Empire Of Light

Trader replied to her directly through her implants.

"Who are you talking to?" Schiller demanded.

"I"m talking," Dakota replied testily, "to Trader."

"Did you know your mouth moves when you talk in your head like that?"

"It does?"

Schiller nodded slowly. "Makes you look like an idiot."

Chapter Twenty-nine.

They made landfall not long afterwards, the yacht settling on to a cushion of shaped fields just a few kilometres from the mouth of the cache. Dakota pulled off the standard-issue jumpsuit she had been wearing, and folded it into a wad before dropping down from the yacht"s open hatch, relying once more simply on her filmsuit for protection.

Her black-slicked toes kicked up a cloud of dust as she hit the ground, before she took a few bounding steps in the low gravity. She glanced behind her in time to see Nancy hit the ground only to be immediately swallowed in another billowing dust cloud that coated her pressure-suit in grey.

Dakota took a look around her. Outcrops of granite rose from a sea of dust that extended to the north, only coming to an end at the ridge-wall of a crater about ten kilometres away. To the west, and in the direction of the cache itself, the ground rose and fell in gentle inclines, like waves sculpted in stone. The overhead sun was bright enough to blot out the stars.

Trader emerged last, followed by the spider-mechs. One by one, the spiders skittered around the edge of the hatch, in an eerily lifelike way, before jumping down and flexing their elongated legs as they scanned the horizon. They looked very different in a gravity environment: they now used most of their limbs to walk on, with just one set raised above them, so that they now looked more like six-legged mechanical crabs than spiders.

Trader led the way, his brine-filled bubble hugging the curve of a nearby slope up to its peak. Dakota trudged through the dust after him and on up the side of the hill.

he sent to Dakota as she came abreast of him.

Dakota glanced back at Nancy, who had just reached the foot of the hill. Her pressure-suit clearly made the going harder for her.

Officially, she"s here to give us a hand. Unofficially, I"m top of their list of suspects for Olivarri"s murder. She waited a beat. She waited a beat. After yourself, of course. After yourself, of course.

The alien swivelled within his field bubble to study Schiller more closely as she struggled uphill, the spiders racing past her towards the peak. Did you kill Olivarri, Trader?

The Shoal-members manipulators writhed beneath the wide curve of his belly. Dakota frowned. What secrets? What secrets?

Dakota actually took a step back. What? Where did you get this What? Where did you get this from? from?

If you"re lying to me- Trader moved off again, his bubble following the contours of the incline as he descended the other side of the hill. Dakota stayed where she was, staring off across the hilltops and brooding.

Who else, she wondered, was something other than what they appeared to be? She knew almost nothing about most of the Mjollnir Mjollnir " "s contingent, particularly Perez, Driscoll and Nancy Schiller herself-all strangers to her until she boarded the frigate. They had each been vetted personally by Corso, but if Trader turned out to be telling the truth, what did that mean about the rest of them? contingent, particularly Perez, Driscoll and Nancy Schiller herself-all strangers to her until she boarded the frigate. They had each been vetted personally by Corso, but if Trader turned out to be telling the truth, what did that mean about the rest of them?

Who else might not be who they seemed?

Nancy finally came abreast of her, closely trailed by the spiders; her faceplate had polarized until it was nearly opaque beneath the bright glare of the sun overhead.

Dakota followed in Trader"s path, soon leaving Nancy and the spiders behind once more. From the top of the next hill she could make out a low dome squatting on the wide flat plain surrounding the mouth of the cache, several hundred metres away. The dome"s grey colouring made it almost invisible against the surrounding landscape, and there were the ruins of other buildings all across the plain.

Looking closer to hand, she saw Trader forging ahead of her, and jogged down into the next valley to catch up with the alien halfway up the next rise.

That dome. Is that where we"re heading?

Trader turned in his bubble to look back towards Nancy, still making her way down the slope of the hill behind. Dakota ignored this remark as she watched Nancy laboriously make her way towards them.

That"s not the way to do it, Dakota sent to her. Dakota sent to her. Run on your toes, like you"re skipping. Run on your toes, like you"re skipping.

Then you won"t mind if we leave you behind.

Nancy swore, then pushed up and off the ground with both feet. She came sailing back down in a low arc and landed on her hands and knees. Dakota watched as she picked herself up and tried again. This time it looked like she tripped over in slow motion, but managed to catch herself on the way back down.

I"m surprised you"re having such a hard time. You were pretty nimble during the hull repairs.

Nancy replied.

How?

Dakota followed Trader downhill, herself bounding in long, low, skipping strides. Despite her mood and the shock of Trader"s revelation, not to mention Nancy"s seemingly boundless hostility, a part of her was actually beginning to have fun. She made good time, looking behind her once or twice to check on Schiller, who was trailing huge dust clouds behind her.

She could see the dome more clearly from the next hilltop, beyond which lay only level plain stretching towards the cache"s abyssal pit. She saw now that, mixed in with the ruined buildings, there were what appeared to be the remains of a huge s.p.a.cecraft broken into several sections and half buried in the dust.

As Dakota jogged down to the edge of the plain, she realized the dome was a lot bigger than it appeared at a distance. It had to be at least a hundred metres across, but no more than twenty in height, and it had presumably been designed to withstand whatever forces had destroyed the buildings surrounding it. Trader was well ahead of her by now and, as she started to make her way across the level ground, she saw him pa.s.s inside an entrance in one side of the dome, the sparkle of his field-bubble faintly illuminating the interior of the pa.s.sageway beyond.

She soon reached it herself and stepped into its interior, noting how the relatively tiny inner s.p.a.ce emphasized just how thick the walls were.

Dense drifts of dust gradually began to appear out of the gloom, as the filters over her eyes adjusted for the lack of light. She saw waist-high racks stretching from wall to wall in orderly ranks, with wide aisles running between. Identical flat, smooth plates were mounted in haphazard order within the racks, though, at a glance, less than a third of the racks contained them.

Is this what we"re here for?

Trader guided his bubble down a side aisle, his huge eyes swivelling from left to right. Dakota turned in time to see the spiders were now threading their way in through the entrance, sending brilliant beams of light cutting through the darkness. Nancy followed them in soon afterwards.

Nancy sent. The Meridians slaughtered each other over possession of the cache, Dakota replied. Dakota replied. But it all happened a long, long time ago. But it all happened a long, long time ago.

Nancy merely watched at first as Dakota started pulling the disc-shaped field devices out of their slots, dropping them to the ground for the spiders to collect. Then she started to help, pulling the discs loose and placing them where the spiders could get to them easily. Trader meanwhile simply hovered in his bubble; in truth there wasn"t much he could do but watch them.

said Nancy after they"d been working away for a few minutes. What about them?

A couple of dozen, Dakota sent back. Dakota sent back. Why? Why?

Why are you so suddenly keen on giving me your opinion?

Nancy stopped working and stared over at Dakota. A long time ago, Nancy.

were they just left here? Are they guarding something? Just waiting for something? What?> Dakota directed an angry glance towards her. They were at war. s.h.i.t happens. They were at war. s.h.i.t happens.

the other woman replied,

Trader, when I met you on that other world, were the drones you gave me . . . guarding anything?

You said you didn"t hear back from some of the probes you sent down into the cache. Any idea why?

As Trader floated in his bubble, his manipulators remained immobile for at least half a minute.

he replied.

The discs were a lot heavier than they looked, and Dakota"s implants had picked up faint queries coming from them, which were interpretable thanks to the Meridian command structures Trader had given her. Once she had built up an idea of their internal structure, she transmitted this data back to Lamoureaux on the Mjollnir. Mjollnir.

Ted, take a look at this. What do you make of it?

His reply came barely a moment later. According to Trader, it is. And the interface seems to be straightforward enough, so it shouldn"t be a huge problem setting up an interface with the Mjollnir"s Mjollnir"s defence stacks. defence stacks.

Hang on, I"m going to try activating one myself first.

Dakota lugged the device over to a clear spot between two rows of racks, and triggered it by depressing a b.u.t.ton on one side. The shaped field that surrounded her a moment later sparked and crackled with light.

The effect was so startling that Dakota almost dropped the device; the field was far brighter and therefore more powerful than anything she had so far encountered. It had started out as a sphere about four metres across, centred on herself, but then it began to shrink, slowly at first but with increasing speed. She quickly deactivated it before it could shrink any further and crush her to death.

Trader warned her, from where he hovered near the dome"s entrance. Lamoureaux asked.

Two aisles over, Dakota could just make out an expression of shock on Nancy"s face through her faceplate.

I think it"s safe to say they work just fine, she sent back. she sent back.

Chapter Thirty.

They had to abandon a number of the field-generators after they proved to be broken on closer inspection, their outer sh.e.l.ls cracked and brittle. But at least fifty appeared to be undamaged.

After a couple of hours" work, the last of these were secured on top of some of the spiders, and sent back over the hills to Trader"s yacht. Dakota took one last look around the interior of the dome, wondering what it must have been like in those last hours before the colony was obliterated, and if the creatures who had built it had realized what was coming. Then she stepped back outside to join Trader and Nancy, who were waiting for her amongst the ruins.

Dakota watched as the machinery-laden spiders followed one another up the slope of the nearest hill. Maybe it"s time to activate those drones I detected, see if they wake up. Maybe it"s time to activate those drones I detected, see if they wake up.

Trader"s manipulators wriggled underneath his belly.

Less than a minute pa.s.sed before she was rewarded with a faint tremor that rippled the dust beneath her feet. Dakota stopped and turned in time to see rock and gravel fountaining upwards from all around the cache-mouth, as drone after drone punched its way back out of its hiding place. They rose quickly, spinning and glittering in the harsh sunlight, with debris sliding off of their mirrored carapaces as they accelerated away from the surface.

Nancy exclaimed, her voice full of terror. that?> Dakota realized she had forgotten to warn Nancy what she was intending to do.

Sorry, I should have warned you. Those are the drones I detected on our way here. I"ve ordered them to head for the frigate, but they had to dig their way out of the ground first.

Nancy raged. Hey, I said I was sorry.

Yes, Nancy, I hear you.

Dakota did her best to ignore the flash of resentment she felt at Nancy"s tone, as she headed for the nearest slope. The spiders had already scaled the summit and were well on their way back to Trader"s yacht.

Trader himself kept abreast of her as she ascended the hill, Nancy not so far behind them this time. Dakota glanced back and saw that debris was still slowly raining down on the ancient ruins. The drones were by now out of sight.

Dakota turned away and pinged the drones, finding they were functioning at peak capacity, and all accelerating hard towards the frigate. She fired a warning to Lamoureaux to make sure the others understood they were not being attacked.

Just doing my job, Dakota sent. Dakota sent. Once we"ve got these field-generators back on board, I want to take the ship down inside the cache. We should take a good look at it while we"ve got the chance. Do you have any objections to that? Once we"ve got these field-generators back on board, I want to take the ship down inside the cache. We should take a good look at it while we"ve got the chance. Do you have any objections to that?

Yes, why?

the cache?> Dakota stopped to look back at Nancy, who was standing just a little further downhill, with one foot up on a boulder. Beyond her, the interior of the cache had indeed become brighter, emitting light that flickered as if derived from a hundred different sources, each one moving constantly in relation to the rest. It was as if a horde of giant fireflies was flying up the mouth of the cache from somewhere deep inside.

Dakota loped up to the crest of the hill with long, striding bounds to look back down at the cache from a slightly higher vantage point. When she looked again, the light had grown brighter, becoming noticeably more so even as she watched. Another tremor rolled through the ground beneath her feet. She glanced over at Trader, who had also turned to look back, and she felt an unpleasant churning sensation inside her chest.

Trader, what the h.e.l.l is that light?

Dakota felt a chill. Those probes you said you"d lost, is it possible they ran into something down there? Those probes you said you"d lost, is it possible they ran into something down there?

The sense that something very bad was about to happen overwhelmed Dakota, and she turned to look the other way, to where she could just see the uppermost spines of Trader"s yacht poking up above the crest of a hill about a kilometre distant. She also spotted the train of spiders, still making their way back, in an undulating file, across the intervening hills and valleys.

She queried the recovered Meridian drones, hoping that they might be able to tell her what was going on. It took a few attempts to navigate her way to some kind of answer, and her eyes opened wide in horror when she got it.

We have to get out of here, she sent to the others. she sent to the others. We have to get out right now. We have to get out right now.

She started running down the other side of the hill, desperate to get away from the cache, her legs moving with what felt like dreamlike slowness. She ordered the drones to reverse their trajectory and to return to the vicinity of the cache, but they had already lost precious seconds.

asked Trader.

There are hundreds of unmanned Emissary scouts inside the cache, Trader, and we just woke them up.

Trader started heading back towards his yacht without further hesitation. I already called them back, but I don"t know if they can get here in time.

Dakota stumbled once, picked herself up and kept going. She could hear from Nancy"s panicky breathing that she had finally taken the hint and started running as well.

On reaching the crest of the final hill before they arrived at the yacht, Dakota paused to glance behind her. She saw Nancy approaching the foot of the same hill, but Trader had already overtaken them both. She turned back towards the yacht in time to see him slip through the open hatch, and for one terrible moment she wondered if he meant to abandon them.

By now the spiders had neatly stacked the field-generators beneath the open hatch, in which two of them stood waiting as their brethren began pa.s.sing the generators up to them with their instantly extendible arms.

As she reached the yacht, she swiftly climbed up on top of one of the spiders and pulled herself through the hatch. The two spiders already inside scuttled back into the yacht"s interior to get out of her way. Once inside, she accidentally crashed into a pile of field-generators, and just managed to stop them toppling back out of the hatch. At that moment, she spotted Nancy making her way down the final slope, kicking up a huge cloud of dust that must surely have been visible for kilometres around.

A torrent of dark shapes shot upwards from the location of the cache, moving with such colossal velocity that Dakota barely had time to register their pa.s.sage. Part of her attention was now focused on the approach of the Meridian drones, as she caught an equally brief glimpse of them vectoring in towards the Emissary scouts.

Around the yacht, the ground began to quiver yet again, sending up thick, choking clouds of dust that soon obscured the summits of the nearby hills.

Nancy stumbled and flailed about, and Dakota heard her yelling over the shared comms.

It"s the Emissary scouts, Dakota replied. Dakota replied. Get back here as fast as you can. Get back here as fast as you can.