Empire of Light

The exit door slammed open a second later, and Dakota clung on for her life as the atmosphere rushed past her and out the shattered window. Once it was over, she threw herself back into the access tu

The light followed her, still increasing in intensity. Whenever her hands or feet touched a bulkhead, she could feel a heavy vibration building up inside it.

She was back out on the hull less than a minute later. The stars had changed once again, the Emissary scouts now several hundred light-years aft.

‹Dakota!› Lamoureaux screamed to her through their link. ‹What the hell is happening back there? Are we still under attack?›

She could hear priority alerts blaring on the bridge. It's Trader. He's going to jump his ship from inside the hold. I don't know what it's going to do to the frigate, but you'd better warn the others and tell them to get ready.

She kept pulling herself back along the hull towards the bow, hand over hand, until she reached the same heat-exchange nacelle she had passed before. She pulled herself around the other side of it and pressed herself close, the vibration now growing into a powerful tremor that in turn became a series of hammer-blows that very nearly sent her spi

Light spilled out into the void from somewhere on the other side of the nacelle. She peeked over the top in time to see the hull around the main hold tear open like putty, hull-plates silently spi

Trader's yacht was gone. Dakota stared in shock at the devastation left behind it.

‹Dakota! Dakota, are you still there? We've lost contact with everything beyond Deck E. Please respond.›

Yes, I'm here. Trader's gone – along with most of the main hold.

Chapter Thirty-five

Half an hour later, Dakota was back on the bridge. She looked at the grim, worried faces around her, thinking how few of them were left now.

Five against an empire was not good odds.

Dan Perez was giving everyone booster shots, Dakota last of all. 'For the nerves,' he said, with an attempt at a smile, as he pressed the spray against her shoulder.

A numb, icy feeling spread through her where the spray touched her skin.

Corso sat next to a console, Martinez standing beside him with folded arms.

'All right,' began Corso, leaning forward slightly, with his elbows resting on his knees. 'Whitecloud's dead, Trader's left our ship half-crippled, and he's taken the Mos Hadroch with him. According to Dakota, we lost a third of the Meridian drones when he blew the hold apart.' He shrugged and made a face. 'But it could be worse, right?'

Dakota affected a weak smile.

'I'm not kidding,' Corso continued. 'At least we're still alive. We came very close to suffering a breach of one of our plasma conduits, and if that had happened, we wouldn't be here now. Not only that, most of our critical systems are unaffected, despite losing most of the hold. Our jump drive is still functioning. A good part of the ancillary fusion propulsion system is screwed, admittedly, but enough of the reactors are still working that we might be able to compensate for what we've lost. Manoeuvring inside our target system isn't going to be nearly as easy as we want it to be, but it won't be impossible.'

Martinez sighed and shook his head. 'Lucas, our reason for coming out here is gone. When the hold went up, it almost certainly took all our landing craft with it. The most sensible thing we can do now is turn back.'

'We're getting a response from the on-board systems for at least two of the landers,' Lamoureaux pointed out. 'I've already sent a couple of spider-mechs in to take a look, and I reckon they're salvageable, but I can't know for sure until we check them out.'

'Of course we go on,' interrupted Dakota. 'We chase Trader all the way there. Why give up now?'

'You don't make the decisions here!' Martinez exploded, stabbing a finger at her. 'You told us yourself, he's gone to do the one thing we came here to do. That means our job is over. So we go home.'

'Look, I don't know if we can go home,' said Dakota wearily.

They all stared at her, waiting until she continued.

'When I was chasing him – chasing Whitecloud, I mean – Trader told me the Emissaries had some way of tracking us.'

'How do you know that's true?' Corso demanded.

'I didn't believe him at first, but the fact is those scouts we ran into back there knew just where to find us, out of a truly enormous volume of space. The chances of that being a coincidence are beyond astronomical. Trader said so himself

'That would make sense out of what happened back at the cache,' confirmed Perez, from beside her. 'It felt like an ambush.'

'Exactly.' Dakota nodded vigorously. 'They clearly knew we were coming.'

'If that's the case,' Lamoureaux said slowly, 'they could be on their way here right now.'

'Just hold on for one minute,' said Martinez, moving closer to Dakota. 'You haven't told us how they could track us.'

She chose her words carefully as she answered. Some things, she had decided, were better left unsaid for the moment.

'He told me there was something planted on the frigate that would lead them right to us.'

'So what does that have to do with Trader taking the artefact?' asked Perez.

'He pla

Martinez glared at her. 'Even if any of this is true, it doesn't fundamentally alter my original point. There's no reason for us not to turn back.'

'Because, even if we did turn back, there's a good chance the Emissaries would still come after us,' she snapped. 'And remember what Whitecloud said: the Mos Hadroch might decide not to let Trader activate it. If that's true, then it's imperative we carry on and be ready to finish the job, if we have to.'

Martinez laughed. 'You really believed that fairy tale?'

'The Mos Hadroch isn't just a weapon any more than the Magi ships are just ships,' Dakota persisted. 'And Whitecloud might have been an evil son of a bitch, but even you could see he was telling the truth when he recorded that message. Right there at the end, he did one good thing in his life by trying to warn us.'

'How the hell do you expect us to "finish the job"?' Martinez demanded. 'The artefact is gone!'

'We have the command structure,' she reminded him. 'We could activate the artefact ourselves, if Trader fails. And even if he doesn't, we have enough drones left to let us try and stop him escaping with the artefact.'

'Perhaps you're forgetting who's in charge of this expedition,' Martinez spat, his face turning red.

Dakota regarded him with a weary expression. 'You're out of your depth, Commander. You don't have any idea about the forces we're dealing with, or the kind of power they have.'

Martinez started to move towards her with bunched fists, but Corso leaped up and grabbed him by the shoulders.

'I want you to shut the fuck up for now,' Corso barked at Dakota, then turned his attention to the Commander.

'Eduard… listen to me. I know exactly what's going through your head right now. It's much the same thing that's ru