Prologue

After lying on it for the whole night, Faver’s left arm collapsed in his attempt to get up. He sat for a while, meditating, whilst the blood returned.

‘Good morning, candidate Faver.’ A slightly robotic voice offered a greeting it knew would not be returned. After making the bed and smoothing the wrinkles, he approached a panelled wall that slid aside to reveal a shower, a sink and a rack of clothes. He brushed his teeth whilst checking the schedule. Circuit training and the last day of simulation testing; his last chance to set some records.

An all-purple jumpsuit, designed for practicality over everything else, was hanging from a hook suspended on a pole alongside three identical garments. He slipped into it and tucked the slender grey helmet, which had been sitting on the shelf above, underneath his arm.

He prompted the door open, walked across the hall, swivelled round then stood at attention, keeping his eyes focused straight in front of him as the Hilt Superior inspected his room. ‘Report,’ he demanded.

‘Ship shape as usual, hilt superior.’ Came the disembodied voice once again, it belonged to V15-AC, an AI model provided to all age candidates. The door to the left of Faver was still closed. It belonged to candidate Sven. Hilt superior Dean strolled past the door, not expecting it to open any time soon. In the first three months, he might have bothered to intrude. The week before docking? He could accept a failure when he saw one.

Faver was three quarters of the way up a rope, when a sudden, mighty crash violently rocked the ship. The jolt forced him down the rope, tearing the skin from his hands as he desperately attempted to slow his fall.

He pushed himself off the floor with his wrists, avoiding pressing his skinned hands onto the wooden surface. He scrambled to put his helmet and gloves on, smearing blood across his suit as he managed to finally seal it, activating life support systems in the process. ‘Warning, severe structural damage. Follow emergency procedure 4, EP4, EP4.’ A distressingly calm voice played directly into his ears through his helmet.

At the same time, the emergency doors slammed shut; splitting the gym in two and leaving Faver separated from the rest of the candidates. He took two steps before his third sent him higher than he expected. ‘Artificial gravity failed,’ said V15-AC.

Faver hardly had time to consider the next course of action before a giant white shard cleaved the ship apart, then pulled back to reveal pitch-black space. Faver made no noise as his body was whipped out of the ship, smashing his head against the solid steel ceiling before being ripped into space through the grisly hole in the ship’s carcass.

On the other side of the safety door, the candidates along with hilt superior Dean were safely belted in, the latter was doing his best to communicate with the ship’s crew. Amongst the terrified shouts and barking of orders, he could make out very little. He muted the noise. ‘Can you find me Faver’s status?’ he asked his AI, expecting a confirmation of safety, only making sure in the first place as he was the only one out of sight.

‘Incommunicable,’ it said.

‘Nothing?’ He double-checked.

‘Confirm.’ The AI’s cold voice amplified the weight. The hilt superior shouted down his communicator to the ship’s crew.

‘Open the gym’s dividing wall, quickly!’ There was an eerie silence.

‘It’s breached.’ someone said. Pale shock filled the hilt superior’s face as he scrambled out of his belts. ‘Don’t leave!’ he shouted again down the communicator.

‘We have to leave!’ A shout came back.

‘Not yet!’

‘You have been muted.’ His AI informed him. He was slamming on the dividing wall and shouting, hoping to hear his desperate knocks returned by Faver. ‘We have left the vicinity,’ said the AI again, unable to share in his despair.