Chapter 1

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Jack forced his eyes open and looked around at the other shuttle passengers. Most of them were dozing, veterans and new recruits alike. Yawning, he checked the time on his wristpad. Still an hour to go. His eyes drifted to a close.

A shot blasted out from the back of the cabin. Jack's eyes snapped open, all trace of drowsiness gone. Gunfire? On a Starforce shuttle? Instinct took over. In a flash, his seat belt was undone and he was on his feet. His right hand arrowed towards the holster at his hip.

Empty. His plasma pistol was stowed in the shuttle's hold. With a silent curse for Starforce regulations, Jack dropped to his belly and snaked past two empty seats to the end of the row as two more shots rang out.

Easy, now.

He inched his head forward and looked to the rear. One of the Sendaran prisoners of war was stomping over wide-eyed, bewildered passengers to get to the aisle. A motionless PlanCom guard lay face down on the deck. A second guard slid from her seat with excruciating slowness. Unseeing eyes stared from beneath a smoking hole in her forehead.

Next to the dead woman, a middle-aged man tore at his seatbelt with frenzied hands and stumbled into the aisle. A Sendaran, a young woman with close-cropped, blonde hair, paused as she passed. Her expression did not change as she rammed the muzzle of a plasma pistol hard into the side of the man's head and pulled the trigger. Blood pulsed from the wound as the body slumped onto the dead guard. The cabin filled with the acrid reek of burnt flesh.

The Sendaran woman moved with practised ease in the low gravity, barging her way forward along the narrow gangway. Jack's heart seemed to stop beating. Surely he wasn't the only passenger alert enough - stupid enough - to want to know what was happening?

He was. He looked at the faces of the passengers in his line of sight. Blank, dumbfounded, scared. As far as he could tell, he was the only person aboard looking aft. The only one who had moved since the shooting started.

What the hell am I thinking?

Jack squirmed back along the row, slid into a sitting position and fixed his gaze on the back of the seat in front of him. He clutched hard on the armrests, palms slick with sweat. His eyes darted from side to side as two more Sendarans hurtled past. They took up positions at the head of the shuttle's aisles, covering the passengers with their weapons. The third prisoner of war, a hard-faced older man in a colonel's uniform, made straight for the open cockpit.

'Who here speaks our language?' the blonde woman yelled in Sendaran. She scanned the cabin. Jack stole a glance around at the passengers he could see. No response.

'I'll ask one last time.' Her voice cracked as she shouted. 'Then I start shooting. Who speaks our language?'

Jack waited for someone to step forward. The silence stretched out for several seconds. There are senior officers on this shuttle. Surely one of them speaks Sendaran? Transfixed, he watched as, with calculated deliberation, the blonde woman pressed the muzzle of her pistol into the nearest passenger's head. She scanned the cabin with indifferent eyes.

I must be the youngest person aboard, but.somebody has to take a lead here. The Sendaran's trigger finger tightened. Jack pushed aside his doubts and raised a wary hand.

'I do. I speak Sendaran.'

The woman's eyes fastened on him. A quick, taut smile flickered across her face. She gestured with her weapon. 'Out there, boy. Now.' Jack stood, keeping his hands well away from his body. He sidestepped along the row and into the starboard aisle. The POW on this side of the shuttle, a tall man with dark eyes and hair, watched him approach.

'Tell them to put their seatbelts on and their hands on their heads. All of them.' Jack relayed the instruction and the POW gave a grunt of satisfaction as the passengers complied. 'Good. Now sit there, next to the pilot. Eyes to the front.'

Jack squeezed past the pilot, who sat as if frozen to the controls by the weapon jammed into the side of her head. Her white-knuckled hands gripped hard on the control stick.

The Sendaran colonel gave Jack the briefest of glances. 'You. Seatbelt. Hands on head.'

Jack slotted the seatbelt clasp home. Now the only people not strapped in tight are the damned prisoners. Adrenalin surged, prickling his fingertips as he placed his hands on his head.

'Tell her to open up a channel to whoever is in charge of this fleet.' The colonel's voice was soft, but left no room for hesitation. Here was a man who expected to be obeyed. Jack translated the order and the pilot's trembling hands fluttered over the controls.

'Shuttle HG 37, this is M.S. Invincible. Is there a problem?'

The colonel pushed the microphone unit across to Jack. 'Tell them this shuttle is now under the control of the Sendaran Defence Force.'

Jack focussed on keeping the tremor out of his voice as he transmitted the message. There was a long silence on the other end of the comms link as Invincible's signals officer absorbed the news. After what felt like an age, a new voice, this one female, issued from the speaker.

'HG 37, this is Commodore Madalin Navarr. Please confirm your status.'

Jack translated, and then waited, puzzled, as the colonel hesitated for several seconds. Could it be they had no real plan?

The Sendaran looked directly at Jack as he finally spoke. 'Tell her we demand safe passage to the nearest Sendaran base. The hostages will be released once we are safe. Either that or we crash this shuttle into the ship we just left and everybody aboard dies. Tell this commodore the choice is hers.' Jack thumbed the comms switch and relayed the message.

Another prolonged silence followed.

'Tell them again.' The Sendaran's voice held the first hints of strain. Jack began to repeat the message. At his side, the pilot's breathing grew ragged. She dissolved into sobs.

'And tell her to shut up.' The colonel ground the pistol harder into the pilot's temple. Before Jack could say anything, the last shred of her self-control snapped. He turned his head to see her push the colonel's pistol aside, then claw at her seatbelt clasp.

With an exasperated sigh, the colonel reversed his grip on his pistol and slammed the butt hard into the base of her skull. She slumped forward with no more than a sharp intake of breath. Jack forced himself to sit in silence as a hot surge of anger pushed him to the edge of a reckless, futile response. It would be pointless to expose himself to the same treatment - or worse. The colonel turned away from the pilot and shoved the pistol hard into the angle of Jack's jaw.

'I hope you know how to fly this thing.'

Beads of sweat break out on Jack's forehead. He gave a slow nod and grabbed the co-pilot's control stick. His hands shook with both fear and rage. He scanned the unfamiliar displays without speaking. He could pilot the shuttle at a push. How hard could it be?

He continued with the message to Invincible. This time the reply was immediate.

'HG 37, we will comply with your request. We are transmitting destination co-ordinates to you now. You will see your escort ships shortly.'

Jack relayed the message to the colonel as the comms console lit up with the new co-ordinates. At the same moment several starfighters swept into view. Jack studied the Stingers through the cockpit permaglass. Eight of them - sleek engines of death that gleamed silver and black.

'No escorts!' the colonel jabbed him hard with the pistol. 'Tell them!'

Jack could see his point. There was no way those starfighters were here to play escort. He relayed the instruction and the Stingers slid out of view. Whether they had returned to Invincible was impossible to know. Jack doubted it. He stared out into the blackness of space. The star Adistra dominated the view, by far the most brilliant object to be seen. He grasped the co-pilot's control stick only to realise he had no idea of their course.

'Wait,' said the colonel. 'We use these co-ordinates.' He leant across Jack and tapped in a new sequence of numbers with his free hand, all the while keeping up the pressure of the pistol on Jack's jaw. Jack frowned in puzzlement. These were co-ordinates for a very short trip. It made no sense. Then again, maybe the Sendarans were trying to conceal their destination. Most likely they planned to input a series of small hops, rather than set a direct course for whatever refuge they had in mind.

A charged silence filled the shuttle cabin for the next several minutes. Jack concentrated on assessing the situation. The lack of any further action or communication reinforced his suspicion that the prisoners had...