'Got that,' Ty replied and cut the connection.
The avatar was gone, and the screen had turned black. If he wanted answers, Ty was going to have to find them somewhere else. He re-secured his helmet, cursing and muttering as he twisted around in the confined space, then paused just as he was about to pull his glove back on.
He left the same glove spinning slowly in the air, as he pulled the other one off as well. Then he tried to slide the data-ring off his finger.
The moment he worked it up to his knuckle, a deep, primal terror washed over him like a black tide. Worse, the ring actually became tighter, rather than looser, as it was designed to do when removed.
Ty gritted his teeth and once again tried to work the ring past his knuckle. It could only get so tight, after all.
Something like an electric current surged up his spine before exploding inside his skull. He writhed in pain, his head feeling like it was on fire, twisting around in the zero gee like a trapped animal.
When this pain finally subsided, the knowledge of how thoroughly he had been duped became unavoidable. He had suspected as much when he first encountered the avatar, but had been so desperate to escape from the residency and from Marcus Weil that he had ignored his own instincts.
Worse, he now had a pretty good idea what had been done to him.
It was still difficult for Ty to think back to his days developing military technologies for the Uchidans; conscripted or not, he had allowed himself to be sufficiently drawn into his work that it became easy to ignore the potential human cost of their research, while helping his fellow scientists develop a variety of possible means by which neural implants could be attacked or compromised. One in particular had involved the use of the body's own bio-electric field as a conduit for signals that could overcome or suppress the flow of information in implants – except that, in order to work, whatever affected the bio-electric field had to remain in constant contact with the target's own body. This, in turn, had led to the development of hardware-based neural-feedback mechanisms that could manipulate the neuro-chemical balance of the target's brain, eliciting powerful negative emotions or even generating escalating levels of pain and distress that could prove ultimately deadly.
Something like a cheap data-ring could do the job. And whoever was behind the avatar had somehow figured out how to use Ty's own research against him.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Eleven days out from Redstone, Dakota made her way to one of the airlock bays. She was surprised to find Nancy Schiller there, along with Ted Lamoureaux.
Lamoureaux nodded guardedly to her. Nancy, on the other hand, was doing her level best to ignore both of them.
'I thought Dan was scheduled for this crew,' Dakota said cautiously. Since Schiller herself was in charge of scheduling the repair shifts, she had so far arranged them so that she had never once had to work on the same crew as Dakota.
Nancy didn't look up while she ran her spacesuit's auto-diagnostics. 'Yeah, he was, but something else came up.'
'You know, me and Ted could probably handle this just fine with only the two of us,' said Dakota.
Nancy finally raised her head and flashed her a look of contempt. 'I don't think so,' she barked. 'Just get suited up, all right?'
Dakota pushed her way over to one of the racks and grabbed a suit.
What happened to Dan? Dakota sent.
‹There's been a big increase in Emissary transmissions since our last jump,› Lamoureaux replied. ‹It's a lot of tach-net traffic for such a low-density region, and Martinez wanted him up on the bridge while they try and figure out the reason why›
There's an increase in Emissary tach-net traffic because we just jumped straight past the Long War and deep into the gap between spiral arms, remember? So that means they have to boost their signals all the way from the Perseus Arm, and we're just picking up stray long-range transmissions. It doesn't actually mean there's more Emissaries out there any closer at hand.
Their last jump had taken place fourteen hours before, with the drive-spines running at about 70 per cent efficiency. The frigate was now nearly three and a half thousand light-years from home, and the Consortium had been reduced to a barely discernible smudge of stars lying somewhere in the direction of the Core.
‹Oh, right. I didn't think of that.›
See why you need me? Dakota sent, now making for the locker next to his. He was making a typical hash of getting into his own suit here in zero gee.
Lamoureaux laughed at her expression, and Schiller snapped her head around to stare at them both.
'I know you're talking,' she said. 'Don't think I don't know it.'
Dakota turned to face her. 'Is that a problem, Nancy?'
For a few seconds, the other woman looked like she might make something more of it, then she uttered a sound of disgust. 'Just get ready,' she muttered. 'I want this over and done with.'
Nancy turned away and Dakota stared silently at her back for a few seconds. Then she began to strip off, throwing her discarded clothing into the open locker.
Lamoureaux meanwhile kept his gaze politely averted and concentrated on checking his own spacesuit's integrity, once he had finally managed to pull himself inside it. When Dakota was completely naked, she padded towards the airlock entrance on bare feet.
Nancy's face turned a stormy red. 'I don't know what you think you're…'
Her jaw dropped open as the black tide of Dakota's filmsuit spilled out of its hidden orifices, rapidly coating her skin overall in a thick layer that could protect her from the vacuum and radiation beyond the hull. Dakota swallowed as the same tide of black flowed down her throat and into her lungs, stilling them as their function was temporarily abrogated to tiny power units inside her spine.
She waited as the black slick faded to partial transparency over her eyes, then opened them and squinted over at Nancy. 'Come on, surely someone told you about this already?' she asked with a smile.
Nancy stared back at her in horrified fascination. 'Yeah, but… look, you need to get into your suit.'
'She doesn't,' intervened Lamoureaux. 'That thing's all the space-suit she needs, at least for the amount of time we'll be out on the hull.'
Schiller switched her gaze between them. 'How…?' she stammered.
'A present from an old friend,' said Dakota, gesturing towards the airlock. 'It's time we got started, don't you think?' Dakota and Ted had now reached the point where they swapped control of the frigate's primary systems almost automatically: one keeping a watchful eye over the Mjollnir, while the other slept. As they pushed out of the airlock and on to the hull, Lamoureaux assumed primary control.
There was plenty to do, and Nancy worked away on her own, keeping any communications with them down to the bare essentials. Over the next few hours, Dakota and Lamoureaux monitored the removal of almost a dozen dead or degraded drive-spines, which was a record for a single shift. The fabricators were having such a hard time keeping up with demand that the idea of having them construct copies of themselves in order to increase the overall output had been mooted. But that idea had to be shelved once it became clear that certain essential resources for the construction processes were simply not available. ‹Do you ever miss it?›
Glancing towards Lamoureaux's suited figure, Dakota instantly knew he was talking about the Magi ships and that powerful sense of connection all Magi-enabled human navigators felt with them.