Gridlinked

by Neal Asher

  ‘This is Viridian control calling Nix shuttle. Answer, please.’

  Jarvellis ignored the radio and concentrated on flying the shuttle. She could not figure out how to get back towards the planet. The settings of the engines seemed to be designed for re-entry only. Think! It occurred to her then that she was thinking like someone who had lived with gravity for too long. She was thinking in terms of up and down. She moved the full column over and flipped the shuttle so that Viridian was now directly above her, and then applied some power.

  ‘This is Viridian control calling Nix shuttle. Answer, please.’

  There was the airspeed indicator, and there was an altimeter giving a very strange reading. Slowly Jarvellis began to understand what each of the meters and small screens signified. She had got the shuttle in a stable orbit when a completely different voice spoke from the radio.

  ‘This is Viridian. Will the lunatic flying that antique please respond. I have no objection to you killing yourself, but you are now entering occupied airspace.’

  Shit, it was the runcible AI. Jarvellis searched for a switch to turn off the radio. She found none. What she did find was a screen that folded out from the old console. The screen flickered on to give her the same view as she had out through the front screen. She pressed a button and that view flicked to one that was identified—in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen—as infrared. She clicked along the buttons and called up all sorts of interesting views, but none of them would help to prevent her spreading herself across the surface of the planet if she didn’t figure out how to land this thing.

  * * *

  They put the carrier down in a valley in the foothills of the cave-riddled Thuriot mountains. These mountains were not like any mountains he had imagined; they were the slabbed and laminated masses he had seen from the runcible facility. Perhaps it was the case that on a heavier-gravity planet like Earth such strange formations could not exist. He sited the camp a short distance from where the blue oaks and chequer trees of the Magadar forest petered out, on level ground thick with Arctic lichens and the chewed sprouts of new trees.

  ‘If they come on foot, they’ll come from the forest,’ Cormac told Thorn. ‘Sergeant, I want someone at the turret gun at all times. Organize a shift if necessary. I want you in there at the command console, co-ordinating all scan input. We’ll keep channels open so you can relay everything you get.’

  ‘So too.’

  ‘Your gunner must take out anything airborne. Anything that even hints at being a surveillance drone, I want hit. Obviously if we get any AGCs coming in without ID, I want them hit as well. Go there now. I’ll relay any further orders.’

  As the sergeant moved on, Thorn said, ‘The other lot came in on foot. They didn’t risk coming in airborne. I doubt this Pelter chap will, either.’

  ‘I don’t believe in taking chances. Now, there are two autoguns in the carrier. Set them up in the trees and put the men either side. Between them and the trees I want weaknesses.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘We’ll have Aiden and Cento in there as spotters. Anything comes through, and we’ll hit it on this open ground.’

  ‘Not much cover for us here,’ said Thorn, looking speculatively at the single tilted slab behind the carrier.

  ‘Wrong, we dig in.’

  ‘Ah . . .’

  Cormac nodded to the slab and the land beyond it. ‘I want holes dug over there as well, but I don’t want them occupied. I just want them to look like they are. You I want at that slab with your proton gun.’ Thorn nodded to this and Cormac went on. ‘When it’s all set up, I want everyone to get some rest before nightfall.’

  ‘And if there’s no attack? We do have another mission.’

  ‘The Maker can wait. We’ll stay here for days if necessary. As I said, I want Pelter off my back.’

  It took the rest of the morning for the defences to be set and foxholes to be dug. The ground was very stony, and a metre down was a layer of permafrost. They had an electric shear that could slice through almost anything, and EM blasts from a pulse rifle soon melted the permafrost, but in the end the men had to dig the holes with shovels. It was tiring work for men unused to it, and would perhaps not have been finished until nightfall had not Cento and Aiden lent a hand. The sergeant and his men rested in their tents afterwards, perhaps trying to remember if the ES recruiting officer had said anything about having to dig holes. Aiden and Cento moved into the trees.

  Night descended and now there was nothing to do but wait. Cormac surveyed what he had wrought, then headed for the carrier.

  As he reached it, Cormac spotted Thorn ferrying Stanton back inside. Even boosted men must empty their bladders sometime. He followed them inside and watched while Thorn tied the prisoner back in place. Then he sat on the bunk opposite, as Thorn nodded to him and left them, his proton gun tucked under one arm. Cormac looked round to see the sergeant was up near the front studying a screen flipped up from the control console. Mika he could hear moving about in the rear section somewhere.

  ‘You know, John,’ he said, ‘you’re culpable for just about every crime on the book.’

  Stanton looked at him tiredly. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Why? Ever since I first met you, I kept wondering why. The way you operate, you didn’t need to resort to crime. You could easily have made your fortune in the Polity. Was it the buzz? The danger?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Stanton. ‘But how many people do you know who made informed choices when they were young? For me, crime was a way of survival at first, then a way of life afterwards. You know what it’s like beyond the Line.’

  ‘I know.’ Cormac turned away from him, then looked back. ‘I don’t think there’s anything I can do. You’ve killed people and some of those people were innocent Polity citizens,’ he said.

  Stanton was about to reply, when Aiden spoke from Cormac’s comunit, which he took from his pocket.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A message from Viridian,’ came Aiden’s voice. ‘It may not be relevant, but a shuttle just launched from the old ring station.’

  ‘Who’s there normally?’

  ‘Outlinkers, apparently, but Viridian tells me they don’t often come down to the surface. About once every ten years . . . in exoskeletons . . . to buy supplies they cannot manufacture. It may be nothing.’

  ‘All right, keep me informed.’

  Cormac dropped the unit back in his pocket and looked questioningly at Stanton.

  ‘Nothing to do with Pelter. No way of getting back up there,’ Stanton told him.

  Cormac stood up and moved to the door. At the door he hesitated, removed his unit from his pocket and turned it off. He then took out a little thin-gun he had been delighted to discover amongst the carrier’s armament.

  ‘You know, John, it’ll be nothing less than total mind-wipe for you. Do you want that?’

  ‘Are you making an offer?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I still have enough left in me not to want to die,’ Stanton said. ‘I just don’t want to remember.’ Cormac nodded, put the gun away, and opened the door. He turned his unit back on as he went out.

  * * *

  The night passed without event, and sunrise revealed heavy red blooms on the chequer trees. The air was filled with a perfume redolent of lavender, and the hum of adapted bees amongst the foliage. Underfoot, a light frost hoared the saplings and the lichens beyond the edge of the forest. Cormac sipped coffee and blew vapour into the clear air. He wished his mind was as clear. Three hours’ sleep had revived him a little, but he knew he could do with a straight eight hours without interruption. With the coffee he swilled down a couple of wake-ups. He wasn’t the only one doing this.

  As he walked across to see how things were, soldier Tarm crawled from his tent, then paused, scratching his head and yawning. He saw Cormac and looked suddenly guilty. He reached back inside his tent for his pulse-rifle, dragged it out and hung it over his shoulder, and then stood up
.

  ‘Lovely morning, sir,’ he said.

  Cormac nodded and Tarm hurried off.

  ‘They’re much in awe of you.’

  Cormac turned as Mika walked up behind him.

  ‘I would rather you stayed in the carrier,’ he said.

  Mika looked around. ‘You know, I miss the dracomen,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Cormac. He turned towards the foxholes and watched Tarm dropping into one. The hole’s previous occupant climbed out and trudged back towards the tents.

  ‘Cormac.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cormac said to the unit in his pocket.

  ‘We have an AGC coming in over the mountains,’ Aiden told him. ‘I’ve only just picked it up. It’s only two kilometres away.’

  ‘Sergeant, you have it.’

  ‘I do, sir. They’re taking a juice harvest to Motford. The return signature I’m getting is of a transporter. Looks OK, sir.’

  ‘Tell it to divert. If it flies over us, we hit it.’

  Cormac began trotting back to the carrier. From his unit he heard a shout, then the sergeant telling someone to shut up. He opened the door of the carrier and stepped inside, with Mika close behind him. Stanton had his feet on the floor. He looked angry and he was pulling hard at his bonds.

  ‘You must divert or you will be fired upon. This is my last warning,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Fuck you, soldier boy. I got a harvest to get in. Some of us got to work for a living,’ came the reply.

  Stanton fixed Cormac with a look. ‘It’s Svent,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God,’ said the sergeant. ‘Needles.’

  ‘Take them down! Take them down now!’ Cormac yelled.

  Overhead the guns started up like an engine. Actinic light flashed through the windows.

  ‘Mika, get out,’ he said.

  Mika immediately obeyed. The sergeant stood up from his console and looked round.

  ‘You too,’ said Cormac. As the sergeant passed him, Cormac ducked forwards and looked up at the gunner. The man’s face was hidden behind a targeting mask as he operated the gun’s controls. Hydraulics whined as the guns tracked across. Cormac moved to the control console and looked at the screen. Four traces, one moving slowly and erratically. The other three coming in fast. One of them disappeared while he watched. He gripped the edge of the console, his palms suddenly slick with sweat.

  ‘Incoming,’ he said. ‘Anyone found not wearing a helmet will be on a charge.’ He looked around and noted his own helmet on the bunk opposite Stanton.

  ‘We’re the target,’ said Stanton.

  ‘I know,’ Cormac replied.

  Only one of the fast traces remained. The slow and erratic trace had descended into the trees.

  ‘Come on. Come on.’

  It took Cormac a moment to realize when the last trace had disappeared. He looked around. Stanton met his look then sagged against his bonds.

  ‘Right.’ Cormac slapped the console, then headed quickly back. ‘Good shooting,’ he said to the soldier operating the gun. The man swung his mask away and gave him a sickly grin. Cormac grabbed up his helmet and exited the AGC. Even as he stepped out, there was a blinding flash above, and the turret guns on the carrier began to flash again like arc-welders. Cormac’s visor took its time depolarizing.

  ‘I can’t see!’ came someone’s voice over his com.

  Cormac heard the familiar vicious whir of a seeker bullet. Then a scream and a thump. He ran for the nearest foxhole and jumped in. Tarm glanced at him, then returned to the sight of his pulse-rifle.

  ‘Where the hell did that come from? Aiden?’

  There was firing in the trees. More smoke gusted. At the perimeter, one blue oak spurted flame. Then there was a concussion and a cloud of burning twigs and leaves flew into the air.

  Aiden said, ‘Someone got through. We missed him. He was moving very fast. I suspect it must have been the android.’ Cormac was sure the Golem was as close as it could get to anger.

  ‘Are either of you hit?’

  ‘No. It just came in for the one shot.’

  ‘Who was hit here?’ Cormac asked, sticking his head above ground and looking around.

  ‘Goff—took his head off . . . sir.’

  Just then an amplified voice spoke from the trees. ‘You next Cormac!’

  ‘Find that!’

  ‘We thought you might be a machine, but we were wrong. I’m glad, because at least you’ll be able to feel it when I blow your guts out. We found Angelina . . .’

  The voice died away with the flashing of a pulse-rifle. There was a delay, then Aiden said, ‘Relay speaker. A drone must have dropped it.’

  Cormac waited for what might come next. Nothing did. He gave it an hour, but nothing came up on scan and it seemed that no danger was close. He climbed from the foxhole speculating on Pelter’s words. The man’s anger was understandable, but Cormac had little sympathy for him. The Separatists on Cheyne III had been responsible for killing upwards of 500 civilians a year with bombs and other devices of mass destruction, and for carrying out hits on various officials and visiting dignitaries.

  ‘Stay alert and ready. I want no one out of their holes unless absolutely necessary, and by necessary I mean pee on your boots if you have to,’ he said, moving towards the forest. At the edge of the trees he crouched down by one of the autoguns. The device was tracking back and forth on its tripod. Through the trees he could see no movement. Aiden would pick up anything long before he saw it. Glancing back, he saw the sergeant and one of the men hauling a body-bag from one of the holes. He couldn’t find the anger to berate them. He watched them lay the bag near the carrier. The sergeant went inside and the man returned to his hole. It seemed only a moment after that when the turret gun turned and fired a single shot into the treetops. From the white flash of impact burning leaves rained down.

  ‘What was that?’

  It was Aiden who replied. ‘Another surveillance drone. I’m getting movement.’

  Cormac moved back. There was a mosquito whining in the forest. The gun in front of him began stuttering. He ran for Goff’s foxhole and dropped into it.

  ‘Flares!’

  The flares shot out while the turret guns on the carrier began flashing. Then he heard something else: a higher whine came from the treetops and the fire of the turret guns met it in the upper branches. Cormac saw something explode in a disc of fire. The severed half of a tree fell flaming.

  ‘Shit! Needles again! Where the hell did he get this kind of armament?’

  A silver torpedo shot from the burning treetops, turned in an erratic arc up into the sky, where the turret guns blew it to pieces. Another object shot through, and there was an explosion to Cormac’s right. It happened too quickly for there to be a scream. All that was left was a burning foxhole and a few scattered pieces of gory body-armour. He looked up as the fourth missile came through and nosed overhead like a hunting pike. This one was larger. This was the one the others had made a way for. The carrier. Pulse hits crackled along the back of the missile and its flight became erratic. At the last it tumbled through the air and hit underneath the carrier. The carrier lifted on the blast, turned in flames and a cloud of falling earth, and crashed down on its roof.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ said Thorn.

  Another explosion left another burning foxhole.

  ‘Cento? Aiden?’

  ‘I . . . tried,’ came Cento’s broken reply.

  Two more detonations silenced the autoguns. In the trees were flashes of proton-gun fire. Something came running from the smoke and flying debris. For a moment Cormac thought it was Aiden, but even Aiden was not so tall. This figure was dressed in a long and tatty coat and had a wide-brimmed hat on its head. Mr. Crane. Pulse fire hit the android from every side, but did not slow it. It came amongst them with its clothes on fire. Cormac saw it pause over a foxhole, its hand stab out. Then, all around the nearby foxholes, smoke started coiling into the air.

  ‘Lasers!’ someone yelled.

&nbs
p; Cormac was about to ask where from, but the smoke revealed the red beams stabbing from beyond the carrier. He had miscalculated. Someone had come in at the back, using what little cover there was there. Abruptly Thorn replied to that fire. A purple line cut from the slab and there was a white detonation beyond it. The firing immediately halted. Cormac was out of his hole, reaching for his shuriken, as the android turned to him. He saw a face of polished brass. He threw. The shuriken thrummed through the air with vicious confidence. A brass hand smashed it to the ground.

  The android came at Cormac.

  ‘Hit it! Hit it!’ Cormac heard the sergeant yell. Then Aiden came flashing in from the side and hit Crane with the force of an out-of-control AGC. Both of them hit the ground and slid about three metres. But even as they slid, they exchanged blows with frenetic speed. The sound of combat was like that of a log-chipping machine. Suddenly they were on their feet, apart, then slammed together again. Shreds of clothing and syntheflesh fell as they hit at each other. Cormac turned to movement at his left. Cento came from the trees at an erratic run. The syntheflesh was burnt from the upper half of his body to expose blackened metal. One of his arms was missing. He seemed to be blind and navigating on hearing alone. In a moment he leapt into the fight. Cormac saw him wrap his legs around the android and his remaining arm around its neck. Aiden proceeded to take it apart.

  ‘As far as you go, Agent!’

  Cormac turned. Pelter stepped out from behind a tree, and raised a Devcon assault rifle. Cormac reached for his thin-gun as the rifle fired. A whirring, as a steel hornet shot towards him. Slower than a normal bullet, but fast enough for Cormac to know he was dead. But in that moment, that fraction of fatal seconds, there came another whirring. An explosion rattled fragments of metal against Cormac’s helmet. The seeker bullet was gone.