Nova War

'Came apart,' Dakota finished for him. She tried to stand and nearly collapsed. She had to get the damned knife out. 'Moss is responsible. How badly injured are you, Roses?'

'I don't think I can fly without some treatment.'

'Okay' She nodded. 'First, you're going to have to help me get this knife out.'

'But what about Moss?' Roses replied. 'You shot him at close quarters, but he still managed to get away.'

She stared off into the dust-laden haze still choking the air. He's the closest thing to nigh-on fucking unkillable I've ever encountered, she wanted to say.

'I need to get this knife out,' she repeated. Her skin felt cold and damp. 'Can you help me with it? I can't seem to do it on my own.'

Roses chittered quietly to himself, as if coming to a decision, then he knelt carefully beside her and tentatively touched the haft of the weapon. She bit back a scream, then clutched at the alien's narrow waist for support as Roses wrapped both of his black fists around the haft and yanked the blade out.

Dakota screamed till her lungs ached, all too aware how easily she could die out here.

But it was more important than ever she reach the derelict before Moss did, assuming he hadn't simply collapsed somewhere nearby. The data imported through her implants was still inconclusive; injured or dying, Moss's own implants were still doing a good job of keeping him hidden.

'Can you move?' Roses asked her.

'I think so.' She struggled back onto her knees. Wincing, she clamped one hand to her shoulder, afraid of bleeding to death, though begi

The Bandati agent beside her didn't look much better. He kept his wings furled close in to his body but, as usual, it was impossible to judge his state of mind. He had retrieved his shotgun once more, and now carefully reinserted it into his harness.

'You saved my life, Miss Merrick,' the alien observed. 'This was not to be expected.'

Dakota affected a weak smile. 'Sometimes we all just have to watch out for each other, Roses,' she said. 'We should get moving now. I've seen Moss come back from much, much worse.'

She looked around carefully. The derelict's containment facility was closer than she'd realized. Now the dust had started to disperse, she could make it out clearly through the thi

Roses came right up beside her, and she leaned on him for support as they started to pick their way through the ruins.

Suddenly she remembered Corso, still trapped on the Bandati station. She'd promised to help him if she could. Corso curled up in a tight ball as an Emissary towered over him where he'd fallen. Its attention was on Sal, however, who had now been dragged out into the open. Schlosser's body had been yanked from the tubular construction and thrown casually to one side, his lifeless eyes staring straight at Corso as if in accusation.

The Emissary was trying to push Sal inside the tubular pyramid, while Sal was making a heroic but clearly futile attempt at resisting. The snake-machines twisted greedily, as if desperate for the taste of new flesh.

The pain seemed to hit him in waves, with brief moments that were almost bearable before being rapidly superseded by peaks of agony where Corso cursed and moaned and even prayed, always aware of how easily one of the Emissaries could crush his skull under one of those giant, splayed feet.

A fresh tremor ran through the deck and bulkheads, causing one of the wall-mounted tanks to crash down and go thudding up against the motionless form of the injured Emissary. The station trembled yet again, the air filling with a dull roar and the metallic screech of bulkheads under enormous strain.

Corso stumbled upright, gasping hard from the effort, and began to head towards the Piri Reis, mindless now of both the Emissaries and the robot they had set in place to guard him. The air turned thick with the smell of something burning, and acrid smoke began wafting into the hangar.

Corso coughed, but kept moving, though he wanted to lie down and sleep so very, very badly.

He could hardly see the bay extending all around him, as yet more smoke flooded in through conduits and passageways. He stared into the murk, terrified of going in the wrong direction – or wandering straight into one of the Emissaries. As if in response to this thought, an angry trumpeting came from somewhere behind.

He tripped, fell to his knees, and picked himself up again.

He just had to keep moving.

But he felt so cold.

Another angry bellow sounded, but much closer this time. It was getting hard to breathe, and he couldn't see further than a couple of metres in any direction, but he felt sure the Piri must be close by.

Corso heard a regular, mechanical clanking sound as something came ru

As it spotted him, it began bellowing loudly.

Corso turned to run, only to find himself staring up at the formidable bulk of the guard-machine. He froze in terror, the thud of the Emissary rushing up behind him as ominous as the descent of an executioner's axe.

But the machine stepped on past Corso, and launched itself at the Emissary. The alien roared and howled in outraged response.

Corso stared open-mouthed.

Dakota?

He stumbled away from the Emissary as fast as he could. It was down on the ground now, desperately trying to defend itself.

She'd heard him.

He searched frantically through the thick haze, convinced the entire station was coming apart around him. For a horrible moment he feared he was completely lost, but then he stumbled upright against the Piri's hull and began to feel his way around it.

The lock opened at his approach, as if the ship were expecting him. Maybe it had, after a fashion. He managed to pull himself up and inside the spacecraft with the last of his strength, then waited, panting and gasping, in the confined space as the lock slammed shut behind him. Enveloped in a warm darkness filled with familiar aromas, he half-crawled, half-rolled into the forward cabin.

He had to first find some way to get the Piri away from the space station, and then he had to get himself straight into a medbox. Easier said than done, he thought, as he lay there shivering. He didn't know the extent of his injuries, but a deadening numbness was spreading through his arms and legs. That the Piri would probably start leaking atmosphere from its hull-breach as soon as it exited the station was another good argument for getting inside the medbox.

A darkness even deeper than that filling the Piri began to crowd in on his vision. He tried calling out, to get the Piri's attention, but all that emerged was a croak.

A wave of overwhelming fatigue washed over him. All he needed to do was close his eyes, just for a moment, just until he could get the energy together to, to…

Something crashed loudly against the side of the Piri, but Corso didn't hear it. Outside, two of the Emissaries were dead, and the third was engaged in a desperate struggle for survival with its own security robot.

And then, finally, there was silence.

The Piri rocked gently as the section of deck on which it rested began to drop, lowering it into an airlock chamber below the bay.

Inside the Piri Reis, the effigy – which had lain inert and lifeless in Dakota's tiny sleeping space – stood up suddenly and moved towards the cabin door. Just as before, the umbilicals linking it to its wall-slot stretched to their limit and brought it to a stop.

The effigy turned, grabbed the co