Empire of Light

Chapter Thirty-four

‹Got him,› Lamoureaux sent to Dakota, just a couple of hours later. ‹We just picked him up making for an ancillary airlock on Deck D. That's the good news.›

Dakota herself was standing in the entrance of a deserted engineering bay close by the main hold, watching as three spider-mechs boosted themselves through its echoing empty space on puffs of gas, their lights swinging from side to side, reflecting off bulkheads and machinery, making the shadows around them seem that much deeper by contrast.

You're saying there's bad news too?

‹We're picking up traces of Emissary tach-net communications that are definitely in our neighbourhood. Small, scattered but numerous.›

Shit. Scouts?

‹Can't confirm yet, but that's my guess. Don't know if they've spotted us yet, but we're going to make the next jump before they do. I'm forwarding the video-capture of Whitecloud to you now.›

She saw Whitecloud making his way rapidly down a corridor, a heavy satchel slung over one shoulder. A sign pointing towards an airlock facility was visible behind him as he passed the hidden security lens.

Where the hell's he going? she sent back. That's nowhere near the main hold.

‹Ask him when you see him. You're closer to that airlock than any of the rest of us. Do you think you can handle him?›

She turned her back on the engineering bay and grabbed a rung, using it to boost herself through the air, kicking off walls until she began to pick up greater speed. I've come up against things a lot worse than Whitecloud. How long before our next jump?

‹Twenty-five minutes.›

Got it.

‹Do what you can, Dakota. And good luck.› She made her way towards the bow, moving away from the hold until she reached the same passageway in which Whitecloud had been sighted. She barrelled her way towards the airlock complex at record speed, but it still took her a good ten minutes.

When she got there, she noticed a suit was missing from the racks. Whitecloud was already in one of the airlocks, but still cycling through.

She kicked off from a wall and landed square on the airlock door. She peered in through the glass panel and saw the back of Whitecloud's head. He was wearing a helmet, his bag slung over the shoulder of his suit.

She slammed her hand against the glass repeatedly until Whitecloud finally turned to look at her. Something in his face made him look eerily different. How long, she wondered, could Trader maintain his hold on him?

There was no way to override the cycle once it had started, so all she could do was wait until he had exited on to the hull, and the external hatch had swung closed again.

As soon as the safety light blinked on, and the airlock disengaged its safety locks, Dakota yanked the door open and climbed inside, initiating another cycle. By the time the outer hatch slid open once more, her filmsuit had spread out fully beneath her clothes.

She pulled herself out on to the hull but couldn't see Whitecloud. For one freezing moment she thought she had lost him, but then spotted him making his way rapidly through the forest of drive-spines, heading for the stern, his bag bouncing around as he moved.

Ty? Trader? Can you hear me? I'm right behind you.

Whitecloud stopped just long enough to glance back at her. He turned away again, and began to move more quickly.

She pushed herself along parallel to the hull. It was a risky manoeuvre to move this fast without the benefit of a lanyard to keep her attached to the hull itself. One misjudgement could send her spinning away into the darkness of space.

Trader, I know you're behind this.

To her surprise, he answered her.

‹Greetings, Dakota. I hope you are well.›

The words sounded wrong, issuing from Whitecloud's throat. She found herself unexpectedly recalling the ghost stories of her youth, those tales of spirits and possessions. Hearing Trader speak through a human being was more than a little disquieting.

I know everything, Trader, You killed Olivarri and Willis and now you're using Whitecloud to bring the Mos Hadroch to you. But you can't get to the cache without firepower to back you up, so why are you doing this?

‹You betrayed me, Dakota. Is that reason enough?›

What?

‹You lied when you told me Moss was dead. I have received reports that he is very much alive. What did he give you, I wonder, to persuade you not to put an end to him?›

Whitecloud disappeared momentarily behind the wide blade of a heat-exchange nacelle. Dakota kept pulling herself along one of the main plasma conduits, slowly gaining on him. But another fifty metres and the conduits would terminate; after that, she would be passing over the exterior of the main hold.

Fine, I admit it. I didn't kill him. Stop now, Trader, or I'll take over your yacht.

‹You don't have the means.›

You asked me what Moss gave me. He gave me the command structure for your ship. Stop now, or I'll never let you get inside it.

‹Make any such attempt, and Whitecloud will throw the artefact away from the ship. Your chances of recovering it will then be very low indeed, given that a large number of Emissary scouts are now approaching.›

She came to a halt at the nacelle, and worked her way carefully around it. Once she was on the other side, she saw Whitecloud making his way toward an airlock leading directly into a series of access tunnels that surrounded the main hold.

She saw him falter for a moment, standing there unmoving with one hand resting on the external hatch's manual release. She wondered if Trader's control over him was finally slipping.

She pushed towards him with renewed energy.

Ted, Whitecloud's entering the hold through a service lock.

‹Roger that. It looks like some of those Emissary scouts just jumped into our very near vicinity to check us out. You need to get back inside, Dakota. Now.›

I hear you.

She kept pushing herself towards Whitecloud. He seemed to have recovered now, quickly releasing the manual switch. She saw red light illuminating the front of his suit as the airlock hatch slowly slid to one side.

Trader! This is crazy. The Emissaries will blow you out of the sky if you try to go to the cache on your own.

‹How is it, Dakota, that the approaching scouts knew to track us here to these coordinates, out of all the vastness of the Perseus Arm?›

Before Dakota could answer, Whitecloud disappeared through the open hatch.

The hull sailed past, only millimetres beneath her. Light had already begun to sparkle along the top of the nearest drive-spines, and she realized the Mjollnir was only seconds from jumping. If she didn't get back inside the ship soon, she risked being vaporized by the energy flow.

Something sailed past the frigate, moving so fast it was gone by the time she discerned its passage. She reached out for a rung next to the hatch…

The field-generators came to life, even as the first pulse-beams lanced towards the Mjollnir.

The world went white for several seconds, but she still had hold of the rung. The light faded quickly, and she activated the lock system, watching the door slide into its recess.

More dark shapes shot past, so quickly they barely registered. She pulled herself inside.

Trader? I don't know how they could have found us. Why don't you tell me?

The hatch slid back into place above her, lightning playing across the hull outside.

‹You, of all people, know the inconceivable chances against simply stumbling across this frigate in all the depths of interstellar space. The only reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that they have the means to track us.›

The airlock finished its cycle, and Dakota passed on into a network of cramped service tunnels. She briefly dipped into the data-space until she had an idea which way to go.

Following the passageway to a heavy door, she passed through it and into a large control module overlooking the interior of the hold, designed for use by traffic controllers overseeing the movement of ships and cargo. As she entered it, she saw that the module was several metres across, with a wide window at the far end which revealed the looming shape of Trader's yacht, now free from its cradle and floating just beyond the glass. It was close enough, in fact, that its drive-spines risked shattering it.

Ty crouched beneath the window, next to a console, still gripping the bag containing the Mos Hadroch tight against his chest. He'd already taken his helmet off.

'You shouldn't have followed me,' Ty rasped in what sounded more like his own voice.

As she stepped closer, he pulled a knife out of the bag, its blade still stained with Willis's blood.

'You can't hurt me with that,' she said. 'Believe me.'

She started to move closer to him – and the yacht moved towards the window with startling suddenness. A drive-spine pierced the glass, sending dozens of fragments spinning through the air. Dakota grabbed hold of a metal shelf bolted to the wall, before the venting atmosphere could suck her out of the module and into the hold.

But the explosive decompression ripped her hands away from the shelf, and she collided with the bulkhead nearest the window. She then managed to grab hold of the console for just long enough to let the force of decompression finally relent after a few moments.

The next time she looked, Whitecloud was gone. The strap of his bag, however, had become caught on a piece of twisted metal to one side of the window-frame.

Dakota pushed herself towards it, hands outstretched.

She was not aware of any kind of explosion, or of being hit by any form of missile. Only later did she recall having a momentary glimpse of a ball of white light expanding through the shattered window towards her. She was initially only aware of now being on the opposite side of the room. The metal shelves were twisted out of shape where her body had rammed into them with sickening force.

The filmsuit had protected her, but the impact had nearly drained it of power. She might have as little as a few minutes left before it would begin to fail.

Trader swam in through the ruined window, moving towards the bag until the sphere of water enveloping him had surrounded it. The tentacles dangling from his underbelly untangled the strap from the obstruction and drew it close to his body.

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.