Maiga sat in the darkest corner booth of the bar. A hood, pulled well forward, hid her face in shadow. If any of Bara's crew came in they wouldn't spot her. Unless they were looking for her, of course. Like these two.

Alex and Sev walked into the bar, both out of uniform. They looked around and Maiga raised a hand to beckon them over. Alex hurried straight over, while Sev went to the bar. Good, Maiga thought. They'd look suspicious without drinks in front of them.

Alex slipped into the booth, opposite Maiga. He looked ashen, as if he hadn't slept in a week. Sev looked better than him, when he arrived, but he too had dark circles under his eyes.

Sev didn't join them in the booth. He took a chair nearby and sat astride it, arms crossed on the back, watching the door.

"Okay, I'm here," Maiga said. "What do you want to say to me?"

"I have to tell you about Bara's plans." Alex entwined his fingers until the knuckles stood out pale against his dark skin. "She's going to try to take over Hollow Jimmy."

"Tell me something I don't know."

He shook his head. "You don't know all of it. She wants to make it a base of military operations. Recruit other human ships. Form a fleet."

"Sounds like a crazy idea."

"It is crazy! She's crazy! She has been since..."

He stopped and wrung his hands. Sev glanced back at him, when he raised his voice, then turned to the door again. Alex wanted to tell her, Maiga could see. He just needed some encouragement to get over the ingrained, but now misplaced loyalty.

"Alex, you need to tell me everything. You need to, or you'll end up as crazy as her."

"It's hard. She's my captain."

"No. She's not. Not really." When he looked at her, not understanding, she went on. "Her rank is commander. You have to start by telling me what really happened to the captain."

His eyes widened, and then he dropped his gaze. Maiga saw Sev glance back at them, but turn away again quickly. She noticed his hair, suddenly. It had been long, but it only reached his collar now, and was rather unevenly chopped. For a moment Maiga thought about the day she'd cut off the hair extensions Tesla had made her wear. But she didn't think Sev had hacked his own hair off.

She turned back to Alex, who had composed himself again, though still had a touch of panic in his eyes, and a frantic undertone in his voice. But he kept it under control as he started to speak.

"We were a long way out when the recall order came. Many of the officers, Bara included, had wanted to head back to Earth long before then. We all believed in what the... what Ilyan was saying." He looked at her for a moment and she dreaded the "what was he really like" question.

Intelligent, confident, curious, funny, sometimes naïve and sometimes elitist. Guilty. Determined. Principled. And always, always kind and gentle and always, always I loved him.

But Alex didn't ask the question in the end. He continued his story.

"We didn't make it. Not even close. We heard the news about the defeat, the destruction and we knew it was too late. Before we could decide what to do, we were intercepted by a couple of Chia warships. The ceasefire had come into effect then and they gave the captain a choice." His face twisted, with remembered anger. "If he agreed to let them disarm the ship, they wouldn't destroy it."

Maiga tried to imagine how it felt for the captain of a warship to give up his weapons. "Come and take it," was the standard response taught to all of them, for when the enemy said "give me your rifle". You didn't give up your weapon without a fight. If someone killed you with your own rifle, they should have to beat you to death with it, because it should be empty before they took it from you.

But in this case, the alternative was not only his own death, but the deaths of his whole crew. How did you make such a choice? Between life and honour. The captain of the Trebuchet had made that choice. He'd chosen life.

"He let them take the guns. He shouldn't have let them take the guns." Alex's voice rose again. "We could still have fought, we should have..."

"Alex." Too late to go over that again now. She touched his hand briefly and he calmed down enough to continue.

"It was too much for Bara. Not only for her, for all the senior officers. The captain wasn't very... popular anyway. I..." he glanced at Sev. "He had certain views, about what he called fraternising. If we broke his rules..." Shaking his head, he snapped, impatient at himself. "Forget that. Never mind. We hated him." He looked into Maiga's eyes. "That's what it came down to. We hated him. Letting the enemy declaw the ship like a damn cat, that was just the final insult. We had to act."

"Mutiny." Maiga's voice hushed as she said the word.

"Yes." His voice hushed to a whisper too. "It wasn't as... well dramatic as I expected. We arrested the captain and locked him in his cabin, and Bara took command. Then, well I think a lot of us didn't really know what do after that. But Bara knew. She gave the order to resume course to Earth."

To Earth, in an unarmed ship, through vast numbers of enemy ships. And the others agreed to that? Well there are only so many mutinies you can fit into one day.

"How we made it, I don't know. We had to hide and run and dodge, but by the time we got there, the space surrounding the planet was almost deserted. There were no Big Four ships there any more. Well, there didn't need to be. Their job was done."

Pain replaced the panic in his eyes. Pain. Horror. Grief. Sev bent his head down onto his arms for a moment, the memory too much for him too perhaps. Maiga wanted to ask the question, "What was it like?" She'd seen the pictures, but to actually see it... But she restrained herself, as he had, from asking the stupid question.

"The captain... I mean Bara; she stood on the observation deck for hours, all night, just looking at the planet. We held stationary orbit and she stood there for so long she must have been able to see it revolving. People spoke to her and she didn't answer. That's when she lost her mind, I'm sure. Seeing the Earth dead like that. Something down there, it just... took her. Destroyed her mind. Do you ever read old stories about the old religions? About hell? She looked into hell that night. And I don't think she's ever looked away."

He picked up his drink with a trembling hand and swallowed it in one gulp, then took a shaky breath and smoothed a hand over his hair. Maiga stole a quick glance at Sev, watching the door again. He could hear every word, Maiga knew. But he already knew the story, had been there, and was as compromised by the mutiny as Alex, and Bara and the others. There's nothing like mutual guilt to hold a group of people together.

"What then, Alex?" Maiga asked, needing to prompt him, as he had grown quiet again. He didn't want to tell her the next part, that was clear, but she had to know for sure that she already suspected.

"She came down from the observation deck eventually, and she went to the captain's cabin. I was there, a couple of others. She said she had to talk to him. And we wanted to send a guard in with her. He wasn't a small man, he could have disarmed her, taken her hostage, but she wouldn't let us. She wouldn't take a gun in either, in case he tried to take it. She went in there and... It was an hour, almost exactly, I remember checking my watch, and I was getting nervous and then... she came out."

When he paused again, Maiga wanted to grab his shirt and shake him. But he paused only long enough to take a couple of deep breaths.

"She had blood on her. On her clothes, her hands. Blood, everywhere. And I saw him, lying on the deck, I could see something, I think it was a shard of plastic, sticking in the side of his neck. I... I could see, even from there, that that he was dead."

Maiga had known it. She could smell the blood on Bara. That never washed off. It stained skin and heart and mind.

"Bara said he'd tried to attack her, that she had to defend herself and then... she closed the door. I wanted to call the doctor down. I wanted to go in there. I knew it was useless, but I had to try. He was the captain."

"She wouldn't let you?"

"No. She told us all to leave. And I was so... It was too much. I ran. I locked myself in my cabin for hours. Maiga, I swear, I never intended that. I never wanted him dead."

"Okay." Maiga sighed. So, mutiny and murder. Those were worse crimes than piracy in Maiga's book. Bara had to pay for those first. She looked up as Alex went on, surprised, as she'd thought he was done.

"When I came out of my cabin and went back to his, I found the doors were welded closed. Welded! I think Bara must have done it herself, the welds were so bad. So I went to the sickbay, and I asked the doctor where the body was, and... and... Oh fuck, I thought I'd lose my mind right then! His body wasn't in the morgue. It was still in his cabin. She welded the doors closed with him in there. Like she could erase it, like it didn't happen. She had the room sealed. The vents cut off. The air sucked out. No heat."

Maiga's flesh crawled, he surely didn't mean, he couldn't, nobody could do that.

"Alex, when did you get the body out?"

He looked at her and she saw tears fall, before he quickly dashed them away with his hand. Shame. Horror.

"Alex..."

"We didn't get him out. The captain's body is still in his cabin."

Unspeakable. For a moment Maiga felt so sick she thought she'd throw up for sure. It was impossible, surely? Nobody could do that. Leave it there to rot. Every soldier Maiga had ever met worried about what would happen to their corpse if they fell in battle. They wanted their dignity.

"How could you stand by and let that happen?" She demanded of Alex, her voice harsh enough to make Sev turn and frown. Maiga didn't care. She wanted an answer. How could he serve under the person who did that?

"What could I do?" Alex almost wailed. He's right on the edge, she saw, and tried to restrain her anger. If she pushed too hard he'd crack and be useless to her.

Sev still scowled at her. Interesting, she thought. Alex is the spokesman of this pair. He's the more senior officer, and he's just bigger, stronger. But Sev... Mr Sev stays quiet and has more to him than meets the eye.

"What could I do?" Alex asked again. "Of course, I went to her, but she barely seemed to hear me. I told you, she erased it from her mind. She started saying that the captain died in the fighting. Perhaps she even believed it was true. She would propose toasts to him at dinner, pay tribute to how much he'd taught her."

"And all the time he's lying dead a few tens of meters away." A fact, and an accusation.

"I know. And we were cowards, all of us. Too afraid to speak. I told you I hated the captain, but there were nights I wept for him. And nights I thought of going down there with a cutting torch and cutting into that room and still I was afraid to. Afraid of her, afraid of him. Of his... I don't know, his ghost."

"Ghost?" Maiga tried not to sneer at that.

"I don't know." He shook his head. "But I know this, that ship is cursed. It's cursed." He dropped his head into his hands. Maiga waited, wishing she knew a way to comfort him. What should she do? Pat his shoulder? No, that seemed idiotic. But in a moment he rubbed his hands over his face and looked up again.

"After she killed him, she said we needed weapons again, so we could 'start our work'. I remember that's what she said. 'Start our work.' We went hunting Chia. It had to be them, Bara said. Poetic justice. And the only way it could work was a trap. We played dead to lure them, and attacked a boarding party and then... well we, um, captured the Chia ship."

He means they killed everyone on board, Maiga guessed.

"And we took its guns, installed them on the Trebuchet. It sounds insane. It is insane. But at the time it seemed right. Taking back what they'd stolen from us. Somehow we got the damn things working. We crippled the Chia ship and left it drifting. I think Bara wanted anyone coming across it to see what we'd done to it. See we'd taken our revenge. And that was the next mission and the next. Revenge. And I was as thirsty for it as she was. But I couldn't erase the captain from my mind as she had."

No sane person could, Maiga thought. She didn't believe in curses and ghosts, but you didn't need them here. Knowledge and guilt haunted the crew of the Trebuchet. Perhaps telling Maiga had relieved some of the burden of that for Alex. His hands had stopped trembling.

"Then why did you stay?" Maiga asked. "Why didn't you and Sev get the hell out of there?"

"The crew," Alex said, his voice calmer now. "We're officers; we have an obligation to protect the crew. Then some of the senior officers were killed and I became first officer. I thought that at least in that position I could try to restrain her, from some of the more insane plans and some of the worst atrocities. And I mean atrocities. She wanted to attack passenger transports, massacre innocent civilians. And not just the Big Four alliance races. Any non-humans. They're all fair game to her."

"So what's changed, Alex? Why are you here talking to me now?"

"Because of him," Alex nodded at Sev. "She hates him, for no rational reason. I'm afraid for his life. She could just snap and kill him anytime. She already attacked him, a week ago. His hair... Crazy. She has to be stopped, Maiga. For us, but for your space station, and for the lives of all the people she'll go on to kill if she's not stopped."

"What are you asking from me?"

"Escape. We leave on your ship, go back to Hollow Jimmy with you. And we'll help you prepare for her coming. If it was only about her, and the ship, then I'd kill her myself, I swear it. But there's so much more going on."

Maiga nodded. "I could use your help. But as my inside man, on the Trebuchet, just as she has people on Hollow Jimmy."

"No." Alex shook his head. "Not negotiable. Getting Sev to safety is my first priority."

Maiga sat back for a moment. It could still work. In fact, Sev could prove very useful indeed. She leaned forward again, but spoke loudly enough for Sev to hear too.

"Then this is my proposal. You stay on the Trebuchet; I'll take Sev back with me."

"I don't --"

"Alex," Sev turned in his seat. "Bara doesn't hate you, you'd be safe."

"You'd be more than safe," Maiga said. "You two have a nice public row somewhere, you go back to the Trebuchet, Sev doesn't. Bara thinks you chose her and your duty over your lover. Suddenly she'll trust you about twice as much as she did before."

"I don't know." Alex looked at Sev, who came over and slid into the booth beside him.

"Stopping her is what's important," Sev said.

"I'll let you two discuss it," Maiga said and left the booth to go to the bar. She stood there waiting for the drinks and watched the two men talking intently.

Alex had his priorities. But Maiga had hers too. Priorities and plans. She would stop Bara, of course, but that would only be the start of things. Alex said it himself.

So much more was going on.