Wailing alarms. Rattling ship panels. A windshield HUD scrolling warnings, its thick plas reinforced by an external heat shield. Sensor graphics at its centre, a near solid orange: a mass of collision alerts.

The Fire Witch burned through debris, the remains of vessels holding in low orbit.

Urgent voices in the clamour.

"Warp core pre-fire build initiated!" Konnu, yelling through coms static. "Ten seconds to maximum power."

A whooping alert, then Kaplan's crisp voice. "Dark Ray fast attack ship on our vector, seeking—" He cut off as the whoop became a blare. "Weapons lock-on! Light lance preparing to fire!"

A curse—Tras'. Then a punch of speed. A sickening roll—inertial dampers brutally tuned for pilot feedback. The sensation of weightlessness, then of being slammed downward—spine buckling.

The shriek of collision alarms—vessels and debris providing hazardous cover from laser fire.

Another burst of coms static. Konnu's breathless shout: "Fucking hit it! System overload in three, two—"

An explosion of force. Crushing agony. Buzzing noise and swirling light.

Then a tide of grey. Darkness rushing in...

Jinx jerked upright, her fist hard against her breastbone. Pressure. Pain. No air. She needed goddamn air.

Hauling in a lungful, she fought to get her bearings. Narrow bunks above and below her. Fuchsia zebra-print walls—faux fur. Hooks hung with chains and synth-leather straps. Her perspiration-slick body, clad only in a black bra and underpants. Panic faded and, with it, the recalled sensation of having her lungs all but collapse during the Fire Witch's rapid—dangerous—jump to warp.

"Fuck." She flopped onto her back and stared at the base of the bunk overhead. Just a dream—a memory. She was no longer on the Fire Witch's bridge, alarms screaming, her world pitching and diving. She was no longer waiting for a plasma torpedo or laser strike. She was in Konnu Phang's cabin, a converted, ex-brothel play pen. The one-metre-thirty by three-metre 'cell' Tras had confined her to for the better part of three days, ever since they'd blasted clear of Tirus 7.

Blasted away from everything she gave a damn about.

She covered her eyes with her arm, nausea clenching her gut. She should be grateful she was trapped in Konnu's migraine-pink room, not a Xykeree hive larder. But that was positive-thinking bullshit. How many people had died on Tirus 7 or orbiting it? Hundreds of ships had been waiting for landing clearance. Most had been mining vessels with limited crew, but there'd been a few passenger vessels.

Thousands of lives.

The memory of explosions on the Fire Witch's vid feeds and of engine signatures flickering out on the sensor displays shortened her breath. The Xykeree had used powerful lasers—light lances—to take out ship engines. There'd been chaos. Ships fleeing. Ships drifting with only minor thrusters to steer them. There'd been collisions, wayward weapon strikes...

She pressed her hands to her eyes, tried and failed to draw in a proper breath. The crews and passengers on the worst-hit ships might've been the lucky ones. What had happened after the aliens had stopped firing? What had happened to the people on the disabled ships? To the people on the ground?

A sea of disintegrating bodies. Soh dead. Dem dead, Lenton—

"Don't." She sat up and stared at the cabin's locked door, but recalled dreams continued to drown her sight. Her usual nightmare—screams and suffocation—had morphed into more personal terrors. She'd had days to picture, agonise over, every scenario and choice. Could she have warned people? Could she have done more to protect her friends? God, where were they now? Were they alive? Suffering?

"Shit." Sick of herself, she shuffled to the end of the bunk to snatch her uniform's pants off the cabin's miniscule patch of free floor. The truth of what had happened on Tirus 7 wouldn't be known for days—probably weeks. The Fire Witch had only got within range of the nearest FTL-relay com node during her last wake period. The military had immediately deployed hyperspace-capable battleships, but while the massive gate ships could rip open space and time to cover insane distances in an instant, investigations took time.

She closed her eyes on another flash of war footage. Three days, that's all it took for a human body to degrade to soup in a Xykeree larder.

There was no guarantee she'd even find her friends.

And how long did she have to try?

She'd had nightmares while on the Fire Witch, but no actual hallucinations or debilitating recall cascades. That couldn't last. Her brain was due to glitch hard.

She was feeling anything but stable.

A knock.

She jerked her head up to eye the door. Her eight-hour sleep cycle was pretty much up. Dorf was due to escort her to the ablution facilities and ogle her with his mech eyes. Creepy, meathead son of a...

A faint ringing in her ears. Intuitive warning bells or, as she was starting to suspect, a side effect of some advanced tech. Her pulse quickened, a nervy awareness waking. It wasn't Tras' testosterone-pumped crewmate outside.

She tugged on her uniform's pants, but didn't bother to stand and look for the rest of her clothes, irritation rising. Modesty and privacy were dud concepts on small ships, and the room was overly warm, its ventilation system too close to the engines. If she looked like a scrawny, half-dressed zombie with bed hair, it was her visitor's problem. "What the hell now?" she yelled, slapping her pants' fly closed.

The external lock released with a click. The concertina door folded back to reveal a familiar stretch of black Zex and lean muscle. Cool grey eyes.

Lieutenant Commander Reid Kaplan. Ready for duty.

In other words, grill, badger, and generally piss her off.

Over the past few days, she'd spent way too many hours trapped in her cell with him and his endless questions. His interrogation efforts triggered disturbing recall. More painful still, having his lean, military-grade arse less than a metre from her had started to grate for more personal and inconvenient reasons.

Something the good-looking bastard knew, going by the wry glances she'd caught, the smug son of a bitch.

Another annoying blip in her pulse now.

She ignored it and glanced past Kaplan to the woman standing 'at ease' behind him. As per standard procedure, Lieutenant Sia Samsun looked controlled, polished, and like she'd swallowed a bottle of fun remover.

Jinx resisted the instinct to stand. She'd seen the way Kaplan's team operated around him and his cousin: with a planetload of wary respect. Even the two Atillians. An unnerving feat given their breed's reputation. But she wasn't military. To hell with egos and orders. She knew why Kaplan was back at her door. The coming conversation was going to be a pain in the arse.

Propping herself on her arms, she stretched out her legs to occupy most of the cabin's available floor space. "Visiting again, Lieutenant Commander? Should I be flattered?"

Across the corridor, Sun's eyes became tawny slits. Kaplan merely dropped his gaze to the bare feet blocking his entry. Jinx forced her toes not to curl. Next to the military gleam of his boots, her chipped, fluro orange nail polish looked like radioactive trash.

After an awkward second, Kaplan lifted his gaze—held hers a nerve-winding beat.

Expression neutral, he glanced back to his cousin. "Give us a minute."

Sun's scowl deepened. Kaplan turned to her, no doubt delivering his standard reprimand: a stare that asked exactly how much trouble a person was looking for. After a taut moment, Sun strode off, snapping orders to others in the corridor, telling them to get back in their quarters.

Jinx took a visual inventory of Kaplan's armour and weapons. "What exactly does your cousin think I'm going to do to you? Stab you with your own plaz blade?"

Kaplan stepped around her legs. Eyes on hers, he hooked up her singlet from under the bunk. "Compromise my common sense." He tossed her the garment.

Her pulse thudded—something to ignore. It'd take more than her unenhanced cleavage to compromise the bastard's rationality. The guy was pushing buttons, either to satisfy his twisted sense of humour or to rattle more intel out of her.

Rolling her eyes, she pulled her legs clear of him—suddenly needing the space—and yanked on her top. "You're a pop-ship brat and in the military. With all that close-quarters bonding, you'll have seen way worse. Quit the flattery. What do you want?"

Kaplan slid the cabin's door closed, amping more nerves. "We're only a couple of hours out from Feuria. I need to ensure Star Sector Defence has an accurate picture of what went down on Tirus 7."

Jinx tugged down the hem of her singlet. "In other words, you still think I'm lying."

"Omitting."

"Whatever." They'd been down this road—numerous times. She'd been vague about a few things and left out others—the irrelevant bits like recall cascades, hallucinations, and her solicitation of an illegal blood analysis. But none of that crap would help anyone. It might, in fact, hinder the investigation if people wasted time questioning her account. Like Kaplan was now.

She snatched up her boots and pulled them on before the temptation to throw them got to her. Memories of her father's meltdowns kept her uglier emotions in check. "I had friends on that planet. Do you really think I'd withhold anything that might help them or help fry the roaches for what they did?"

"Knowingly?" Kaplan leaned back against the door and folded his arms. "No. But you don't have the full picture. You don't know what's relevant."

"Good point." She yanked up both boot zips and planted her feet on the floor. "You should start answering some of my questions. What were your team doing in that sector? What did you numb-nuts do to provoke the attack?"

"We've covered this ground."

"By 'ground' I assume you're reminding me that I have the clearance level of dirt." She rose to her feet. "Those were my people at that port, Kaplan. I should have been with them. And I would have been if you, in your infinite wisdom, hadn't decided to—"

"Save your hide." He pushed off the door, backing her up a step.

"My intel." She shoved back the wall of Zex suddenly in her face, her heart thudding. "Let's be accurate for your arsehole report. You were dragging me onto this frigging void can, Xykeree attack or not."

"And you'd have been compensated for the week that would have taken out of your life."

"Like I'll be compensated for sitting on my arse indefinitely when we reach Feuria? Not happening." She yanked back her hair to glower up at the unrepentant son of a bitch. "I'm not hanging around just to repeat the same shit I've already told you."

He angled his head, his eyes cool glints. "So, you skip the formal investigation and do what exactly? Join Tras on the revenge mission he's obsessing over right now? Suicide appeals to you?"

Her smile was nothing nice. Given what her future held, what wouldn't she risk to find or avenge her friends? To stop seeing them dead in her dreams? If Tras was planning something stupid, maybe she would join him. If she had his ship and contacts, she'd take a run at some damn roaches. Blow the fuckers out of the—

Smeared organics, broken exskels, blood, and panic.

Her lungs locked, recall from the barge flooding her mind.

Fighting a familiar and sudden sense of suffocation, she folded back down onto her bunk before adrenaline set off a more serious cascade. But instead of more memories, that sense of disconnection she'd felt since her last day on Tirus 7 rolled through her. A cold wave.

A disturbing image flickered: her standing in an ocean of black silence.

Fear clawed up her throat. No. Not now. Not again. Shit. She'd dreamed of that darkness. Over and over. As if some part of her had already slipped into the abyss.

And she felt the loss like an amputated limb.

An eerie certainty gripped her: she had to find what she'd lost. Her friends—

Abrupt movement—Kaplan dropping into a crouch before her. "You alright?"

She ground teeth. "Everything's just damn peachy." The bastard needed to back up, let her breathe.

A Zex-encased hand came to rest on the bunk, a few centimetres from her thigh. Edgy awareness bloomed, for once a welcome distraction. For a moment, her heartbeat and the high whine in her ears were all she heard.

She flicked her lashes up, expecting to see impatience in Kaplan's gaze and that odd sense of detachment his neurotech caused. Instead...

Sharp, focused, blue-grey eyes. An unnervingly short distance away.

Another instant of airlessness—not recall. Damn it.

She kicked her breath lose. "You want something, arsehole?"

"Yes." The muscles around his mouth tightened. "You not to hyperventilate."

"Piss off."

"I understand your need to take action, Jinx. But guilt and grief are warping your thinking. You couldn't go back for your friends during the attack, and you can't help them now with an untargeted search or suicidal ideas of vengeance."

She dropped her gaze to the plaz blade strapped to his thigh. Was it temper or her mental illness that made her want to stab him right that second? She lifted her gaze. "If you think you know the messy shit crawling in my head, you need to think again."

"You'd be surprised what I know. As for what I'm missing, you can come clean anytime."

"Yeah, I so want to stay on Feuria and listen to that looping track for another few days." Jerking back her hair, she fought the urge to stand, pace—do fucking something. "I can't help you any more than I have, Kaplan, and I need to deal with my own shit."

"Deal with it or run from it?"

She flipped him off in lieu of going for his blade. "Running is what we did when we left everyone to die. Remember?"

"If you're waiting for an apology, give up on it."

She looked to the deckhead, drew in a long breath. "How many hours until we land and I can cut your deadweight loose?"

A few tense heartbeats passed before Kaplan spoke. "Be pissed at me, Jinx, but don't let that drive your decisions. Non-military ships won't be allowed back in Tirus 7's system for at least five or six days. By that time, one of the deployed Gate Keeper ships will have returned with the displaced and injured. You rush back to Tirus 7, you risk missing the people you're hoping to find."

She shook her head and pressed her fingers to her eyes. She couldn't explain her need to head back into the void.

And that lack of rationality brought bile to her throat.

Kaplan curled his hand into a fist on the mattress beside her. His stare remained cool, but its intensity raised the hairs on her neck—made her wonder what stewed in his skull. "Stay for a few days. Catch your breath, gather intel, then go back. Let the official search teams do their jobs. Let the politicians and military deal with the Xykeree. If you stay, cooperate fully with the investigation team on Feuria, I'll ensure you get updates from the teams on site."

More questions. More waiting. All for a few highly vetted answers.

She couldn't do it.

"Jinx?"

"I'll think about it."

A look that wound her nerves. "Now, that was a lie."

Avoiding his gaze, she looked past him as Dorf's voice sounded outside, announcing it was time for her to "peel her runt arse off the sheets". The edgy feeling—something vital lost—rose again. Sleep deprived and sick with worry for her friends, she had no will to resist it. "I'll be on the first ride off planet I can get, Kaplan. There's nothing more to be said."

He stood, unfolding his long frame to look down at her. "Actually, there is. Under the Coalition Security and Enforcement Act, I can detain you for further questioning." He met her disbelieving stare. "You have until landing to reconsider your position."