Amelia sprang up the companionway onto deck, buckling her sword belt around her waist as she ran for the bridge.

"Reporting, sir!"

Forsythe acknowledged her salute with a businesslike nod and directed her attention ahead of the ship. Some distance off the Resolute's starboard bow, the distinctive black and white merchantman was visible, hanging motionless in space with all her sails furled. A few patches of fog were still hanging in space and Amelia took up a telescope to focus on the distant ship. There was another vessel alongside her, with a dark hull and spiked railings clad in iron that was pitted and streaked with rust like patches of old blood. She was a big, predatory-looking beast longer and more slender than the hapless Preston Castle but tall and solidly-built. Amelia guessed her to be at least of similar tonnage to the Resolute herself.

"Pirates!"

"Well spotted, Ms Amelia," Forsythe nodded. "Mr Chad! Report!"

"Studding sails deploying, captain!" Chad pointed skywards to where the spacers working aloft were running booms out beyond the ends of the yards and unfurling new sails around them. "Power translation is steady."

"Give me combat speed, then," said Forsythe. "Ahead full. Helm, bring us to heading zero-nine-seven and hold steady. We'll engage with the starboard batteries."

"Zero-nine-seven, all ahead full, aye, sir!" The spacer at the helm obeyed swiftly.

"Load the bowchasers," Forsythe turned to Midshipman Buckley. "Maximum range. Mr Harburn? Ready the starboard guns with high impact shells. Full charge."

"Aye, sir!"

Amelia scanned the two ships again. "They don't seem to be fighting, sir," she remarked. "It looks like the Preston Castle has already hauled down her colours..."

"Against a raider like that, I don't blame her," said Chad.

Arrow arrived on the bridge and touched his hat. "Marines standing ready, captain."

"Get them into position, Mr Arrow," Forsythe said. "I don't think this'll come to a boarding action, but if it does I want your troops ready."

"Aye, sir. We will be." Arrow saluted again and moved off, bellowing orders. Down on the deck, Sergeant Ko began leading the red-coated soldiers forward to their assigned positions. The Resolute was close enough now for Amelia to read the names off the sterns of the two ships – one was indeed the missing merchant vessel. The other bore the name Malevolence, picked out in steel letters against a black backboard. Aside from a simple plain black banner with a ragged red cross in the centre, she flew no flags at all, not even the defiant colours of the pirate confederacy that the war had been launched to crush. Amelia could pick out small figures moving from one ship to the other, clearly unloading the Preston Castle's cargo.

"Steady on course zero-nine-seven, sir," reported the helmsman.

"Very good," Forsythe looked up at the new sails and nodded. "Very good. Time to range?"

"Estimate effective bowchaser range in ten minutes, sir," said Chad.

Forsythe shook his head. "Too long, Mr Chad, too long. Let's let them know we're coming for them. Tell Mr Buckley to open fire, one salvo."

Chad touched his hat. "Aye, sir. Bowchasers! Salvo fire!"

The two guns boomed out. They were designed for range rather than hitting power, but even so the glowing shells arced and fell well short of the target. Amelia, watching through her telescope, saw the activity on the deck of the captured merchant ship increase.

"I think they saw us, sir," she grinned.

"Excellent." Forsythe smiled grimly. "Negative two degrees on the bow, helmsman. Hold this heading. We'll cut across her T and rake her from the bows."

"Yes, sir!"

"Ms Amelia? I want you to ready a party of spacers to board Preston Castle and render whatever assistance is necessary. Take a squad of marines with you." Forsythe nodded. "Prepare a longboat in case you need it."

"Aye, captain!" Amelia moved off, calling out her orders. The bowchasers fired again, still short of the target. As her spacers began readying the launch cranes for the boat, Amelia raised her telescope and looked at the enemy again.

"At your command, ma'am," said Arrow, beside her. Amelia looked up at him in surprise.

"Mr Arrow! I wasn't expecting the honour of your company."

Arrow waved at the dozen marines waiting behind him to join the boarding party. "I have persuaded my sergeant that it would be best to leave any strenuous action to me for the time being."

"I'm sure that was no easy matter," Amelia grinned, imagining what Ko's reaction to that order would have been.

Arrow shrugged. "I assume that the enemy have spotted us by now?"

"They certainly have." Amelia put her eye to the lens again. "In fact, it looks like they're casting off..."

The Malevolence was separating from the Preston Castle now, her own engines flaring. She had been cautious enough to leave her sails open and she was swiftly on the move.

"She's quick on the helm," observed Arrow.

"We've still got more canvas aloft then they do," said Amelia. "Though not for long", she added, seeing new solar sails opening in the pirate's topworks. The big raider accelerated away from the stationary merchantman for a distance before abruptly reversing course, turning to starboard and taking up a course almost parallel to the Resolute's own, with Preston Castle in between them. Her bow was a wedge-shaped spike of metal, brutal and menacing. Amelia watched as two rows of gunports opened along the rust-streaked iron flank of the raider, and she counted the guns quickly.

"Well, she's no scow," she said eventually. "That thing's a damned battlecruiser. It's got about as many guns as we do..."

Arrow nodded. "I think we can expect a hard fight, ma'am. They know they can't outrun us even with those extra sails. We'd catch them before they made the fog."

Suddenly, the Malevolence opened fire, a full broadside. Amelia raised her eyebrow, knowing that they couldn't possibly be in range, and none of her guns were bearing on them but then she realised who the pirates had been aiming for. The Preston Castle's crew had been frantically opening their sails to get out of the line of fire between the two heavyweight giants, but they had barely succeeded before the salvo caught them. Still at close range, the shells had a devastating impact. Timbers shattered and explosions blossomed all along the helpless vessel. Her engines flared once and then went out as they were torn apart. There were murmurs of shock on the deck of the Resolute at the sight of the unprovoked savagery.

"Bastards!" exclaimed Jackson. "Did you see that, ma'am! Sheer bloody bastards!"

"I saw, Mr Jackson," Amelia nodded, trying to contain her own surprise in front of the ratings. The Preston Castle was already drifting out of control, flames billowing into space from her ruptured engines. Forsythe was giving new orders to bring the Resolute into range faster, turning towards the enemy more directly, but the Malevolence had veered off and was accelerating away from the scene of her crimes, heading for one of the few remaining patches of nebula mist. The starboard batteries opened fire on her, shaking the deck beneath Amelia's feet, but the range was still too great and the pattern of shells dispersed before it could hit the enemy.

"Do we pursue, sir?" Chad was anxious for an order. Forsythe, his hands folded behind his back, turned his glare from the escaping pirate to the stricken merchantman and back again. Amelia held her breath, waiting for his answer. Eventually the old man shook his head.

"No. No, Commander. Haul in the studding sails. Reduce speed. Bring us port side on to the Preston Castle and prepare to render assistance."

Amelia breathed out again. There would be no battle today. The spacers and marines around her visibly relaxed, but she and Arrow traded glances and she saw no easing of his tension. The cold-blooded assault on the surrendered and helpless cargo ship had sent a shiver down her spine. As the Resolute came alongside the crippled vessel, the havoc it had wreaked was all too clear. The Malevolence had gutted her, caving in almost one whole side of her hull from the keel to the midline and shattering her engines. The mizzenmast was down and the fire from the smashed engine had burned up into the fallen sails, starting a new blaze on the quarterdeck.

"Fire pumps on deck!" Chad was shouting. "Put those flames out!"

Wheeled fire pumps, each a waist-high pile of brass and copper tubes and cylinders, were brought up to the Resolute's port railing and connected to the brass pipe fixtures there. Amelia began directing the crews as they aimed their hoses while Arrow sent his marines to operate the long handles that were fitted into place on the pumps. Until the fire on the Preston Castle was out, the Resolute couldn't approach too close for fear of the blaze spreading to her own timbers. Amelia felt the deck tilt under her feet as the Resolute rose and inclined her deck to allow the fire crews to pour their water down onto the other ship's burning deck and she called an order for caution.

"Steady, there! Watch your footings!"

There was a commotion behind her and she turned to see Dr Gray leading a small team of the ship's medical staff up from the sickbay. Jane was following them, a surgical apron tied around her and a bulging satchel at her side. Gray spotted Amelia and waved her notebook to get her attention.

WE NEED TO GET OVER THERE.

Amelia read the mute doctor's words and shook her head.

"I can't, ma'am, not till the fire's out."

YOUR BOAT IS READY TO LAUNCH, Gray pointed out.

"Get your people into it," Amelia said. "I'll have it launched as soon as it's safe."

Gray looked like arguing for a moment but then nodded and waved her medics aboard the longboat in the crane's cradle. Jane joined Amelia for a moment and looked down on the fire below.

"We got called out," she said. "What happened? Was there a battle?"

"The word is 'execution'," said Amelia darkly. "The pirates set her on fire and escaped. We're going to try to save her."

The Preston Castle's crew was evidently still dazed from the surprise onslaught and were milling around their deck even as it burned. Amelia called across to them.

"Ahoy, Preston Castle! Bring your fire pumps on deck and get them onto that blaze! At the double!"

Jane shook her head, seeing that some of the figures on the merchantman didn't move despite the commotion around them. "I fear we're already too late for some of them, Amelia..."

"We can still help the rest," said Amelia. "Get to the boat, Jane. We'll be launching soon."

After a few minutes of concerted effort, the pump crews had suppressed the fire on the upper deck, allowing the longboat to take off. Amelia looked up to the bridge for a nod of permission from Forsythe before she raised her arm to the crane crew and let it fall. The longboat soared aloft and turned for the merchantman, touching down easily on the deck. Gray was the first off, jumping over the gunwales before it had even landed. Jane was close behind her and Amelia watched her as she moved quickly across the deck to begin her task. It was hard to withhold her admiration for the young civilian, who was working as confidently as any military medic she had ever seen.

"Main deck fire's under control, captain!" Amelia called.

"Very good!" Forsythe nodded to Chad. "Bring us alongside, commander, stern to midships."

The Resolute descended to match the Preston Castle and drifted forward until her stern galleries were roughly midway along the merchantman's side in order to keep clear of any new eruptions of fire from the smashed engines. The crew on the pumps began spraying the side of their own ship to protect it against any stray flames.

"Summon an engineering party," said Forsythe. "Ms Amelia! Board her and report status! Mr Buckley, Mr Bryce, you as well!"

Amelia touched her hat. "Aye, sir!"

She stood up on the rail, which was wet with water spray from the pumps, and judged the gap carefully, making a short leap across to the Preston Castle when it came closer enough. Bryce and Buckley followed close behind her. The remaining civilian crew were staring at her as if she had just dropped out of thin air. Amelia surveyed the blasted deck critically and raised her voice, deciding that decisiveness was the best way to snap them out of their shock.

"Who's in command here?"

A crewman with one large eye and a lugubrious face under a battered brown leather bicorn hat knuckled his forehead. "I 'spose I am, now. Name's Kerr, ship's quartermaster."

"Where's your captain?"

"Dead, ma'am," said Kerr, waving to one of the bodies on deck. "Pirates came aboard, put him up against the wall and shot him afore they even spoke to anyone."

Amelia shook her head. She'd heard of ruthless pirates before, but this raider seemed to exceed every measure. "And your other officers?"

Kerr waved at the fire. Amelia understood.

"Very well, Mr Kerr. You're in charge."

Kerr nodded, his face too drained to show any imagination. The party of engineers from the Resolute arrived and Amelia sent them below to assess the damage, knowing that their report wouldn't contain much good news. She sent Buckley to assess the ship's control systems, ordered Bryce to get the fallen mast heaved overboard and turned back to the weary quartermaster.

"What precisely happened here?" she asked.

Kerr shrugged. "Captain took us out of the convoy just after midnight, by my reckoning. Told 'im 'e shouldn't, but 'e did. Said there were a bonus in it and wouldn't cause no harm."

"That were a bloody joke and all," said one of the other crewmen.

Kerr nodded. "Anyways, about two hours ago we see that monster coming at us out of the fog. We try to run but it's no good. We couldn't 'ave outrun 'er with a week's head start. So we hauls in the colours and yields the ship. They comes alongside and boards us, do for the captain before he could even speak. Then they round up the rest of us and make us help empty the holds."

"They took your cargo?"

"Aye," said Kerr. "Most of it, leastways. All them guns, the food, almost the whole lot. Then you sail up and...well, you probably saw the rest."

Amelia nodded. It sounded like a perfectly plausible tale of an over-eager or nervous captain leaving the safety of a convoy to make a break for it themselves and falling into the very trap they wanted to escape. It was a tale all too familiar...but she wondered about it all the same. She walked across the deck to the body of the captain. He had been propped up against the mainmast, but had clearly been dislodged by the chaos and was now sprawled across the timbers. A charred hole bored its way through his head.

"The scum ransacked his cabin, too," said Kerr, joining her. "Took everything out of it. Even the paperwork."

It wasn't uncommon for merchant captains to keep particularly valuable pieces of cargo in their personal quarters as a safeguard against an untrustworthy crew, but the paperwork was an unusual addition. There was something about this attack that wasn't adding up right, quite apart from its brutality.

"Perhaps he had something they wanted," said Jane, who joined them, wiping her hands on the apron.

"Perhaps," Amelia nodded. "What's your report, Miss Porter?"

Jane sighed. "Not good, I'm afraid. At least eleven dead and more than a dozen wounded. We'll need to get some of them back to the Resolute for surgery."

Amelia nodded and called across to the warship.

"Ahoy, Resolute! Requesting permission to transfer casualties?"

"Permission granted!" Forsythe shouted.

Amelia touched her hat in thanks and turned around to see Jane kneeling by the dead captain, opening his jacket. Frowning, Amelia knelt next to her.

"Jane?"

"I'm just looking," Jane murmured. "Ah...what's this?"

She produced a slender wallet of red leather from inside the man's coat pocket and passed it over. Amelia opened it and produced a piece of paper from inside it.

"They're navigational directions," she said, after a few moments. "A new course. It took them off the convoy route and led them through...well, here, I believe..."

"Well, it's definitely not an accident that they were here, then," said Jane.

Amelia shook her head. "No...the captain must have been planning it all along."

"He can't have been planning all of this, though," Jane looked around the crippled ship again and sighed sadly. "What awful bad luck."

Amelia nodded sadly. "The romper's lot in wartime, I'm afraid. Not that anyone deserves this. Very well, Miss Porter. Get your patients ready for transfer."

Jane nodded and stood to leave. Dr Gray was already directing the first stretcher bearers across a narrow plank bridge that had been laid down between the two ships. Amelia put the paper back into the wallet, which she rolled up and stowed in her own pocket as she looked down again at the body of the captain.

"The Crimson Corsair," said Kerr, behind her.

Amelia raised an eyebrow as she turned to him. "Mr Kerr?"

"The Crimson Corsair," Kerr repeated. "That's who it was. I saw 'im with my own eye, large as life."

Amelia nodded. "I'll thank you to keep talk like that to yourself, Mr Kerr. Right now the priority is this ship. Your ship. Do you understand me?"

Kerr nodded slowly and turned away without a word.

"Aye, miss...but the Corsair's out there now...whether I say it or not..."

Even with the fire extinguished, the best of efforts proved unable to coax any life out of the engines or restore even a vestige of helm control. The Resolute stood guard over the crippled ship until the convoy arrived. Callario was summoned for a conference with Captain Forsythe and decided, after what seemed to Amelia to be an indecently short period of time, to scuttle her. The remnants of the Preston Castle's cargo was transferred to the other merchant ships and her surviving crew taken off before the hulk was abandoned. In a final irony, the wreck was set ablaze once more to consume her entirely and leave nothing should the raiders return to the scene to loot her. The cloud of smoke vanished into the distance behind the convoy as it reformed with the Imperial battleship once more at its head. The mood was dark. The loss of the ship was only part of the explanation. Her remaining crew would already be talking to their new shipmates about their harrowing experience, and rumour travelled quickly. It was a subdued affair at dinner that evening, the ship's officers all feeling let down at the anticlimactic confrontation with the pirate battlecruiser, and drinking the traditional Friday toast to "A willing foe and room to steer" just seemed to have underlined the disappointment.

"It would have been nice to be able to put an end to them," said Midshipman Buckley wistfully, uncharacteristically only toying with his food. "We could have caught them."

"Why didn't we go after them?" asked Jane. "It was the Captain who ordered us to stay, wasn't it?"

"Admiralty Standing Order Number 74, regarding convoy escort," said Midshipman Dunn. "'Safe and timely arrival of the convoy shall be the first duty of the escort commander and nothing shall release them from this charge.'"

"Very good, Ms Dunn!" said Chad. "You're absolutely right. Our first duty is to the convoy and its ships."

"They drum it into you at the Academy," said Amelia. "Destroying the enemy is a bonus of convoy protection, not a necessity."

"A lesson learned the hard way over many years," said Arrow. "We had no choice under the circumstances. And we saved many lives, even if we could not save the ship."

Jane nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."

"It would have been a hell of a battle if we'd met them," said Buckley. "Did you hear who they said it was? The Crimson Corsair himself! They should have blamed Nathaniel Flint; at least I'd have believed that!"

There was some laughter around the table, but Jane frowned.

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow you. Who is this Crimson Corsair?"

"A myth," said Dunn. "Or so they say."

"The most feared pirate of this half of the galaxy," said Arrow. "If the legend is to be believed, his real name is Inigo Scalten. Captain Inigo Scalten. A renegade. He was once most of the most decorated captains of the Imperial fleet."

"But he turned bad?" Jane looked up from her meal curiously.

Arrow nodded. "Nobody knows why. But his ship disappeared on patrol one day. It was reported several times as having been seen committing attacks of...unusual ferocity upon civilians thereafter, and it was alleged that he was still in command. He terrorised a whole quadrant, even raiding across the frontier into Procyon space. We sent a taskforce to hunt him down. The Procyons sent one as well. As I recall it, the attacks stopped soon after...our ships never caught up with Scalten but the Procyons claimed to have run him to ground in their territory."

"That was years ago," said Chad. "I remember hearing about it when I was a junior officer. The Procs never provided definitive proof that they caught him, though, so the stories continued."

"And now he's back," grinned Buckley, in a sonorous, over-dramatic voice, waving his hands in the air like a sorcerer.

"Not all the legends of the cosmos are wholly fictional, Mr Buckley," said Arrow sternly. "The attack we witnessed would be typical of the Crimson Corsair's reported exploits."

"A pity we didn't catch up with him to find out the truth, then," said Buckley, finishing his drink.

"No...not a pity...a plan..."

Jane murmured the words so quietly that it took even Amelia a moment to comprehend them.

"What do you mean, Miss Porter?" said Chad.

"Well, it seems to me that the pirate knew the Navy's rules," Jane looked up. "That order that Ms Dunn mentioned, about having to protect the convoy and not go chasing off after the enemy. So maybe that's why he opened fire on that ship. He knew we'd have to go and help it instead of chasing him."

"The Standing Orders aren't exactly top secret," said Chad. "Well...not all of them."

"Even so," said Jane, "to understand it well enough to use it against you like that...the pirate must have known it well. As if they had been in the Navy once...like Mr Arrow said about the Corsair once being a captain."

"That seems a reasonable deduction," said Arrow, nodding.

"But a troubling one," said Chad.

Amelia looked at Jane, genuinely impressed. Jane caught her eye and blushed. "Well, it's just a thought...I don't know if it's right..."

"It bears thinking about," Chad said. "I'll take it to the captain tomorrow."

"No wonder the Admiralty is jumpy about pirate attacks in this area if you're right," said Dunn. "I know the stories about the Crimson Corsair as well...the thought of that kind of terror being unleashed again is...not comforting."

"Speaking of which, I must say I was surprised at Mr Callario's uncertainty about us going looking for the Preston Castle," said Jane. "What with a pirate being on the loose and all. It's...it was one of his ships, at least."

"According to the convoy log, she was actually a freelancer on contract to the EITC," said Amelia. "It's not uncommon. The Company must have assembled a fleet as quickly as possible to move into the Nebula and even it doesn't have enough merchant ships all in one place. Find a vacant ship, give it a new paint job, run up a new flag, and what's the difference?"

"Anything that operates on Company coin is Company property," said Lieutenant Harburn. "They're very insistent about that. And a convoy director is responsible for every ship they have."

"He was probably just worried about there being pirates in the area," said Buckley. "Wanted to keep the strongest ship in the escort close to the convoy."

"I just don't understand is why the Preston Castle did it," said Jane. "It seems an awful risk to take."

"Merchant skippers can get bonuses for early delivery," said Harburn. "It frees up the ship quicker to take another cargo, too."

"The rest of the convoy isn't in any hurry," pointed out Chad. "And look at the manifest. The Preston Castle had a mixed cargo. The Company must have hired her just to carry everything they couldn't fit into the other ships. There was nothing special or rare on board."

"So the Preston Castle wasn't carrying anything other ships weren't carrying as well, in larger quantity," said Jane, thoughtfully. Amelia looked at her curiously.

"Something strikes you, Miss Porter?"

Jane shrugged. "Well...I don't know. It's probably nothing. Would I be able to look at the list of what the convoy is carrying?"

Amelia nodded. "Of course. I'll bring you a copy right after dinner."

"I'd be much obliged," Jane smiled.

"I didn't know your interests went that way, Miss Porter," said Chad.

Jane smiled shyly. "Oh, well, you know...we've still got a little time before we reach Fort Loyalty, haven't we?"

"A couple of days, yes," said Amelia. "We should have the Trident Archipelago in sight by tomorrow afternoon. After that, we just follow the line of islands all the way there."

"Then it looks like I've got some bedtime reading," grinned Jane.

"Unless you find something better to do then," Amelia tapped Jane's foot under the table, making the young lady blush and look down.

"Well, I'm...always open to other invitations..."

"I think the only other one you're likely to get it from your father," said Chad, who hadn't noticed. "He's very keen on that book he's writing."

"I hear he has given up trying to interview the whole crew and has started giving out questionnaires," said Arrow.

"I filled out mine," said Buckley.

Jane laughed. "Well, thank you all for your cooperation. Once he gets an idea into his head, he's not easily dissuaded."

Amelia smiled fondly. "I think I recognise the trait, yes."

The ship's bell rang , the bright tones reaching through the deck to the wardroom. Midshipman Dunn and Lieutenant Harburn made their apologies and went to take up their watches. Amelia stood as well, picking up her hat.

"And if you'll excuse me as well," she said, "I'll go and see to that copy of the convoy manifest. You'll be in the cabin later, I trust, Miss Porter?"

Jane nodded. "You may count on that, Ms Amelia."

"Oh, I most assuredly shall," Amelia grinned.

Amelia had expected Fort Loyalty to be a barren and utilitarian place, as frontier naval bases hastily established in warzones tended to be, but to her surprise it turned out that an enterprising deep space fishing community had been established before the war on the largest of the asteroids in the archipelago and the Navy had arrived there to find a ready-built port and docking facilities, and had appropriated the name of the town for their base. A stone stockade had been set up and a cluster of grey prefabricated buildings clearly stood out against the homelier timber-framed houses of Loyalty township. The port was sheltered in a bay beneath tall, green, rounded hills. As the Resolute led the convoy in, acknowledging the salute of the guardship, Amelia picked out the gun emplacements on the headlands and nodded with satisfaction. There were already half a dozen ships in port, one of them a fleet tender and the others small port vessels. The town's fishing fleet had largely been drawn up onto land or moored around the edge of the island at makeshift jetties beyond the harbour, though there were few boats and Amelia wondered how many had been lost to the pirates before the Navy had arrived. A new signal flashed across from the guardship's lantern and Amelia turned her attention back to it.

"We're being directed into the main berth, sir," she said. "Alongside the etherfront. Convoy ships with cargo to offload are to occupy the fishing harbour and the western piers. The rest are to set anchor inside the harbour."

"It'll be crowded in here with all those merchantmen, sir," said Chad.

"Indeed it will, commander," Forsythe nodded. "Nevertheless, the orders are clear. Do we have a sighting on our berth, Mr Whiting?"

The canid nodded. "Aye, sir. The way is clear."

"Then reef topsails and take us in," said Forsythe. "Mr Costell?"

"Aye, sir." The navigator stepped forward. "Hands aloft to reef the mainsails and skyscrapers! Capstan crew, prepare to deploy drogue! Power to the reverse and lateral thrusters!"

Once the big ship had drifted safely into port and the dock workers had thrown the mooring lines across, a gangplank was set up against the side and a naval officer made their way up to the railing. She looked up to the bridge and doffed her hat.

"Permission to come aboard, sir!"

"Permission granted!" Forsythe replied.

The officer saluted again and dropped onto the ship. Forsythe nodded to Chad, who gave orders for the crew to begin securing the deck. The officer made her way up to the bridge and touched her hat. She was a small woman with her white hair tied back in a soldier's queue and a brisk, businesslike manner.

"Lieutenant-Commander Canningbell, base senior officer at your service," she said. "And you are most welcome."

"Captain Sir Edmund Forsythe, RLS Resolute," Forsythe returned the salute. "I'm sure the convoy director will make himself known to you shortly."

"Speaking of which, sir," said Canningbell, looking back over the Resolute's stern to where the convoy ships were making their way into the harbour, "How was the passage? This convoy's supplies are much in demand."

"I regret to report," said Forsythe heavily, "the loss of one ship. The Preston Castle left the convoy and fell victim to a raider."

"Ah. Well, a good thing you were diverted to escort them, captain," said Canningbell. "Or else the raider could well have claimed even more. We've received over a dozen reports of convoy attacks in the past three weeks alone even though yours would be the first to happen near Loyalty. But what about your own ship, sir? With the convoy arrived, my warehouses should be well-stocked if you need anything."

"We are just recently departed from New Genswick, so we lack nothing at present," said Forsythe. "We will take on fresh supplies when we depart to take the convoy to its next port, of course. But for now, have you been informed about our berthing requirements ashore?"

"Naturally, captain," Canningbell nodded. "My staff are preparing leave passes for your crew even as we speak. Once they are ready, you'll be able to disembark. I must require that your spacers take up places in the barracks inside the fort and a curfew does apply at nightfall, though they'll be free to wander during the day. Your officers will be able to find their own accommodation ashore. Or, of course, anyone is welcome to remain on board."

Forsythe nodded. "Understood, commander. Although I daresay that every member of my crew will want to get off this ship as soon as possible. It has been a long time since we've had an opportunity for liberty."

Canningbell chuckled. "Of course, sir. I quite understand. The passes will arrive shortly."

"Thank you, commander." Forsythe touched his hat. "In that case, if you don't mind, we had better prepare the ship for disembarkation."

"As you wish, captain." Canningbell touched her hat in return. "I can see myself off. Welcome to Fort Loyalty."

Forsythe nodded and turned to Chad. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're not on liberty yet! Prepare the ship for disembarkation! Secure all stations!"

The officers dispersed to begin the long and complex list of tasks that had to be completed before anyone could leave the ship and go ashore, but they were smiling as they did so. Amelia took one more look back at the small town and the green hills that rose above it and felt her spirits lift as she left the bridge. Jane and her father had emerged from their cabins and were standing at the rail by the stern port carronade, enjoying the view.

"Looks good, eh, Janey!" Archimedes was bubbling with excitement. "Quite a nice bit of rock, really!"

"It certainly is, daddy," Jane smiled over the top of his head at Amelia, who smiled back.

"Hopefully a lot of your shipmates will be able to complete those questionnaires I gave out for my book," Archimedes looked up at Amelia hopefully. "And perhaps I could even distribute a few to the Company ships? Get their perspective as well, eh?"

"Good idea, sir. But now I'd suggest starting to pack your bags," Amelia said. "It'll be a while before we're ready to disembark, so you have time."

"Oh, yes, of course!" Archimedes nodded. "I'll go and see to it at once. Are you going to be all right, Janey? You won't need any help getting off the ship?"

"I'm sure Amelia will help me to get off later," said Jane politely, before realising what she had said. Her eyes went wide and her cheeks went red, but the remark had completely gone over the little old man's head and he had already danced off to start packing. Jane swallowed nervously and looked up at Amelia, who was grinning broadly.

"Er...to get off the ship and onto the dock, is what I meant, of course..." she mumbled.

"Of course." Amelia's grin only widened as she touched her hat and left the flustered young woman by the railing as she descended onto the upper gun deck, which was crowded with spacers preparing to depart the ship, stowing personal belongings into trunks, lashing hammocks to the ceiling and clearing the floor.

"Gun crews, secure your stations!" she shouted. "Gun captains, check and seal the ready-use lockers and open the circuit-breakers! Secure all mountings and latch the gunports! Come on, spacers, the sooner this is done the sooner you can get off this boat!"

There was a cheer as the crew threw themselves into their work. Amelia made her way down the deck's central catwalk, eyes still alert to every detail, encouraging the work as she went, but part of her mind still straying as it considered the possibilities that lay in wait for them ashore.