Stealing Light by Gary Gibson

Author:Gary Gibson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction & related items, Science Fiction & Fantasy, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780330445962
Publisher: Tor
Published: 2008-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

On the edge of the Nova Arctis system, the coreship dropped out of transluminal space for a bare few minutes, but long enough for the Hyperion to lift up from its docking facility on a shimmering platform constructed of shaped fields and artificial gravity, before finally exiting through one of the many openings in the coreship’s outer crust.

The frigate went into immediate deceleration as it pulled away from the vast Shoal vessel, which dwindled rapidly as it accelerated back to jump speed.

Dakota sat in a web of data at the heart of the bridge, watching the way space warped around the coreship as it slipped back into transluminal space in a flurry of exotic particles. At last, she knew their destination: Nova Arctis. This system had only been a number in a catalogue until the Freeholders decided to give it that name.

In the meantime, there were questions for Dakota to ponder, that in turn raised more questions rather than answers.

Such as, who had killed Severn?

Severn had obviously survived his encounter with Moss—if he hadn’t, she would have known, immediately. Yet several days ago, his life-signal—dim as it was, given he was some kilometres away in the heart of Ascension—had ceased. She’d woken from a dream at the time, her own heart pounding, filled with an inexplicable sense of loss, until she had realized what her Ghost was telling her.

It was hard to believe. They’d hardly set eyes on each other more than a few times in the years since Port Gabriel, but the knowledge of his death gripped her innards and filled her thoughts with a deep sense of mourning, despite his betrayal of her.

Chris, dead.

At first she assumed he must have finally died of the injuries sustained during his fight with Moss. But then she’d had the Piri Reis worm its way into the maintenance programs for a local medical storage facility in Ascension, and then discovered the truth. Severn had been messily executed by unknown assailants, after being hauled out of his medbox.

Whoever was responsible, they’d been thorough, and particularly brutal.

It was possible Arbenz was behind this, or perhaps Moss hadn’t been the only agent Bourdain had sent aboard the coreship. But also Severn had led a dangerous life, and had any number of enemies in a city still deeply divided by the aftermath of the civil war. Any one of them could have been responsible.

Nonetheless, it was beginning to feel as if a lengthening trail of death led straight towards her. First the massacre on the Rock, then Josef Marados, and now Severn. It was enough to make a person very scared -and very, very paranoid.

With a start, Dakota remembered Corso’s garbled suggestion that someone might have entered the Hyperion without any of them knowing. At first she’d considered such an idea to be ridiculous. There were few areas of the frigate that Dakota, via her Ghost circuits and Pot’s systems, hadn’t accessed or subjugated to her will in some way.

A few parts of the Hyperion remained

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