Nova War

First, the ground underfoot shifted with a tremendous jolt, almost as if she was caught in the middle of an earthquake. But she reminded herself she was standing on the inside surface of an enormous pressurized tube, not on the hard soil of a planet.

The entire ring shook again, this time with far greater violence.

Dakota tumbled, kicking and screaming, her filmsuit activating barely a fraction of a moment before she was slammed up against a wall. There was a sound like a dull crunch, and hairline fractures began to star the dull grey surface of the wall.

An intense screeching sound followed, like God's own fingernails being dragged down a planet-sized blackboard, the howl of a mighty structure being pushed beyond its design limits. Her implants informed her that the ring – independent of the rest of the station – was undergoing rapid and forced deceleration.

The screeching got worse, and dust filled the air as buildings throughout the ring-segment began to collapse. Through this haze she saw a nearby tower come apart, its debris sliding to one side and tumbling downwards with dreamlike slowness in the failing gravity. She was crushed up against the side of some steel structure by her own inertial force, as a rain of debris tumbled down around her. She didn't know just how long she might have before her film-suit overloaded, but she had a feeling it would be much sooner than she'd prefer.

Fresh data slid into her mind, and she discovered that Moss had triggered an emergency deceleration system she hadn't even known existed. Powerful rockets were firing on the outside of the ring, slowing it to a dead halt respective to the hub.

She glanced back towards the spoke she'd just emerged from, and wondered what would have happened if they'd arrived just a little bit later. The spoke-shaft itself had become severed at the top, and was now crumbling downwards, but fortunately not towards her.

A building next to Dakota finally lost its fight with inertia and began to collapse. She threw herself out of the way just as a mountain of debris slammed down precisely where she'd been crouching. Dakota herself was sent tumbling sideways towards an egg-shaped structure elevated on stilts, but the gravity was now much lower than it had been just a moment before. She braced herself by grasping at the tangled ruins of its steel reinforcements as she hit, pulling herself in close to it, her film-slicked body curling up tight.

Dakota glanced upwards, and watched the ring-segment's ceiling warp and flex as if it was made of cardboard. She finally decided to let go of the twisted metal bars, and float free.

The entire ring was now in free fall.

The derelict's data-flow was in chaos as she worked at understanding what had just happened. The ring's three atmosphere-sealed sections had in fact separated from each other and were drifting away both from each other and from the station they'd been co

Someone was calling her name, and she looked around wildly. Then she realized the voice was coming from an entirely different ring, carried to her through the Piri Reis, which was still locked on to her via the derelict.

She now saw Corso through the Piri's senses, screaming her name while some malevolent-looking machine-beast moved towards him. She could make out other huddled figures a short way behind him, half-hidden in deep shadows. The machine lurched forward and Corso dashed back to join the others.

She'd told him she'd come for him, and that was true, but reaching the derelict was paramount. She would have the derelict watch over him with one tiny part of her consciousness, as there were other things she needed to take care of first. But if he could just get near the Pin, he might stand a chance.

Loose debris drifted in the air around her, and the ground beneath her feet had been transformed into one wall of a shaft kilometres deep, curving out of sight far below before meeting the opposite bulkhead. Back in the other direction, the complex containing the derelict was, by some minor miracle, still intact. She stared towards it, filled with a sudden yearning to join with it.

And in that moment, Hugh Moss was on her.

He slammed into her seemingly from out of nowhere, and she flailed helplessly as she tumbled away from him. She twisted and turned, struggling to control her path through the whirl of dust and debris that still filled the air. She hit several large chunks of machinery that came caroming through the air. Her filmsuit glowed red, and it was probably only seconds from failing.

At the same time, the derelict allowed her a glimpse of events beyond the space station itself, as seen through the lenses of the engaging fleets. One of the other two ring-sections had collided with part of the hub, causing enormous damage and resulting in explosive decompression across dozens of levels. The third ring-section was serenely spi

All this flashed through her mind in the same instant she saw Moss coming towards her a second time. Her overloaded filmsuit finally abandoned her just when she needed it most, sliding back inside her body through artificial pores.

A knife flashed across the space separating them, and slammed into her shoulder.

Dakota screamed.

Moss was clinging to a nearby wall like he was glued to it. She stared at him as his mouth opened impossibly wide, like the gaping jaws of a snake, a long eel-like tongue emerging from within. He howled, the sound eerie and terrifying.

'I know who you are,' Dakota gasped as she drifted back down to what had been the ground. She blinked away tears and stared disbelievingly at the wide hilt of the blade in her shoulder. 'Swimmer in Turbulent Currents. You're not even human.'

'Did your derelict tell you that, Dakota?' Moss hissed. He clambered down from the wall. 'Such a pretty thing, isn't it? So full of promises and wonders.'

She reached up and grasped the knife hilt and tried to pull it out, but a thunderbolt of pain rolled through her like a black tide. Dakota retched, panting heavily. Moss stared at her with twisted amusement as he drew closer, hovering over her.

'Listen to me, Swimmer.' She swallowed hard. 'I know everything. I know why you want to kill Trader.'

'I couldn't care less what you know,' Moss hissed. 'I'll make galaxies burn with the knowledge inside your toy.'

From between lank, rubbery lips his tongue slid out like some crimson-black serpent, long and glistening. He ran it across Dakota's sweat-sheened face as she twisted away from him.

'Just like old times,' he laughed. 'It's wonderful, Dakota, that you made it this far. You can't imagine the pleasure it gives me to take so much away from you, when you were so very close to reaching it.'

His jaws opened again, the pallid skin stretching taut over the bones beneath, as he bent towards her throat. She lashed out at him but he caught her hand with ease. She screamed again at the pain from the knife still wedged in her shoulder.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something hurtle towards them at tremendous speed. Twenty-seven A few hours earlier, Corso had retreated despondently, following his almost certainly futile attempt to communicate with Dakota, rejoining Schlosser and Sal Mendez at the rear of the hangar.

After a while, he and Sal had finally started talking to each other. It was obvious Sal wanted some kind of forgiveness, and although Corso was far from sure that was something he could ever grant, given the place they now found themselves in, it struck him that there were better ways of spending possibly his last few hours of life than simply sitting in stony silence. Schlosser, however, remained mostly uncommunicative, although his eyes still tracked every movement of the machine set to guard them.