‘It’s me, Lucas Corso. She’s injured. Her Ghost’s been compromised.’

He let himself float against one wall and grabbed at another handhold to keep him in place. ‘Dakota gave me the necessary access privileges, Piri. You can accept my commands.’

Dakota mumbled something he couldn’t comprehend, and pulled against her restraints.

‘Nonetheless, I require the restraints to be removed from the owner of this vessel. Be warned, I am equipped for lethal force.’

‘Piri!’ he shouted, venting all the frustration and anger he’d put to one side during his long struggle to get Dakota back to the cargo bay. ‘Look at the records for the bridge. Look at what happened, I got her out of there.’

‘I am now initiating countermeasures. Please be warned that-’

‘Listen to what I’m saying! Infective routines have been placed in Dakota’s Ghost circuits.’

Corso floated towards a programming interface.

‘Please do not approach the interface.’

‘AW, just trust me. Please.’

It was useless trying to plead with a machine, but Corso couldn’t help himself. ‘Look inside her and see if I’m wrong.’ He reached out to the console and tapped at the screen, which blossomed into life at his touch.

He’d half expected the Piri to zap him immediately like a fly, but nothing happened. Obviously enough of what he was saying got past its security algorithms so as to give it some cause for delay. ‘I’m releasing these data-stack signatures from the moment when the Hyperion became infected. Compare them to the data signatures in Dakota’s implants and then tell me if I’m wrong.’

For the sake of his own life, Corso prayed he wasn’t.

Several moments passed.

‘Correlations with the infected signatures are detected,’ the Piri Reis replied. ‘Please stand by.’

Dakota’s head suddenly snapped back as if a powerful electric current had been run through her. Her teeth clenched in an involuntary grimace, and the muscles in her arms and neck stood out like steel cables under the skin.

‘Piri!’ Dakota began showing all the signs of suffering a major seizure. ‘Piri, stop! What are you…?’

Her eyes looked like they were about to pop right out of her head, and something very like a scream tried to force its way out from between her clenched teeth.

‘Remain where you are,’ the ship warned him. ‘I am currently cleaning invasive routines from Dakota’s implants.’

‘You’re killing her.’

‘Any physical responses you see are purely the result of nerve shocks generated by the analysis and removal process.’

Corso stepped forward and tried to loosen her straps. Whatever Piri was doing…

Something buzzed against his forehead and a moment later Corso found himself floating at the far end of the cabin.

‘Please remain where you are,’ the Piri stated calmly, ‘or the next shot I give you will be lethal.’

Thinking of countermeasures, Corso reached up and touched the skin on his forehead and wondered what the ship had hit him with. He looked around just in time to see something tiny and silver dart back into a recess that closed even as he watched.

Dakota’s body jerked again, a low animal sound escaping from between her clenched teeth.

‘At least let me get her into the fucking medbox, Piri?

‘Unnecessary.’

With the next shock she received, Dakota began foaming at the mouth. Corso was too sickened to watch, and looked away.

She suddenly uttered a shriek, her body tensing as if a powerful electric current were flowing through it, but then she fell silent and collapsed back against the couch.

Corso stared at her prone form, his mouth dry.

‘The process is complete,’ the ship suddenly announced.

‘And what? How is she?’

‘A more thorough analysis is required to determine if there is any brain damage from her recent head injuries. The invasive routines, however, appear to have been destroyed.’

Corso hurriedly pulled Dakota back out of the webbing. She felt like a broken doll in his arms as he clumsily hauled her into the cupboard-sized space where the coffin-shaped medbox was situated.

He yanked her clothes off and cracked open the medbox’s door. It responded instantly by enveloping Dakota’s body with slim, pale sensors as he lowered her in. Needles slid under her skin, while other sensors began probing her flesh. He stepped back, momentarily repulsed: the sensors reminded him too much of the things that had extruded from the walls of the derelict.

‘Piri, I need you to give me full access to your control systems.’

‘This is not permitted.’

‘Dammit! Piri, I-’

‘Corso.’

Her voice was weak. He stared down at her hopefully. She wasn’t focusing well, but she was looking straight at him. As he watched, a sensor found its way inside a nostril, while others slithered into her mouth and on down her throat. She twisted and choked for a moment, before relaxing again. He reached down and put one hand on her arm. The physical contact seemed to help soothe her.

‘Piri,’ she gasped, her voice barely coherent past the sensors blocking her throat. ‘Full systems access granted for Lucas Corso. Acknowledge.’

‘Acknowledged,’ came the reply.

‘Dakota, I…’

A sensor pushed itself into a vein on her arm and her eyes rolled back, the eyelids closing in deep sleep as the medbox’s sedatives took effect.

Corso woke a few hours later to an urgent beeping sound. He’d curled up in the same acceleration couch Dakota had been confined in, watching as status alerts on her condition continued flickering on a screen.

His sleep, what little of it he was able to manage, had been sporadic, interrupted by nightmares due to what he’d learned from the derelict during that final frantic upload to the Piri Reis.

He felt he could tell no one what he’d discovered, and he’d wiped the data from the Piri Reis’s stacks as soon as he’d absorbed its message in all its awful import.

Despite all she’d been through, the damage to Dakota’s body and brain appeared to be largely superficial. There was no sign of major cerebral tissue damage, either from her fight with Udo or from the Piri’s attempts to destroy whatever had been hiding inside her skull.