She felt a faint tremor under her fingertips and drew back, peering upwards and from side to side. A dimple several metres across began to form on the skin, centred on where her hand had touched it. She stepped back, watching as this dimple rapidly deepened, turning into a concave bowl within seconds, then deepening further to take on the shape of a passageway leading directly into the craft's interior.
'We need to get inside,' she said to Days of Wine and Roses, and finally let go of the alien's compact body. She pulled herself inside the ship, cursing under her breath at the pain in her shoulder. A soft, non-localized glow filled the air, illuminating branching corridors that were still forming as she watched.
She glanced back at Roses, who waited on the platform beyond. It wasn't hard to imagine his apprehension. 'Believe me when I say it's safe,' she assured him.
'It feels unpleasantly like stepping into the mouth of a very large animal,' he replied. 'Not an experience to be enjoyed, believe me.'
Dakota tried to control her impatience; she wanted to tear off her clothes and immerse herself in the derelict's pale flesh. 'I can still take you back to your own fleet, if you'd like.'
And what would I tell my Queen upon my return?' Days of Wine and Roses asked her. 'That I let you take away that which she values most? And what news would she then take to the Shoal?'
'Listen to me, Roses. The Shoal were only ever here because they could use the presence of the Emissaries as an excuse to make a pre-emptive strike against them, using weapons that can do to other star systems what Trader did to Nova Arctis. You were pawns in a much bigger game – we all were – but that's over now.'
Roses didn't reply, so she continued. 'Your Queen was right that she couldn't trust the Shoal, even if she left it all a bit too late. The point is, it seems the Emissaries already had their own nova weapons, when the Shoal had assumed they didn't.'
Roses' wings twitched spasmodically. 'But that means-'
'It means a nova war just like the one in the Greater Magellanic Cloud has started, but here, in our own galaxy. The Emissaries are already retaliating, destroying Shoal-controlled systems across the border between their empires. But the fighting's going to come our way before long, and unless we find a way to deal with it we're all going to be wiped out of existence. Bringing every last available Magi ship still in existence here to Ocean's Deep is one part of a possible solution I have in mind.'
Roses still hung back. 'How could you possibly know such things?'
'Blame these implants' – she reached up and tapped the side of her skull – 'in here. They do all the work, in conjunction with all this,' she went on, casting a significant glance around them. 'Even now, there's encrypted tach-net traffic flashing back and forth between the coreship here and the ones in other systems. The derelict is tapping into it, and feeding the main details to me.'
'I… see.' Roses finally stepped fully inside the Magi ship, and the hull sealed itself behind him. Doors had now appeared, leading off from the newly formed passageway.
'As I told you, there are serious consequences to my aiding you,' Roses informed her. 'Though there are non-aligned Hives who might accept me.'
Dakota nodded. 'In the meantime, this ship is inertialess, like the coreships, so you should be comfortable enough. There's…' She peered further down the softly glowing corridor at the outlines of doors that had appeared just in the last minute or so. The derelict had predicted her train of thought, as always. 'There's a room modelled after a Bandati habitat through there,' she informed him more decisively. A door slid open, as if at her unspoken command.
Roses moved down the corridor and peered inside. 'Dakota, I've seen some very strange things in my life, and some of them frightened me very much. But I don't think any of them frightened me quite as much as you do.' Once Roses had entered his quarters, darkness fell around Dakota. The ship's flesh pressed around her, swallowing her whole and drawing her into itself. There was that same brief moment of animal terror she remembered from the first time she'd physically merged with a Magi ship. But that fear soon passed, and she awoke to the expanded perceptual range of the Magi ship. She sensed, felt, heard what it did.
She was its navigator.
Welcome home, said a voice.
A welter of images and ideas flooded over her, chief amongst them an external view of the ring-segment. It was finally coming apart as it accelerated towards the black hole. They had only minutes left, at most.
The Librarian fed her an image of the derelict blowing the ring-segment apart in order to allow them to escape.
No, she replied. First we have to deal with Moss, and then we deal with Trader. 'Swimmer in Turbulent Currents.'
Moss opened his eyes, then closed them again. He was obviously hallucinating. 'My name is Hugh Moss,' he said quietly.
Beneath him the ground rumbled. A few more seconds and the ring would…
'Look at me, Swimmer.'
He opened his eyes to find Dakota looking down at him. She appeared to be in far better shape now than during their recent encounter.
'Too late,' he told her.
'You have to call your yacht back.'
'Another few minutes and this ring-segment is going to shatter into a thousand pieces. When that happens, I will die. When that happens, my yacht will slip into superluminal space, and reappear in the heart of this system's star. And then… boom.'
He squinted up at Dakota. Some hidden sense told him he was seeing a form of projection.
'I'm speaking to you through your implants, Hugh. I'm on board the Magi ship now. So tell me what happens after? You destroy this system, and everyone and everything in it, and then what? Revenge is one thing, but what exactly is it you think you'll have achieved? The coreship would be long gone from Ocean's Deep before its sun blew. The same goes for pretty much anyone and everyone who can get away from here, and that includes Trader.'
Moss sat up gingerly from where he'd been lying curled up and waiting for death. 'You wouldn't even be asking me these questions,' he replied, 'if you were able to stop me. Have you been trying to compromise my yacht's systems?'
Her face remained impassive, and a smile tricked its way into one corner of his mouth. 'That turned out to be harder than you thought it would, didn't it?'
A lot harder. Remember, Trader did this to you, Hugh – no one else.'
Moss remained silent.
There was an almighty crack, like thunder, and they both glanced up at the ring's ceiling far overhead. Cracks were spreading across it, and a series of explosions sounded in the distance amid the steady whine of venting atmosphere.
'I have a suggestion,' she said, looking back down at him. 'By way of a trade.'
'Go on.'
'I know you can still call your yacht back – and if you do, I can help you find Trader, wherever he goes. He's initiated a nova war against the Emissaries. Remote superluminal drones were scattered across the border between your two empires and used to destroy key systems.'
Moss still said nothing. But she could tell he was listening carefully as she described the Emissaries' response for his benefit.
Moss frowned. 'That isn't-'
'Possible? That the Emissaries would turn out to have had nova weapons all along? Of course it is.'
'And Trader?'
'Right at the centre of things – or, at least, that's according to what I've been able to find out.'
He stared at her. 'Trader's not in this system any more,' Dakota continued. 'But I can make sure you find him long before the Hegemony does, because all he's going to be doing from now on is running.'
'No. The Shoal will still take him back,' Moss replied, a faraway look in his eyes. 'He's stayed alive this long. Now they'll need him to survive this war.'