Nova War

'Get to the point,' Dakota snarled between gritted teeth.

'Near-orbital space around Bellhaven is littered with the ruins of military platforms, some of them centuries old. Many are heavily irradiated, so that to approach them is not permitted. This, supposedly, is because they are tainted with the active remnants of biological or nanotechnological weaponry. The truth is perhaps more complicated.'

Trader navigated his bubble back across the narrow viewing chamber, casting his gaze again across the face of the galaxy. 'It is of no surprise to man or fish that many of those platforms have been secretly maintained to this day. To acquire the requisite launch codes proved scandalously easy, and your world does not lack in competing factions to take the blame for a sudden all-out strike upon the Free States. Which, I do believe,' Trader added with relish, 'include your own city-state of Erki

Dakota stared back with frightened eyes. 'You wouldn't dare.'

Trader's tentacles wriggled with amusement. 'That I might guarantee your cooperation? I ca

Dakota crouched on the floor and fought back tears of frustration. Too much was happening too quickly. Nobody could be expected to carry such a burden of responsibility.

The breath hissed between her teeth as she fought for control. She despised feeling so powerless, so, so…

Human?

She pushed that thought away and realized that the image of the galaxy was begi

'Just tell me what you want me to do,' Dakota muttered listlessly.

'An Emissary Fleet arrived within Ocean's Deep during these last few hours. At the heart of that fleet is a vessel known as a Godkiller, and it is considered to be extremely formidable. This Shoal-member, with the utmost certainty, can inform you that both Lucas Corso and the Piri Reis are inside this Godkiller, accompanied by a much smaller Immortal Light fleet. In these circumstances, and with threats of destruction hanging over the skies of your homeland, your path from this moment on must surely be clear.'

Dakota stood as the Shoal-member's field-bubble began to rise up through the chamber. 'I'll kill you!' she screamed up at him. 'I swear it, Trader!'

'I imagine the derelict's song must be sweet,' he replied from far above her. 'Listen to it, dear Dakota, and entwine yourself in its song. You and I will meet again when you return with the derelict and, if your thirst for revenge is as yet unabated, perhaps I may even allow you the opportunity to confront me. But first you have a long journey ahead of you. Be prepared.'

And with that, Trader slipped back the way he had come, through a ceiling passageway, leaving her alone. The Ocean's Deep derelict whispered to her, yes, like a long-lost lover, and she realized that Trader had been entirely right in one respect. She could never destroy a Magi ship again; without its presence in her mind and her thoughts, she had felt more alone than she could have imagined possible. Even losing her original implants had never been so hard.

Before the map of the galaxy had faded, Dakota had felt some exterior force directing her gaze to the unmarked territories lying beyond the Magi's route… towards the dim lights of countless barren stars scattered across the face of the galaxy.

And, as she did so, knowledge came to her; and with it a revelation.

She sat in the darkness for a while, her mind numb, and then she began to grin.

Either she'd finally gone completely insane… or she finally had an inkling of just what the Magi intended for her. Eighteen Several hours before Dakota's encounter with the Queen of Darkening Skies, Corso awoke from a feverish dream to the sound of a ship's alert blaring.

He'd dreamt he was back on Redstone, back on the icy shores of Fire Lake, facing a deadly opponent, and with a knife gripped in one hand. But instead of Bull Northcutt, he found himself confronted with a creature that was little more than a vague blur.

His knife flashed in the subzero cold, but whenever he tried to make out his opponent's face, it remained indistinct. Its angles and shadows kept slithering past each other in an indistinguishable blur. And as he shifted and turned and dodged, never quite able to get close enough to inflict any damage, he slowly realized he was actually fighting one of the Magi.

He had fallen asleep inside a programming suite that had been hastily assembled for him, and when he opened his eyes it was to a series of projections displaying the fragments of protocol he'd pulled out of the Piri Reis's stacks. His work had been made that much harder by the fact that the programming interfaces hadn't been designed with humans in mind, so he'd had to hack about with the equipment for a while until he had assembled something he could actually make use of.

But not too quickly, of course. That would never do.

The alert – a steady, almost subsonic thrumming – was not unexpected. A few days had passed since they had departed Ironbloom, and Honeydew had warned him that, although they would be reaching the culmination of their deceleration before very long, he should strap himself into a gel-chair provided for him. This made little sense, since deceleration would normally be followed by weightlessness; nevertheless he strapped himself in, once the alarm began to sound, and waited.

After half an hour of waiting in the gel-chair, Corso started to get bored. Perhaps, he thought, they were going to transport him down to the surface of some other world in the Night's End system, somewhere the derelict was presumably kept.

But instead the weightlessness was suddenly replaced by gravity somewhat stronger than the point-eight Terran gees of Redstone. He knew they weren't accelerating, so he guessed they were in an artificial gravity field of the kind used regularly by the Shoal.

He passed the time considering his options. It was impossible to be sure if Honey dew believed one word of his excuses, but ever since his encounter with the Piri Reis he'd been left very much to his own devices.

Yet, instead of working on rebuilding the protocols he'd sabotaged, he'd spent his time trying to work out what had happened to the Piri Reis, and if there was any purpose to the baffling alterations to its core systems. Corso eventually levered himself out of the gel-chair and stood upright, feeling as if a million tiny hands were trying to drag him down onto the floor. Before very long, two Bandati entered the suite and pulled him away from where he'd been working. The Bandati lacked interpreters, so they were reduced to clicking at him futilely for a few moments before grabbing him by the shoulders and marching him along the ship's corridors.

Game's up, he thought. They know I tricked them.

He soon realized he was being led back to the docking bays where the Piri Reis was stored, but this time they took him to a much larger bay that was entirely empty, bar an enormous sculpture of jagged black glass that had to be the size of a city block.

Only it wasn't a sculpture, he registered after a few moments' contemplation. It was a ship of a kind he'd never seen before.

A hatch opened in the side of the craft, and something emerged. Something big, and mean-looking. It reminded him of an elephant crossed with a sea-urchin – a very angry one, too. It loped rapidly towards them, as if intending to attack, and Corso developed an overwhelming urge to turn and run the other way.