Day Four

3.

Nick was conscious for all of it.

He'd hit the brace button almost before the Captain had finished saying it the first time, the tear-away panel already on the floor beside his launch chair. This was not how things were supposed to have gone down, but the moment the gravity had turned off, he'd had a feeling things were going awry. When the radiation alarms had sounded, he decided he'd been fucked.

Even strapped down, padded with pneumatics and wrapped tight in the brace mesh, the first impact had been horrific. Nick had been sure it was the end right there and then. Then, miraculously, the gravpads had whined back into life. Even with the 3G leeway to smooth things out, the next impact rattled his bones and made his head feel as if his brain was slamming into his skull. It seemed to go on forever - jarring hits punctuated by terrifying pauses where he knew another impact was coming. Then the skin of the ship was screaming as it dragged along the ground and Nick was sure it would never end. This was his life now - being trapped in the dark with the roaring, metal shrieks of the ship he'd helped to kill.

It did stop, eventually. What replaced it was a silence broken only by the ticking sound of something, somewhere cooling down. He could smell the acrid smoke of electrical burning and suddenly gripped with the image of being burned alive in his cocoon, Nick struggled under the brace webbing, trying to find the release ripcord.

By the time he found it and the webbing fell away, Nick could hear moaning from some of the other passengers. Small systems lights blinked away in mute distress somewhere in the darkness of the lounge. He groped at his straps, hitting the release button and tried to get out of his slowly deflating chair, feeling like a fat turtle that had been put on its back.

"Oh go-od," someone on his left.

Nick flailed and flopped out of his chair. His legs wobbled and he had to clutch the chair to stay on his feet. He hurt all over, but the headache seemed to be the worst of it. Once he was steady, pocket-hunted for his datapad, muttering, "Be okay, be okay, don't be broken."

There was another guttural moan, interrupted by a shriek and the sound of moving material as another batch of webbing was released.

Nick's pad was unbroken. He unlocked it and opened the EyeSpy settings, turning it on and feeling the reassuring grip of the EyeSpy jitter-dampeners on his eyeballs. He flicked on night-vision and suddenly he could see again - albeit in greyscale.

He panned the lounge, seeing most of the occupied chairs still covered in webbing. Some of the webbing was bulging with faint movement. There was a short woman on his left getting out of her chair with no more grace than he had managed. She had one hand wrapped around her middle protectively, her hair coming out of a ponytail and falling over her face in sweaty strings.

Three unwebbed chairs had people in them. Two were either dead or unconscious. One was gasping air in uneven hauls and staring ahead bug-eyed. On the far side of the lounge, three people were tangled together in a heap of unlikely angles. He turned back to film the woman on his left who was bent over and dry-retching.

He sympathised - he felt a little like puking himself. Like all his bones were fractured glass and his insides had been liquefied. He was filming, though and filming always put him at one removed, from the situation and from himself.

The woman stopped gagging and croaked out, "Controller, lights."

Nothing happened and she tried again, "Controller - lights. Controller, respond," she looked up and around at what to her would be almost total darkness, "Well, fuck."

She turned and Nick saw the ID stitched to her overalls; Andrea Ursler 4LMG. She looked young so Nick took a chance on the term of address and said, "Miss Ursler, that em on your ID, are you a doctor?"

She jerked around, groaning and massaging her midriff again, "What? Yes. Well... sort of. Not really. Who are you?"

"Name's Nick - journalist. I have an EyeSpy with nightvision so I can see a bit. There are people hurt, do you have a medical bag or anything? What do you mean 'not really?'"

"Ugh. There's a bag strapped to my launch chair, but -" she hit the chair next to her with a fist, "This isn't mine, it was just the closest when the gravity went out. Don't run that EyeSpy too long, you'll wreck your eyes."

"Right," Nick started looking around for the bag, moving gingerly as his own innards complained, "And 'not really?"

"Ah, well - I'm only Green."

"And so?"

"And so I'm still a student. I'm going to intern with Doctor Kacza on the platform."

"Not today, you're not."

Two or three more brace meshes zipped away and there were more sounds of movement and distress. Nick tried to speed up his search and tottering around another launch chair he saw one with a bag strapped to it emblazoned with both the 4L logo and a caduceus, because like most companies, 4L thought it 'looked better' than a Rod of Asclepius. Nick had always thought the medical penchant for using ancient religious symbols was weird, no matter which one they used. Why didn't they have a string of DNA on their bags, or something?

"You see it, Nick?"

"Yeah, yeah," he shook himself out of his chain of irrelevancies and crouched to unstrap the back, adding his own groans to the growing chorus around him.

There was more light now, people getting up and using their datapad screens to illuminate the surroundings. A couple of people were crying, but most of them were keeping their distress muted. After a wrestle with the strapping, Nick got the bag free and grunting and huffing, brought it over to Andrea, who was looking at the ruins of her own datapad - an A4 medical model - that had snapped in half.

Nick dropped the bag at her feet and said, "There's some people tangled up at the end. I think they might be dead, but you should check."

Her mouth twisted unhappily, her eyes huge in the gloom. She looked like a kid. Hell, she probably still was a kid and Nick felt like a very old and ugly bastard as he asked, "Are you the only medic on this ship?"

She swallowed, nodded and said, "The only one in this lounge anyway. Show me where they are. Can I use your pad for light?"
            Nick took her upper arm and started guiding her towards the bodies heaped together. He had no intention of giving up his pad to be used as a torch, so he nudged one of those who already were lighting up the area with their pad as they passed, "Hey, give her some of that light, she's a doctor."

"Medical student! I'm just a medical student."

He transferred her to the care of the man with the light source and stepped away, not wanting to be involved. As the number of pads being lit up increased he turned off the nightvision and filmed for a few minutes, trying to immerse himself in the work. Trying not to think.

He watched people feeling themselves over, working out how hurt they were and how bad the situation was. Radiation was checked - high, but not 'holy shit' for now, it seemed. Andrea moved from person to person, staying with some longer than others and she still looked like some frightened kid being made to play doctor at gunpoint. The people in the heap were all dead. One of the people in the un-webbed chairs was dead too. Broken neck. The other two unwebbed passengers had broken limbs and possible internal injuries.

You did this.

No. No he fucking hadn't. Jackson had told him that the shuttle was going to make an unscheduled landing - a landing - and be unable to take off again for a couple of days so that they'd be forced to explore for supplies and he could film what they found. This was not his fault. All he'd done was plant a signal booster. A signal booster. It was supposed to be a landing.

He checked his pad, hoping in vain that Jackson, or some other arsehole had got in touch with an explanation, or reassurance for a rescue - but there was nothing to see. All feeds were down. He'd never been anywhere where all feeds were down before.

There was a light beeping noise, a hydraulic hum and the door to the lounge ground open, one door squealing metal on metal as it opened.

Captain Sumner stepped into the lounge, industrial torch in one hand, a large bag in the other. She was wearing a pressure suit, with the helmet hooked to her belt, air-lines dangling.

Captain Sumner shone the torch across the lounge, her expression not showing any sign of distress, or dismay as she saw what Nick had been seeing. She dropped the bag near the door, "Medic, I've brought what first aid supplies we have. Also some water, more torches and some spare oxygen canisters for the emergency masks, just in case. My pilot's broken his arm - when you have time, go up to the cockpit and see to him."

Andrea looked up from her latest patient like a bunny in headlights, "Yes, Captain."

Sumner glanced towards the tangled heap of dead people, "How bad is it?"

Andrea sniffed wetly, her voice a wobbly contrast to the Captain's iron-steady tone, "Uhm. Four dead. Three... no, four broken arms. A broken leg. Possible internal injuries on a couple of people... it's hard for me to tell. Everyone's got headaches. My pad got broken..." this last said almost in a whisper.

Captain Sumner's torch dipped slightly to the ID patch on Andrea's chest. Sumner crossed over to her, bending to speak face to face quietly, putting one hand on the girl's shoulder as she did so.

It was a great shot and Nick sidled slowly around in an attempt to see Sumner's lips so that the software could subtitle what she might be saying. The Captain was annoyingly brief and all he caught on the subtitle layer was 'simulation' - then Sumner stood straight and snapped her fingers, holding out a hand, "Someone give me their pad for the medic to use."

There was a pause and Sumner near-shouted, "Now!"

Several people twitched and brought their pads back into plain view. The man who had been holding the light for Andrea handed his over, saying, "All the feeds are down anyway."

Sumner took the pad without a thank you and got out her own, touching the pads together and thumbing a keypad. Then she passed the man's pad to Andrea and said, "The red icon is an emergency radio frequency. Use it to contact me if you really need to. The green icon is for the internal doors. You may need to manually pump the hydraulics, do you know how to do that?"

Andrea looked blank, but the man who'd given up his pad said, "I do."

Sumner considered him and his ID, "Then you're her assistant for the duration of this emergency, Mister Pemberton."

"Alright."

The redhead executive that had been haranguing the Captain just before the gravpads went out, stepped up and asked, "Are you going to tell us what's going on now?"

"I'll tell you what I know," said Sumner, "But it will have to be brief, I still have two passengers and one crew member unaccounted for."

"Are we in immediate danger?"

"No. We still have hull integrity and we were able to restore basic functions, such as gravpads, shielding, air scrubbing."

"When will the rescue ships get here?"

Sumner's jaw tensed a little, "Unknown."

The executive asked with more annoyance, "How did this happen?"

"Everything points to sabotage," said Sumner, "Before we lost contact, our technician seemed sure someone had tampered with the controller."

"Sabotage?"

"I should be interested if you have any idea why someone would sabotage my ship, because it's a mystery to me."

Eleanor shook her head, frowning, "Why would I know?"

Captain Sumner shrugged, "Once damage has been assessed, I should like the assistance of 4L staff to perform any repairs possible in our present situation - are you prepared to authorise the work, Executive Courtenay?"

Executive Courtenay folded her arms and scowled, "Of course I am. It's the only way I'll find out for sure what's going on, it seems."

Sumner turned her attention to Nick, "You. Come with me."

Nick tried stop the instant rush of guilt from showing on his face, "Me?"

Sumner didn't bother clarifying, just staked back through the doorway, pausing to stare expectantly at him at the threshold.

Nick exhaled and thumbed off the EyeSpy before pocketing his pad. He didn't want whatever she was going to say on digital record.

He followed her down a dark corridor, nothing but Sumner's torch to light the way. The pace was uncomfortably brisk, but Nick did not complain. He was too busy trying to gauge how suspicious she was and what he ought to say. She'd found him in the cargo bay before launch, after all. The signal booster would still be there, if the impact hadn't knocked it loose.

He chewed his lower lip. He could say he was looking for signs of sabotage - that he'd had a tip off. It's not like this was his fault - he'd been misled. He was as much a victim as anyone here.

As they neared what Nick thought was the rear of the ship, Captain Sumner paused, turning to stare at him.

Nick was breathing a little heavy from the pace she'd set and he frowned at her, knowing he was all red-faced and sweaty - seeing that she was not, "What?"

"Mister Mitcham, if you know anything about what has happened to this ship and assist me in rectifying the situation, I may be moved to speak well of you when the rescue vessels arrive."

She took half a step closer, looking down at him - which made Nick realise she had at least an inch and a half on him. She said, "If I later discover you had a part in this and you did not assist me... I. Will. End. You."

Nick kept his frown, long unimpressed by empty threats. If he confessed to anything related to corporate sabotage on this scale - not that this was his fault - he'd be lucky not to end up in a batch of controllers himself no matter what a shuttle captain had to say on the matter.

He said, "I had nothing to do with this and if you threaten me again, I will report it."

They glared at each other for what seemed like forever. Then, snorting, Sumner turned on her heel and resumed her stalk through the corridors.

Nick exhaled. After a moment he followed again.

She led him to what he assumed was the control room. There was a dustlock to go through, although it wasn't working beyond whining open in a lacklustre fashion and puffing a miniscule breath of air at them. On the other side, they both hesitated. Nick paused because he saw blood - a lot of it. It was spread in great smears and splodges on the floor, two walls and the ceiling.

He followed Sumner around a large, formerly white console that had smoking input panels and smelled like burning bacon. The ship's technician was in a heap on the floor behind it, half her head crushed in and both legs bending in unnatural directions.

Nick's foot hit something and he looked down to see the line for a cutter. He followed the line around and found the cutting torch still burning, uselessly cutting a trench in the floor panels. He turned it off, keeping his distance from the captain, who was crouched down beside the technician, feeling for a pulse. He didn't think she was going to find one.

As a distraction, he started searching the room, seeing a panel in the central console that had been three quarter's cut around - one corner bent outwards where the tech had clearly tried to pull it open despite the cut not being finished. The burnt bacon smell was stronger and when Nick used his pad to shine some light inside the hole, all he could see was crisped wafers and delivery lines. At first he thought the cutter must have burnt them, but with a little more attention, he noticed the worst of the damage was too far from the cut line for that. It had burned for other reasons.

He found nothing else that seemed interesting and he went back to the body cautiously. Sumner was still crouched beside it, but now she was looking at something on the tech's pad - the screen was cracked, but still illuminated.

After a few minutes, Sumner stuffed the cracked pad into an inside pocket in her pressure suit and she said quietly, "I owe you an apology, Mister Mitcham."

Nick raised an eyebrow, "Oh?"

She pressed her lips together, looking at the body, rather than him, "It seems my technician took payment in return for giving the controller some new protocols. She left a confession on her pad. She didn't expect it to crash the ship, or kill her controller - but she took the credits and slotted a foreign wafer pack anyway."

Nick felt a heady - if dirty - rush of relief. Here was someone far more responsible than he was - and she'd had the decency to take the fall before she died. Out of gratitude, he said, "I think she tried to fix it. She was trying to cut the panel open right to the end - the cutter was still on."

Captain Sumner stood up, her face like stone, "My ship is disabled and at least four of my passengers are dead. She's lucky the crash killed her."

Sumner walked past him, heading back to the dustlock, "I need to find my last two passengers."

Nick looked at her back, then to the body, then back to Sumner again. He was off the hook, it seemed, but he still didn't think it was safe to try and retrieve the signal booster just yet. Instead, he thumbed his pad and turned the EyeSpy back on, feeling his headache roar into fresh life as it tensed muscles. He hurried after Sumner so he could capture either the rescue, or the discovery of the two missing passengers. He could get better shots of the control room when they got the lights back on.

Day Two and Three

2.

Shuttle Qentiga was never going to win any beauty competitions. With the exception of some luxury fittings for the executive suits, she was a ruthlessly practical beast and with all the animated advertising slathered on her thick hide, she most closely resembled a skip dipped in glitter.

Captain Sumner suffered the looks of incredulous disdain on the faces of first time passengers with stoic indifference. If they were boarding, she already had their credits. Today, she'd seen aboard sixteen 4L platform staff - always prompt boarders, they didn't want to be fined by their company. The three 4L executives had boarded rather later, one of them already drunk. Now she was just waiting for the last one, a late addition to the passenger list.

Sumner had heard of Nicholas Mitcham and had even seen a few of his reports on the contract infractions war. She hadn't liked him then, she didn't expect to like him now and she checked the time on her datapad, fully expecting him to be the one that cost everyone the delayed departure fee.

As it turned out, he made it to the shuttle twenty minutes before departure. She didn't recognise him, at first. The lithe reporter in combat fatigues who had graced the newsfeeds more than a decade ago, had been replaced by a fat, middle-aged man in baggy comfort-wear. He rolled out of the auto-cart that had brought him and his luggage out to the launch pad and shouldered his bag with a grunt, casting his gaze over the ship and smirking in a way that did not improve Sumner's opinion of him.

He made his way up the boarding ramp and presented his datapad, "Captain Sumner? I'm Nick Mitcham - journalist. Four El commissioned me to shoot some footage of the approach to Luna Seventeen for a promo. You were told, I hope?"

Sumner scanned his pad with her own, checking the handshake for his pass and that the credits had been transferred before she said, "At one o-clock this morning, yes. As I told Executive Clark, you may not shoot your footage from the cockpit - we can, however, provide you a good view from your suite which is on the approach side."

He smiled, canting his head to one side slightly, "I'm sure that will be fine."

She passed his pad back and gestured to the doorway, "Follow the gold line for the executive suits, you're in number three. I suggest you stow your bag and take your seat in the lounge without delay, we launch in ..." she checked her pad, "Approximately seventeen minutes, forty seconds. There is a significant penalty fee for launch delay and the chartering companies are in the habit of charging the individuals responsible."

"Well then, can't have that. I'll just splash some water on my face and be along to the lounge directly."

He gave her another smile that was trying too hard to be charming and Sumner stared him down until it faltered off his face and he got moving. Once he was inside, she sent the ramp on its way back to the terminal, went in and sealed the airlock, check-listing the indicators on her pad before stalking her way up to the cockpit.

The cockpit was a three-seater. Room for a pilot, co pilot and flight engineer. Qentiga only needed a pilot to fly, but Sumner had chosen this model purely for the extra room it afforded for monitoring feeds.

She dropped into the co-pilot's seat and asked the pilot, "Dawud, how are we looking?"

Dawud was concentrating on his comms screen, punching buttons, "We've had a course change, Captain. Came in a couple of minutes ago - authorisation checks out. They want us to go Darkside and come in from the east."

"I thought Darkside was off limits to franchise traffic?"

"They've given us a tunnel through it - something to do with a radiation flare in the main shipping lanes."

Sumner frowned, "I wish LTC would find a system that works and stick with it. Who's paying for the extra fuel?"

Dawud glanced over and flashed a grin, "Good thing you're sitting down already - the company's paying for it. They've given us a ticket we can redeem at the platform, they'll refuel us there."

"There's our luck for the day," Sumner reached up and hit the intercom, switching to the control room digifeed, "Casey, how's the controller?"

There was a moment of silence, then Casey came into view, her hair in the sort of disarray that suggested she'd been crawling around in the maintenance ducts, "Controller's green across the board. Gave it extra glucose on feed line A. Worked that micro delay right out."

"Launch in approximately thirteen minutes, can you get up here and help Dawud with the pre-flight?"

"Yes, Captain."

Sumner closed the feed and started flicking through the other channels, seeing that at least four of her passengers were still faffing about in their quarters instead of taking seats in the launch lounge. She sighed and got out of her seat, "Every damn time."

With the controller playing automated get-in-your-launch-seat messages with increasing frequency, Captain Sumner chased down the strays and herded them into the launch lounge, not at all surprised to find that the journalist was poking around in cargo, claiming to be 'looking for the bar'. He was probably looking for an angle - the freelancers always were - and she wondered if it would be possible to 'lose' him at the platform before the return run. That would almost be worth the penalty.

After making sure they were all secured and with less than a minute to spare, she made it back to the cockpit to strap herself in. Casey was already in the bucket seat behind Dawud. She was bent over the controller output screen with that peculiar intensity common to 4L technicians, who took a drug that speeded up their perception of time, leaving them living in a world where everyone and everything around them moved in slow motion. 4L techs blinked one eye at a time so that they could see the controller output on their screens without missing a nanosecond, which was important, because despite Dawud's skill as a pilot, it was the controller that trimmed the engines, managed the grav pads and both monitored and operated life support and radiation levels.

"Status?" asked Sumner.

"All green," said Casey.

Flicking switches over his head, Dawud said, "All is well. Permission to launch, Captain?"

With one last look at her own screens to make sure everyone was still strapped down, Sumner said, "Permission granted."

Dawud dialled the comm and flicked the switch, "E-T-C, this is A-R-K Qentiga. Confirm clearance for departure on six, nine, eighty to Luna Darkside fifteen, seven, eight."

Confirmed A-R-K Qentiga, you are cleared to proceed. You have a lane to eighteen thousand metres at six, nine, eighty - hold there for further clearance from L-T-C, confirm."

"Confirmed, control, clear to eighteen thousand metres at six, nine, eighty and hold."

Safe flight, Qentiga. E-T-C out.

As Dawud set things into motion, the dispassionate and androgynous 'voice' of the controller echoed through the shuttle.

Final launch warning. Please ensure you are in your pressure chairs and secured. Launch in ten... nine... eight..."

Sumner wiggled her shoulders more securely into the back of her chair and watched the digifeeds showing the launch lounge, where her passengers were strapped down. Their expressions ranged from the lady who had fallen asleep, to the white-knuckled terror of the drunk exec, who had been warned to launch with his head turned to the side in case he vomited and choked to death. The journalist looked nervous too, but was much better at keeping it in check. Sumner was faintly surprised - she expected a man like that to have almost as many launches under his belt as she did.

...two... one. Launch.

There was a subtle vertigo from the gravpads ramping up in an attempt to compensate for the launch. The acceleration quickly overwhelming gravpad capabilities. Pressure chair pneumatics hissed and gasped. A couple of the passengers could be heard wailing over the feed as the pressure mounted, crushing them into their chairs until they looked like stick men in marshmallows. As Qentiga reached her speed, the pressure eased off more gradually than it had been applied until the gravpads were in control again, rubber-banding them back to 1G.

Sumner was happy to see that the drunk exec had managed not to vomit all over her launch lounge and she unbuckled her straps to see to the more tiresome business of making sure the execs were kept happy for the duration of the flight.

"Casey, when we reach LTC space, tell the controller to blank the viewports. That reporter doesn't have clearance to film anything but the flight approach to Lunar Seventeen and he's probably fitted with an EyeSpy."

"Yes, Captain."

"Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't stipulate that when they changed the route - I suppose we'll just be going over rock and covered facilities?"

Dawud shrugged.

Casey said, "I'll let you know if the controller sees anything interesting."

There were complaints about the blanked viewports - from the executives of course - but not from the journalist, which was more of a surprise. Aside from that, the flight out of Earth's atmosphere was uneventful and Captain Sumner went through her routines of safety checks and passenger management almost on automatics. She had found that passengers, far from being wild cards in the shuttle business, were very predictable once you got to learn their ways. They fell into categories and she'd developed techniques for dealing with each type.

She'd expected to have to keep herding the journalist away from areas of the shuttle off-limits to passengers, but after his initial wander he stayed in his launch seat, unstrapped, but otherwise unmoving, all of his attention on his datapad. Sumner even went so far as to ask Casey if he was transmitting or receiving anything on the pad using the 4LBk encryption, but Casey told her all he seemed to be doing was compulsively checking his mail and occasionally checking the 4L news feeds - all on standard encryption.

She was interrupted from her suspicious scrutiny of the journalist by one of the execs - not the drunk, who had retreated to his suit, but a woman in a sharp suit with artfully cascading red hair, which had come through the launch almost untouched.

"Excuse me, Captain? I'm Eleanor Courtenay, Four el ee ar - I have some questions about this ship."

Sumner lifted her chin, "Ma'am?"

"I couldn't help but notice that all the ground staff referred to your ship as Ark Qentiga, instead of Four El Qentiga. Why is that?"

Sumner internally sighed, sensing more than a whiff of corporate outrage brewing, "The ship's full name is A-R-K Four El Qentiga, but all traffic control care about are the ship's manufacturing origins. A-R-K is the traffic designation for Aratek ships."

The exec stiffened almost imperceptibly, "But the controller is Four El. The controller talks to traffic control, yes?"

"Yes, ma'am, but the controller transmits Aratek engine codes to traffic and our silhouette is Aratek. Also, most of our traffic control communications are confirmed by an Aratek pilot."

"But you're flying Four El personnel to Four El facilities!"

"We are fully licensed to serve with and for a number of corporations and Four El Engineering is our biggest customer - however, none of that helps traffic control recognise our ship, which is of Aratek make."

Grasping the sheer lack of importance of 4L components to traffic control seemed to be beyond the woman. Captain Sumner resigned herself to paraphrasing exactly the same information until the exec grew annoyed enough to threaten to report the 'incident', which would provide the opportunity to distract her with contact information and complaint forms, all of which could be explained at a later date to hopefully more sensible people.

Eleanor wagged a finger, "I think the chief executive of resource management would be very interested to hear about the sidelining of our brand identity. In fact -"

The gravpads above and below them made a slightly distressed whining noise and then Sumner, Eleanor and everyone else in the room started to hover off the floor as the gravity cut out.

Captain Sumner grabbed hold of the nearest launch chair and then took hold of Eleanor's sleeve to stop her from drifting further. She raised her voice, "Everyone return to your launch chairs - make small and careful movements. If you need assistance I will help, if you are patient. Do not try to 'fly' around the room, the gravity could come back on at any moment."

Several of the platform staff aborted their grinning attempts to head ceiling-ward with some panicky arm-flailing in the direction of the nearest solid object. One of them was already too far up and was swearing up a storm.

"Well honestly," said Eleanor in tones of high disgust, "I can see I'll have more than one thing to report."

Sumner steered Eleanor's hand to the launch chair she was holding onto and said, "Yes, Ma'am. Please, strap yourself in."

"You advertise with 'when you can't afford mistakes', don't you? I wonder what the regulator's would make of that piece of misinformation?"

"Strap yourself in, Ma'am."

When she was sure the exec was going to do as she was asked, Sumner pointed at the idiot flailing about on the ceiling and said, "Stay still! I'll come up and get you."

While she was kicking off gently to glide to the idiot, Sumner pinched the comm. button on her collar and cut off the alarm bleeping away in her earpiece, "Dawud, report."

"It's the controller. It's shut down half of its systems, shall I switch to manual life support?"

Sumner reached the ceiling and with her free hand grabbed the belt of the floating staffer and used one boot against the ceiling to carefully alter their trajectory to the lounge floor, "Yes, do that and confirm when it's green. Casey, report."

Casey came over the comm, sounding uncharacteristically excited, "Controller's not talking, Captain. Trying to ascertain why."

"Get a move on. I want a shipwide sixty second warning before the grav pads come back on, make sure I get it."

"I'll try."

Sumner frowned, letting go of the comm button, but keeping the channel open. She focused her attention on making sure the rest of the staff were down and buckling in now she'd brought the flier back to a chair. She wanted to say a good deal more in stronger language, but she didn't want her passengers to hear it. Besides, she still had two stray executives to secure and she only knew for sure where one of them was.

Before she was all the way out of the lounge another alarm sounded - this one over the shipwide speakers. It was the radiation alarm and she heard some of the staff groaning. Most of them were very familiar with radiation alarms and what they meant.

Sumner called back into the lounge, "Stay secured!"

Eleanor shouted, "What's going on, Captain?"

"We have a malfunction - as soon as I have more details they will be announced over the comms. Until then, all passengers must remain secured for their own safety."

"You know more than you're telling us! I demand-"

Sumner cut her off by closing the lounge door. She ripped off the tear-away panel by the door and punched in the lockdown code, sealing the lounge to anyone who didn't have a crew identifier on their datapad. Before she was done, the radiation alarm stopped.

She pinched the comm. again and said, "Dawud - make reassuring noises to the passengers if you get a chance."

She checked her pad, trying to get access to the monitors so she could verify the two missing execs were in their respective suits, but the controller managed the ship's intrafeed and she couldn't get into anything.

Over the shipwide speakers, Dawud said, "Ladies and gentleman, this is your pilot speaking. We have switched to manual radiation management for the time being and expect the grav pads to be restored shortly. In the meantime, please remain secured and await further instructions."

Dawud's message played on repeat in five-minute intervals. Captain Sumner found the drunk executive floating around in his bathroom, covered in sick. She gave him a towel to wipe the worst off and carefully manoeuvred the weeping man to the suit's bed and tucked him in tight, telling him not to get up until the all clear.

The other exec - a small and weasel-like fellow who looked as if he overdid his own corporate drug usage - wasn't in his quarters.

Sumner got back on the comm. "Casey, report. Also, if either of you know where Excutive Mateu is, let me know immediately."

There was no immediate answer of any kind and Sumner was about to ask for Casey again, when Casey came on the feed, "Captain... the controller's ignoring every soft command sent to it. I tried to get into the controller housing to hard command and it won't even open the panel, I'm going to have to cut my way in."

Sumner frowned, "What are you telling me, Casey? Has it gone rogue?"

"I don't think so - it's never shown any signs of instability and the way it's acting now... I think it's just running a new set of protocols," a faint static breeze clouded the feed, only audible when Casey stopped talking. The static was radiation, meaning Dawud wasn't keeping the shielding to the standard it ought to be at.

After a pause, Casey said, "Captain, I think we've been sabotaged."

Sumner paused in her slow progress down a corridor, pulling herself along by any handhold she could get and fighting the urge to increase her momentum. Who the hell would sabotage a shuttle on what was, basically, a very small crew run? They weren't even hauling cargo. Personal vendetta? She didn't think she had any rivals who rated her highly enough to perform this level of crime.

She shook her head and re-focused on the task at hand. Didn't matter why right now. All that mattered was how and what systems.

An answer of sorts to the second question came over the comms a moment later as Dawud said, "I've lost control of the engines and we're being steered down to the Darkside a lot faster than I'd like, I need some help up here."

Sumner said, "I've lost Executive Mateu, he's probably not secured."

"Captain, you're going to lose more than one if we touch down at this velocity."

"Right," Sumner changed direction, speeding up despite the risk if the gravpads came back on without warning, "Casey, you get into that controller and cut its link to the ship. I don't care how you do it."

"Yes, Captain. I... yes."

Sumner made it to the cockpit in less than seven minutes, hauling along almost recklessly and pulling more than one muscle yanking herself from one trajectory to another. Once she was there, she heard the radiation alarm again - evidently just cut off from the shipwide broadcast. There were all manner of other alarms going off too and the panels were festive with flashing lights. Dawud's hands were flying over his console as he fought for control.

Getting into the co-pilot's seat and strapping in, Sumner raised her voice to be heard over the wooping and buzzing alarms, "Dawud? What do you need?"
            He didn't look away from his task, his voice only slightly tighter than usual, "If you can keep trying to power down the engines, I'll see if there's a way I can use the test routines to re-align them. Until Casey gets that thing out of my systems, our best option is to try to redirect into space."

Even as she started to do as he had asked, Sumner said, "I don't much like the idea of spinning out - we're tight on fuel thanks to that route change."

"We'll catch some more rads and we'd have to sit out there for a few days before we can be tugged in, but it beats hitting solid ground."

"What are LTC saying?"

Dawud did snatch a glance her way then, the depth of his concern clear in his eyes, even if his tone was still only a notch up from professional boredom, "Nothing. We're deaf and dumb outside this ship. I can't even tell if the transponder's replying to them anymore."

Sabotage. There was no doubt in Captain Sumner's mind on that matter now. While she battled with the engine shut-offs - about as effective as hitting them with a pillow, presently - she opened comms to the controller room on the main panel.

"Casey, any news?"

"If I find out who did this to my controller, I'll kill them!"

Unlike Dawud, Casey's voice was high-emotion. She almost sounded hysterical. Sumner said, "Keep it together, Casey - report."

After a short patch of nothing more than the fuzz and static of radiation, Casey said, "It's dying. We're losing it."

"I didn't ask you to save it, just get it out of my ship's systems."

"If it dies, the ship's dead anyway, it's blown and fused so much..."

"Casey! If we can't stop the engines, we're going to crash. Better to drift in than power in. Get it done."

The pause was longer this time, the static broken only by Casey's laboured breathing and what sounded suspiciously like a sob before Casey said, "Yes, Captain."

The feed cut off - killed at Casey's end.

Another alarm started up, this one a recorded woman's voice that stated with firm, repetitive urgency, Pull up - terrain. Pull up - terrain. Pull up - terrain.

Sumner looked out cockpit window, seeing a lot of dark grey - twilight on the Darkside, a mess of jagged-edged craters and some low domes that barely stood out amongst the surface. It was all going past very fast. She realised her innards weren't floating anymore. Not 1G, not the gravpads - but the Moon's gravity taking hold.

"Dawud..."

Dawud was still flicking switches at a furious pace and he said, "Don't worry, Captain. Casey will get it offline any second," he paused mid-switch and then added, "Inshallah."

And with that expression of doubt, Sumner knew that Dawud believed they were going to crash.

She believed it too and she switched comms back to shipwide, shouting over the alarms, "Brace for impact! Brace! Brace! Bra-"

The Qentiga clipped the edge of a crater and tumbled. The engines were still running and for a moment it spluttered upward again in a twisting rotation, like a Catherine wheel torn free of its pin. Then the engines finally cut out and the Moon's embrace brought it back down. The Qentiga landed aft-first, tumbled again two or three times kicking off the surface, then bellied down and gouged a rut into the surface for more than three miles before it slowed and fetched up on its side on the slope of another crater. Dust and smoke enshrouded it and the twilight grew imperceptibly darker.

Day One

Qentiga

1.

Monkey Crocodile Temple was one of many nightclubs that had re-invented itself to cater exclusively to the Aztec Band craze. A two-story rectangle of concrete covered in garish paint and rippling with capering animations of stylised animals and the sort of old gods who demanded blood.

Nicholas Mitcham entered the club with the wary curiosity of someone who hadn't set foot into a nightclub for twenty years. A lot of the territory was familiar to his memories; the bass pulse in his innards long before he reached the main wall of noise, the smell of cheap booze and air-freshener failing to mask the heady undercurrent of hot, hormone-ravaged bodies and the inevitable glowering bouncers prowling the perimeter of the dance floor. Amongst this was the unfamiliar. The music was nothing but a rhythmic, pounding noise to him. The synthetic feathers, bones and body paint the kids were done up in looked ridiculous, but still not quite as stupid as the dance moves.

He made his way through the edge of the heaving press towards the booths near the back bar. The music changed gears and most of the lights went out. He had to slow down to avoid barging into people - or a supporting pillar - and he felt the tension level in the club start to climb, the movements of everyone around him getting stiffer with anticipation. When the music resolved in a barrage of bass, light came blazing back in the form of a shower of artificial rain, made of glowing multi-coloured drops of Slick, a gel-like self-illuminating sweet designed to bio-degrade in minutes once it was out of its container. The crowd exploded with fresh energy, hands raised up to catch the Slick, cramming it into their mouths as they danced.

At forty seven, Nick was old enough to look at the crowd of be-feathered, jerking bodies under the flashing lights and wonder what the fuck was wrong with the youth of today - but he was not so old that when the beat dropped he didn't feel it. Some primal call in the music distantly answered in the back of his mind, where his lizard-brain capered in the same tribal way as the skinny, spotty little arseholes all around him.

He slipped into a small, sticky booth, kicking some empty bottles out of the way from under the tiny table while his gut scraped a few more off the tiny table. He got his digipad out and thumbed his way through settings for his EyeSpy camera to compensate for the shitty lighting before he started to record. It was 01:45 and what was going to happen was supposed to happen soon.

As soon as the EyeSpy was turned on, the muscles in his eyes respond to the twitch-dampeners and he did a few slow pans of the dance floor to get back into the feel of it while he waited for the main show to begin. He hadn't personally set up any of it - he never did, if he could help it - but things had been passed along by second and third parties and if all had gone to plan, once that particular batch of Slick kicked in, he'd have himself a story. Not a great story, but things had been a little slow lately.

It was barely noticeable at first, just a few dancers halting mid-thrash and gazing up at the ceiling with their arms dropping limp by their sides. It spread, accelerating through the crowd until the few that hadn't been crunching down mouthfuls of Slick stopped dancing themselves, looking around at the sudden field of open-mouthed, glassy eyed ceiling-gazers.

A bouncer crossed Nick's frame of view shouting into his collar mic, "We've been fucking zombied!"

Nick twitched half a smile as he filmed the un-zombied dancers shifting from unease, to a more annoyed alarm. They knew as well as he did that the rozzers would be on their way soon and they ducked and scampered their way through the zombies to make themselves scarce before the law showed up. What they didn't know was that this particular nightclub was smack-bang on the border between 4L London Constabulary territory and their bitter rivals, Surrey CapSec Security. Both forces had been called out by two separate barmen who had been slipped a few credits for their trouble and while the zombie-footage was something Nick could sell as stock 'zombie menace' for the news feeds, a story showing two private police forces having a dust up at the scene was a rent-payer.

CapSec were usually a bit slower off the mark, but given the contested territory, they still managed to be the first to arrive, decked out in navy blue hardshell armour with battenberg bands and the corporate abortion of 'PROLICE' stencilled across their backs. For some reason they were already flashing their laser-sighted guns around the club, sending a spray of red dots over the completely harmless zombies on the dancefloor. A CapSec officer with pips was waving her arms around, shouting and Nick's EyeSpy translator took a stab at lipreading, flashing up subtitles on a separate layer. It was never a sure-thing, but the gist seemed to be that the officer wanted the music killed and the house lights put on.

While the officer was shouting at a bouncer, 4L Constabulary rocked up, materialising out of the gloomy entranceway in black silksteel softshell that proudly displayed the word POLICE, since 4L was the only company with the licence for it. Their officer was a man with sergeants stripes who was so solidly muscled, he looked like he could snap the CapSec officer with one hand.

The argument started almost instantly and the flashing lights and pounding rythm made a great backdrop for the scene, subtitles stuttering across the bottom of his vision. He would edit them later, either to a best guess, or to whatever would make the best story. If Nick had any sympathy at all, it was for the CapSec officer. CapSec were a bit gun-happy, but on the whole he trusted them more the 4L lot, who depended less on hardware and more on wetware and augmentations. Nick had never met a single 4L constable who didn't have some heavy alteration and he was of the opinion that there wasn't a man or woman amongst them who hadn't joined up out of a deep seated desire to be 'fixed' somehow.

His distrust of their augmentations bore fruit less than five minutes into his footage of the increasingly juicy inter-security row. The big 4L sergeant, for reasons Nick couldn't fathom, suddenly flared his nostrils and looked directly at him. For a couple of beats, neither of them moved, then the sergeant pointed a finger at him and the subtitles translated his mouth movements into a probably very accurate 'Stay right there, Sunshine.'

While he hadn't personally done anything beyond making some requests of some fixers, who did all the real arranging - a night in 4L custody trying to explain why he was filming at the club didn't really appeal. Nick weighed his options up. The Sergeant looked too heavy to be a fast runner and there was a packed dancefloor full of zombies between him and Nick. The emergency exit, on the other hand, was right next to Nick's booth and he hadn't been chipscanned on the way in, so short of a facematch, they'd have a job finding him and he was wearing some 'moisturising' cream that by sheer co-incidence showed up as solid black on most face-scanning cameras.

The 4L sergeant made a 'hang on' gesture to the CapSec officer and began to walk Nick's way. Nick thumbed off his EyeSpy, squeezed himself back out of the booth and made for the emergency exit as fast as he could.

When he was filming, Nick forgot he was fat. When he crashed through the emergency exit, the alarm joining in with the thudding beat from the dance floor, he remembered he'd put on a little weight. By the time he'd run the length of the side-alley and cut hard left into a back alley, his memory caught up with reality and he felt an unpleasant stab of panic when the noise from the club flared up behind him as the emergency door crashing open again.

He put on the best spurt of speed he could, hoping like hell it was still the big sergeant after him and not one of the more whippet-like subordinates. If he could just out-run the ox, he could lose himself in the rubbish-strewn riverside alleyways and get out of even borderline 4L jurisdiction. All the sounds of the club were behind him now, fading, fading and replaced by his own thudding footfalls and laboured breathing. He could already feel needles of pain shooting through his over-burdened ankles and knees and he silently cursed all the sitting and eating he'd been doing the last few years.

Two more alleyways on he was forced to burst out onto the main road, cross over a street sparsely populated with clubbers and drunks wending their way either to the next venue or the nearest fast food joint. Wheezing, Nick paddled a drunk out of his way with the flat of one hand and jogged across to another alleyway.

Behind him, he heard the Sergeant roar, "Stop right now, or I'll shoot!"

There was a scream from a colt-legged girl and a chain-draped ginger boy shouted, "Fly, fatboy, I'll hold off the filth!'

Nick risked a glance back, automatically trying to jink to avoid being shot. He saw the big cop did have his gun out, but the trim was ebolt blue instead of a deadly red and the ginger idiot was dancing in front of the cop spoiling a shot anyway. At least until the cop just ran through him, sending the boy flying with only a slight dip of his shoulder to meet the impact.

Deciding he'd seen more than enough, Nick scampered into the next alleyway. He was lucky that the cop was a slow one - almost as slow as he was. He had no doubt about which one of them would run out of stamina first though and he started looking for somewhere to hide, pulling plastic rubbish bins down behind him as he went along the back of a row of shops.

His possible salvation lay two turns further on, in the form of a miraculously unlocked dumpster. Under normal circumstances, Nick wouldn't have been able to boost himself into it, but the particular panic of being hunted leant him some of his old athleticism for a few seconds and in a flailing of legs, heavy grunting and a final teetering of balance, he fell in a crackling, crunching heap into the dumpsters contents. He flailed one chubby hand at the lid, pulling it closed and trying to muffle his laboured wheezing into the crook of one elbow.

He heard the Sergeant thud his way down the alley, but any hope he had that the man would run straight past died as the policeman's boots scraped to a stop. Nick strained to listen, fighting his lungs desire to tear breath.

The sergeant, by contrast, was breathing easy, as if he'd done nothing more strenuous than take a stroll. Nick hated him for this and grew no fonder as he heard the bootfalls coming closer to his dumpster - the prospect of a night in constabulary custody seeming near certain and making all this exercise an unpleasant waste of time.

He was saved by the sergeant's comms, which tootled an alarm before Nick heard the sergeant answer it with an inpatient-sounding;

"What? I'm still in persuit."

There was a pregnant pause, during which Nick discovered his elbow was in something squishy and unpleasantly fragrant and his lungs tugged at his diaphragm insistantly. Then the Sergeant's tone changed to exasperation.

"I'll be there in five - don't let it escalate."

There was a few seconds of silence, then the sergeant - right outside the dumpster now - said, "You are one lucky fat man. I smell you anywhere near my patch again and I'll have you," the man exhaled heavily, muttered, " Skurwysyn," under his breath and then Nick heard him moving away, picking up speed as he ran back the way he had come.

Free to gasp for air again, the smell of the dumpster suddenly became a more pressing concern and Nick gagged as much as wheezed as he flung the lid open to let a little fresh air in, almost not caring if the copper had been playing a trick on him. He didn't think he had - he thought the cop had known exactly where he was hiding, but just hadn't the time or leisure to drag him out. Nick hoped the CapSec lot were busy beating the tar out of the 4L freaks back at the club.

It took him twenty or so attempts before he realised that he couldn't get himself out of the dumpster alone. He was too low into it and the footing was a mess of shifting food sludge and slippery wrappers. As he slid back into the mess for the umpteenth time, he almost felt like crying out of sheer frustration.

He was still trying to decide his next best course of action when his digipad bleeped at him. He pulled it out and accepted the call, seeing that it was Jackson - a digifeed editor that on occasion, commissioned stories from him. Good ones, usually.

Jackson looked hatefully safe and comfortable in a well-lit office, a glass of whiskey and water at one elbow, "Nick! Where the hell are you, on a job?"

Nick worked his face into a sort of professional self-assuredness he didn't much feel at present. What he felt was a nasty wetness seeping through his trousers from the rubbish he was wedged hip-deep in, "Evening, Jackson. Always on a job, you know that. What have you got for me?"

"Something fairly big, if you're up for it? Corporate expose, offworld."

Nick pursed his lips, "Who's paying for it and what corporation?"

Jackson took a sip of his whiskey, "Confidential and I can't tell you what corp until I know you're on board. You'll need to use a device - I know how you are with personal involvement, but..."

"I like to stay out of jail," Nick glanced at the bottom of the screen, noting a completely unfamiliar encryption protocol flagged on the signal, which piqued his curiosity despite his instant misgivings, "Just how big is this?"

Jackson smiled, "Remember the Polymol massacre on Mars? At least that big. Probably bigger."

Nick straightened up, crap rustling all around him, "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I can't tell you any more over a feed. If you're interested, come to my office and have your thumb ready for the NDA you'll need to sign before I can fill you in - whether you take the job or not."

Nick thought about it for less than two seconds. He could always turn it down, after all. He had to at least hear the deal out. He nodded sharply and said, "Sure thing, but I need a favour from you first."

"What sort of favour? Offering you the job is a favour, you know."

Nick grinned, "I know and thanks, but if you want me at your office tonight, I need you to send a couple of your lads my way. Ones good at heavy lifting."

Jackson frowned, "Is this trouble?"

"No, just heavy lifting and my back's not what it used to be. I'll send you my location. Alright?"

"Hnn. Alright - you'll be here tonight for sure?"

"For sure, you have me intrigued."

After the link was cut, Nick tried to make himself comfortable in the rubbish while he waited for help to arrive. He hoped they'd come quickly, before that ox of a copper decided he did have time to fish a journalist out of a dumpster after all.

Coming Soon

November is coming and so is another trip into space, this time courtesy of the fully licensed franchise shuttle ARK 4L Qentiga - the first and best choice for short-hop personnel transport, executive tours and supply runs.

• Shuttle to anywhere on Earth, the Moon or any satellite station with an apogee of 500800 km or less.
• Transport up to 3 cubic decametres of goods*
• Transport up to 30 standard class personnel
• Up to seven executive personnel can be accommodated in our Gold Suites, with complimentary Flyfast digifeeds and 4LBk encryption as standard.

Unlike many other franchised shuttle owners in the London area, Captain Sumner has never been penalised for breakage or loss of cargo or personnel and all our delivery times have been within accepted margins. Our Raqueeb class Aratek pilot, Blue class 4L technician and experienced Captain ensure a smooth and safe journey for all your assets.

When you can't afford mistakes - Fly Qentiga

*additional gravpad fees apply for any combined cargo/personnel over six tonnes.

The Great Purge

As ever, with the Nanoing done, the screaming more or less over and a big messy pile of first draft in the bag, the purge had to come.

If anyone wants a copy of the complete first draft, feel free to ask and tell me what format it's best delivered in.

Thank you to everyone who came along for the ride (two rides, for this beast) - this was a job long procrastinated and it's wonderful to finally have a whole draft after so many years of tinkering and putting it off.

Where will we go next Nano? No idea, but I'm sure we'll have fun when we get there.

The Story So Far

Fair warning, synopsis are not my forte - something which will become self evident if you read this - but it's been a while and writing a quick(!) recap seemed like a good idea.

In the Who's Who on the left, the characters that are greyed out have, for a variety of reasons, passed out of the story, never to return.

            'Mouth' Adsil is the former crown prince of the land of the fae. After trying to prematurely take the throne, he was exiled and chained to a tree in the mortal lands. He is released from this imprisonment by Saint Karl, an agent of the god Siber San.

            As a fae, Adsil must honour all promises he makes and he is promise-bound to assume a mortal form. Because he doesn't understand either the importance or the duration of the shape he takes, he opts for something small and stylish - unlike all those thudding mortals. As a result he stands 3ft9 and is easily mistaken for a child when clean shaven.

            Out of spite and general mischief, Adsil uses magic to severely damage the City of Indye while Karl is there on official business for his god. As a result, all gods are barred from conducting business within the city and both Adsil and Karl are punished for this.

            Adsil's punishment is having all his magical abilities divinely burned out of him. After this has been done, an angry Saint Karl dumps him in the town of Wheatsheaf to fend for himself.

            Ill-equipped for living a mortal life, Adsil spends a year as a beggar. Deciding he can't stand the indignities anymore and believing that if he kills his body, his spirit may return home to Nakata, he attempts to hang himself. It goes poorly and he is saved from indefinite strangulation by 'Remus', one of the local crimelords.

            After spending some time as one of Remus's 'Moonlighters', Adsil becomes involved in a turf war to increase Remus's stake in the town. The violence of the skirmish attracts the attention of the King's ministers and they scour the town, arresting anyone likely to have a connection to Wheatsheaf's criminal element. Adsil is amongst those arrested and he is taken away for questioning under torment.

            Thinking he will soon be destroyed and not wishing to give the ministry any satisfaction, Adsil promises that he will protect Remus from the ministry forever - making it impossible for him to inform.

            At significant personal risk, Remus rescues Adsil from the ministry.

            Badly wounded by the torments, Adsil realises that his unnatural rate of healing will reveal his non-human nature and he believes he will be killed for it once Remus realises he is one of the fey. Remus tells him that he has known this secret for some time and has no intention of killing him, provided that Adsil keeps his secret - that despite the nature of his chief occupation as a burglar, Remus is much prone to fear and fainting and he needs a helper on his jobs to be handy with the smelling salts,

            Bound together by their secrets and the ties of loyalty both have proven to each other, they become inseparable partners in crime, with Remus's role as Adsil's boss becoming more paternal as he trains Adsil to be his successor.

            When Karl returns to Wheatsheaf, offering to take Adsil away somewhere he may be safer from mortal troubles, Adsil refuses to leave. Karl warns Adsil that he is attracting dangerous attention to the town, but Adsil declares that if Karl does not leave him alone, he will bend his knee to Remus's god, Ynor. Karl leaves the town, telling Adsil that he will only return if Adsil calls for him via a priest and he will never answer him if Adsil decides to serve Ynor.

            A high priest of Ynor arrives in Wheatsheaf and gives Remus this message:

            Ynor has decided to raise a new kingdom from the dust of the Drylands. A king or queen will rise in one of the towns upon the eastern trade - Sowsa, Wheatsheaf, Tentar, Goska or Sansin. Only one shall be crowned and the crown must be won by conquest. In each town, the priests have chosen one of their congregation to be given this knowledge. The priest of Wheatsheaf has chosen you to be the herald for this town.

            Remus is ambitious. He wishes to be free from fear of the king's ministry and he wants to legitimise his people and the bastard child his lover is carrying, so he accepts this role to becomes a king-maker. Remus is bound to the task by the blood of Ynor and must now succeed, or die trying.

            While this effort is underway, Adsil is tempted by the priest of Ynor. The priest tells him that his much-missed magic might be returned to him, if he agrees to take Ynor's godmark and serve him.

            He has yet to reach a decision.

Coming Soon (probably)

Dark days ahead for the moonlighters.

Rebelling again this NaNo and making a second attempt at finishing Flapjaws Get Stecked. Given that I stalled in almost exactly the same place as last time, wish me luck, for I shall need it.

Apologies for anyone who read all through and got left hanging when I ran away and cried earlier in the year! Life notwithstanding I shall try very hard to get to The End on this one before we all die of old age.