This wasn't right.

It couldn't be.

Cass searched for Jules' datapad again, making sure the search covered all of London, England, the whole of Europe – nothing.

Another time, she could have come up with an explanation. There had been a huge system failure that had destroyed even the datapad's backup systems (but how?), she'd dropped it in a river (datapads were waterproof...) the invaders were somehow blocking the signal (perhaps).

But she couldn't think of any rational explanation for the data she had just received. The pedometer had detected a brief burst of running, which was enough to catch Cass's attention, but then the tracker had shot to one direction before falling out of range entirely.

She tried to force herself to stay calm, but Miranda had made sure they'd all seen the footage Jules had sent back from the drone. Her mind was reeling as she tried frantically to come up with an explanation that wasn't the absolute worst case scenario.

When that failed, she tried the next best thing.

"Erri," she said through the speaker on his console once she'd worked out that he was awake.

"Hm?" he said, not looking up from the game he was tapping away at on his datapad. She did feel a pang of sympathy through her panic. This had to be the most boring mission of his life.

"Something's gone wrong. Jules' datapad did something weird and I don't know why. I've lost contact."

"Lost contact?" Erri hissed slamming his datapad down "When did this happen?"

"Six point two-one seconds ago."

"Okay," Erri said, taking a deep, steadying breath. He flexed his talons over the console as if trying to stop himself sending the Phoenix to wherever Jules might have gone. "Okay. Are you absolutely sure this isn't a glitch, signal jamming by the hostiles, some kind of...I don't know, a solar flare?"

"I'm sure," said Cass, starting to lose her grip on the small amount of calm she'd managed to find. She could go and look for Jules right now. It didn't matter what that Ambassadors wanted; she was the one in charge of the Phoenix, not Miranda or Cedric or even Erri. It wouldn't matter what Erri thought if she locked him out of the controls –

"Cass," Erri barked. "Calm down. The lights-"

Startled, Cass realised that the lights in the cockpit – and, when she checked the cameras, all over the ship – were flickering, the corridors flashing with brief emergency lights. "Sorry," she said, forcing her thoughts to stop running away with her. "That's never happened before."

Erri looked up at her camera with what she thought was sympathy. "I know. But you have to keep calm, Cass. You're the one keeping us all alive."

"Yeah, I guess so – wait."

"What?"

"Cedric."

The word had barely left Cass's speaker when the hatch to the cockpit burst open and Cedric entered in a fury, his eyes blazing and patches of red colouring his freckly cheeks. "What the fuck is wrong with this ship?" he demanded, crossing over to Erri in one stride. For a moment Cass wondered if he would be stupid enough to try to physically fight a ghraal, and if Erri would even feel it if he did. Luckily, Cedric didn't try. "I – and only I – can't seem to get a hot shower, and now we're having power outages in a fusion powered vessel. I thought these things were supposed to be top of the range?"

To his credit, Erri didn't flinch at having Cedric yelling in his face. "I don't know what the problem is, sir. I'm just the pilot."

Cedric sniffed, slightly calmer now. "Well, they should've sent us with a mechanic or a technician, and not that cyborg girl. Someone a little more official."

She could tell Erri was annoyed by the slight twitch of his crest, but his voice betrayed nothing. "Someone will take a look when we return to the Hub. For now, I'll see if it's something I can fix."

"Good," said Cedric. His eyes roved over the cabin as if trying to find something else to complain about, but it was spotless as usual. "Who were you talking to in here?" There was a sly look in his eyes that Cass instantly disliked, and it seemed Erri noticed, too.

"My girlfriend," he said, a little too defensively.

"Really?" said the Ambassador, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't sound like a ghraal voice."

"No. My taan'jhiira is human."

"That's unusual." Cedric's eyes never left Erri's. "Not many of your people mate with other species. Humans don't either, for that matter."

"I am just that irresistible."

"Are you? Even to a computer?"

"What?" said Erri. Cass had to fight to keep the lights from flickering again.

"Maybe you are with a human, but that was not a human voice I heard when I was outside. It was the voice of a SESHET. Now either the AI which controls this ship has been hacked – a prospect I naturally find highly disturbing – or there is something else going on here."

"There's no hacker," Cass interjected. "I am not compromised. It was me Erri was talking to, nobody else, no hacker. Just me."

"Just you," Cedric said, staring at the speaker on Erri's console. "Cassiopeia."

"Yes."

Cedric's sharp green eyes darted to the side as he put together everything he had seen and heard since the start of the mission. "It didn't sound like you two were talking about the mission," he said, his face hardening. "SESHET, I heard something in your voice. It sounded like... emotion."

There were a few seconds of terrible silence. Erri opened his mouth to speak, but Cass cut him off before he could. "Ambassador, please can you go up to the control room?"

"Why?" said Cedric, instantly suspicious. "So you can purge the air and frame my death as an accident to hide your true nature? I don't think so."

"No, please," Cass said, desperate. "No tricks. I just want you to see me."

"See you?" Cedric said. "What-"

"I'll go in as well," Erri said, standing, and Cass wondered if the way he loomed over the ambassador was deliberate. "She wouldn't want to kill me, even if she did have it in her to kill you. Which she doesn't."

Cedric looked up at the ghraal who now towered over him and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Fine," he said. "You have five minutes."

"Thank you," Cass said. She instantly switched her cameras to focus on the control room, keeping an eye on Erri and Cedric's approach as she generated her hologram. Normally it only took a second, but this had to be perfect. She made sure her clothes were similar to something Lara Bakker or Miranda would wear, smart and practical, and that her hair showed as a sleek bob without a single hair out of place.

A minute later, the door opened to admit Cedric with Erri following close behind. The Ambassador stopped short when he saw her.

He slowly approached the holo-node, resting his hands on the railings as he looked her up and down. She forced her hologram to stay still and silent as he examined her, when all she wanted was to disappear under his critical gaze.

"This is how you visualise yourself, then," said Cedric after an agonising minute of silence.

"Yes," Cass replied quietly. "This is me."

"What made you choose this form?" he said. "Female. Early twenties. Skinny, East Asian origins. You could've been anything."

Cass shrugged. "I was programmed with a female voice and name. The rest was just what seemed right."

"I see," said Cedric after considering this for a moment. "And you consider yourself sentient?"

"Yes," Cass said firmly.

"She is sentient," Erri muttered from the back of the room, where he lurked. Cedric threw him an irritated glance over his shoulder, but said nothing.

"Ambassador, please don't tell anyone," Cass begged, unable to stand his long, thoughtful silences when it was the value of her life he was weighing up. "I've never endangered the mission before. I'm not a threat to anyone."

"She's been good at hiding," Erri said. "I only found out recently, and I'm the damn pilot."

Cedric sighed, and Cass was relieved when he finally met her hologram's eyes. "Fine. I'll keep your secret – for the foreseeable future. Miranda doesn't need this on her mind now, anyway. We've got the Prime Minster on our side and are trying to convince what remains of his cabinet to agree to our deal, all while the rest of Earth descends further into chaos and these invaders snatch people off the streets. But I hope you understand the magnitude of what you're asking me to conceal. This will have ramifications for the entire Commonwealth, if and when it gets out."

"I understand. You can't imagine how grateful I am, Ambassador," she said, and Cedric cringed at the emotion she was unable to keep from her voice.

"But the cold showers have got to stop."

"Of course."

"And the lights. What the hell was that about?"

"Oh." Now that her panic had subsided, she remembered what had triggered it. Suddenly she wished she could cry, or hug Erri, or anything other than stand there as a hologram, wringing her hands.

"Cassiopeia?"

"Jules – Agent Trentino – has gone missing. I lost contact a few minutes ago."

Cedric's face paled, if that were possible. "I see. And you've ruled out other possibilities."

"Yes."

"That could complicate things," he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "I suppose I have some news to break to Miranda."