Nova War

'I take it back,' Corso muttered to Sal. 'If we both go different ways, maybe at least one of us stands a chance.'

'Wait. They… they can hear you,' Schlosser called over. 'They understand what you're saying.' He winced in agony as the snake-machines wriggled briefly. 'They say if you get them inside the derelict, they'll let you go.'

'Why should we believe them?' Corso called back, now eyeing the Piri Reis.

'Please…' Schlosser's eyes finally seemed to come to life, staring at them with desperation. 'Please, you don't know what it's like. You really don't. I can't take…'

'Tell them about Dakota,' Sal muttered in Corso's ear. 'She's the bitch responsible for us being here. Tell them where to find her.'

'Shut the hell up,' Corso snapped.

'She's a machine-head, you stupid shit.' Sal stepped a little way from their hiding place and called out to the Emissaries. 'You need Dakota Merrick. She's the only one who can fly the damn thing.' He pointed to Corso. 'And if anyone knows what she's doing right now, he's the one.'

Corso grabbed at him, but Sal pushed him back, knocking him to the ground.

'What the hell are you doing?' Corso screamed up at him.

'You know we're both dead meat if we don't give them something – if they can get inside his head like that, they already know it's you they're looking for.'

Sal waved over to the Emissaries. 'He has protocols,' he yelled, gesturing at Corso. 'He can use them to communicate-'

Corso kicked him hard in the stomach. Sal folded up and hit the floor with an oof. Then Sal somehow seemed to be getting further away, as if Corso himself had somehow become weightless.

It took a second for it to sink in that one of the Emissaries had stepped forward and grabbed him up in its tentacles.

Its grip was so tight that he could hardly breathe, the tentacles firmly wrapped around his chest and forearms. Sal stared up at him from the dark shadows of the tank, his face full of terror.

'Fuck you!' Corso screamed down at him, his fear turning to anger. 'They're not going to let any of us live, can't you understand that? Tell them what I told Hua! Tell them I destroyed the protocols!'

'They want…' Schlosser emitted a long, drawn-out noise like a death-rattle. 'They want to know if that's true.'

'No, it's not,' Sal cried, and Corso could see he was actually weeping. 'They-'

The tentacles around his chest squeezed painfully and Corso screamed – just as something very like an earthquake slammed the ground away from beneath the Emissary's feet. The tentacles let go and he tumbled free.

He didn't know it yet, but part of the station had just been blown loose. We have all failed, Days of Wine and Roses found himself thinking, as he made his own way alone through the abandoned ring. He had failed in his mission yet, as much as he truly loved his Queen, a part of him was compelled to acknowledge that she had done little more than squabble with her sister over the greatest prize ever to fall to the Bandati race.

That they had failed so spectacularly to exploit the derelict was bad enough; but now, as if to compound the errors of his betters, he was actually helping a member of another species to steal that prize for herself. When the ring had started to break up, a short while after his parting of the ways with Dakota, Roses had very nearly died.

The first powerful wrench had sent him tumbling, hard and fast, and he had barely managed to spread his wings in time to lift himself up above the worst of the ensuing chaos. Dust and debris filled the air, and resolutely failed to settle back to the ground; instead it ricocheted from one side of the segment to the other, as the forces of gravity failed utterly.

Communications with the Darkening Skies fleet also failed for a short while, so at first he could get no idea what was happening. But, given that the entire ring was now apparently in free fall, it was clear it would no longer be rotating. As soon as his harness comms-unit beeped to indicate that it was active again, he fired through a high-priority location request.

What came back was not good news. It seemed long-dormant emergency protocols had been engaged, and the ring had now separated from the rest of the station. That meant the ring-segment carrying the derelict, along with Dakota, Hugh Moss and himself, was now drifting inexorably towards the nearby black hole, and would certainly be destroyed within the next few hours.

For long minutes, Roses searched frantically through a haze of dust and free-floating rubble, before he suddenly spotted Moss hovering over Dakota's supine form. How Bourdain's one-time aide had managed to find his way to Ocean's Deep was a mystery he now very much wanted an answer to.

Roses hesitated for a moment in thought. With Dakota dead, the threat of her taking the derelict was gone, and yet, without her, there was no way to remove the derelict to safety. And although Dakota herself had been far from clear exactly what Moss himself intended to do with it, Roses knew the assassin well enough to realize how very unpleasant those intentions might be.

He spread his wings, angling downwards, just in time to see Moss's jaws begin to open impossibly wide. There was no time left to think, only to act, so he thrust himself onwards through the dust-choked air, pulling the shotgun from his harness at the same time. He flipped the weapon around, wielding it like a club; if he tried firing at Moss, he risked hitting Dakota as well.

Moss must have noticed something in Dakota's eyes as she stared up beyond his shoulder. He twisted around suddenly, staring straight up at Roses, still in the process of his rapid descent.

Just before Roses' filmsuit could flicker into life, Moss's hand blurred into motion and white-hot agony seared through one of the Bandati's wings. Roses slammed helplessly into Moss, crying out in pain as his wing began bleeding from a deep wound. Dakota had twisted to one side once she saw Roses shooting like a bullet towards them. Moss's face was now etched with agony, but he still managed to drag himself out from under the burden of Roses, who was also clearly struggling to recover from the force of his impact.

Roses' wings trembled as he grasped weakly at the assorted debris onto which he had collapsed. His shotgun had skidded to one side, and lay just a hand's reach from Dakota.

Moss staggered upright and wrenched his knife from the wounded Bandati's wing. His eyes looked unfocused, and for a second Dakota thought the mercenary might collapse. But then he appeared to recover, and pulled his arm back as if to slash again at the Bandati's vulnerable wings.

Dakota reached out for the shotgun and grabbed it without thinking. The weapon had a distinctive flaring barrel, at the sight of which her implants automatically dumped a wealth of relevant information into her short-term memory; the shotgun could fire shot over an extensive area, and was perfectly adapted for a winged species with a history of aerial combat. Her finger felt as if it were being guided instinctively towards the trigger.

She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the throbbing ache of the wound in her shoulder, and took careful aim.

The spray of shot caught Moss halfway across his back; he screeched in anger and pain, and tumbled a short distance away in the zero gravity. Dakota herself was sent crashing into a piece of sharp-edged rubble as the shotgun kicked hard against her shoulder. She screamed as renewed pain lanced through her, and she lay helpless on her side, panting and moaning. When she opened them again, she saw that Roses had pushed himself to his feet, and now stood there clicking quietly to himself.

She looked around, and realized there was no longer any sign of Moss.

Gone.

'I nearly couldn't find you,' admitted Roses. 'The ring, it…'