She watched, helplessly, knowing that if she provoked Trader into attacking her a second time, the power drain would likely overwhelm her filmsuit.
Trader swivelled to look at her directly. ‹To continue our conversation, you are, of course, aware that there are sophisticated means by which cultures much more advanced than your own can track individuals across enormous distances.›
I don't know what you mean.
‹Of course you do. It's how Hugh Moss chased me all across the galaxy. Don't you realize he doesn't want us to succeed? The Emissaries are winning. The Shoal is retreating, world after world destroyed. You can't imagine how many lives have been lost already.
Nothing would please that monster more than to see us all die, so it was hardly surprising that he might place a similar form of tracking technology on your own person. Something so small and undetectable you would never find it. Then, my dear Dakota, he gave the means of tracking you to our enemies, the Emissaries.›
Dakota remembered how Moss had touched her shoulder back on Derinkuyu, and the way his touch had stung.
You're lying. There's no way you could possibly know all this.
‹I am not so alone in my endeavours as you seem to imagine. I still have those whom I can trust to supply me with certain intelligence, otherwise Moss would have found and destroyed me long ago. But the final proof that the Emissaries have a means of tracking you lies in the ease with which they found us here, out of all the vastness of this spiral arm. I cannot believe those scouts hidden in the cache were anything other than a trap carefully laid in anticipation of your arrival. The only course of action then left to me is to take the Mos Hadroch far away from yourself and the frigate, in order to preserve it.›
This is bullshit. You were always planning to steal it.
‹Once our mission here was finished I intended to return it to the Hegemony for safe-keeping, that much is true. Perhaps, if you survive this day, you will eventually come to understand that the Mos Hadroch is far too precious to be allowed to remain in the hands of a fledgling and barbaric race such as your own. The Emissaries' attention will be on the frigate or, more precisely, on you, while a much smaller ship like my own may be able to slip past their defences.›
A hatch began to slide open in the side of Trader's ship, and he moved towards it.
Wait…
‹Goodbye, Dakota. I did not come to this decision lightly›
The hull of Trader's yacht closed behind him as he slipped back inside. Flickering lightning began to form around the tips of its drive-spines.
Dakota activated the command structure Moss had given her, feeling it unfold like an impossibly complex origami flower in the depths of her mind. She tried to lock on to the yacht's primary control systems, but it was already too late; the craft was fully committed to a jump. Trying to reverse the flow of energy spilling out through the drive-spines at this point would likely destroy the yacht, the frigate's hold, and herself along with it.
She scrambled for the door and felt real panic well up inside her when she found it had sealed itself following the decompression. She launched herself back into the data-space and found the door's override codes, but Lamoureaux was in the chair, meaning she couldn't activate them without his explicit permission.
Ted, I need you to override the safety locks at my current location. Now!
‹I've got your location, but just blowing the door will be dangerous. Won't-?›
Just do it, Ted! Do it now or I'm dead!
‹Okay. You might want to move back from the door if you're anywhere near it.›
She pulled herself into a corner, under a metal desk that projected out from one wall, and held on to its legs. The light from Trader's yacht was beginning to build in intensity, becoming almost blinding.
The exit door slammed open a second later, and Dakota clung on for her life as the atmosphere rushed past her and out the shattered window. Once it was over, she threw herself back into the access tunnel, bouncing from wall to wall in a frenzy, heading back towards the airlock.
The light followed her, still increasing in intensity. Whenever her hands or feet touched a bulkhead, she could feel a heavy vibration building up inside it.
She was back out on the hull less than a minute later. The stars had changed once again, the Emissary scouts now several hundred light-years aft.
‹Dakota!› Lamoureaux screamed to her through their link. ‹What the hell is happening back there? Are we still under attack?›
She could hear priority alerts blaring on the bridge. It's Trader. He's going to jump his ship from inside the hold. I don't know what it's going to do to the frigate, but you'd better warn the others and tell them to get ready.
She kept pulling herself back along the hull towards the bow, hand over hand, until she reached the same heat-exchange nacelle she had passed before. She pulled herself around the other side of it and pressed herself close, the vibration now growing into a powerful tremor that in turn became a series of hammer-blows that very nearly sent her spinning off into the encompassing darkness.
Light spilled out into the void from somewhere on the other side of the nacelle. She peeked over the top in time to see the hull around the main hold tear open like putty, hull-plates silently spinning away as an inferno of light and energy burst outwards. The dazzling light pulsed as it reached a crescendo, casting off a great burning shell of plasma that expanded outwards from the frigate, before quickly dulling to a deep orange.
Trader's yacht was gone. Dakota stared in shock at the devastation left behind it.
‹Dakota! Dakota, are you still there? We've lost contact with everything beyond Deck E. Please respond.›
Yes, I'm here. Trader's gone – along with most of the main hold.
Chapter Thirty-five
Half an hour later, Dakota was back on the bridge. She looked at the grim, worried faces around her, thinking how few of them were left now.
Five against an empire was not good odds.
Dan Perez was giving everyone booster shots, Dakota last of all. 'For the nerves,' he said, with an attempt at a smile, as he pressed the spray against her shoulder.
A numb, icy feeling spread through her where the spray touched her skin.
Corso sat next to a console, Martinez standing beside him with folded arms.
'All right,' began Corso, leaning forward slightly, with his elbows resting on his knees. 'Whitecloud's dead, Trader's left our ship half-crippled, and he's taken the Mos Hadroch with him. According to Dakota, we lost a third of the Meridian drones when he blew the hold apart.' He shrugged and made a face. 'But it could be worse, right?'
Dakota affected a weak smile.
'I'm not kidding,' Corso continued. 'At least we're still alive. We came very close to suffering a breach of one of our plasma conduits, and if that had happened, we wouldn't be here now. Not only that, most of our critical systems are unaffected, despite losing most of the hold. Our jump drive is still functioning. A good part of the ancillary fusion propulsion system is screwed, admittedly, but enough of the reactors are still working that we might be able to compensate for what we've lost. Manoeuvring inside our target system isn't going to be nearly as easy as we want it to be, but it won't be impossible.'
Martinez sighed and shook his head. 'Lucas, our reason for coming out here is gone. When the hold went up, it almost certainly took all our landing craft with it. The most sensible thing we can do now is turn back.'
'We're getting a response from the on-board systems for at least two of the landers,' Lamoureaux pointed out. 'I've already sent a couple of spider-mechs in to take a look, and I reckon they're salvageable, but I can't know for sure until we check them out.'