Empire of Light

She looked up at the overhead projection and saw that the drones were now spiralling back in towards the Magi ship. Clearly some of its minds had finally realized what she intended, and it had already begun to accelerate away from Redstone – but still not fast enough.

Some of the drones began to burn with a furious incandescence, focusing this energy into highly destructive beams that played across the hull of the Magi ship. Corso watched with slack-jawed horror as it began to disintegrate under the intensive fire.

Corso grabbed Dakota by the shoulder, almost pulling her out of the interface chair. 'What the hell are you doing?'

'Fixing a problem,' she replied, before closing her eyes and ignoring him.

The petals began to fold around her once more, and Corso began yelling and cursing as he moved out of their way. She knew he wouldn't meanwhile try to take control of the frigate away from her; if he did, he'd only be making it into an easy target.

Once the petals had enclosed her, she opened her eyes to see the universe unfold around her.

She could feel the different parts of the frigate as if they were parts of her own body. The mass of electronics and machinery linking the frigate's drive-core to the external drive-spines was a tangled nightmare, but at least it was functional.

Dakota took one last glance at the Magi ship. It was now spi

The drones struck again. They finished the job, and the Magi ship began to descend towards the upper reaches of Redstone's atmosphere, where it would start to burn up. Hot salt tears ran down her face, and she gripped the armrests so hard she thought she might break them.

The drones were already racing back towards the Mjollnir. She waited until they got nearer, drew them close against the hull and activated the drive-core.

Redstone vanished instantly from the overhead display. They had crossed more than sixty-five million kilometres in a fraction of a second.

It was going to take time to power the drive up for the next, hopefully much longer, jump, but for the moment they were far away enough to be safe.

She let the petals fold back down, and slumped forward in her chair. The sweat was literally dripping from her. She found Corso waiting for her, his expression furious.

'What the fuck just happened there?' he demanded.

'There are things I know,' she replied, 'that you don't, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet.'

'You destroyed your own ship and you don't feel like talking about it right now?' he bellowed.

Perez sat tight-mouthed, and clearly unsure of what was going on. Dakota stared back defiantly at Corso. 'We're out of range of Redstone, and we're going to jump again in a couple of hours. That's all you need to know right now.'

'And what happens when we get within range of the Emissaries?' he grated through clenched teeth. 'What the fuck are we supposed to do without your Magi ship? How are we going to get past their defences-?'

'We'll do fine with the weapons I brought with me,' she snapped. 'I know what I'm doing.'

She met his eyes and saw for the first time how frightened he was. She nodded towards Perez. 'Who else is on the ship?'

Corso glanced over his shoulder at Perez before replying. 'Eight of us came on board, but one got wounded when we tried to take control of the bridge. He's currently in the med-bay. We also brought an Atn specialist who seems to know something about the Mos Hadroch. He went with some others to make sure it was still on board. It is.'

'I spoke to Ted on the way in, but what happened to him? He was there one second, then gone. Is he all right?'

'He's in the med-bay too. Whatever it is that's been happening to other machine-heads, it finally got him, too.'

As Corso started to step down from the dais, Dakota reached out and touched his elbow. He paused, looking back at her.

'I wouldn't have been able to do anything with the Magi ship, even if I wanted to, Lucas. It's not like it was before, when I had real control over it. That's all gone for me now, and it will be for Ted, too. The ship was more like a prison at the end, and destroying it was the only way I could get free of it.'

Corso shook his head as if in disbelief, and headed over to the bridge entrance.

'I think it's about time,' he said, turning back to her, 'to head down to the labs and see just what it is we went through all this for. But first we're going to the med-bay.'

Chapter Eighteen

Once they had exited through the hub, they stopped frequently so that Corso could consult the map-projections that hovered over major intersections. Localized micro-relay systems, tied into the frigate's central stacks, showed Dakota exactly where they were at every step, yet one look at Corso's grim expression made her reluctant to point this out.

He pushed ahead of her without looking back once, and she wondered if he had experienced the same powerful sense of deja vu she herself had felt from the moment she had boarded the frigate. It seemed very much like being back on board the Hyperion, except this time they were the ones in charge. It was a strange feeling because so very much had changed since then, but perhaps nothing quite so much as Corso and herself.

They boarded a car at a transport station, and sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes until Corso finally broke his silence. He leaned towards her, his face red and angry.

'Why did you wait this long, before just appearing out of nowhere?' he demanded. 'Did you have all this pla

She cleared her throat before replying. 'Some of it,' she admitted.

'But you just couldn't be bothered letting me in on it.'

'Of course not,' she replied.

'Why the hell not?'

'Because… I was afraid you might try to stop me.'

He waited several more seconds, clearly expecting her to continue. When she didn't, he just shook his head in disgust and stared away from her until they reached their destination less than a minute later. Corso took the lead again once they disembarked. The med-bay was much more up-to-date than the Hyperion's had been. Even though the Mjollnir had been constructed centuries ago, she had clearly undergone a thorough refit.

Dakota gazed down at Lamoureaux through the transparent lid of a medbox. Another medbox nearby contained a distinguished-looking man in late middle-age.

She heard a soft hum and looked over to see that Corso had activated the examination table. Its bottom edge slowly tilted towards the deck, while a tangle of ceiling-mounted diagnostic equipment whirred and clicked as it dropped into place above the table's headrest.

'Who is he?' asked Dakota.

'That's Eduard Martinez, who led the expedition to find the Mos Hadroch. On the table, please, Dakota. I want to run a full scan on you.'

'Why?'

'Because we can't afford you keeling over the way Ted Lamoureaux did.'

'You don't actually need a machine-head navigator to make a superluminal jump,' she pointed out. 'You could just set the parameters yourself

'Yes, but we still need you to tell us which way we're heading, and you can't do that if you wind up in a coma or worse.'

Conceding this point, Dakota reluctantly climbed up on to the examination table and lay back, sliding her fingers around thick moulded plastic handholds on either side. She watched the diagnostic gear move slowly down the length of her body, imaging her internal organs while simultaneously mapping her nervous system.

'I don't suppose there's a real doctor anywhere on this ship?'

Corso didn't reply, instead pushing himself away from the table and towards the desk and chair that formed the nurse's station. He grabbed hold of the back of the chair as he studied whatever analysis the med-bay's computers were now coming up with.