Goodbye, Lucas. I’m glad we had a chance to know each other.

She cut the connection before he could say anything more. Dakota felt numb, as if the reality of what was happening to her hadn’t sunk in yet.

The artefact pulsed with light, all around her, inside her, even entwined with her. She had since lost all sense of her own body. She seemed to see the floor and walls of the chamber from a dozen different points of view simultaneously. Her mind was being unravelled like a piece of cloth slowly teased apart into disparate threads.

She slipped in and out of consciousness, as the hours passed like minutes. The artefact occasionally fed her glimpses of the Mjollnir, which had already started taking incremental jumps away from the cache, making the most of its remaining drive-spines. Hordes of scouts followed her, diving towards the frigate in a strategy all too reminiscent of the swarm’s tactics. She could see that the frigate was taking heavy damage.

She sensed the artefact was beginning to approach some kind of peak of activity. The chamber began to shake, while a shell of burning energy surrounded the drive-forge.

Lamoureaux gazed down at Martinez with haggard eyes. ‘We can initiate one more jump, on your call,’ he said. ‘After that, nothing. I’m sorry.’

They had lived through hours of endless terror since their last communication with Dakota. The scouts had chased them throughout the night, tearing and hacking at the hull wherever the field-generators failed. The frigate had already executed more than half a dozen short-range jumps, but every time the scouts caught up eventually, materializing all around and diving inwards towards them with the mindless efficiency of machines. The star system might be doomed, but the Emissaries clearly weren’t going to let them escape.

Martinez was sweating profusely, still being careful with his injured arm. A scout had reached as far as the bridge before being taken out by Perez and Martinez, both armed with pulse-rifles. The air still smelled of burnt wires and plastic.

‘Do it anyway,’ said Martinez. ‘I don’t want to have to stay—’

‘Wait. Wait a second,’ interrupted Lamoureaux.

The machine-head gripped the arms of the interface chair, staring at some point far beyond the bridge as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

‘What?’ said Corso, speaking for the first time since the scout had tried to cut its way in. Ever since they had successfully repelled it, he had remained collapsed in a seat, too weary and shell-shocked to say or do anything.

‘Look,’ Lamoureaux stuttered, pointing to the overhead display. ‘Just look.’

They all stared up and saw the Emissary scouts were self-destructing.

‘Perhaps it’s just local,’ Martinez mumbled.

‘No,’ insisted Lamoureaux vehemently. ‘The last godkiller – it’s burning.’

‘It’s Dakota,’ Corso yelled, standing up at last. ‘It has to be!’