Nova War

The medbox's lid hissed back into place as the effigy watched. It waited there for several moments more, then its head slowly tipped forward, its jaw drooping, the eyes becoming blank and lifeless once again.

Meanwhile, the outer airlock doors opened, and the station's own centrifugal force threw the spacecraft far away from the hub. After a few moments the ship's engines engaged and it began to accelerate, moving with increasing speed as it put distance between itself and the wounded space station. Twenty-eight There was something ghostly in the way the containment facility responded to their approach. Dakota could feel how weak she was getting, and had to rely more and more on the steadying support of Days of Wine and Roses.

The Emissaries were clearly losing the battle. They'd sent only a relatively small force, and clearly hadn't expected to encounter a Shoal coreship or more than one offensive fleet. The Emissary Godkiller itself was now coming under direct attack, most of its assault drones already dead or deactivated.

'Look,' said Roses urgently. Dakota returned her gaze to the containment facility, the vast wall of the bulkhead rising just behind it. It was decorated in familiar gold-and-azure stripes and embellished with decorative glyphs. They gave it the air of a temple, she decided.

Now, as they drew closer, it was begi

Most of the floating debris had finally settled. After leaving the ruined buildings behind, they had picked their way up a flight of wide, shallow steps that led into the facility's interior. Inside, she could see the derelict was suspended from the ceiling by thousands of flexible cables, while raised platforms accessible by ramps surrounded the craft's teardrop-shaped hull.

A wind was picking up, growing louder by the second. The ring-segment was dying, finally coming apart under the colossal stress of being blown away from the main space station.

There was still no sign of Hugh Moss. Yet instead of triumph, there was only a hollow feeling deep within Dakota's gut, and even a sense of terrible loss. Though unable to imagine any reasonable alternatives to the path she had chosen, there was still a nagging suspicion that if she'd only had more time to think about things, there might have been a different way for her to get to where she now was – involving fewer deaths, less pain, and considerably less horror. Moss had been able to stagger only a short distance away from Dakota and Roses before he had collapsed and blanked out. Medical monitors dotted throughout his body and brain briefly shut down his consciousness, but kept sufficient control of his motor centres to allow his body to drag itself into relative shelter between two huge chunks of shattered masonry.

And there he slept, while the machinery infusing his flesh, organs and bloodstream anaesthetized him and did its best to repair the very worst of the damage.

When Moss finally regained consciousness, it was to hear a howling gale that made it immediately clear, even to his drug-addled senses, that the ring-segment's structural integrity had finally failed. The atmosphere was already venting fast through a thousand hissing gaps and cracks that widened by the second.

How very close he'd come. He could feel Dakota's joy radiating out from within her skull. He caught a glimpse through her eyes, of the facility opening up to her like the arms of a long-lost lover, and it was almost as if she were taunting Moss with her triumph.

He moaned with inhuman longing and despair.

But before long, a powerful calm settled over him. His yacht was still where he'd left it, orbiting low above the clouds of Leviathan's Fall, successfully evading the attention of the various fleets occupying the system. He sent out a silent command, and the yacht's propulsion systems began to power up. If he could not confront Trader in Faecal Matter of Animals in triumph, he would choose death instead.

But he did not intend to die alone. It was like coming home.

Defensive systems that had lain dormant for centuries sca

The interior of the building began to fill with a soft light. The derelict rising before them was so very different from those Dakota had encountered back in Nova Arctis. Those had been crippled, some of them almost beyond repair, even though one of them had transported her and Corso across light-years in a fraction of a moment.

The ship before her now was undamaged. Long, curving spines flared out from the rear of the craft until they almost brushed against the walls that surrounded it.

'And there are more of these?' Roses asked as they both stared up at it.

'More than anyone ever suspected,' she replied in a low voice. The building had the atmosphere of a long-abandoned cathedral. 'This is just the first of many'

'And you are the only one who knows where they are all hidden. I am not sure that I envy you, Miss Merrick.'

She was still leaning against the Bandati, feeling weak and shaky. The wound in her shoulder felt like a hot line of fire and itched abominably. 'Roses, once I've got you out of here, I need you to carry a message for me. Can you do that?'

The alien stared back at her, waiting for more.

'The rest of the Magi ships are on their way here to Ocean's Deep. All of them. Some are coming from a long way off, so they won't get here for some time. But the first of them will get here in just a couple of hours.'

'But why bring them here?'

'Because I want to build a superluminal fleet that the Shoal don't have any control over. And I'm going to base it right here.' She smiled. 'I don't think there's going to be too many objections once everyone understands exactly what I could do with them.'

Days of Wine and Roses helped her climb the wide ramp that led up to the derelict's hull. They moved slowly, Roses holding her tight as Dakota made her pain-racked way upwards. All around they could see pieces of long-abandoned equipment scattered across the maintenance platforms that surrounded the ancient starship.

'I need to ask you a question,' Roses finally replied once they had come to a halt right beside the hull.

'Go on,' said Dakota, sinking gratefully to her knees. It was getting colder as the air became thi

'The Shoal are powerful, but they share that power amongst themselves. There has never been, to my knowledge, any time when that kind of power was concentrated in the hands of one single individual. I had the opportunity to study human history during my time within the Consortium, and when it comes to the accumulation of great personal power, the outcome both for the individual concerned and those affected by that power is rarely favourable. History, Miss Merrick, is never kind to such people.'

Dakota gritted her teeth, feeling the anxiety and uncertainty that had been dogging her every step threaten to overwhelm her. 'I know that,' she croaked. 'But I'm just trying my best to work out what to do as I go along. And until someone comes up with an idea I think is a better one, this is the way it's going to be.'

She tried to ignore the little voice inside her that insisted the Shoal would have made the precise same argument.

Dakota reached out and laid her bare hand on the derelict's surface. A thrill of intense pleasure swept through her at the touch, almost orgasmic in its strength. It felt smooth and slick, as if the craft had been created only days before, and there was a slight give to it as if it were something organic: as if she were touching flesh, rather than the hull of a ship designed to move between worlds.