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existence for a few months. It is one of our oldest traditions.
    The fire burns brightly in the mouth of our cave.
    Neen takes one look at what I’m carrying and his relief at seeing me vanishes. He is the first on his feet, although I shake my head when he tries to take her body from me.
    ‘Oh shit,’ he says.
    Rachel starts crying.
    ‘You,’ I tell her, ‘get back to your post.’
    I might as well have slapped her because she flinches anyway.
    Dropping to my knees, I roll Franc onto the ground and see grit glue itself to the stickiness of her jacket. If she’d died in battle, it would be different. But my corporal is dead because some fuck blew up our plane. I am going to find out why. Then I’m going to find out who. And then I’m going to kill that person, slowly.
    ‘We bury her here,’ I say.
    ‘Sir . . .’
    ‘Got a problem with that?’
    As Neen steps back, his face closes down. ‘Something you should see first, sir.’ Grabbing a branch from the fire, he waves it back and forth until it bursts into flames. Then he turns and heads into the cave.
    Shil and Haze are sitting in darkness.
    ‘Haze found it,’ she says.
    ‘Behind that,’ says Haze. The wall he points at looks like every other one in this place, yellow and dry enough to crumble.
    They don’t know she’s dead , I realize.
    ‘Touch it,’ says Haze.
    I am tired, Franc’s blood is on my hands and I am out of patience.
    ‘Cut the shit,’ I tell him. Scooping up a pebble, Haze lobs it at the wall. It passes through as if the wall weren’t there.
    ‘You took a look behind?’
    Haze hesitates, not knowing what to answer. ‘Stairs,’ he says finally. ‘And lights. I didn’t climb all the way.’
    The lights start after twenty paces. It goes: walk-through wall, one twist of stairs into darkness, and then little glow bulbs that hang from the ceiling, giving off a greenish light. I’ve seen them before, on Paradise, the prison planet where General Jaxx sent me once as a joke.
    The steps are worn enough to tell me the tunnelling isn’t recent. And the glow bulbs, that come on as Neen and I get near and turn off as we leave, tell me there’s a power source somewhere.
    While most of my crew huddle for warmth round a fire made from roots, in a cave on some godforsaken planet settled by ex-humans, there is a power source strong enough to run chameleon camouflage and light a spiral of stairs.
    It does nothing for my temper.
    ‘Go back,’ I tell Neen. ‘Get the others.’
    ‘And Franc?’
    ‘Obviously.’
    Having saluted, he slips away.
    I sit so long that the light above me switches itself off, and remains off until Neen and the others return.
    We climb in silence.
    My old lieutenant would tell me the lights are saying something deep, about life, light, darkness, and death. But then he was full of shit.
    We climb, and keep climbing.
    The air gets warm and the steps become ceramic. There is paint on the walls now, and a door that looks new. At least, it looks recently replaced, because the metal frame around it is dark and pitted, while the door itself is shiny.
    It is unlocked.
    There’s carpet on the other side.
    ‘Take point,’ I tell Neen. ‘And take this.’
    He catches the distress pistol from the plane. As I watch, he breaks it open and drops out the flare, checks the barrel and slots the flare back into place. He toggles a safety switch, and then snaps the pistol shut. He does all this quietly and I notice his breathing has steadied.
    Neen is a natural. That’s why he’s my sergeant.
    Not his fault I’m angry, not theirs . . .
    And I will keep my fury in check around them, provided they shut up, do what they’re told, and have the sense to stay out of my way.
    ‘Me second,’ I say, thinking through the order. ‘Haze third, Rachel fourth, Shil takes rear.’ One less thing for Neen to worry about if we hit trouble. And we are going to, because I’m going to make damn sure we do.
    ‘Take Franc,’ I tell Rachel.
    Lifting