This isn't so bad, Ellie thought. At least no one is chasing us now. All we need to do is fly slowly around these ruins until the computer finds a match. And it's almost fun dodging these old ships. Easy, but fun.

She rolled her ship over and around a particularly large warship, alert for whatever ancient hulk might be drifting beyond the warship but there was nothing. The space before her was empty.

'Um,' she said.

'You okay, Ellie?' asked Tila.

'I think I found something,' said Ellie.

'Can you be a little less cryptic, Ellie?' added Malachi. 'What are you looking at?'

'Just a ship,' she said.

'Can you be more specific? There's like, a thousand ships in here,' said Malachi

'This one is on its own,' Ellie said, 'And I don't think it's damaged. It doesn't look like a warship.'

'Ellie,' said Tila, her impatience transmitting loud and clear through the intercom, 'What have you found?' She banked her own ship around the same large warship Ellie had just passed and fell silent.

To her left was Ellie's Valkyrie, holding a position close to the warship. Above Ellie, Tila saw Malachi slow as he cleared the debris field and saw what Ellie had found.

Ahead of them was a great expanse of nothing. It was like a bubble of space had been hollowed out of the fleet and swept clean of everything, except one giant spacecraft at the centre.

'What is that?' Tila said.

'It's big!' said Ellie.

'I have no idea,' said Malachi.

'Really big,' said Ellie.

'Ellie's right, it doesn't look like warship,' Tila agreed. 'I don't see any guns.'

Malachi pushed forward on his throttle and moved away from the inside wall of the bubble.

'It looks industrial to me, like a factory ship. We could take a closer look.'

'It's not dead' said Ellie 'My computer says it's alive. I mean active.'

'She's right,' confirmed Malachi. 'That ship is operational.'

'But how did it even get here?' asked Ellie. 'If it's not a warship so it's not part of the dead fleet. How did it get trapped at the centre? How did it get here? Where can it go?'

'How did it get here?' Tila repeated. 'Isn't that the question that started all of this?'

'Maybe it's hiding?' suggested Ellie.

'You mean someone is hiding the ship here?' said Malachi.

'She's got a point, Mal. Think about it. Where's the best place to hide a needle? In a haystack or in a bunch of other needles?'

'Is it the ship we're looking for, Mal?' Ellie asked.

'I can't tell. I can't get an IFF match. There's nothing in the way but I can't get a clear reading at this distance.'

'I thought Jayce said these ships were good for scanning,' said Ellie.

'Jayce said a lot of stuff, Ellie,' said Tila.

'He is the reason we're here, you know, Tila.'

'Something's interfering with the scanners,' said Malachi. 'If we got closer—'

'Okay, let's get closer,' said Tila. She pushed her own throttle forward and felt the acceleration press her back into the seat.

'Tila, let's not rush into this.'

'Who's rushing? We came to find something hidden, didn't we? What do you call that? Let's go.'

'Tila, we should look around first, to be careful.'

'Mal, this has to be the place. There's a live ship hiding in the middle of the dead fleet. Why? I'm sick of questions. On that ship are some answers and I want them.'

Tila shut off the comlink and accelerated faster toward the mysterious ship.

Only a moment behind her was Ellie, who quickly matched Tila's course and speed.

Malachi opened a private channel to Ellie.

'Do you think this is a good idea?'

'Oh no,' Ellie replied. 'You coming?'