing across our bow. They were hiding in the shadows from one of the Gas Giant moons and appeared on our sensors as we left orbit. They're ordering us to stand down and prepare for boarding in the name of the United Systems Empire."

He sat up suddenly in his bunk, dropping the comlink as the words sunk in.

"We're being ordered to stand down, but I'll be damned if I let a common privateer take us as a prize. We're pushing for the grav gradient at max acceleration, and even though they have us boxed in against another of the moons, I'm countering their missiles so far. We're calling for help and have made contact with an Indie Light Cruiser patrolling the system, except they're too far away to be much assistance."

Privateers were the bane of small ships like this, and flagged with a letter of marque giving them a license to act as supernumeraries for the Ukie navy, they were nothing but semi-legalised pirates. With the current system they were in between the ISA and Britannic Kingdom, it would be a prime hunting ground for ships like this to try and capture packet boats or unescorted merchants.

"All hands, prepare to repel boarders! Chiefs and Department Heads break open your arms lockers and equip your divisions. The privateer is a Gun-Brig, so be ready on all decks for incoming boarders. Mister Farquhar, please move your charges forward to the forefoot machinery space."

Unstrapping from the bunk, he leapt down and opened the hatch. Farquhar was directing his other charges down the narrow access way and waved for him to join them, a gauss rifle slung over his back. Following the others, they made their way down a deck and into the tighter confines of the lower deck, pushing themselves against the walls as crew rushed past carrying carbines, pistols and cutlasses.

Even though he'd been through this same process in his early naval years, it never ceased to amaze him that this must have been what naval crew did during the ancient ages on Earth, when ships battled under sail on the high seas. Despite being two millennia in the future, history had a weird manner of repeating itself.

Entering the small, dimly lit machinery space he pushed to one side and leaned against the internal bulkhead. The other four passengers were people he'd been aware of but never allowed to meet or speak. He watched as they looked around with frustrated expressions. Following them inside, he saw the Doctor holding her hand over her chest as if her heart was pumping at double speed, which considering her career choice, it probably was. Everybody were dressed in combat skins, except one of the men he placed as a Special Forces soldier, standing with a red-faced expression as all eyes fell upon him clad in underclothes.

"Come on, Sammy, let us get out there and help the crew." One of them uttered to Farquhar, waving his fist at the heavy hatch they'd entered through. "They might need us...."

It was the first time he'd seen the other passengers, and running his eyes over them surmised that all but one were former Special Forces personnel based on the build and body shapes. It was either that, or the thick, heavy necks and well muscled arms combined with watchful facial expressions and calculating glances that flittered everywhere to assess risk and escape routes had become the new body norm while he had been on Aran.

One of them was different, and studying the man he realised it was a face he'd seen some years back in the RNFC before it had been transformed into the RFC. With dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the medium height and slight figure was a pilot he'd seen in another squadron. He couldn't place the name but as he stared at him he knew it would come soon.

Farquhar turned to the man that had spoken and made the familiar motion as if he was chewing gravel with his mouth. Glaring while his fat finger stabbed out to impact in the chest of the speaker, he hissed.

"Stow it, Harry, we'll wait here until the skipper needs us. Mo, behind you there's a storage locker with arms, open it up and we'll do a weapons issue. Gibney, why aren't you in your combat skin? Are you looking to get spaced or just decided to have a lobotomy while we were skimming fuel?"

Glancing at him, Farquhar said nothing and then turned his eyes upon the other pilot.

"Mister Brilliant, do you know what a privateer of that type is armed with and how many fighting men it carries?"

Nodding, the other pilot opened his mouth to answer when Mo interrupted.

"Sleeky... three cutlasses and a _gladius_ , two _Grails_ , and four snub pistols. I'll take a _Grail_ and the _gladius_." The man announced, lowering his chosen weapons to the deck at his feet while the other Special Forces men tried to jostle him for access to the locker.

"Stand down!" Farquhar ordered. "Gibney, you get nothing without a combat skin and you're staying here for the duration. Mo, take your weapons and step aside for the others. Harry, take up the other _Grail_ and a cutlass, Mister Brilliant take a snub pistol and cutlass, Montclare you get the same. Doc, I want you to take the remaining pistol. We'll split the clips and mags between you evenly. I've got my own weapons, so between us we'll make a handy reserve force."

Jonty, that was the other pilot, he recalled. They used to call him 'Mister Brilliant' due to his cool-headed flying ability in the Fast Attack Boats and the many fighter kills racked up against the Franks and Ukies. The last he'd heard about the skilled, young officer was that he'd headed off to command a squadron of new _Mosquito_ Mark IV Fast Attack Boats undertaking deep strike missions on the other side of the kingdom, however that had been years ago and he'd never heard of him since.

Collecting the weapons handed to him by the man called Harry, he checked the safety of the snub pistol and then verified the chamber was empty. Both dual clips were full of stun rounds, and he was handed another four clips with flechette rounds that he pushed into his thigh pockets after using two of them to replace the stun rounds for something more lethal.

"Okay, lads shut up for a minute and listen to Mister Brilliant." Farquhar trumpeted through the small room as the noise of different weapons being checked or opened echoed within the space.

"Umm, okay then." He began, clearing his throat as all attention was fixed on his face. "It's a Gun-Brig, and they're generally displacing between one to three thousand d-tons. Armed with at least four three-inch dual barrel gauss cannons, it should have one or two missile bays and assorted close-in defences. If it's a smaller Brig, she can carry a crew of thirty, although the larger displacement vessels mean you could be facing fifty boarders. It all depends on the specific type and age, and how many crew they allocate to the boarding operation."

There was silence at his words as the gathered men considered how outnumbered and outgunned they were aboard the Packet Boat.

"There are literally hundreds of designs for Brigs out there from most nations, but despite whoever built her, they're going to be restricted in what they can do to take us, especially with an Indie ship in the system. If I was the enemy privateer, I would aim to assault our external hatches near engineering and the bridge, and that's where you'll find them... midships and aft airlocks."

Farquhar nodded at the information. Grudgingly, he turned the gaze across to him. "Anything to add?"

"No, I think Jonty has covered everything. The only point I'd add is what you probably already know, those boarders will be armed with shotguns, swords and trying to cause as many casualties as quickly as possible. With an Indie ship in the system, they'll only have a small window of time to board, capture and escape to a transition point. It's the ship they want, along with any cargo so they can profit from the prize money... so they won't hesitate in killing the passengers or crew to get the ship captured."

"Okay, I'm going to talk to the skipper and see if he knows this... with only fifteen crew aboard, we're going to assist wherever he needs us. Except for you, Gibney, you're staying here to guard the Doc. At least she had the sense to stay in her combat skin, and she's a bloody non-combatant."

"Aw, come on, Sammy, even in my underwear I'm better than the rest of these layabouts. Give me a sword or pistol and let me join you." Asked the man, spreading his hands wide in supplication. "You owe me, for old time sakes."

Ignoring him, Farquhar turned away and went to one of the comm-points located against the bulkhead next to the hatch. As he connected with the bridge, he saw Gibney shake his head.

"It's just like eighty-one again and I'm left out of the fun... not bloody fair!"

"Wasn't that when you got caught in the sheik's harem on Quriyat when the marines began landing around Assalt?" One of the other men asked, working the slide of his weapon as if it wasn't moving to his satisfaction. "They still tell the story to everyone going through selection about how not to choose a sniper hide in a harem full of veil covered beauties."

"I was trying to get into position for fire support and it was easier if I wasn't wearing my combat armour. It's not true what they said I was doing, honest!"

"Firing what?" Asked one of the others, punching Gibney in the shoulder. "Blanks?"

"I heard it wasn't a harem of women but the eunuchs he was found with!" The other said, following up with another punch and a cackle of laughter.

"You're jealous! There was one, she was...."

Tuning them out, he stepped over to the other pilot.

"Jonty, the last I heard you were out on the rimward border commanding a squadron aboard the Carrier _Furious_. What are you doing in this group?"

"I thought I saw you last week in the cargo bay, Bren, but Farquhar wouldn't confirm it. I was headhunted by them and asked to join this project for a deployment. They searched me out while I was on leave after getting shot down near Aramis and...."

"Knock it off!" Farquhar ordered, turning away from the comm and facing the bickering Special Forces men. His eyes caught his and he frowned. "Brilliant and Montclare, no talking between the pair of you, this isn't recess in school."

As the room went silent, he felt the hull beneath his boots tremor with the pitter-patter of what sounded like rain echoing through the bulkheads. They were taking fire from the Gun-Brig.

"We stay as the quick reaction force when the bastards come aboard. Doc and Gibney, you stay here and don't move no matter what you hear. Mister Brilliant and Mo, you're with me... and that leaves Montclare and Harry paired up. When they come aboard and focus their efforts on engineering and the bridge, we'll take them from behind. My section will head aft to the engineering spaces, and Harry I want you to try and cover the bridge."

Searching each of their faces, Farquhar smiled at what he saw.

"Remember your training, and cover the rest of your section. We don't need any heroics, only to delay the privateers as long as possible until the Indie cavalry arrive. The skipper says they'll be here in half a day... but he also says the brig displaces two thousand d-tons, so if they throw all in to take this ship, the tangoes will outnumber us by three to one. Check your combat skins and weapons while you have time because we're waiting for the skipper to give the word before we head off to our targets. Any questions?"

"Any deckplans so we can plan our ambushes?" One of the other men asked.

Farquhar gave the man a look of disdain, chewing his cheeks before spitting out an answer. "You've been aboard this ship for three weeks, Mo, and if you haven't learned all there is to know about it in that time then I think our people made a mistake in choosing you for the project. Anyone else?"

"What do I do if you men fail?" The Doc asked, her voice quiet and showing her nerves.

Laughing at the question, Farquhar grinned.

"If we fail, Doc, then we're all dead. This ship is rigged with a deadman trigger the skipper is carrying and between you people, the cargo, and whatever they might scrape from the datastore, we can't let them have any of it. He's already activated the trigger and if he is taken down by the tangoes at any time, you'll have thirty seconds to say goodbye. So, Harry, protect the skipper with everything you've got when it comes time to rock and roll."

"Sammy, I have to come with you... between Harry and this Brylcreem Boy, we haven't a hope to stop the skipper getting killed. Come on?

There was no further sound of incoming fire, but feeling the inertial compensators lurch and his stomach move with it, he knew they were under high-gravity manoeuvres to make life hard for the privateer ship. It wouldn't be long until boarding teams broke through the airlocks to storm the ship, and then they'd all be fighting for their lives.

Farquhar studied the man in underwear, chewing his cheeks and finally giving a grunt. Passing over one of his weapons, he shook his head. "Maybe you can scare the privateers with your skid marks and send them running. Go with Harry and keep an eye on the flyboy."

#  Chapter 5

"Standby... standby... go!" Farquhar ordered while the hatch slid open. He was the first through the door, moving through it and to one side so the others could cover him as they moved up. Mo came next, followed by Jonty, with each of them tapping the man in front on the shoulder before stepping past.

Waiting for the nod from Harry, he then stepped through following the same direction as the other team continuing down the narrow corridor toward the first set of stairs leading to the upper deck. There was no noise, only the soft padding of their footsteps as they moved closer to where they would split up. Farquhar was keeping his gauss pistol ready, swivelling with his eyes following the sights as the teams moved in unison.

A shudder went through the ship and then slowly settling down, and as he thought about it when they arrived at the stairs, trying to imagine what was happening it came to him. It was the drives, the constant vibration through the hull that had become ignored after the first day aboard was now gone. In its place, like the silence, there was nothing. The lights were still on, and as he arrived at the base of the stairs the men were covering he saw a shadow move over them from the next deck.

Farquhar signalled to stop moving, and as the stomp of boots ran past, followed by several more they waited to see if anyone came down from above. The Special Forces men exchanged hand signals and the first team moved down the corridor toward engineering while Harry motioned for him to cover the stairs with Gibney next to him aiming the _Reaper_ rifle given to him by Farquhar. Once in place at the bottom of the stairs, Harry stepped up slowly with his head scanning both directions.

Crouching at the top, Harry waved an all clear and waited for them to come up behind.

"I'll take point, flyboy you follow me after I go four paces, and then Gibney comes behind to watch our six. No talking and if you see a tango, in a side corridor or anywhere not in front or behind, tap us on the shoulder. Check your safety is off and make bloody sure to keep your finger on the trigger guard and not on the trigger while we move, understood?"

At his nod, the man flicked off the safety on his weapon and stepped forward, moving at a slow, determined pace with the barrel aimed down the corridor. In this section of the Packet Boat, there were two corridors running parallel on either side of the ship, meaning that any time they might see boarders coming from the four cross corridors linking them together.

The short, sharp crack of explosives popping off could be heard from up ahead, echoing through the sealed bulkheads and bringing a jump to his nerves each time. He guessed the attackers were using grenades, and if the bridge was sealed, would soon setup heavier charges to breach the hatch. Pausing at the first hatch, Harry palmed the controls and stepped to one side, crouching down and aiming at the entrance as the heavy door slid open.

Four men in plain grey ship suits were moving into sight from the side corridor, heavy reinforced combat armour vests and helmets worn atop with the long barrels of gauss rifles pointing ahead of them. With their eyes fixed forward, they didn't see or notice the hatch opening behind, or discover the weapons pointed at them. Aiming his snub pistol as the man in front gave a hand signal to take out the targets on the left while he focussed on those to the right, he waited for the man to fire.

Harry calmly fired the _Grail_ carbine with the action bringing loud whizz-cracks that were deafening in the enclosed space. Three times the weapon fired, sending flechette rounds to impact in the lower torso of a target where the armour wasn't covering them. Squeezing the trigger on his own pistol, he let off two rounds at the closest man on the left, supporting the weapon with his offhand. His first round impacted near the bottom of the armoured vest, followed by the second just beneath the edge and into flesh.

Unlike the loud retort from the gauss weapons, the snub pistol fired subsonically to minimise recoil and with a heavy drawn out pop it revealed to those targeted that he was armed with a pistol instead of a rifle or carbine. Fitted with dual clips and duplicate lower receivers, it could fire stun rounds, signal flares, or standard ammo load-outs including flechette and armour piercing rounds. In this case, the clips were filled with flechette rounds containing several small aerodynamic darts that would spall and tumble on contact, causing maximum lethal damage to flesh or lightly armoured opponents but nothing if he missed and hit the hull.

Ignoring the men on the right, he fired again for the next boarder and growled as his rounds hit too high in the armour and hammered the man into the wall. The impact caused the target to sprawl onto the deck, his weapon dropping while hands scrabbled for purchase on the pipes and tubing. Lining up more carefully, he shot at the exposed legs and buttocks of the target and heard the scream when rounds hit flesh.

His first target was scrabbling on the deck, trying to turn and fire. Ignoring Harry firing again, he squeezed the trigger on the pistol and bracketed the man attempting to fire back at them despite the blood oozing from his back. Satisfied when the rounds stitched across the lower torso and ending the man's attempt to fire, he scanned across and saw Harry's targets were also down. The man sprang forward into the corridor and fired a single shot into the face of the four men as he passed each one.

Not looking at the spray of blood and brains across the deck or walls, he followed Harry up the corridor to the next junction. They had one more at this section of the ship to traverse and then they'd be able to get to the bridge access corridor. Glancing behind, he saw Gibney crouching over the dead boarders and fiddling with the bodies, fully focussed on whatever he was doing. Turning back, he tapped Harry on the shoulder and pointed to the rear guard.

Harry studied the scene and then gave a grin, turning away to wait for whatever the following man was doing without telling him what was happening. He split his attention between the two men and in less than a minute watched as the half naked Special Forces man re-joined them.

"Booby trap." He mouthed silently at the raised eyebrow questioning the action, then making a motion with his hands of an explosion. In his spare hand, he saw two apple-sized spheres clutched by the retaining pins.

Surmising the man had found grenades and set them to go off if the bodies were moved or disturbed, he returned the grin. While Harry waited, he double checked the ammo count on the back of the snub pistol, noting one clip full and the other carrying just six left in the clip. Changing out the used one for a new clip, he hit the base of both with his palm to ensure they were seated. These pistol models had a reputation for dropping a clip if they weren't seated properly, and more than once in the past he'd seen someone on the range or even in action lose both clips.

Satisfied, he saw Harry make the movement gesture and begin to move away, scanning the cross-corridor while crouched and then darting across. Keeping close to the wall, he followed to the corner and readied himself to dash over as well. They'd be at the bridge access soon, and then everything would be crazy as they tried to stop the boarding privateers. Taking a deep breath, he paused as the man in front held up a hand and the sound of approaching boots slapped upon the deck.

Harry went down to the deck and pushed his head around the corner just traversed, eyes going wide as he rolled back and a staccato of weapon fire erupted. Rounds slammed into the terminating wall, peppering the inner covering with a spray of holes and he saw Harry hold up five fingers.

The man levered his carbine around the corner from down on the deck, keeping his head in cover and squeezed the trigger. He must have pushed the selector to full auto because the weapon gave a thunderous crack-crack-crack that continued for several seconds. Screams and shouts were heard from the down the corridor, but the returning fire showed not all, if any had been hit. Following suit, he stood straight and reached the pistol around with his offhand, lifting it high so if they were focussed on searching down low for Harry, they might not see his weapon.

Pulling on the trigger instead of squeezing it, the rounds burst out with each pull and the weapon tried to fight it's way from his grip. Forcing himself to relax, he slowed himself down and let the weapon fire more gently. When more fire came back to spark the corner plating near him, he pulled his hand back and switched the selector to semi-auto instead of single shot.

Harry leaned around the corner from a kneeling position, adjusting where he was so they couldn't get a bead on where he was going to appear. Snarling as he fired again, he let out several short bursts until the magazine went dry. Pulling back, he swapped in a new magazine and shook his head.

"Four still standing... they're in a bloody doorway ten metres down." The man's eyes went wide and in a smooth movement while tucking the weapon into his shoulder, it fired toward him.

He could feel the rounds fly past his head, perhaps centimetres away from gouging through his skin and into his body. Suddenly the heavier crack of the _Reaper_ gauss rifle began firing behind him, and sliding down to a crouch he saw Gibney on the deck firing at where they had just come from. There were three more boarders, one leaning wide out the cross-corridor they'd passed earlier and firing at them over the booby-trapped bodies.

Unable to move forward and with the path back cut off, they were trapped with no cover and the boarders lining up to shoot them while they were in the open. Everything they were trying to achieve was about to come to an end. Rounds passed him by in both directions, and any second now he knew he was going to be hit.

A meaty slap echoed as Gibney was struck, the round taking him in the shoulder and sending a small spray of blood into the air. Another grunt accompanied by a crash as a body went down came from behind and he knew that Harry must have been hit too, leaving him alone to be next.

#  Chapter 6

Aiming and firing down the corridor, he saw one of the men go down with strikes over the armoured chest. He was scrabbling to get back around the corner and one of his companions was leaning around aiming directly at him with a shotgun. The barrel was wide and menacing, and even though it was at least fifteen metres away, the muzzle appeared to be as large as a man-sized tunnel, attracting his eyes as if to lock him in place.

Hypnotised by the sight, he blinked as the muzzle of the weapon drifted away and the man went down to the deck. Behind him, Harry was yelling a whooping war cry and firing triple bursts past his head to the corridor and had just saved his life.

Glancing at Gibney struggling to grip the rifle, he scooted toward the man and grabbed at the two grenades discarded on the deck by his feet. While the man he had shot and knocked down crawled for the cover of the cross corridor, Harry's shots took him in the thigh and legs as they disappeared out of sight. Ignoring both Gibney and Harry, he turned back to the corner where the other boarders were located and peered around with his pistol held ready.

Two of them were creeping toward him and as they saw his face, gauss and shotgun rounds erupted from their weapons to pepper the air around him. Squeezing the trigger of his pistol as he pulled back, he saw them dive while his rounds passed overhead. Behind them, he could see the other two moving out of the cover of a cabin to join their fellows.

While Harry kept him covered with the boarders to the rear, he tugged at the pin for one of the grenades, feeling it come loose with a solid pull. The pale white light on the crown near where the restraining pin had been turned red, and he knew it would go off at any time. He had no idea what they were fused for, it might be ten seconds or it might be more but without a thought, he threw it around the corner.

He heard it bounce off the wall before dropping to the deck and as the attackers around the corner yelled out curses and scrambled for their former cover it detonated. Diving around the corner after the debris and shrapnel burst past, he fired at the figures on the deck. One was unmoving, but the others were rolling about with one clutching his face, the other his side and the third seemingly unharmed.

With the weapon in his hand dry firing, he knew he'd used up both clips and there was still one boarder capable of shooting back once recovered from the shock of the grenade. Without thought, he pushed the empty pistol into his thigh pocket and leapt to his feet, hands scrabbling to draw the cutlass from its sheath at his belt.

He was upon the doorway faster than he planned, the blade only just being transferred to his fighting hand when the boarder peered around with his weapon coming into sight. He saw the man's eyes go wide, surprised at the charging cutlass, but faster than he expected the barrel of the carbine in his hands came up to block the blade.

Twisting the cutlass away from the barrel, he swung it low and found the metal stock of the carbine meeting it to thwart his counter move. Letting out a bellow, the boarder pushed forward trying to get within the swing of the cutlass and body bash him away. He felt the man's mass connect with both of them letting out a loud whoof from the contact, the forward motion of his cutlass attack halted.

In desperate fear for his life, the man's eyes were wide as he tried to use the length of the carbine as a barrier, thrusting it toward his face and causing him to lean away. In return, he swept out a leg while his head went back, catching the boarder's ankle in a sweep that sent them both to the deck in a tangle. Bellowing at each other in rage or panic, he didn't know which, they leapt back at each other without weapons, fists swinging for purchase upon the other.

His opponent was a similar height and weight, and almost the same age based on what he could see under the helmet of the face. The man was trying to throw him back to the deck, his grip catching on the side of the combat skin and attempting a pivot that would throw him off balance and down across the hip. Grinning, he let the man's momentum carry him around and before his own feet lost purchase on the deck propelled himself forward instead of resisting the attempt.

It was enough to send the boarder off balance when he went around in the direction with a greater speed and force than expected. While the man went down he lunged with his boot into the face, hearing a crunch as the side made contact with the nose. To his credit, the boarder ignored what must have been blistering pain and lunged for the boot, attempting to take hold and grip it tightly.

The man was successful and forced off balance by the tactic, it sent him down to the deck again. Scrambling up his body, he felt the man desperately trying to pin him down until close enough to finish the desperate hand-to-hand combat for his life.

Rolling around, he suddenly found the grip of the cutlass under his hand as the attacker reached for his throat. Without thought, he pulled the blade up and hammered it toward the head. Clanging off the helmet's rear, it seemed to energise the boarder into locking hands at his throat with thumbs pushing against his windpipe.

Shaking his head from side to side, he tried to prolong the inevitable, knowing that if his opponent found his target it would be crushed and he'd die from asphyxiation before he could resist. Swinging the cutlass again, he felt it hit flesh beneath the helmet's base.

The mouth in front of him let out a screech, but the hands continued their maddened scramble for purchase. Dragging the cutlass as much as he could over the neck it had sliced into, he changed tack and swung it like a club at the face hovering over him with teeth bared. The edge of the blade struck the side of the helmet, but it was the guard that had the effect he was after. With the thickened pommel bashing against the man's jaw, the guard hit home in one of the eyes blazing fury at him, grinding deep enough into the socket to bring a higher pitched screech of pain from above.

Feeling the hands release their frenzied grip and reach for the face, he used the diversion to throw a punch into the jaw above and send the man tilting to the side. Rolling from underneath, he pivoted around and slashed down with the cutlass while his opponent clutched at where his eye had been. The twenty-five inch blade cut through the hands and deep into the face with a diagonal slash that sent fingers and blood in different directions. Grunting as he brought the blade back from the other direction in a follow up slash, the edge went through the boarder's throat deep enough to cleave it in half.

Dropping to his knees, he forced himself to gasp for breath as the man shuddered in front of him, blood pulsing out of the slashed throat and single remaining eye staring in confusion. Shaking his head, he turned away and made for Harry and Gibney, pausing briefly to reload the snub pistol and fire a shot in each of the bodies on the deck as he passed them. Gritting his teeth at what he had done, he knew there was no other way. If the boarders recovered and came after them again, there would be no hope of saving the packet boat.

He saw Harry watching up ahead, his face bleeding from where a shotgun pellet or gauss round nicked the cheek. Giving a nod as he arrived at the corner, he motioned toward the bridge.

"Gibney's in a bad way, but he's gonna try and cover our backs until he passes out. It's up to us to get to the bridge and stop the bastards from taking the boat, are you ready?"

He turned away, ignoring the man's questioning glance. Taking three paces back into the cross corridor, he bent down and retrieved two of the weapons on the deck, scooping up spare magazines from the bodies at the same time. Slinging one of the weapons, a Merovingian Minié gauss rifle over his shoulder, he stalked back to Harry and met the watching gaze.

"Now I'm ready."

Sliding the works of the combat shotgun to chamber a round, he ignored the unused round that flew out of the chamber and then checked the ammo count on the bottom of the small magazine inserted into the base. He had ten rounds, almost a full magazine plus the two spare magazines he'd retrieved now sitting in his thigh pocket.

Grinning at Harry, he motioned toward the remaining corridor. "Let's finish this so we can save Gibney and give him a chance to tell the tale of how he saved a Packet Boat singlehandedly... without a harem."

"I heard that!" The man grunted from behind, following the comment with a curse at his pain.

Following Harry as the man quickly dashed to the end of the corridor and the hatch that would open to the final passage to the bridge, he tried to focus. With every step, the bulging eye of the man he'd killed stared at him with a bloodied throat and face offering astonishment at his pending death. He knew he'd be haunted by the memory if they survived the battle for the ship, and it would be another one to add to his growing collection of dead bodies and defeated enemies.

It was different when you were on an attack boat because you never saw their faces or thought of them as anything more than an enemy boat trying to shoot you out of space. In person, as he'd discovered long ago during a shore action with a naval brigade sent to restore order on a troubled world, the dead clawed back at you and never left you alone once battle was over. He knew the old adage shared by veterans, that when it came to killing someone up close it was always a choice of them or you, but hearing the phrase and actually being there to experience it first hand were two different things that people didn't understand if they haven't been there.

Some of the other's he'd served with never let the memories go, turning to drunken binges or drugs to overcome the guilt, while others went emotionally dead, closing their emotions down and shutting off friends and family. He'd struggled with the morality when he was young, especially after that first boarding action on the slaver and death almost took him. He didn't know how he managed it, but the advice of a senior rating was probably what kept him sane; and that advice was to compartmentalise the experience. You'll never forget it, he said, but over time you'll find a way to keep them with you but get on with life. If you don't, then it means they win in the end and you die.

Pausing at the hatch, Harry palmed it open and then leaned through as the echoes of gunfire sounded from around the corner. The noise pulled him back from the wandering thoughts, enabling him to focus on the struggle to save the ship.

With Harry leaning low, he leaned over the man and saw three boarders at the gaping bridge hatch, firing inside and then ducking for cover from return fire. Behind them, two more waited at either side of the hatch, although in the quick glance he noticed one was clutching a leg instead of a weapon and tying a compression patch around the upper thigh. The second was changing out the magazines of his Minié, discarding the empty and tapping a new one into place while gathering his courage for the next time he was needed to fire into the bridge.

"On my count, we charge them." Harry whispered. "No more stuffing about taking potshots and getting hit in return, we'll charge them and go toe to toe until they're down. On three...."

He barely heard the counting, his mind fixed on the targets and gripping the shotgun. Sliding his thumb over the selector, he unconsciously double-checked the safety was off and it was set to the second notch for semi-automatic fire. As the man beside him let out a roar and pushed around the corner, he followed suit with the same banshee cry he'd been taught to use as a rating all those years ago in basic training. With his legs carrying him forward, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

Charging toward the enemy with time slowing down, firing as they moved, he watched as one went down from a lucky shot, quickly followed by a second with his lower torso exploding from shotgun slugs tearing through the flesh. The other boarder at the hatch didn't hesitate. Without even looking around, he ran for the far corner in long strides and disappeared from sight unharmed, weapon dropping as he went.

The injured man on the deck gazed in horror, scrambling backwards without his rifle and trying to use slippery, blood covered hands to pull up a pistol while the boarder beside him brought his weapon to bear upon the charging lunatics. He could see the man's finger jerking on the trigger, caught by surprise but reacting without thought in an attempt to survive.

The rounds were whizzing past his head and he heard Harry give a surprised grunt and then the firing went quiet with Harry's Grail unleashing fire point blank into the face. Ignoring the sight of the head exploding, he focused on the remaining boarder who had a pistol up, aiming with a shaky grip and pulling the trigger. Even though it was point blank range, the rounds went past while his own finger squeezed the trigger of the shotgun to silence the man.

Harry kept moving, leaping past the bridge hatch and dashing for the far corner. Crouching, the man kept firing down the other corridor while yelling curses at the boarders in sight. Taking a deep breath, he ignored Harry and leaned close to the gaping bridge door.

"I'm a friendly... we've cleared the access way. I'm going to step into view, so don't shoot!"

Waiting for a muffled response, he peeked his head around the corner to see three of the bridge crew aiming weapons from behind stations. One of them was the skipper, and with a sigh of relief, he held the shotgun out at arms length and moved into view.

He didn't know how long it was after that until the others joined them. He was busy watching the privateer cast off and make a heading change to keep the Packet Boat between them and the approaching cruiser.

Afterwards as they pieced together the battle to save the ship, it turned out that twenty-six of the boarders had been killed, with another three injured and now prisoners. On the Packet Boat, they'd lost ten of the fifteen officers and crew to enemy fire, with both Gibney and Mo taking hits and needing medical attention. To his surprise, Harry had been struck five times by enemy fire, but none of the rounds penetrated the combat skin.

It was the same for himself and with the adrenalin rush of battle over, he discovered that he'd been shot in the side by a glancing round that left a deep score in the combat skin and a long bruise on his flesh. The finger marks on his neck hurt, but not as much as the bruise in his side when he sat down and thought about what they'd just done. It had been crazy and intense, foolish even but they had managed to save the ship.

Farquhar was grinning while he shared how they were caught in crossfire and unable to move forward, almost like Harry's team had been. As if it was a mirrored action, Jonty charged them under fire and cut down two of the enemy with his cutlass and then turned on the remaining privateers only to find they were running for their lives screaming in fear. Without showing his own fear, the pilot had pursued the boarders and didn't stop chasing them until they were off the ship and he realised where he was, inside the airlock of the enemy privateer. Not expecting to survive, he escaped back out and went hunting for any others that might be lurking in the aft section of the ship.

Clapping his hand on the back of Jonty, Farqhuar proclaimed how Mister Brilliant had saved the day and stopped the boarders from killing the two remaining engineers. With everyone offering a nod, he watched Farquhar turn to him and give a half-smile.

Expecting the man to insult him, he was surprised at the words. "You did good too, Montclare, and maybe when this is all over you can go back to living in your palaces and hanging out with Royalty, entitled to hold your head high by achieving something worthwhile today. If you're lucky, it might put a splinter in the eye of those that sent you out here to die in the project."

He was about to follow up the man's statement when Harry pounded him on the back with his fist. "That was a crazy thing to do, charging them after the grenade went off, but it got us out of a jam. I think you're as balmy in the head as Gibney... but I'm glad you were with me."

#  Epilogue

### Lexington Naval Yard and Depot, Independent States of America

### February, 4284

The remaining journey from the Johnson system had been undertaken aboard the Indie Light Cruiser, while the Packet Boat limped along under its own power with extra crew to help aboard from the Indie ship. He expected that after fighting with the other members of the team, they'd be free to mingle but after going aboard found Farquhar reverted to his same program and worked hard to keep him separated.

One of the things he did learn from the Doc, was that the privateer had transitioned from the system before the cruiser made rendezvous and based on post-battle analysis they had been identified as Franks operating under a letter of marque from the Ukie government. To his mind it made sense, even though the Frankish worlds lay on the far side of the kingdom. In latter years they had aligned closely with the United Systems Empire and roamed further through the Core Sector to cause chaos to the merchants and allies of the kingdom. This was another example, and one that had come close to unravelling some of the secrets of the Artemis Project.

Sighing to himself, he focussed his mind and waited. He'd been on Lexington for a week now, every moment of his time continuously utilised for refresher courses in diverse fields such as Astrogation and Navigation, Engineering and Gunnery Systems, through to Commerce and Finance. Since leaving the cruiser, he hadn't seen any of those that he'd fought with, not even Farquhar or the Doc, but had been handed over to another team of specialists that were dedicated to rush him through the preliminaries that might keep him alive for a short time.

There had been no mention of further physical, martial or weapons training; instead they focussed on the skills that enabled him to fly the ship being given to him. Recalling comments he'd heard over the past weeks since being relegated to the project, he knew the other crews were given more in depth training and preparation, as well as additional experience in intelligence operations. For him, it was the basics and no more and as each day went past in a blur, it struck him that they really were fast-tracking him to leave as soon as possible. Whether it was in fear of contaminating the others, or for different reasons he didn't know, instead he had no choice but to accept where they were guiding him.

Today was going to be the first day he would actually see the _Artemis_ Class starship being given to him, despite learning the flight manuals inside out and virtually living in sims to understand the complex systems that made the high-tech ship fly and operate. Tucked away in a remote facility in the southern reaches of Lexington, he waited in the underground bunker assigned as the temporary quarters for his guide to arrive and escort him to the ship.

He would have a solid day and half, they said, to become familiarised with the ship on the ground and then he'd be directed out-system and sent to his final destination in the Hinterlands without even a period of time to fly it in safety. It was like his first solo flight back in the Naval Fight School, sooner or later the instructors would decide that it was time you completed a solo flight, and then a solo transition without any instructor. It was a make or break time for many, and this instance had the same feeling as he cast his mind back to those days.

As always since being forced into the project, he knew there was a lot more going on that they weren't telling him, and whether it was the Royal family forcing him on this banishment, the Admiralty or another bureaucratic department within the government it all came down to the same thing. Someone wanted him out of their hair, preferably permanently but not through obvious or black-ops means.

To his mind, it would have been easier for them to just put a double-tap into the back of his skull anytime in the last month and make him disappear for good, but perhaps he did have someone watching out for him that kept him safe; a guardian Angel in the Admiralty or elsewhere keeping him from whatever Machiavellian schemes were enclosing his life.

Holding back another sigh, he looked up as the door opened and waited as medium sized woman entered the room. Her flight suit bore no markings, but it was of an Indie design and looked well worn, giving the impression of one that flew frequently and had done so for many years. Acknowledging him with a curt nod, she scratched the fringe of ginger hair at her forehead and returned his gaze with confidence.

"Hey there, I'm Virginia Winters, and don't worry... that's not my real name coz we're all given new identities out here... except for you." Without giving him time to respond, she pressed on. "I'm going take you out to your ship now and get you familiarised. She's new here, only arriving last week so there's been no time to refit her internals to the same standard as our other assets, but I don't think you're going to mind."

She laughed, and he was intrigued to note it was a genuine laugh and not one at his expense. While the light hazel eyes studied his flight suit and jacket, she stood with hands on hips.

Imparting a friendly smile, she nodded toward the doorway. "Come with me, Bren, and see your home for the next few years... and for your sake, I hope she likes you."

Leading him out of the doorway, he followed her along a different series of corridors from where he had entered. This section of the base was full of underground passages and more like a rabbit warren or maze, but somehow she knew the route and led him up a small flight of stairs and to a heavy, sealed doorway guarded by a solitary figure in black combat armour and gauss rifle held at port arms.

Along the way, he learned she was the lead test pilot for the _Artemis_ Class vessels, personally flying each when they first arrived and signing off acceptance. Based on her word choice and exuberance, he gathered she loved her job and especially these ships.

Showing her ID to the guard, she motioned for him to do the same and when the man was satisfied, he watched as he subvocalized a command. Behind him, the door slid open and the wide confines of a large hangar were revealed, full of shadows and darkness. Virginia bounced up the stairs and into the hangar, pausing just inside to wait for him to follow.

When the door behind closed, she stepped to the side and accessed a display with easy familiarity, bringing up the interior lighting. As the darkness was chased away by the increasing brightness of overhead lights, the long, slender shape of the starship was revealed for the first time to his eyes. He'd seen images on flex and in the specification documents, but this was his first time to see the actual ship and he felt his breath forcibly pulled from his lungs.

Aerodynamic, sleek, aggressive and modern... he couldn't think of every superlative that described her and gave up digging through his mind to do so. She was beautiful, carrying the lines of a new model attack boat only three times larger and fitted with a TEL drive at the stern and the rising bulge that held the turret on the dorsal surface. Along the flanks, the distinctive bulges contained the torpedoes conforming to the aerodynamic hull with sweeping fairings and curves.

Forgetting about the woman beside him, he stepped slowly toward the ship and found his eyes couldn't be drawn away from the sight. Approaching beneath, he reached up to trail his fingers along the felt-like surface coating of the hull, marvelling at the warmth seeming to exude from her with his touch. It was like touching someone that had been out in the sun soaking up the rays, warm and almost hot to touch but comforting at the same time. Painted a dark grey, her hull appeared as if it was absorbing the light and using it to heat her surface for his touch.

"She's one of my favourites so far... out of all those I've piloted. I don't know what it is about her exactly, but to me she seems to be well named. She's the goddess of the Hunt, the Moon, and of all new things birthed into the universe... her name is DIANA."

Unable to answer, he slid his fingers along the underside that he could reach, marvelling at how the warmth seemed to move right through his body and bring a calming emotion through his entire being. The emotion she evoked was hard for him to place and the closest he could equate would be to finding an old friend, someone you knew closely but hadn't seen for a very long time and discovering that friendship was still in place.

There was an old tradition amongst pilots, and it went that some starships felt more like a human than other crew did, encouraging you to talk and make conversation to it as if it was a living being. DIANA was one of those he knew immediately, almost feeling her quiet whisper in his mind and greeting him, anticipating the time they would spend together out there in the black as Captain and Starship.

Unable to tear his hand away from touching the vessel, he turned to the woman watching him with a pensive expression on her face and gave her a childlike grin.

"I feel like I'm coming home...."

Smiling at him, she waved her hands in the air toward the ship. "I think you two are going to get on just fine." Turning her eyes to the ship, she gave a slight nod of her head. "DIANA, this is Bren, and I'm glad you like him. He's going to take good care of you for me until you come back one day down the road."

# Afterword

Thank you for reading this work. If you've enjoyed it, please feel free to leave a review at the site you purchased it from to help others. If you haven't purchased this work but found it by other means, be sure to tell your friends to buy it.

This can be considered a lead-in to the Artemis Files series... but not quite a prequel. I like to consider it a side-series with some of the characters, concepts or settings explored in more depth than elsewhere. If you've enjoyed it and want to read more, the adventures of Bren and the starship DIANA continue in 'Elysium'.

###

### The Artemis Files: 01 - Elysium

Thrust into a dangerous game of intrigue in a race against time, a disgraced naval officer must save the girl, find the traitor, and halt damaging secrets from being sold to enemies of the realm. As an Artemis Operative, alone on his starship, his duty is to serve the kingdom and preserve it at all costs. Out of his depth, without knowing where to turn for help, he discovers trust is a word without meaning, on a planet where no crime or sin is forbidden.

Ruled by the Stromon Cartel, Elysium is infamous in the 43rd Century as a world managed by organised crime. Nothing is sacred on Elysium, a world where every sin, pleasure, and vice is provided for by the cartel, drawing in tourists and participants to the bacchanalian revelries from across the sector. When Bren Montclare, merchant, rogue and contract mercenary, arrives at Elysium, he discovers more than he expected after responding to a distress message from a diplomatic mission in the city of Bacchus.

The Artemis Files recount the activities of an on-going intelligence operation amidst the war torn worlds of the 43rd Century. From the Britannic Kingdom to the Independent States of America, Artemis Operatives defend against incursions by enemies in a region with no law, rules, or humanity.

Written in the style of traditional Space Opera, this adventure is certain to appeal to lovers of classic adventures from the golden years of Science Fiction.

# About the Author

Born, raised and educated in Australia, Bradley lives in Ireland and splits his time between a young family, hectic work, voluminous writing and frequent travel. His favourite travel destinations (and where you can often find him unwinding with a camera in one hand & a laptop in the other) include Germany, Russia, USA, and France. Working as a Senior Manager (Technical Marketing / IT), Bradley is based in the Dublin office of a large US Fortune 500 technology company headquartered in San Diego.

More information about current and future works can be found on the website at:

<http://taslianempire.wordpress.com/>

