There had been others before it, spread out over the millennia, each one a potential sword of Damocles aimed at the heart of the star. Similar nova mines could be found in close solar orbits within every Emissary-occupied system, serving as ultimate safeguards against defeat or rebellion.
The activation signal had triggered ancient protocols and, within an hour, light had begun to build up around each of its drive-spines, reaching a crescendo in the moment before it briefly vanished from the visible universe.
It rematerialized less than a hundred kilometres from the star's core. In the few brief nanoseconds before it was vaporized, a chain reaction deep within its drive caused a bubble of false vacuum to form, expanding outwards at the speed of light before collapsing within seconds.
Billion-kilometre tongues of fire rose up from the star's surface like fiery wreaths, and over the next few hours it began to shrink in size. Its heart had been cut out, and its remaining lifetime was now numbered in hours.
When the star finally exploded, the shockwave reached the cache-world within minutes, sending rivers of molten fire pouring down the narrow valleys between the tiny planet's mountains.
Tidally locked until now, it began to spin for the first time in a billion years, the light of a million dawns creeping slowly towards the mouth of the cache itself.
But it was already too late. The Mos Hadroch, the 'Judgement of Worlds', had sent out a signal that propagated itself across the galaxy instantaneously.
The last thing Dakota saw was a brilliant light, almost liquid in its intensity, surging in through the entrance to the chamber housing the drive-forge. 'Explain this to me again,' Commander of Shoals demanded, swimming across the command-chamber of a coreship located some tens of thousands of light-years away.
'I can't explain it,' the aide stammered, instinctively darting closer to one wall as Commander of Shoals bore down upon him. 'But something's happening to the Emissary fleet. It's… it's self-destructing. There are no other words. Look.'
The aide's stubby little tentacles, reflected Commander of Shoals, had never been used in combat, had never been used to slash an enemy's belly open, or to tear away that same enemy's fins. These were the soft appendages of a civilian, with no place on board this world-sized warship.
They were deep within the ruins of a star system whose population had numbered in the billions until it had been destroyed, more than a year before, by the Emissaries. This was the first time the General had returned here since that awful day. He and the forces he commanded had done their utmost to prevent that particular tragedy, but the Emissary ships had continued to fill the skies, intent on carrying out surgical strikes against the defensive installations on all the system's worlds – while one single enemy drone had found its way past their coreships and dived into the living heart of the system's star.
The Shoal's forces had rescued pitifully few in those last frantic hours before the star detonated. Even if there had been enough coreships to carry away every last one of the system's inhabitants, the basic logistics of such a mission would have rendered their efforts almost pointless. It would have taken the better part of a year to transport all of them safely away from the various planetary bodies.
Instead, they had a scant few hours to save what and whom they could.
And therein lay the terrible tragedy of the nova war: those left behind had no choice but to wait for the end as the departing coreships jumped to safety. It was a scenario that had been repeated in so many other systems that he could not even bring himself to contemplate their number.
They had now returned to retrieve certain items of value from the wreck of a coreship partially destroyed by that nova, but had themselves been ambushed by a cloud of Emissary scouts hidden within the tangled smoke of the newborn nebula. A godkiller had unexpectedly appeared, drawn there by the scouts, jumping to a point less than a light-minute distant and then quickly vectoring inwards to deliver the final death-blow.
Commander of Shoals stared at the data coming in from his ship's external sensor arrays. What it told him was utterly preposterous. And yet, despite this, more data was pouring in from other sources, all appearing to support the most unlikely conclusion: that the scouts had somehow, inexplicably, self-destructed.
There had also been an enormous explosion on board the god-killer. Adrift and aflame, it now spun out of control through the nebula.
Fresh data-glyphs kept appearing in the murky water filling the chamber, carrying high-priority reports from far-flung sectors of the galaxy – indeed, from the very farthest corners of the beleaguered Hegemony. Huge swathes of the Emissary fleets were reported to be spontaneously self-destructing.
Commander of Shoals found himself looking at images of other godkillers, their shattered hulls tumbling through the skies of a thousand worlds.
It was as if something had affected them all instantaneously.
It was only in that same moment that he recalled his final meeting with Trader in Faecal Matter of Animals.
Commander of Shoals whipped around in a half-circle, his enormous bulk smacking into that of the timorous aide, sending the underling tumbling and squawking with fright.
Commander of Shoals's manipulators twisted with giddy joy and he spun wildly around the chamber, while his support staff fled, unnerved by this most uncharacteristic behaviour.
Trader had done it. The vicious old fool had actually pulled it off.
He had ended the war.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Five Years Later Corso glanced to the west and saw the Lantern Constellation rising into view as the sun set. He checked his pressure suit's filters, took one last glance at the ruins that had been his principal occupation for the last few years, and was on his way back to the truck parked nearby, when suddenly Dan called in over the short-range.
'Got some news, Lucas. Commander Nabakov says the landing party should be here a little after noon tomorrow. When will you get back here?'
'I'm finished,' Corso replied. 'I should reach there just after they land. Thanks for the heads-up, Dan.'
Four and a half years before, the Mjollnir had limped away from the expanding nova, reaching a star system less than a hundred light-years away only after a difficult and hazardous six-month journey, their long-range sensors having picked up a potentially habitable world there. Its atmosphere had proved deadly, but it carried life in the form of hardy flora and small brown-pelted animals, even the largest of which had soon proved to represent no threat, as well as the scattered remnants of a long-abandoned Emissary settlement.
They had named the world Pit Stop, and started the work of repairing the Mjollnir 's drive system, but it soon became clear this was going to take longer – much, much longer – than any of them might have suspected.
Only lichenlike growths studded the sandy, gritty soil. The sun was far away and dim, even during summer, and at night the ground frosted over. It was nobody's idea of paradise, therefore, but – as Corso soon realized – it wasn't really so different from Redstone. He'd found himself getting used to the idea that he might have to spend the rest of his life here.
Once the exploration ship California had come within range of the Mjollnir 's transceivers, a few weeks before, Corso had known he should feel elated. But, instead, he had felt only an obscure sadness he couldn't begin to explain.