After spending a year and a half as a Blink operative, Amber knew that when Darien was angry it was not smart to get in his way. So she felt more than a little sorry for the unfortunate port control officer who found himself face to face with the furious Blink squad leader. While he maintained an outward veneer of calm, Darien had a volatile temper sealed away inside, and every now and again he let it slip out.

When the signal had vanished they'd still flown to the last registered co-ordinates to see for themselves. What they found was a whole lot of empty space and some residual energy readings. Something had been there, but Amber couldn't formulate any explanation as to how an entire ship had simply disappeared. Instead, she watched and waited as her companion engaged in a frank exchange of views with the attendant. All around them the chaos of Marnill's primary space port continued on unheeded. A cacophony of shouting voices lay over everything like a blanket of noise.

"I have exactly no time to debate about this. A kid just got abducted because of you slack-draggers," Darien snarled. "So either you show me the planetary sensor logs or get me someone who can."

The man on the receiving end of his ire looked thoroughly uninspired by either course of action. His expression made it clear that he couldn't quite believe the teenager in front of him actually had the authority to ask this of him. But, after checking and rechecking Darien's ID pass the port officer had no choice but to swallow his pride and give in. A few minutes later another man arrived on the scene, an older officer with iron grey hair and a bristling moustache. He held a brief, hushed conversation with his subordinate, and then ushered the two Blink operatives to follow him.

Following in Darien's wake, she could almost feel the waves of anger beating off him. She knew it stemmed from his concern for their potential recruit, but that didn't take away the feeling of apprehension she always felt when her squad leader unleashed his rage. They were led through a series of dull metal corridors beyond the security doors of the main port processing station.

The passages still thronged with activity as men and women in grey overalls trooped past them, talking animatedly, some stopping to acknowledge their chaperone with curt nods and half salutes and others ignoring them completely. The officer accompanying them didn't seem to care either way. On they went, twisting through several other corridors that might have left he average person completely lost. Luckily one of the features that most heavily characterised those with Blink aptitude was an eidetic memory.

Eventually their tour through the warren ended at a large set of double doors with the words 'Operational Control' emblazoned above them in bold black type. The officer punched a code into the panel on the right side of the door which she quickly committed to memory – just in case. Then the doors opened to reveal the nerve centre of Marnill's port control.

Dozens of screens filled the far wall in an outward facing arc, and beyond them through an enormous bowed pane of reinforced glass the expanse of the main spaceport opened out before them.

The room overlooked the barely organised chaos of Marnill's main transit hub: a huge untidy mixing bowl of colonial life. A blizzard of ships came and went; people seethed back and forth aboard loading apparatus and lines of vehicles snaked their way through the mayhem. The rumble of engines penetrated even the thick glass of the operations room.

As the doors slid closed behind them the older officer at last turned to the operatives, looking them up and down with a critical eye.

"My man tells me you're from Blink," he said.

"That's right," Darien replied sharply. "And as I'm sure you're aware, he has already run our security passes three times each."

"He said as much." The man popped a small white capsule into his mouth and crunched down on it, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. "Name's Hank Canton, Port Sergeant, and I don't care who you are. You should be careful about where you go around making demands. Your friend here already violated and overrode half a dozen port controls when she took off to go speeding through the skies over this planet's capital city. If you were anyone else you'd be in a constabulary jail pod right now."

Amber shrugged awkwardly, looking at Darien. There hadn't been time to run through the standard docking clearances so she'd simply ignored them and hacked around the mooring protocols. At the time she hadn't really thought about the fallout.

Darien didn't seem to care. He gave her a mischievous smile and turned to Canton. "You're not going to arrest a Blink Operative on those grounds, friend. Especially since on your watch a girl was just abducted in the middle of the day without so much as a 'whoops' from the port authorities, and we were the ones who actually responded."

"Been to Marnill before, kid?"

"Yes."

Canton snorted derisively. "Then you ought to know that we lose people every day. Maybe if the beloved powers-that-be sent us more than a ransom note every quarter we might be able to tighten up security."

Darien bristled at that. "Look, I'm not here to debate colonial politics with you. I want to see the sensor logs from your planetary docking buoys. These weren't some drug-runners or a bunch of back-street thugs. That girl was targeted by a professional hit-squad with military grade equipment that they slipped through your port somehow."

That seemed to get the sergeant's attention. With a noncommittal grunt he turned and stalked over to the nearest screen where a woman in a set of ill-fitting grey fatigues sat. He leaned in beside her, still chewing on whatever was inside the capsule.

"Henson, bring up the logs for the planet buoys," he said. "Roll me back to...ten-ten-five-seven."

"What's the spread?"

"Full spread – if anything came within a million miles of this rock I want to know about it."

The woman's fingers danced over the controls of her console and a moment later the broad, flat screen flashed up with a display of interlocking red lines, spreading out in arcs away from the central point of Marnill itself. The time counter rolled forward and as it went several dozen blips passed across the screen – some coming, some going. All of them had colonial broadcast beacons identifying them, but after staring at the screen for what felt like an age, Amber spotted the one blip on the radar that they were looking for. It appeared suddenly, arriving just as it had disappeared from her scope during the chase.

"There," she said, tapping Darien on the arm and pointing. "Right on the edge of the buoy ranges."

"What in the hell?" Canton squinted at the screen. "Where'd that thing come from?"

"I'm not sure-,"

"Clean that damn reading up."

"Err..." The woman gave him an apologetic look. "I can't."

"What?"

"It's not a system glitch. That's how that ship reads."

"But that's just a mess! There's no beacon, no drive signature, nothing!"

"That time stamp is well before Indigo was snatched," Darien interjected. "Let it run."

The bewildered port technician complied and the other signals started moving again. However, the barely readable blip on the far rim stayed in its position, skulking right on the furthest edge of the sensors' range. Amber stepped closer, peering up at their mystery guest. Before being inducted into Blink she'd been studying to become a fleet navigator and she still remembered what she'd learned. Aside from the mandatory ID beacons, the make and model of a colonial vessel could be pinned down from its drive signature, its speed, its size and its residual heat – a multitude of factors that meant going completely unnoticed was very difficult. The inhabitants of this ship, however, had found some way to mask all of those things. The readings around it were wildly distorted, like a bubble of confusion that hid its true form from Marnill's planetary buoys.

"What do you think?" Darien asked.

Amber shook her head absently. "I'm not...sure. That distortion – it's too regular to be an accident. It must be some kind of defence mechanism, but I've never seen one like it before. Look at the way it bends – its elliptical. It follows the contours of the ship that's creating it."

"Some kind of tactical cloak, maybe?"

"I guess it's possible." She shrugged. "I'd want to run these logs by the techs at Blink – see if they can identify the energy signature."

They lapsed into silence again as the log continued to run. For a while the mystery ship just sat there doing nothing, but eventually a flurry of movement from the opposite end of the screen showed the chase of just hours before getting underway. The ship they'd been pursuing tore across the screen, broadcasting the colonial ID of a planet fifteen sectors away. Amber had a feeling that would turn out to be a dead end.

"They must have landed here a while ago," Darien said. "When did that ship arrive on Marnill?"

"Nothing in the logs," the attendant replied.

Canton chewed grimly. "Must've scrubbed the ID when they landed and reconfigured the navigational matrix. We might be able to find them if we cross-reference the drive signature and the hull configuration, but they probably used a fake beacon on arrival too."

"So we're back to square one," Amber muttered. "Now what?"

"Bounce that log data for us," Darien told the port officers. "We'll take it to the Blink tech." Then he looked to Sergeant Canton. "And I need you to help us find someone."

*

The district of Marnill that Indigo Farrier had lived in was more run down than anything Amber had ever seen. The exception, not the rule. Darien's words echoed grimly in her head as she walked with him through the cloying heat and jam-packed structures of the Bloc-Dwellings. The soot-black cubes were locked together with clamps, rising up in ugly towers. The whole structure could be taken apart down to each individual bloc – either to be rearranged or moved entirely. It was a coldly practical solution to Marnill's crammed population.

She found herself longing to be back among the open spires and clean air of her home planet. Illuvari was a beacon of civilisation and couldn't have been more different from the High-Belt colony. Everything about this place, from the chemical tang of the air to the seething roughness of its people made her feel unclean.

They made their way onto one of the half dozen plate-lifts that were scattered around the edges of this particular cluster. Stepping onto the circular slab of metal, Amber gripped the handrail while Darien pressed a button on the control panel. Immediately the disc began to rise with a hiss of mechanisms. Up and up they went until they were suspended almost forty metres in the air. The lift stopped, leaving them facing one of the sliding, scarred doors of the Bloc-Dwelling, this one marked with a faded 66-05-78.

"Do you wanna knock?" she asked quietly. Darien made an uncomfortable face and touched two fingers to the dwelling's door tone. A high-pitched hum sounded for a few seconds. They stood waiting and Amber folded her arms, hunching her shoulders awkwardly. There was no small talk to make.

Eventually the door of the dwelling juddered open to reveal a bulky man in a grey tank-top. Burn-scarred, muscular arms protruded from either side of his torso and a thick, dark beard bristled out around his mouth. The top of his head was completely shaven and suspicious grey eyes glared out at them. In one hand he held a heavy length of industrial piping. Amber took an instinctive step backwards, reflexively reaching for the pistol beneath her jacket. Darien caught her arm, not looking at her. He locked eyes with the man.

"Jackson Farrier?"

"Who's askin'?"

Gently releasing his grip on her arm, Darien continued. "My name's Darien Flint. I'm an operative for the Biological Interstellar Navigation Korp – Blink – and this is Operative Garret. We are here regarding your daughter." He spoke slowly and carefully, as though afraid saying the wrong word might flick some switch in this formidable individual's brain.

Jackson Farrier raised an eyebrow, tapping the length of piping against the side of his leg. "Little young t' be secret agents, ain't ya?"

"I get that a lot. But I assure you, I'm telling the truth."

"Can ya prove that?"

"This is my Blink ID." Darien handed the small, holographic card over where it was enveloped in a rock-like fist. Farrier scrutinized it for a long uncomfortable moment, holding it up to the light and turning it back and forth between his index finger and thump. Eventually he made a noncommittal sound and handed the card back. "And what d' ya want with Indigo?"

"We were sent here by Blink to speak with her," Amber said. "She was marked as a potential candidate for the organisation."

Farrier's brow rose at that. "And before ya found her?"

"Someone else got to her first and took her."

"Mr. Farrier, we want to find your daughter," Darien told him.

"At least somebody does." Farrier motioned them inside with a flick of his head. "C'mon then."

He stepped his massive frame back to allow the two operatives passage into the claustrophobic space of the Bloc-Dwelling. Amber's eyes darted around the Spartan furnished abode. She couldn't believe that more than one person had to live in this glorified closet. Her room back home on Illuvari could have fit the whole place with room to spare. The main room and kitchen took up the bulk of the space while tucked in the far corner was a truly tiny bathroom. Two beds lay end to end against the opposite wall; flat, featureless slabs with some rough bedding thrown over them.

She tried to bury the feeling of astonishment, instead smiling with faux gratefulness when Farrier offered them a seat on the long, hard sofa that took up the centre of the room, positioned directly opposite a colonial screen-cast. Presumably both he and his daughter would be too worn out after their long days at the blasting plants to do much else than watch the dross that pervaded the colonial networks day-in and day-out.

Farrier pulled up a seat for himself facing them. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his scarred hands together. "Start talking."

"Do you know much about Blink?"

"I know ye're a shady little group of sneaks. But I know enough to know ya don't kidnap people."

Darien leaned forward. "Blink is a special organisation. We take the best and the brightest, people who stand out. Your daughter was someone who met our requirements."

Farrier let out a short, barking laugh. "My daughter was a sheet-beater, never even been to a proper school."

"It's not about education," Darien replied. "It's about natural aptitude – characteristics. You'll know better than me what your daughter was capable of. Tell me, was there ever anything she couldn't pick up? Have you ever seen her stumped by anything? Have you ever seen anyone who can react like she can? Indigo is a glitch, a one-in-a-billion accident of genetic coding. That makes her special."

"Ya made yer point." The hulking man cast a grim eye over them. "What do ya want t'know?"

"Can you think of anything unusual that happened to you or Indigo recently? Anything at all? Did she run into anyone strange – tell you even the smallest thing that was out of the ordinary?"

"Why?"

"Because," Amber put in softly. "The people who took her had this planned for a long time. This was not random, Mr. Farrier. Someone else targeted your daughter too. The difference is that we would never take someone against their will. She may have noticed something that seemed like nothing at the time, but now..."

"I get it, I get it." He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as though the act of trying to remember caused him physical pain. "I can't...I ain't like her. I forget things. She never did."

"Just try," she urged, feeling a twang in her heart at the sight of this brutish man laid low by the loss of the one thing that seemed to matter to him. "Any strange individuals, anyone watching her; following her home?"

There was a long, painful moment of silence before Farrier opened his eyes.

"Ain't never been somewhere like this, have ya?" he said accusingly.

Taken off guard by the question, her mind drew a blank. Her mouth opened and closed stupidly. Suddenly she felt every one of her seventeen years. Cheeks burning with embarrassment, she shook her head. Marnill was a billion miles from any colonial life she'd known, different in every way to the planet she'd grown up on.

Fortunately his attention shifted back to her companion. "What 'bout you, kid. Seen a place like this?"

Darien leaned back on the sofa, looking Farrier in the eye. He spoke quietly and deliberately. "I grew up on Ravine."

"Huh. Well then ya oughta get this," he replied, nodding approvingly. "My girl, she could handle herself. This place, it crawls with the worst kinda scum. I can't follow her around all my life, so she learned fast. She didn't tell me anythin' like that cos she didn't need to." Farrier paused, considering his words. "Have ya seen what a six kilo sheeter wrench can do to somebody's skull?"

Amber's eyes widened in surprise. "Well...no."

"Well she has. She's done it. She killed some creep stone dead a year ago – scraper thought a little girl would be easy meat. That's the person ye're tryin' to find. I already know it wasn't no knuckle-dragger that got my daughter. If it was, I'd be out on those streets right now lookin' for the rat."

She swallowed hard, glancing at Darien, then down to the floor. For all her experience as a Blink Operative, fighting unnamed horrors in the unexplored corners of the galaxy, it seemed she still had a lot to learn. No-one spoke for what felt like an age. The low hum of Marnill's people filtered dimly through the metal walls of the dwelling. Eventually Jackson Farrier leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh.

"I can't help ya."

Amber didn't know what to say. She pressed her lips tightly together, looking to Darien. After a moment her companion nodded his understanding and motioned for her to follow. She shot gratefully upright, eager to be out of the cloying enclosure – away from the feeling of naivety that Farrier forced upon her. It wasn't until they were back out on the plate-lift that he spoke again.

"Look, kids, I wish I had more for ya, but whoever took my Indigo, I can't follow 'em. You can. Normally there ain't no-one lookin' out for us out here. People get disappeared every day and nobody stops for a second look. Indigo was all I had, and she was stuck here on this shit-heap planet." He took a deep breath, glaring beyond them to the churning lights and noise of Marnill's capital. "If ya can find her, don't bring her back. Take her somewhere better."

Then he stepped back into the Bloc-Dwelling and the door slid shut. Just before he was lost to sight, however, Amber was shocked to see the tears shining in his eyes. Even this heat-blasted slice of purgatory couldn't erase those most basic blood ties. She had little doubt that if Jackson Farrier ever got hold of the people who'd kidnapped his daughter he would tear them to pieces with his bare hands.

As they stepped off the lift and back into the street, she looked to Darien. "What do we do now?"

"Now?" He spoke with anger; with frustration, but above all, determination. "We find that man's daughter, no matter what it takes."

And there was something in his voice that made Amber's blood run cold.