Empire of Light

Simenon, Corso guessed. He looked dazed, as if he wasn't sure where he was.

Corso trained his own weapon on Simenon's head, while Perez inched forward, barking at him to drop his pistol and get down on the deck. Instead Simenon seemed to remember where he was and took a two-handed grip on the pistol, but without raising it.

'Drop the fucking gun!' Perez screamed.

Simenon breathed hard through his nostrils and shook his head emphatically, even though Corso could see he was completely terrified. 'You won't stand a chance when the response teams get here,' he replied, his voice cracking.

'It's over, Luis,' Perez yelled. 'Drop the gun, and you can take these people back down. Do you understand? Drop the fucking gun now or-'

Simenon shook his head emphatically, the motion almost like a tic, and he brought his pistol up quickly to aim at Perez.

Corso fired off a single shot that hit Simenon square in the side of the head. There was a distinct crack as his brain boiled, the pressure fracturing his skull.

He tumbled to the deck, his legs folding under him as if a puppet's strings had been cut.

Corso put his rifle down and pulled off his helmet. The air now smelled a lot worse than when wearing it.

'You okay?' asked Schiller, eyeing him. She'd herded the dock-worker over to join the rest.

'You know what Simenon just did?' Corso replied. 'He killed himself.'

Schiller looked confused.

'With all due respect, Senator,' said Perez, 'what the fuck are you talking about?'

'He was put in charge of a major military asset, and lost it,' Corso explained. 'He's probably got family, and they'd have been left with nothing if he'd just surrendered.'

Perez shrugged. 'So?'

So it's wrong. So it's completely, utterly fucked up, Corso wanted to yell. But Perez was still a Freeholder born and bred, so he just shook his head and dropped the subject.

Corso went over to the three survivors, now lying face-down on the deck, guarded by Schiller and Willis. Perez activated the bridge's comms console, and a moment later Martinez and Lamoureaux entered and surveyed the scene.

'You,' Corso demanded, nudging the prisoner in overalls with one booted foot. 'What's your name?'

The man in overalls twisted his head around slightly to face Corso.

'Inez Randall,' he muttered. 'I'm an engineer,' he explained, 'for the-'

'Listen up, Inez,' Corso instructed him. 'Take your two friends here, head for Launch Bay Five, take one of the shuttles there, and get off this ship as fast as you can. Don't do anything stupid or heroic, because you'll only wind up dead, do you understand me?'

Randall nodded.

'All right,' said Corso. 'Get up, all three of you. Move.'

They stood hesitantly and Corso finally got a good look at them. These were nothing more than raw junior officers who had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had obviously been brought on to the frigate to run the final checks on the ship's primary systems.

'Is there anybody else on board?' Corso asked them.

They exchanged nervous glances. 'Just us,' said Randall.

Corso studied the man and decided he was telling the truth. 'Then get moving.' He waved the barrel of his rifle towards the blown-open entrance. 'Now.'

Once they were gone, Corso sat down heavily in a chair and pulled off his glove to run one hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He watched as Schiller and Willis carried the two corpses out of the bridge, dumping them on the deck just beyond the undamaged entrance. Lamoureaux meanwhile helped Martinez on to a low couch set against one wall, then himself stepped over to the interface chair.

'Ted,' he began. Lamoureaux glanced over at Corso, as the chair's petals folded down to allow him access. 'Keep an eye on those three, and make sure they head straight for the shuttles. Also get in touch with Leo, and check if he made it to the labs okay.'

Lamoureaux nodded, peeling his suit off and dropping it to the deck before taking his position. Corso pulled his own suit off and draped it over a console.

'There's an evac order going through the maintenance bays around the frigate,' Perez reported from the comms console. 'I heard from Leo already: everything is right where it should be, according to Driscoll.'

Corso nodded and turned to Martinez. 'Okay, Commander,' he said, taking the other man's arm. 'Med-bay for you. Nancy, will you help him there?'

Nancy Schiller nodded and helped Martinez slowly out of the bridge.

'There are some fast boats moving into orbit,' Lamoureaux reported. Corso glanced over and noticed how he'd left the chair's petals unfolded, and was now staring at somewhere far away. 'I don't know if we can manage to break orbit before they get within range. Maybe I can… oh shit.'

Corso stood up, alarmed. 'What is it?'

Lamoureaux licked his lips, drumming his fingers on the armrests of the interface chair. 'It's Dakota… or her ship, at least. It just showed up out of nowhere, coming in fast. She's… hang on.'

Corso waited, suddenly tense. 'I just heard from her,' Lamoureaux continued. 'She'll be on board in the next couple of minutes.'

'That doesn't solve the problem of those boats coming our way,' said Perez. 'Those things have some serious fucking firepower, Senator, and we haven't even had a chance to break orbit.'

'Ted-' Corso began.

'I already initiated a hard burn,' Lamoureaux replied, 'but it takes time to get a ship this size moving.'

'Just how long?'

Lamoureaux leaned back against the headrest, his eyes squeezed shut. 'The drive-spines are currently only at half-charge. That means it's going to be at least a couple of hours before we'll be able to jump out of this system. Ah shit, that's no… hang on.'

He leaned forward suddenly, shook his head and blinked his eyes wide. 'We've got two armed corvettes approaching on an intercept course,' he said. 'They must have already been in orbit.'

It hit Corso like a punch in the stomach that, without Dakota's help, they were going to die. Lamoureaux couldn't save them but, with the aid of her ship, Dakota could. Suddenly their hastily assembled plan to hijack the Mjollnir looked as precarious as a house of cards in an earthquake.

Then he realized something was wrong with Lamoureaux. He sat bent forward in the interface chair, clutching at one side of his head with a pained expression.

Corso stepped forward quickly, catching him before he could fall out of his seat. The navigator's skin had turned pale and waxy.

'What the hell is going on?' said Perez.

'I don't know,' Corso snapped, pulling himself up on to the dais to help Lamoureaux back properly into the seat. 'Ted, what is it?'

When he replied, Lamoureaux sounded groggy, unfocused. 'I don't know. It was like there was this enormous pressure inside my head and… oh, damn.'

The bends, thought Corso; his Magi-boosted implants were finally burning out his cortex.

Corso moved out of the way as Lamoureaux leaned forward, and to one side, and vomited noisily on to the deck. Corso held him by the shoulder and ignored the shocked expression on Perez's face.

'Where's Olivarri?' Corso demanded.

Perez stepped over to another console, and Corso watched Perez's face change from orange to blue as the console's display flickered with bright colours. 'He's on his way here,' Perez replied after a moment. 'I'm reading him as just entering the wheel.' He reached out and tapped at the screen again. 'I can activate the external feeds from here.'

A moment later the dark bowl of the bridge's ceiling filled with stars and with the broad curve of the planet below, along with a simulation of the Mjollnir as it would appear at a distance of a few kilometres. Smoke from the explosion had already been sucked away by the ventilation system.