A dozen spider-mechs floated close by, holding a failed drive-spine firmly in their grip. She had momentarily been staring towards the stern, and beyond it to the great band of stars where home lay.
Depends what you mean, she replied, making her way towards a cargo airlock just in time to see it disgorge yet more spiders, carrying a replacement drive-spine out of the ship's interior.
‹That feeling of just being with them – there are times I can almost put it out of my mind, but it's hard, Dakota. It's really hard.›
I know. She could sense the intense regret overwhelming him, because that bond was something he would never experience again. But why do I get the feeling you've got something else on your mind, Ted?
‹What happens when we go home, Dakota? What will you do then?›
She watched as the spiders under her immediate control incrementally lowered the new drive-spine towards its magnetic couplings.
I don't know, Ted. If you want me to be really honest, I have a hard time even thinking beyond where we're headed. And, even if we pull this off, I don't think there's a place for me back home any more. Maybe not for any of the navigators.
‹You're saying we're obsolete already? Holy shit.›
Dakota merely smiled under the viscous oil-slick of her filmsuit.
The frigate's next jump would take them to their penultimate destination, and to the location of the extra shielding Trader wanted them to pick up. Corso had already brokered an agreement with the Shoal-member to use his yacht for the trip down to the cache. With its considerably more advanced propulsion systems and inertial dampeners, Trader's ship would be a lot faster and safer than any other craft stowed in the Mjollnir 's hold.
Dakota had declined to take part in those negotiations, but she was the one who would have to make the pick-up trip with Trader – and that meant coming face-to-face with him, whether she liked it or not. At the end of the shift, Dakota made her way back to the airlock and surveyed the hull, noting the gaps where drive-spines had been removed but not yet replaced. Nancy had made a point of cycling back through the airlock before either of them.
Tell me what I have to do to get her off my back, Dakota asked him, as they made their own way back inside the frigate.
Lamoureaux activated the airlock access panel and a light blinked green. ‹Maybe she's not so bad as you think,› he sent back.
You can't possibly be serious.
He glanced towards her while they waited for the hatch to slide open. ‹Most women's lives in the Freehold are pretty circumscribed, Dakota. Their career choices come down to mother, teacher and whore. She must have had a hell of a fight to get to be head of security on a ship like the Mjollnir. Then she lost that job when Martinez fell out of favour. No wonder she's pissed off – wouldn't you be?›
Dakota tried to think of a reply, but could not manage one.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Less than an hour later, Dakota reached the bridge just in time for Olivarri's funeral service.
The rest of the crew was already there – even Driscoll, who had been hiding in the labs ever since leaving Redstone. The overhead display was filled by an external image of the Mjollnir, as seen through the lens of a surveillance-drone trailing the frigate at a distance of a couple of kilometres. Floating a few metres away from the drone, and in full view of its sensors, was a single spider-mech holding a jar delicately in its multiple arms.
Martinez was in full dress uniform, as were Nancy Schiller and Dan Perez. Corso wore a formal suit, his shirt a swirl of various shades of grey. Dakota, by contrast, felt distinctly underdressed in her usual casual uniform of T-shirt and work trousers, but dealing with formal occasions like this was very far from being one of her strong points.
She watched Corso mount the dais, resting one hand on the arm of the vacant interface chair as he waited until the conversation died down. Dakota tried to listen to his brief eulogy, and then that of Willis, but waves of fatigue kept washing over her, and her attention kept slipping. All she could see when she briefly closed her eyes were the grey and black plates of the Mjollnir's armoured hull.
Her mind drifted further, speculating on what the next generation of human-built superluminal ships might be like, assuming they ever survived the onslaught of the Emissaries. She decided their best option would still be to find some way to power up the Ascension coreship, or one of the other coreships abandoned in the vicinity of the Long War…
Dakota snapped awake and realized the service was finishing. She looked around warily, wondering if anyone else had noticed her practically sleepwalking through the whole event.
She glanced back up at the image overhead. The spider-mech had now opened the jar, spilling grey ashes out into the vacuum, where they hung in a slowly expanding cloud. She imagined Olivarri's essence spreading ever outwards until it filled the void between the spiral arms.
'Dakota.' A hand touched her shoulder.
She turned to see it was Corso.
'We're going to be reaching our goal in a little under twelve hours' time. I really think it's time you got some sleep, don't you?' Dakota awoke, entangled in her hammock, to the sound of a pre-jump alert. There had been several since she had stumbled back into her cabin, but she had managed to sleep through most of them.
Keeping her eyes closed, she linked into the data-space. Lamoureaux was already there, of course.
‹Looks like you're just in time for the show,› he sent.
She switched over to the flow of data coming in from the ship's external arrays. The Orion Arm had already vanished behind dense dust clouds, while the band of the Perseus Arm, in the other direction, was becoming brighter and more detailed. A star barely an AU away bathed the frigate in a pale golden light.
Then the stars shifted, suddenly, jarringly, and that same star was now much closer. It formed a bright round disc, while a dark shape closer to hand partly occluded it – the dwarf planet Trader had directed them to.
Post-jump analyses started pouring in, and she skimmed over them, picking out the main details and discarding the rest. The star had thirteen planets, and a brown dwarf binary partner less than two light-years away.
Dakota untwisted herself from her hammock, despite the protest of her tired and aching muscles. She kicked herself over to an exercise frame designed for zero gee, and did some gentle stretches before hitting the shower, though half her attention was still focused on the updates still flooding in. Initial analyses showed all the planets to be either frozen balls of gas or sterile rocks, most with only a few thin vestiges of atmosphere. If there was anything more evolved than lichen to be found in this whole system, she would be greatly surprised. Half an hour later she made her way to the nearest transport station, and was surprised to find Nancy Schiller waiting there with a pulse-rifle slung menacingly over one shoulder. Dakota just stared at her with a bleak expression.
'I'm coming with you,' Schiller announced. She reached out and slapped the access panel on the nearest car, and its door slid open. 'But don't think I like having to babysit you.'
Dakota didn't move towards the car. 'Nancy, why are you here? It's meant to be just me and Trader going down to the planet surface. Whose idea was this?'
'Martinez.'
The two women regarded each other with the keen attention of soldiers on opposite sides in a war caught in the same foxhole.
Ted, are you getting this?
‹Sorry. Not my idea,› he sent back.
Dakota shook her head with a sigh and stepped past Nancy and into the car. Schiller followed a moment later, her mouth set in a thin line, and pulled herself into the couch facing her. The car began to accelerate down the transit tube, heading for the stern.