Dakota concentrated on protecting the yacht, keeping her eyes tightly closed and letting her limbs float out around her, her fingers jerking spasmodically as she directed her side of the battle raging outside. Trader’s yacht looked tiny and fragile compared with the bristling black mass of the pursuing scouts. Yet more of the Emissary scouts were pouring out from the mouth of the cache, their skins flickering with multiple bright energies as they repelled tightly focused bursts of energy directed towards them. The hulls of the machines on both sides of the battle crackled as their outer layers were burned off, while the complex nanomolecular circuitry within attempted to repair the constant damage.

<We’re just about prepped for a short-range jump,> Lamoureaux sent to her. <Have you checked the monitors on Nancy’s suit?>

Dakota swore silently to herself for not having thought of that already. She opened her eyes and quickly activated the data screen printed on the sleeve of the other woman’s spacesuit.

It says she’s absorbed more than fifty grey of radiation, Dakota sent in reply. She was far from sure whether even the wonders of modern medical technology could combat such a huge dose of ionizing radiation.

Nancy coughed, and Dakota studied the other woman’s face. Her lips moved soundlessly, and her eyes had rolled halfway up into her head.

<Okay, that’s really not good,> Lamoureaux remarked.

Understatement of the fucking century.

<Look, all we can do now is stick her in a medbox and hope for the best.>

I should have listened to her, Dakota sent. She had a better idea of the situation, and I didn’t pay attention. I should have checked things out more thoroughly, instead of going barging into a situation I didn’t understand.

<Don’t beat yourself up too much, Dakota. She wasn’t exactly going out of her way to win your trust and respect. >

The yacht shook again. Trader, how much damage are we taking?

<A considerable amount, I regret to say. I believe there might originally have been only a few scouts inside the cache, who would have used any available resources to build copies of themselves.>

How do you know?

<The tactic is familiar. A few enter a defended territory, multiply rapidly, then attack from within. >

And knowing this helps us how?

<The ones with antimatter cores are identifiable by the magnetic fields they use for containment. Those are suicide devices. The ones without antimatter cores control the rest.>

So if we can destroy the ones doing the controlling, we can stop the rest.

<Precisely>