Siedzik didn’t reply for some time, and Luc guessed he was conferring with his superiors on the orbital platform.
That, Luc knew, was because he was no longer beneath the surface of Aeschere, but on board a starship some millions of kilometres distant. The only reason they could converse at all was because
the ship’s communication network was automatically bouncing his CogNet link back through the connecting gate. But there wasn’t the time to try and explain all that to Siedzik, even
assuming he’d believe one word of the explanation.
He pulled himself into a navigation booth surrounded by interface and astrogation gear. The ship linked into his CogNet just long enough for it to work out he didn’t know how to operate
the navigational systems, and replaced most of the scrolling data surrounding him with a series of simplified questions and help menus.
It didn’t take long for Luc to work out that Antonov had not, in fact, been lying: the ship had already dipped into the turbulent upper reaches of 55 Cancri’s photosphere, and the
external temperature was already a couple of thousand degrees beyond the craft’s design parameters. He had minutes, perhaps only seconds, before it shattered under the strain.
He stood jerkily, skin clammy with sweat, and pushed himself towards the exit from the bridge. It took another couple of minutes of fumbling and swearing in the zero gee before he managed to
navigate his way back to the bay containing the transfer gate.
Luc sailed through the gate and back into Aeschere’s hollowed-out heart, sidestepping millions of kilometres in the blink of an eye. The little moon’s gravity took hold of him as
soon as he was through, tugging him down towards the dusty floor of the cavern. Without the benefit of his spacesuit, it was numbingly cold, every breath filling his lungs with icy daggers.
An icon blinked in the corner of one eye: Siedzik.
Luc caught a brief flash of Siedzik’s visual feed, and saw Siedzik and several more Sandoz warriors making their way towards an elevator platform at the far end of the complex.
Siedzik responded.
He stumbled back the way he had come, towards the nearest shaft and another elevator platform. His legs were still half-numb from Antonov’s paralytic, making it hard to run, and he caught
sight of several mosquitoes lying inactive in the dust, their legs neatly folded beneath their tiny bodies.
The air misted white as he panted for breath, the cold sinking deeper and deeper into his flesh. It was almost funny; even if he managed to avoid being engulfed in white-hot plasma, he’d
still be running a serious risk of hypothermia.
Reaching the platform, he slammed its control panel with one hand, then collapsed onto all fours,
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