New data came in: vast, apparently abandoned craft circled the star in long, eccentric orbits, along with a halo of less easily identifiable junk. The surface of the target world itself, outside of the cache, was pocked with what might have been machinery or habitats of some kind. There were two . . . no, three godkillers in orbit around the target world.

As she watched, they started to move out of orbit. Because of me, she thought, with no small amount of horror.

A few moments later, Emissary scouts began to materialize all around the frigate.

She picked up Trader’s yacht, already dropping down towards the planet’s surface. He was being chased by several scouts himself, and automated defences positioned on the surface of the planet were firing on him.

Trader became aware of the Mjollnir ’s arrival at about the same time his ship warned him that its primary defences were approaching catastrophic failure. The scouts that had been chasing him decelerated almost at once, reversing their thrust and heading back towards the frigate.

Within his yacht, the waters remained dark and cool. Trader studied the data coming in from his hull arrays, but no matter how often he looked he still couldn’t quite believe what it was telling him.

<Dakota. I see that you are still alive.>

Trader?

<I did not expect you to make it this far.>

What can I say?. I’m tenacious when I’m really fucked off. When we’re done, I’m going to take that damn artefact and ram it up your—

<Dakota, according to my instruments, the Emissaries have just dropped a nova mine into their own star. The neutrino flux is quite unmistakable. >

You can’t be serious.

He waited while she checked the readings from her own ship’s sensors. When she came back, he could feel her panic surging across the connection between them in bright hot waves.

But why? They can’t possibly know about the artefact. Can they?

<Perhaps Hugh Moss knew about the Mos Hadroch. If so, he may have passed the information on to the Emissaries.>

I told Moss you had a way to stop the war. I thought he might. . .

<Listen to reason? >

Go to hell.

<A most infelicitous disclosure, Dakota. Certainly enough for him to infer the existence of something approaching the nature of the artefact. >

But why blow the whole damn system up?

<It is in the Emissaries’ nature to lay waste all around them. If the sun detonates before I can implement the Mos Hadroch, the cache will be destroyed, and with it any chance of stopping them. They are, after all, not lacking for other caches in other parts of their empire. Do not attempt to take over my yacht again, Dakota. Not if you value our purpose in being here.>

Trader! Wait—

But once again, he was gone.

Chapter Thirty-six