Nova War

'At first I thought they put us together so they could spy on us while we talked. But there haven't been any interrogations since you appeared, and you're telling me the ambrosia is safe to drink and, the fu

Corso rubbed his palms across his face as if trying to erase the expression of alarm that had appeared there. 'Dak, do you know how close you're standing to the edge? Come back in. Please be reasonable.'

'Reasonable?' She could hear the bitterness in her tone. She glanced down at her feet, realizing that, without consciously thinking about it, she had shuffled slightly backwards. She was standing just outside the cell now, looking in, balanced on the lip of the tiny platform, one hand on the frame of the door-opening.

'You like to think you're a reasonable man, but when it comes down to it all you do is follow the path of least resistance, right, Lucas?'

'Make your point, Dakota,' he snapped, finally sounding angry.

She crouched down, reaching behind her to feel the edge of the lip. A cool wind blew over her bare skin. 'Tell me exactly what you gave the Bandati before they stuck you in here with me. Or was that all your idea?'

He stared at her in silence, looking guilty as all hell. For Dakota, it was as good as an admission of complicity with her tormentors.

Despite her still-weakened state, Dakota started to lower herself over the rim of the lip, reaching out to her right to take a grip on one of the rough grooves of the tower wall, her flaccid muscles protesting as she did so. Her feet briefly kicked at air before finding a toehold, and she wondered if she would die if she let go – or if the Bandati had a contingency plan if either of them looked ready to commit suicide.

Corso stepped forward, half-crouching, his arms extended as if he were about to rush forward and make a grab for her. 'Stop this, Dakota! Just come back in here, for fuck's sake, please.'

Her heart was beating so hard it felt like it was about to drum its way out of her chest. Terror mixed with a strange giddy joy, the two emotions somehow intermingled. 'The whole time you've been in here with me, you've hardly been able to look me straight in the eye, not for one second. Whatever it is you've been holding back, now's the time to tell me.'

'You'll die, you crazy fucking bitch!' he yelled, his anger finally asserting itself. 'Look at you, you're half-starved, you can't think straight. For God's sake, let me help you back in, okay?'

'A couple of weeks ago you were ready to kill me and steal a starship you wouldn't even have been able to fly without me. I don't trust you, Lucas, so just tell me what you're up to.' She began tensing her arms as if she were about to let go.

And realized, with a certain distant horror, that she might actually be prepared to do so.

She heard a distant roaring, not unlike a waterfall, and blackness scrawled its way across the corners of her vision. She felt lightheaded, the metal surface of the ledge taking on a curiously soft, rubbery quality…

… hands were pulling her back inside, Lucas Corso's breathing harsh amid words and curses spilling out of his mouth in a jumble as he braced himself against the door frame, one foot wedged against it while he half-kneeled to reach her. She held onto him tight, suddenly all too conscious of the void beneath her kicking feet, and was pulled back into the suddenly welcome confines of their cell.

She sprawled face-down on the floor and watched as he scrambled backwards, gasping from the sudden exertion of saving her life – again.

'Try not to make a habit of that,' he wheezed. 'I have bad enough nightmares nowadays as it is.'

'Tell me,' she whispered, cheek still pressed against the steel floor. She closed her eyes, and waited.

A moment later, she heard him sigh. 'They already know you're in communication with the derelict,' he muttered, almost too quietly for her to hear.

She blinked. 'And?'

'They've been trying to get inside it. I offered them my help.'

'Of all the stupid, idiotic-'

'Shut the hell up!' he shouted, rising up and looming over her. 'They already know you're the one making it so hard for them to get inside the derelict, or even the Piri Reis.'

She laughed weakly. 'Whatever the Piri's doing, it's got nothing to do with me,' she retorted. 'Sounds like you're quite friendly with those things that were torturing us, Lucas. Fu

He shook his head, speaking more quietly now. 'They wanted to kill you once they knew about the protocols I'd developed. But then I told them you were still the key, and how they couldn't get the derelict to cooperate without your help.' He tapped his chest. 'I'm the only reason you're still alive, Dakota. And the only way either of us is going to stay alive from this point on is if they think we're both useful to them.'

She stared at him with a deep sense of loathing. 'So, what next? You told them you could talk me into helping them, is that it?'

'What was I meant to do, stand by while they murdered you? Look, we both talked. When the torture didn't work, they relied on the drugs to get information out of us. They showed me recordings where I'm talking about my work, about how I could get them inside the derelict. I don't remember saying any of it, but I talked, all the same. We both did, Dakota.'

'The first derelict you found back in Nova Arctis tried to kill you when you tried to use the protocols on it. Did you tell them about that?'

'Only because that damn Shoal-member in your head interfered!' Corso snapped back. 'That… thing sabotaged all my work, entire months of it. Look,' he said, his voice taking on a more pleading quality, 'the Bandati still have good relations with the Consortium. If we can help them get control of this derelict, then we can both go home, and then I stand a chance of helping swing a better deal for the Freehold – and maybe for the whole human race, once we understand how to replicate the drive technology.'

She chuckled and shook her head. 'You've had plenty of time to say all this to me before, and instead you've just been skulking around saying nothing. What were you doing, just looking for the right moment?' She shook her head in disgust. 'I think maybe you should have just let me fall.'

His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. 'You've been granted a privilege no other human being alive has ever enjoyed. You've seen inside a civilization as old as the stars, Dakota, and it's wrong to keep all of that to yourself. It's an act of, of… tremendous hubris to think that you and you alone deserve to. Humanity should be the judge of what you know. Meanwhile I don't know how far we can trust the Bandati, but I'm willing to try – even if you aren't.'

For a moment she was ashamed of her anger at him. Neither of them had asked to be swept up by the events that had recently taken place.

So she closed her eyes and ran away once more, opening her mind to the greater presence that suddenly emerged from beyond the bright limb of a moon almost one hundred and forty million kilometres away, far from the current torment of her physical body.

The derelict was still waiting for her, as it always would wait for its navigator. Six The Fair Sisters moved serenely along the path of their respective orbits, the pair of them more or less evenly matched in diameter, atmospheric composition and albedo, but separated from each other by some hundreds of millions of kilometres of empty space. Dakota, still trapped in a high tower on Ironbloom, had not yet realized that by linking these two worlds with a common name, the Bandati were also commemorating a battle between Darkening Skies and Immortal Light that had taken place in that very system some mille