Empire of Light

Chapter Twenty-seven

Eleven days out from Redstone, Dakota made her way to one of the airlock bays. She was surprised to find Nancy Schiller there, along with Ted Lamoureaux.

Lamoureaux nodded guardedly to her. Nancy, on the other hand, was doing her level best to ignore both of them.

'I thought Dan was scheduled for this crew,' Dakota said cautiously. Since Schiller herself was in charge of scheduling the repair shifts, she had so far arranged them so that she had never once had to work on the same crew as Dakota.

Nancy didn't look up while she ran her spacesuit's auto-diagnostics. 'Yeah, he was, but something else came up.'

'You know, me and Ted could probably handle this just fine with only the two of us,' said Dakota.

Nancy finally raised her head and flashed her a look of contempt. 'I don't think so,' she barked. 'Just get suited up, all right?'

Dakota pushed her way over to one of the racks and grabbed a suit.

What happened to Dan? Dakota sent.

‹There's been a big increase in Emissary transmissions since our last jump,› Lamoureaux replied. ‹It's a lot of tach-net traffic for such a low-density region, and Martinez wanted him up on the bridge while they try and figure out the reason why›

There's an increase in Emissary tach-net traffic because we just jumped straight past the Long War and deep into the gap between spiral arms, remember? So that means they have to boost their signals all the way from the Perseus Arm, and we're just picking up stray long-range transmissions. It doesn't actually mean there's more Emissaries out there any closer at hand.

Their last jump had taken place fourteen hours before, with the drive-spines running at about 70 per cent efficiency. The frigate was now nearly three and a half thousand light-years from home, and the Consortium had been reduced to a barely discernible smudge of stars lying somewhere in the direction of the Core.

‹Oh, right. I didn't think of that.›

See why you need me? Dakota sent, now making for the locker next to his. He was making a typical hash of getting into his own suit here in zero gee.

Lamoureaux laughed at her expression, and Schiller snapped her head around to stare at them both.

'I know you're talking,' she said. 'Don't think I don't know it.'

Dakota turned to face her. 'Is that a problem, Nancy?'

For a few seconds, the other woman looked like she might make something more of it, then she uttered a sound of disgust. 'Just get ready,' she muttered. 'I want this over and done with.'

Nancy turned away and Dakota stared silently at her back for a few seconds. Then she began to strip off, throwing her discarded clothing into the open locker.

Lamoureaux meanwhile kept his gaze politely averted and concentrated on checking his own spacesuit's integrity, once he had finally managed to pull himself inside it. When Dakota was completely naked, she padded towards the airlock entrance on bare feet.

Nancy's face turned a stormy red. 'I don't know what you think you're…'

Her jaw dropped open as the black tide of Dakota's filmsuit spilled out of its hidden orifices, rapidly coating her skin overall in a thick layer that could protect her from the vacuum and radiation beyond the hull. Dakota swallowed as the same tide of black flowed down her throat and into her lungs, stilling them as their function was temporarily abrogated to tiny power units inside her spine.

She waited as the black slick faded to partial transparency over her eyes, then opened them and squinted over at Nancy. 'Come on, surely someone told you about this already?' she asked with a smile.

Nancy stared back at her in horrified fascination. 'Yeah, but… look, you need to get into your suit.'

'She doesn't,' intervened Lamoureaux. 'That thing's all the space-suit she needs, at least for the amount of time we'll be out on the hull.'

Schiller switched her gaze between them. 'How…?' she stammered.

'A present from an old friend,' said Dakota, gesturing towards the airlock. 'It's time we got started, don't you think?' Dakota and Ted had now reached the point where they swapped control of the frigate's primary systems almost automatically: one keeping a watchful eye over the Mjollnir, while the other slept. As they pushed out of the airlock and on to the hull, Lamoureaux assumed primary control.

There was plenty to do, and Nancy worked away on her own, keeping any communications with them down to the bare essentials. Over the next few hours, Dakota and Lamoureaux monitored the removal of almost a dozen dead or degraded drive-spines, which was a record for a single shift. The fabricators were having such a hard time keeping up with demand that the idea of having them construct copies of themselves in order to increase the overall output had been mooted. But that idea had to be shelved once it became clear that certain essential resources for the construction processes were simply not available. ‹Do you ever miss it?›

Glancing towards Lamoureaux's suited figure, Dakota instantly knew he was talking about the Magi ships and that powerful sense of connection all Magi-enabled human navigators felt with them.

A dozen spider-mechs floated close by, holding a failed drive-spine firmly in their grip. She had momentarily been staring towards the stern, and beyond it to the great band of stars where home lay.

Depends what you mean, she replied, making her way towards a cargo airlock just in time to see it disgorge yet more spiders, carrying a replacement drive-spine out of the ship's interior.

‹That feeling of just being with them – there are times I can almost put it out of my mind, but it's hard, Dakota. It's really hard.›

I know. She could sense the intense regret overwhelming him, because that bond was something he would never experience again. But why do I get the feeling you've got something else on your mind, Ted?

‹What happens when we go home, Dakota? What will you do then?›

She watched as the spiders under her immediate control incrementally lowered the new drive-spine towards its magnetic couplings.

I don't know, Ted. If you want me to be really honest, I have a hard time even thinking beyond where we're headed. And, even if we pull this off, I don't think there's a place for me back home any more. Maybe not for any of the navigators.

‹You're saying we're obsolete already? Holy shit.›

Dakota merely smiled under the viscous oil-slick of her filmsuit.

The frigate's next jump would take them to their penultimate destination, and to the location of the extra shielding Trader wanted them to pick up. Corso had already brokered an agreement with the Shoal-member to use his yacht for the trip down to the cache. With its considerably more advanced propulsion systems and inertial dampeners, Trader's ship would be a lot faster and safer than any other craft stowed in the Mjollnir 's hold.

Dakota had declined to take part in those negotiations, but she was the one who would have to make the pick-up trip with Trader – and that meant coming face-to-face with him, whether she liked it or not. At the end of the shift, Dakota made her way back to the airlock and surveyed the hull, noting the gaps where drive-spines had been removed but not yet replaced. Nancy had made a point of cycling back through the airlock before either of them.

Tell me what I have to do to get her off my back, Dakota asked him, as they made their own way back inside the frigate.

Lamoureaux activated the airlock access panel and a light blinked green. ‹Maybe she's not so bad as you think,› he sent back.

You can't possibly be serious.

He glanced towards her while they waited for the hatch to slide open. ‹Most women's lives in the Freehold are pretty circumscribed, Dakota. Their career choices come down to mother, teacher and whore. She must have had a hell of a fight to get to be head of security on a ship like the Mjollnir. Then she lost that job when Martinez fell out of favour. No wonder she's pissed off – wouldn't you be?›

Dakota tried to think of a reply, but could not manage one.