Suddenly, many things happened at once. Crewmen appeared all around them, carting off the crates in various directions presumably where they would be transferred to the Silver Skies.

At some point, she ended up squashed next to Hawkeye on one of the lifeboats. It was loaded with far more cargo than she felt was reasonable to ask such a tiny boat to hold, and consequently there was even one half-crate lying sideways on their laps. Hawkeye was tapping out a short message on a small portable heliograph back to the Skies, and was leaning halfway out of the vessel to try and get a better view of the heliograph turret.

Elletra had a view of the relatively familiar outline from a different angle, realising in a flash what had bothered her all along – that was a Martese officer’s revolver, worn crossdraw for easy access in tight situations. The grips were stencilled with his name and service number… with a date only months after she’d left.

The girl looked up sharply, and their eyes locked.