C'mon Nancy, need to get you inside.
She hoisted Nancy on top of one of the spiders, then climbed on behind to get a secure hold of her under both arms.
Grab hold of the lip of the hatch, and then I can help heave you up.
‹I don't feel so good.›
Just get inside so I can take a look at you.
With a groan, Nancy reached out with both hands and grabbed the rim of the hatch. She started to pull herself up, as Dakota pushed her by grabbing her hips. Fortunately, the low gravity made things a lot easier, but Dakota still had to command one of the spiders already inside the hatch to grab hold of Nancy and help her up.
Dakota pulled herself in next, feeling the subtle transition from low to zero gee as she entered the ship.
We're all on board. Let's get out of here, Trader.
The Shoal-member didn't reply, but the hatch spiralled shut behind them, sealing out the dust. Dakota pulled the other woman's helmet off and found Nancy had passed out. Her skin was looking horribly red and blistered.
Finally Dakota answered a priority signal from the Mjollnir, that had been hovering at the back of her attention for the past minute or so.
‹Dakota!› Lamoureaux yelled when she opened the link. ‹We saw what looked like some kind of fight going on from out here. What the hell's happening?›
There were Emissary scouts hiding in the cache, and they just got loose. We're back on board Trader's ship with the field-generators, but Nancy's been hurt.
She opened up a visual link to let Lamoureaux see what she herself was seeing. She could sense his horror when he saw just how bad a state Schiller was in.
A lot of this is radiation damage, Dakota sent. If you haven't already, you need to get Mjollnir prepped for an emergency jump. I don't know just how well the Meridian drones are going to hold up against a couple of hundred Emissary scouts, but if those scouts reach the frigate, we're in serious shit.
‹Okay. Just get back here as fast as you can. I'm picking you up on the external arrays, and it looks like you're just clearing orbit.›
Dakota glanced around the crowded chamber, where everything seemed perfectly still and silent. There wasn't the slightest clue to suggest the ship had so much as moved. Spotting her wadded-up jumpsuit, she started to pull it on, while letting the filmsuit drain itself back inside her body.
Then, for the first time, the ship rocked gently around her, sending fresh beads of moisture caroming through the air.
Trader?
‹An unfortunate encounter with some Emissary scouts following us. Might I ask that you set some of the Meridian drones to defend us?›
Dakota closed her eyes and locked into the drones, immediately finding herself submerged in a chaotic whirl of data. The drones had reverted to their original programming, and were now fighting to push the Emissary scouts back down inside the cache.
She felt one of the Meridian drones die; they were a superior technology, but the Emissary scouts had the advantage of sheer numbers.
Dakota concentrated on protecting the yacht, keeping her eyes tightly closed and letting her limbs float out around her, her fingers jerking spasmodically as she directed her side of the battle raging outside. Trader's yacht looked tiny and fragile compared with the bristling black mass of the pursuing scouts. Yet more of the Emissary scouts were pouring out from the mouth of the cache, their skins flickering with multiple bright energies as they repelled tightly focused bursts of energy directed towards them. The hulls of the machines on both sides of the battle crackled as their outer layers were burned off, while the complex nanomolecular circuitry within attempted to repair the constant damage.
‹We're just about prepped for a short-range jump,› Lamoureaux sent to her. ‹Have you checked the monitors on Nancy's suit?›
Dakota swore silently to herself for not having thought of that already. She opened her eyes and quickly activated the data screen printed on the sleeve of the other woman's spacesuit.
It says she's absorbed more than fifty grey of radiation, Dakota sent in reply. She was far from sure whether even the wonders of modern medical technology could combat such a huge dose of ionizing radiation.
Nancy coughed, and Dakota studied the other woman's face. Her lips moved soundlessly, and her eyes had rolled halfway up into her head.
‹Okay, that's really not good,› Lamoureaux remarked.
Understatement of the fucking century.
‹Look, all we can do now is stick her in a medbox and hope for the best.›
I should have listened to her, Dakota sent. She had a better idea of the situation, and I didn't pay attention. I should have checked things out more thoroughly, instead of going barging into a situation I didn't understand.
‹Don't beat yourself up too much, Dakota. She wasn't exactly going out of her way to win your trust and respect.›
The yacht shook again. Trader, how much damage are we taking?
‹A considerable amount, I regret to say. I believe there might originally have been only a few scouts inside the cache, who would have used any available resources to build copies of themselves.›
How do you know?
‹The tactic is familiar. A few enter a defended territory, multiply rapidly, then attack from within.›
And knowing this helps us how?
‹The ones with antimatter cores are identifiable by the magnetic fields they use for containment. Those are suicide devices. The ones without antimatter cores control the rest.›
So if we can destroy the ones doing the controlling, we can stop the rest.
‹Precisely›
Dakota slowed her time frame until the seconds stretched out. She ran an analysis of the course of the battle so far, and noticed how just a dozen scouts kept themselves close to the cache, while all the rest pushed the attack aggressively. She watched as one of them dived towards a Meridian drone, detonating at the point of closest proximity, overwhelming the drone's wrapping of protective fields and annihilating the machinery within in an enormous blast of heat and radiation.
It was time, she decided, to stop running and go on the offensive.
As she drove the drones straight at the cache, several were annihilated instantly, but instead of breaking away again, as they had been programmed to do, she kept the rest driving relentlessly towards the cache and the cluster of controlling scouts sheltering there.
‹Dakota, It's Ted. We've come up with an idea.›
I hope it's good.
‹There's a couple of scouts heading towards us. We might be able to take them out with the pulse-cannons, once they get within range, but we can't risk letting them gather intel on the frigate and then maybe sending advance warning to the Emissaries that we're in the vicinity.›
You're assuming they haven't done that already?
‹Yeah, well, we still need to cut any potential losses. So here's what we're going to do: we'll jump now, and rendezvous with you at the following co-ords. Pass them on to Trader, and we'll meet you there later.›
We could wind up separated from each other by a long way, Ted. Maybe even by a couple of light-years.
‹Not if we make it just a small jump, like you did back at Redstone. That reduces the chances of wide separation. There's a binary system about twelve light-years from here that might be a good recognizable target.›
A moment later an image of the binary system materialized in Dakota's mind.
‹It's got about six satellites, so we'll aim for the fifth one out. Neither of us is going to hit the exact spot, but with luck we'll be in close enough range of each other to make a relatively fast rendezvous.›
What about Nancy? She needs emergency treatment, Ted – as in right now.