Of course.

She was being set up-had been set up, ever since Bourdain’s Rock.

The alien was covering its tracks, so that it would appear only she was responsible for the destruction of the derelict and the murder of the Hyperion’s crew: a wake of death and destruction, indeed. Corso hadn’t been so far off the mark then.

‘In order to achieve maximized disaster,’ the creature continued, ‘and to prevent immediate discorporation of Dakota most delightful, absolute cooperation is presently necessitated.’

Her Ghost flagged up a message from Corso. But before she had a chance to read it, she felt something pressing in on her thoughts…

She shook her head, feeling dizzy. She looked up and saw a computer-generated image of Trader, floating in the screens arranged all around the bridge.

‘My life won’t be worth shit if I do what you want. I…’

She stopped. There was something she had to do, something very urgent. She -

– was standing next to the open interface chair, one hand resting on the folded shape of a steel and plastic petal. She couldn’t even remember having crossed the bridge to reach the chair.

There was another message from Corso now, this one marked highest priority. She faltered, and there it was again, pressing in on her thoughts -

– she found herself in darkness.

Dakota reeled, and realized she was seated inside the activated interface chair, with no memory of having climbed inside it or of the petals enfolding her. She gasped with the shock of this sudden dislocation. It felt like being buried alive.

More, she was mind-linked into the second interface, the one on board the derelict. For a moment it lay wide open to her, a universe of data waiting to be pored over -

And then it was gone.

She gasped as the connection was suddenly, deliberately cut.

‹Dakota!› It was Corso, speaking from inside the Piri Reis. ‹I went ahead and activated the systems crash myself once you were in the chair. What happened up there? Why didn’t you respond? I thought I’d lost you.›

I’m not sure. I… I just blacked out for a second, or something. The Shoal-member was talking to me from inside the stacks. The crew are all dead.

‹What? Hang on a second while I… oh shit.› Clearly he’d accessed the bridge video feed recorded a few moments before crashing the onboard systems. ‹What happened in there?›

Nothing to do with me, I assure you.

‹I-shit, have you made the uplink yet?›

No. But I will now.

‹Listen, it’s not about to get any better. There’s a shuttle up from Theona, way ahead of schedule. It should be docking about now.›

They’ve probably come looking for the crew. I don’t even know how long they’ve been dead.

‹Then you’re going to have to get the hell back here before they find you.›

There. Barely a thought and the derelict was now linked directly into the Piri Reis, without first passing through the Hyperion. In data terms it was like turning a tap and getting a trickle compared to the ocean of data she’d just tasted for one mesmerizing moment. It was a bare snatch of what she’d experienced while on board the derelict itself.

Even so, she reached out with her senses, and felt the control data from the interface chair aboard the derelict smoothly mesh with her Ghost. It felt like gaining a new set of limbs-but limbs that felt numb and weak and sluggish in their response.

But she still had control of the derelict.

It’s done, Lucas. The uplink is in place.

Except, against all her expectations, nothing felt different. Instead of feeling victorious, Dakota felt mildly disappointed.

The chair’s petals unfolded from around her. The image of Trader had gone. Overhead displays and status lights around the bridge had fallen into grey, unresponsive dullness. Pale red emergency lighting lent an awful, surreal quality to the horror and carnage that surrounded her.

‹All right. Looks like we’ve got more problems,› Corso informed her. ‹The Hyperion is recovering far faster than I’d have expected.›

Are you serious?

At that moment, she sensed the Hyperion’s few still-active systems disappearing out of reach of her Ghost.

‹Never been more serious. There’s what looks like a list of potential trajectories and orbits being run through the stacks right now. There’s something big in there sucking up most of the processing power, which I guess proves what you were telling me about the Shoal AI.›

She gripped the arms of the interface chair in shock.

Well, it’s nice to know you believed me in the first place.

‹Fine, I apologize. The question now is, how much control do you actually have over the derelict?›

I can’t be sure, Dakota replied. It feels… different.

‹You don’t say›

Shut up, Lucas. I can…

Dakota closed her eyes and concentrated on the uplink: a long and fragile chain of communication.

The derelict became like an immense presence, brooding and dark, like a haunted house waiting to be explored. Immense energies flowed through it, yet it responded only sluggishly to her mental queries.

If I didn’t know better, she told Corso, I’d say something was deliberately trying to block my control of the derelict.

Corso snarled with exasperation. ‹I’m going to pull as much data off the derelict as I can in the meantime, in case we lose the link. Guess we underestimated your friend. The best thing you can do is get back here before whoever’s on that arriving shuttle finds you.›

Corso watched as a tsunami of information poured up and into the Piri’s stacks from deep under the moon’s ice. Yet, rather than celebrating, he felt merely haggard, run down and exhausted. The few hours he’d spent asleep, curled up with Dakota, hadn’t been nearly enough. That, plus nearly getting killed on board the derelict-and that following the torture and beating of Dakota herself-conspired to wipe away his remaining ability to concentrate.

He located the Piri’s autodoc menu and dialled up an amphetamine concoction, hoping it might do the trick for him. Dakota’s little ship could do a hell of a lot on its own, but there were limits to all things. He had to be awake and aware in order to supervise the uplink as long as it lasted.