The ten day voyage from Beltock's Wake felt like an eternity. The quarters they had been given aboard the Iron Glacier were comfortable enough, but thirty Blink operatives tip-toeing around a full regiment of colonial marines made for a tense atmosphere. Most of the marines viewed the Blink teams as groups of children. The operatives regarded the military men and women as little more than gun-toting brutes, lacking any finesse or creativity.

All things considered, it made for a frosty trip. Amber passed the time as best she could, spending long hours in the Iron Glacier's immense training bay, and she was far from alone. At any one time half the Blink operatives on the ship could be found down here, their nature making them unwilling – even unable – to sit in once place for too long. She stepped toe to toe with Idas as the burly operative helped her practice her hand-to-hand combat drills. After their close quarters encounter on board Theodore Logan's experimental ship, she had worked hard at the discipline that many operatives viewed with secondary importance.

Along with them, however, keeping a wary eye on the interlopers into their domain, were a large contingent of marines taking part in much more official, scheduled training. Sergeants thundered orders to their platoons, and the whole space rang with grunts, yells and thumps. Hulking, heavily muscled men and hard-framed, sinewy women trained in pairs, or squads, some fighting through hand to hand drills, others training with mock target ranges and sim-rifles.

Their training, even at a glance, showed the disconnect between Blink operatives and their military counterparts. In fire training they aimed to kill. While Blink fire training was nominally for self-defence purposes, the marines on the Glacier had been trained to inflict lethal wounds. Amber watched as they created overlapping kill-zones between pairs, moving with rigid purpose that she found impressive.

In the hand to hand drills they pulled no punches. Bodies smashed into the training mats, the sounds echoing through the bay and she saw more than one marine have to step out to have cuts and grazes bandaged by the medical officers who prowled the deck. Occasionally there were more serious incidents – some individuals were escorted from the bay entirely to be taken to the transport's formidable medical bay.

Amber knew that the military training regimens were harsher than Blink's, but this felt over the top. Training so hard that you risked serious injury before a major operation seemed ... counter intuitive. Then again, she supposed, if you got used to getting hurt in training, the real thing might not be such a shock.

With an effort, she pulled her attention away from the other occupants of the training bay and back to Idas. They reset for another quick spar. She wore her simple training gear – a black tank-top and leggings, along with trainers and a set of padded gloves and elbow guards. Her normally flowing black hair was tied back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face during their training.

He gave her a nod and she darted forward. With speed that belayed his size, Idas pivoted away from her attempted arm hook. She in turn skipped back out of reach when he ducked and surged toward her, trying to wrap an arm around her leg and flip her. Her quickness held her in good stead as she jumped back and circled, trying to find another opening.

The next time Amber made a move, however, Idas read her attack and caught a hold of her wrist. That was all the other operative needed to yank her forward and flip her head over heels. She thudded to the matt with a gasp of surprise, staring up at the white lights of the training bay ceiling.

"Maybe next time," Idas chuckled, smiling mischievously as he offered her hand up.

She accepted his hand, letting him pull her to her feet with a single powerful tug.

"You good?" he enquired as she straightened her tank-top.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "I'm fine." Rubbing the back of her neck, Amber let her eyes wander once more.

To her surprise she spotted Taggs jawing animatedly with a pair of hulking male marines maybe twenty meters away from them. Other members of Vandal Squad trained nearby along with ten or twelve soldiers, but they seemed to be getting along. Although too far away to hear him, she saw that he appeared to be regaling them with a hilarious anecdote of some kind, judging by the sudden thunder of laughter that echoed across the training deck. She took a closer look and saw him miming combat moves, his mouth moving with the quick slang speech of Donia.

She nudged Idas with an elbow, inclining her head towards Taggs. "What do you make of that?"

"What, Taggs?"

"Yeah."

"Looks like he's making new friends."

The pair watched as Taggs came to the end of his story. A final rumble of laughter went up from the two marines before they moved off to join their comrades. One laid a booming hand on Taggs' shoulder before he went, leaving the Blink operative grinning, and slightly off balance.

Vandal's squad leader noticed them watching and, after a quick word to his squad-mates, loped across the room to them, wiping his face with a crisp white towel as he went. A breathless grin split his face when he reached them.

"A'right, kids." He slung the towel around his shoulders, letting it hand there. "What's wi' the long faces?"

"Seems like you're getting along well with our shipmates," Amber told him, failing to keep the faintly accusing tone out of her voice.

"Och, they're no' so bad," Taggs said breezily. "Besides, we're gonna have t' get along once we're down there. Might as well start now. In any case, I've been down here for the last two hours. I'm gettin' a shower and some solid food."

He gave them a swift, two-fingered salute and sauntered off. She watched him go, shaking her head with a rueful smile. The marines he'd been talking with didn't even acknowledge her as they trooped back over to join their fellow soldiers.

Idas shrugged. "Don't worry about it. Motor-mouth there can talk to anybody."

"I guess he's got a point."

"About the marines?"

"It wouldn't kill us to try and get along with them," she said.

He companion didn't seem convinced. "It's a nice idea, but they'll never see us as actual equals. To them we're a jumped up police force. You've seen what happens when Blink teams get any kind of operational command. They hate it – they think we're just a bunch of kids."

"We are kids."

"Don't be daft," Idas snapped. "We're well beyond that. You join Blink, you lose the right to call yourself a kid, and the excuses that go with it."

Amber opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the low, throbbing siren of a ship-wide announcement. Speakers built into every deck blared for three long seconds, long enough to silence everyone on the vessel and get their attention.

"All hands, this is Lieutenant Commander Bockworth," announced the Glacier's senior officer. "We will arrive at Ravine in seventy minutes. Prepare all bays for immediate departure upon arrival. All ground forces, action gear checks and be ready for combat disembark."

Amber dug a hand through her black hair, sweeping it back out of her face and blowing out her cheeks in a long breath. Seventy minutes until she and the rest of the Blink operatives were dropped into a war zone. Idas swept up his kit bag and motioned for her to follow.

"Looks like we're not gettin' out of this," he said, striding for the door. Amber didn't reply, falling into step with him as they joined the exodus of fighting men and women from the training deck. Marines laughed and joked, bumping fists and slapping shoulders as they went, eager for deployment. Amber couldn't say that she shared their enthusiasm.

The Blink operatives had their own section of the Iron Glacier where all their gear had been stowed, well away from the marine armoury. It seemed the ship's operators were all too aware of the fractious relationship between the two parties and had taken steps to keep them apart. When she and Idas arrived at the converted secondary cargo-bay, the rest of the squad were already there, gearing up in a very leisurely manner. Several other operatives from other squads trailed behind them as Blink's elite converged on this one location.

"Gang's all here," Niamh declared when she saw them enter, beckoning the pair over. The room was a low-ceilinged cuboid, spilt apart by six long, packed rows of temporary equipment lockers. Amber followed Idas across through the bustle, weaving between Vanna and the members of Rigel Squad on their way. They exchanged low greetings with the other Hammerhead operatives before opening up their assigned lockers.

The butterflies in her stomach went into overdrive as she opened her locker up, revealing a very specialised set of equipment. While she couldn't say categorically how the Blink operatives were going to be deployed, one thing was fairly clear. They would be hitting the ground with a view of espionage, and sabotage. While the standard issue Blink body-armour was clearly in evidence, it had been painted pure black, with no identifying insignias visible. Along with that, every operative had been issued with a long coat with malleable environment mirroring.

She grasped the concept will enough – the heavy material of the coats was carpeted with microscopic sensors that reacted to their surroundings, darkening, brightening and shading to blend with the background. The other operatives referred to them as Chameleon coats. The fact they'd been issued at all told her the kind of tasks they could expect to undertake once they landed on the planet.

After strapping on the light-weight body armour, she slipped her arms through the heavy material. It fitted snugly, with enough loose material to fully conceal her body if need be. Next came her lance-carbine, the standard armament of the rank-and-file operative, if there was such a thing, loaded with bandoleers of ceramic lances. What they lacked in stopping power they made up for with their light weight and portability.

She strapped her sidearm to her hip, then slung the heavy kit bag into place on her shoulders. It was choked to the brim with extra gear – glow nodes, a volt gun, spare ammunition, a mono-rig, darksight goggles, stun grenades and her technical gear. Coupled with a small hack module that could break even the most secure systems given sufficient time, she also sported more direct tools: a fusion cutter about the size of a pistol, with a thin, needle-shaped muzzle; an old fashioned, cinder-black screwdriver, a multi-driver that held eight different blades, spanners and lock-picks, and a standard Blink data slate.

Everything she could need, in theory. Somehow, Amber found that hard to believe.

She hefted her carbine, and joined the rest of Hammerhead Squad as they circled up with Darien at the head of the room. Group by group the other squads formed into loose ranks, all dressed identically with their black armour and Chameleon coats, bristling with weapons. She realised another reason why Smith had deployed the most experienced units on the station – she didn't need to see the squad insignias to recognise the people she'd worked with so closely for the past two years.

"Everyone accounted for?" Darien called. One by one the other squad leaders answered in the affirmative. He raised a clenched fist high. "Then fall in on Hammerhead. Time for us to get off this brick."

Half an hour later Amber got her first glimpse of Ravine, and the sight did nothing to calm her nerves. From space she couldn't imagine a more unwelcoming image. An ash-black, lava-scarred orb, it lurked like some kind of baleful portal to a realm of demons and monsters. Through the viewports of the Iron Glacier she watched it drawing closer, and with every kilometre the ship covered the uncomfortable twist in her gut drew tighter.

Out in the void between, she could see the blazing engine flares of the rest of the fleet on approach trajectory, led by the trio of enormous capital ships. The blocky troop transports brought up the rear, flanked by escort destroyers that shepherded them into the battle-zone. An announcement over the ship-wide speakers told them they would be landing in ten minutes. All around them the Glacier's debarkation bay rang with the last clatter of orders as the marine platoons and their vehicles manoeuvred into position. The thirty operatives from Blink had been grouped together, well out of the way of the main deployment, with orders to report directly to Colonel Merlynn upon landing.

Amber stood near the back of the group alongside Hekket, watching, waiting and feeling a the trembling of apprehension in her extremities. Just being around the destructive weaponry of the colonial navy – seeing those ships that she knew could level cities from orbit if they so chose – it terrified her in a very different way than any of her previous missions with Blink.

"You alright?" Hekket asked quietly, noticing her fingers drumming furtively against her carbine.

Amber shrugged, not entirely sure she knew the answer. "Ask me again once we've landed."

"Feels weird, doesn't it, going in with all these gun-thugs?"

"It feels wrong. I didn't join the army, Hekket."

"Me neither," he told her. Then he leaned in close, speaking softly into her ear. "So how about this? We stick together through whatever shit-show we get dropped in down there, okay? Whatever we get asked to do, wherever Darien takes us, you and I are going to get through it in one piece. That's a promise."

A surge of affection welled up in Amber's chest as the words hit home. After casting a swift glance around to make sure no-one was watching, she slipped her hand into his and gave a quick, gentle squeeze.