Dakota activated the command structure Moss had given her, feeling it unfold like an impossibly complex origami flower in the depths of her mind. She tried to lock on to the yacht’s primary control systems, but it was already too late; the craft was fully committed to a jump. Trying to reverse the flow of energy spilling out through the drive-spines at this point would likely destroy the yacht, the frigate’s hold, and herself along with it.

She scrambled for the door and felt real panic well up inside her when she found it had sealed itself following the decompression. She launched herself back into the data-space and found the door’s override codes, but Lamoureaux was in the chair, meaning she couldn’t activate them without his explicit permission.

Ted, I need you to override the safety locks at my current location. Now!

<I’ve got your location, but just blowing the door will be dangerous. Won’t—?>

Just do it, Ted! Do it now or I’m dead!

<Okay. You might want to move back from the door if you’re anywhere near it.>

She pulled herself into a corner, under a metal desk that projected out from one wall, and held on to its legs. The light from Trader’s yacht was beginning to build in intensity, becoming almost blinding.

The exit door slammed open a second later, and Dakota clung on for her life as the atmosphere rushed past her and out the shattered window. Once it was over, she threw herself back into the access tunnel, bouncing from wall to wall in a frenzy, heading back towards the airlock.

The light followed her, still increasing in intensity. Whenever her hands or feet touched a bulkhead, she could feel a heavy vibration building up inside it.

She was back out on the hull less than a minute later. The stars had changed once again, the Emissary scouts now several hundred light-years aft.

<Dakota!> Lamoureaux screamed to her through their link. <What the hell is happening back there? Are we still under attack? >

She could hear priority alerts blaring on the bridge. It’s Trader. He’s going to jump his ship from inside the hold. I don’t know what it’s going to do to the frigate, but you’d better warn the others and tell them to get ready.

She kept pulling herself back along the hull towards the bow, hand over hand, until she reached the same heat-exchange nacelle she had passed before. She pulled herself around the other side of it and pressed herself close, the vibration now growing into a powerful tremor that in turn became a series of hammer-blows that very nearly sent her spinning off into the encompassing darkness.