‘It’s convincing,’ he said. ‘Provided they know what the real Target Shadow looks like, but why should they?’

Whitwell’s voice fell flat.

‘Certain recordings from your squadron’s mission have fallen into the hands of Zajinet agents. The data makes it hard to determine the exact location, but obvious what kind of installation it is. Therefore a new, similar base with known co ordinates should form a tempting target.’

‘But how could—?’

Max Gould shook his head, as a comment on Roger’s naivety. Roger nodded.

So how many poor bastards died this time?

Or ended up in torture chambers, like the one that Clara and Clayton rescued Max Gould from four years ago. Because the best way to leak information to an enemy was to allow it to be captured, in the hands of sacrificial goats who had no idea their own masters had betrayed them.

A senior officer unknown to Roger said: ‘Petra Helsen was killed by your friend Jed Goran, or rather by Goran’s ship.’

Roger blinked. ‘When did this happen?’

The officer frowned while a few other mouths twitched: special forces had a different view of discipline, and lacked subservience when addressing their seniors. Plus Roger had entered SRS from the intelligence service, not the regular fleet, and so had never picked up the protocols of command. Roger had already said sir to Whitwell, which as far as he was concerned was more than enough for the sake of politeness.

‘During a recent mission’ – the officer had clearly decided to ignore Roger’s attitude – ‘to backtrack shipping route data being passed on to Zajinet agents, or so everyone thought, on the basis of earlier attacks on our Pilots.’

‘So either the attacks were faked to look like Zajinet weapons-fire,’ said Roger, ‘or Helsen really was helping Zajinets to attack our people, stirring things up. In either case, a known agent of the darkness’ – the bitch is dead – ‘actively wants us to engage with the Zajinets. My question is, given it’s what Helsen wanted’ – dead at last – ‘why would we even consider it?’

And it was Jed who had taken out Helsen! That was excellent news . . . although a younger Roger might not have celebrated a friend killing for the second time.

‘The easiest way to physically unbalance an untrained person,’ said Whitwell, ‘is to shove their chest—’

‘—and then catch their reaction and whip them forwards. Or pull them and throw them backwards when they jerk back.’ Roger smiled at the analogy. ‘That’s a neat idea.’

‘I’m glad we meet with your approval, Captain,’ said Max Gould.

It would suit the darkness – assuming the phenomenon could be anthropomorphised that way – to disperse Labyrinth’s forces against the widespread Zajinet attacks. But to draw out the Zajinets en masse, apparently going along with the intention of the darkness, was like taking an enemy’s momentum and subverting it to cause their downfall. If they could cripple the Zajinet fleets in one massive action, there would be less distraction from pursuing Schenck and his renegade force.

‘It’s a large target that we hope they can’t resist,’ said the unnamed officer, ‘and which they can’t attack in the piece meal way they’ve been operating in so far. Our xenopsych specialists believe that Zajinets will attempt to operate collectively, possibly to the extent of committing every ship to one massive fleet in order to attack.’

Pinning one’s hopes on anticipating Zajinet thinking was risky, but there was no point in Roger’s saying so: everyone in the room would know that.

‘We want you to aid in planning a series of deception raids,’ said Whitwell. ‘Counter-strikes that you’ll take part in.’

‘I see.’ Roger glanced at Max Gould.

‘And you’d better survive, Captain Blackstone. Because we expect you to lead the enemy to this location.’ Whitwell stabbed a finger at the holo showing the decoy base location. ‘You understand the objective?’

‘I do.’

And it would be subtle in the execution, or it would be unsuccessful, because at every stage the Zajinets had to believe in what they were seeing and learning. Plus there was the possibility of counter-bluff: Zajinets mounting a deception strike of their own against the decoy, while targeting Labyrinth whose forces were committed elsewhere.

Speaking of which . . .

‘If the decoy is here in realspace,’ asked Roger, ‘what is the congruent mu-space location? Is it—? Oh.’

Smiles around the war chamber matched his own, as he examined the infinite twists and whorls in the holovolume he had picked out.

‘Mandelbrot Nebula,’ he added. ‘That is very nice indeed.’

The perfect hiding place for a battle fleet mounting an ambush.

It’ll need more than good topography.

There was also the matter of leading the fleet to victory, and while Roger would have had little idea on how to start organising a fleet, none of the people in the room, not even Max Gould – master of the decades-long covert operation and always as ruthless as he had to be – struck him as being a war leader, a simultaneous strategist, tactician and messianic figure that others would follow.

But this was a personal perception based on incomplete data, and there were limits to what even a special forces captain dared say to senior command. If they must mount this operation, then the primary requirement was to do it right, or they really would be playing into Helsen’s hands, even though the bitch was dead.

Later he would realise he had forgotten someone, despite having talked to the legend’s own mother in person. Perhaps the battle planners were more astute than Roger had imagined, or perhaps this was simply the unravelling of fate, and sometimes you got lucky.

He could only hope.

Twenty-seven days later by mean-geodesic time, two days before the operation was due to commence, Roger was in a hangar deep within Ascension Annexe, looking over his beautiful black ship, her powerful form webbed with lines of scarlet and shining gold, her newly grown weaponry impressive, actually frightening. She was fantastic, and if anyone could get through the dangers to come, it was her.

A pulse signal indicated an authorised visitor approaching. Roger strode across the deck, his beloved ship behind him, and stared at the area of hangar wall about to open. Soon it liquefied and drew apart, revealing a wide-shouldered, strong-looking adventurer. And suddenly Roger thought they might succeed in this insane venture against the Zajinets.

‘Admiral,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

Formality might not be SRS’s strong suit, but this was a legend walking towards him with an arrogant grin and easy muscularity.

‘Dirk McNamara.’

‘Roger Blackstone.’

As Roger held out his hand, an unwelcome image flitted through his mind’s eye: Dirk’s twin, Kian, face disfigured by the Molotov cocktail, one hand a claw, a mysterious figure who was rumoured to appear from time to time on realspace worlds and nudge people towards peace; while here was Dirk, the twin who had taken immediate vengeance on the mob, left them with eyeballs smoking, and made a daring escape from custody that led eventually to his centuries-swallowing hellflight. Son to Ro, the First Pilot, and in his own right a deadly fighter who could take action while others were only starting to assess the situation.

They shook hands, Dirk’s strength and aura palpable.

‘If all goes to plan,’ said Dirk, ‘you’re going to have Zajinets on your arse. And they might decide to blast you out of existence, instead of sneaking along to see where you end up.’

‘They’ll have to be fast to catch me, sir.’ Roger could not help grinning.

‘You’ve one hell of a beautiful ship, Captain Blackstone.’ Dirk’s eyes were assessing her lines. ‘Powerful as anything, and I’ll bet she tumbles through manoeuvres like nobody’s business.’