While he lay there in the quiet peace of the vacuum he’d observed the clouds spreading east. From this altitude it was like seeing a white-water torrent pouring down a dry riverbed. The green valleys were slowly occluded by the cumulus, leaving just the rugged gray and white pinnacles sticking above the surface.
In the background Samantha and the others chittered away, their voices like some kind of insect trapped in his helmet. He didn’t say very much to them now, just the occasional comment to confirm some aspect of the observation. At first there was little to see. The storm for all its size and speed was perfectly natural. He lay there watching its progress as the sun warmed his chest and the lava slowly sucked heat out of his spine. Eventually he noticed how the winds were gradually speeding up; the strange way clouds were confined to the mountains. Ordinarily most of the storm would flow away out across the vast expanse of the Aldrin Plains, while on the other side of the Dessault range it spewed around Mount Idle to disperse over the southern pampas lands. Today it was blocked and channeled. As the morning went on he started to recognize the Guardians’ choreography. Between the mountain peaks, manipulator stations churned up gigantic whorls in the fast-flowing cloud, sucking stationary highs into the Dessault range, denying the storm any release. As a consequence, the cloud swarm rose in height as it thronged along valleys, layer after layer building into a solid thunderhead, kilometers deep. With every exit denied it had nowhere to go but east. A smile ghosted Wilson’s face as he watched the front roar along Trevathan Gulf, fed by fresh gales that the manipulator stations injected through every major valley.
Thumb jabbing down hard on the red button at the top of the joystick. Missile launch: its contrail streaking off into the sky. Bring the fighter around back to the safety of the Wild Fox pack. Watch the radar as the missile hurtles toward its target. Distant unfelt kill.
When the winds reached the end of Trevathan Gulf and hit the High Desert they were traveling in excess of five hundred kilometers an hour. There were no manipulator stations out here. They had become irrelevant. The storm was so powerful it was now self-sustaining. Uncontrollable.
The vast deluge of white cloud spread out to obliterate the High Desert. Wilson saw it change color, the cumulus darkening, not with the slate-gray of suspended rain but the ocher of particles siphoned up from the desert floor by an army of twisters that had grown to the size of the very mountains that they had rampaged through. He watched it race toward the final line of pinnacles that guarded the desert’s eastern boundary. The enraged mass grew higher and higher until its thrashing crests finally rose above the snowcapped peaks, eclipsing the lands over which they were about to fall.
The soldier motile came at Morton with a nimble arachnid gait, veering from side to side in precise controlled motions. It was different from the ones back at Randtown: each of the four legs forked, giving it eight hoofs. Two of the arms also divided halfway along. The damn thing was insectoid. Triggering deep phobias. Even with accelerant freeze framing its body actions for examination he could never tell which of its hooves it was going to pirouette around next. Targeting was nearly impossible. One pair of the creature’s arms held hefty long-barreled weapons, which Morton was urgently trying to avoid. He did so with a fast low zigzag run, always keeping his feet in contact with the ground, enabling him to switch direction when he needed. Using the ground-eating leap here would give the alien a clear shot as he glided along.
A plasma flare from the soldier motile’s weapon hit the earth beside his feet. The suit’s force field held, but his legs were yanked from under him. In Far Away’s gravity it was an annoyingly slow fall to hit the earth and regain stability. Annoying verging on lethal. The moment stretched in accelerant time. Another blast struck him on the chest. The suit force field flared purple, and he was spinning in the air. Legs flung wide, trying to jab a foot on the ground, anything to kill momentum. Virtual hand moved leisurely through the battle cluster icons, selecting his weapon. Another energy blast stabbed past his helmet. Upper arm plasma grenade canisters thumped out their munitions. Air around the soldier motile glared with fizzing electron static.
Morton hit the ground, flattening himself. The world swept back to operate in real-time. He crouched and sprang. Electromuscle enhancement propelled him forward like a kamikaze aerobot.
The electrons drained away, leaving the soldier motile braced on all eight hooved legs. It was wearing what looked like a loose robe of scaly gray-green fabric, which was also acting as a force field conductor. Its sensor stalks ended in a clump of golden electronic lenses. Some of its arms ended in a tripartite mechanical claw; while the torso was strung with flat metallic boxes webbed with flexible cables. Arm two swung a big gun around on Morton, its sub-branch gripping some kind of grenade. Arm three fired an ion pistol. Arm one was holding a long buzzing blade. Arm four shot the other large gun at a target off toward the road, micromissiles shrieking away from their rotary launcher in its sub-branch.
The ion pulse jangled Morton’s suit sensors as he careered into the alien. For a second he was blinded. Tactile feedback gave him the sense of the alien’s weight against him, its second arm bending to grip around his hips. The blade skating over his neck, hunting a weak spot. Virtual vision shrieked a warning that his force field was being overloaded by some drain mechanism. These soldier motiles were faster than the ones on Elan. Sensor vision returned. Incomprehensible montage of alien suit fabric, purple light, trampled grass. His own senses told him they were falling together. He triggered the electrification circuit, pumping forty thousand volts through his suit. The alien turned lambent crimson. It sought to roll on top of him, legs three and one bucking, trying to latch what felt like hundreds of hoof claws around his ankle and knees. Morton went with the roll, then amplified it with a savage body twist. Wound up on top. His gauntlet clamped around arm one and twisted with full electromuscle strength. Something beneath the alien’s flesh buckled, and the arm bent around at a sharp angle. The claw of arm three closed around his neck. His force field alarm went up a grade.
“For fuck’s sake,” Morton grunted. Five-centimeter talons slid out of every finger on his right hand. He punched down hard. Red lightning spat out of the impact. He kept pressure going as the dump-function on the talon tips pulled energy out of the soldier motile’s force field. A stressed whine cut through his insulation. Then the alien’s force field weakened around the talons. Morton’s hand ripped through fabric and flesh. He thrust it deep into the body turning as he went, ripping organs and blood vessels, then pulled back. It came free reluctantly, sucking up a honey-yellow gore. The soldier motile went limp.
“Morty, we don’t have time to make it personal, darling,” the Cat chided.
A micromissile detonated beside him. A cloud of hyperfilament shrapnel boiled out of the explosion, shredding through soil and surface rock. His force field glared scarlet on the point of overload as he was punched sideways by the writhing impact.
“Told you not to waste the HVvixens,” Rob said.
Morton scrambled to his feet. The Cat was right. They were getting swamped by soldier motiles, of which there was a seemingly endless number. Hundreds of them had jumped out of their vehicles as soon as they reached the MANN truck. Now they were blocking the way forward. Leaving the road to try to outflank them had been a big mistake. A hundred fifty meters to his left, the armored cars were driving down Highway One, their X-ray lasers slashing from side to side like a demented swordsman keeping his opponents at bay. They could pierce the force fields used by soldier motiles if they got within fifty meters, which gave them a small clear area. A flight of micromissiles hammered into the road just ahead of the armored car Bradley was riding in. Hyperfilament shrapnel shredded the concrete to fine gravel. The armored cars started to fishtail as soon as they drove into it, wheels throwing up grit as they spun.
Alic’s particle lances boomed, sending pulses streaming toward the cluster of soldier motiles that had fired the missiles. They toppled to the ground,
then started to pull themselves upright again.
Morton scanned his sensors around, building a tactical profile. It wasn’t good. So far they’d traveled about three kilometers on from the original blockade. At least a hundred fifty soldier motiles had them effectively surrounded. The Guardians on their Charlemagnes were a kilometer behind, and holding off—not that they could help. His suit power cells were down to under fifty percent. There had been too many close calls in combat. None of them had any HVvixens left.
His radar scanned ahead, picking out the MANN truck with its escort eight kilometers away. It was traveling fast along the clear road. Bradley wasn’t going to catch it, let alone ram it.
“We’ll ride shotgun,” he said. “Stig, switch off your X-ray lasers. We’re hitching a ride.”
“Morton, we have to catch up,” Bradley said.
Morton could hear panic edging into his voice. “We can cut through if we combine our firepower.” He’d already started running; the other suits were beside him firing energy weapons into the elusive line of soldier motiles. Up ahead, the armored cars took more hits from micromissiles. The road surface was completely trashed, reduced to a mire of loose fragments that bogged them down.
“Shit,” Rob screamed.
Morton’s sensors caught two soldier motiles pouncing. They’d been lurking in a shallow depression, their suits powered down to avoid detection. Limbs lashed out at Rob’s suit as the three of them crashed to the ground in a tangled bucking heap. Force fields flickered between lavender and cerise as weapons fired at point-blank range.
“Keep going,” The Cat insisted.
It was hard. Morton wanted to halt and pound the wrestling figures with shots from his hyper-rifle. Imagery shot into his brain at accelerated speed, and he saw just how many soldier motiles were charging after them. Front rank almost on top of Rob. “Rob!”
“Do it,” Rob grunted. “I’m gonna show them a little Doc Roberts trick any second. These motherfuckers don’t ever learn.”
Morton’s virtual hand flashed into his grid and hauled out Rob’s telemetry. He could see the safety overrides clicking off one by one. Powdery gravel crunched underfoot. The armored car was ten meters ahead. Morton leaped, powerdiving over the curving wedge-shaped vehicle. He’d almost landed on the other side when Rob shorted out every power cell he was carrying. The explosion turned the empty sapphire sky solar white.
“Way to go, Robby boy,” the Cat cried.
Morton’s outstretched hands touched the ruined road. He curled himself into a ball and rolled forward to kill momentum. The fearsome glare drained away. Behind him the armored car was skidding sideways. Stig fought for traction, slewing it back on course. Morton hopped on the front, clinging to one of the X-ray laser mounts.
The Cat appeared beside him as if she’d teleported in. A lone sensor image showed him the smoldering blast crater where Rob had been. Alic thudded onto the roof, gauntlets gripping narrow ridges tight enough to gouge the metal. Morton’s hyper-rifle deployed out of his forearm; targeting graphics slid out of his grid. The three of them began to shoot any soldier motile in a broad swathe ahead of the armored car. “Use everything,” Alic shouted. “Punch them out of the way.”
Morton’s grenade canisters thrummed as they fired. His plasma carbine switched to continuous pulse, hosing out energy. The hyper-rifle swung around as he picked out target after target. Power cell charge wound down at an alarming rate. More ion rifle shots came from behind them where Jim and Matthew were clinging to the armored car Ayub was driving. Micromissiles burst all around, hyperfilament lashing against the suits, streamers of ion fire clawed at the grizzly bodywork of the armored cars. They were driving through a demonic inferno that blotted out every sensor return in a digitized blizzard. His suit surface screeched as the demented energy slashed against it.
Then they were past the bedlam, racing down the gray-white concrete strip of Highway One, shedding static tendrils like chaff. Stig had cranked their speed up over a hundred sixty kilometers an hour; smoke was shooting out from somewhere underneath. Morton hunted around, finding the bulk of the soldier motiles streaming together behind them. Their weapons fire contracted, centering on the last armored car. Jim and Matthew were doing their best to return fire, but they were swamped by the colossal barrage. Hyperfilament shrapnel mauled the road right in front. The armored car exploded.
“No!” Alic cried. “Godfuck all of you. Oh, sweet Jesus, why can we never catch this monster?”
Morton wanted to answer, but all he saw was Rob’s demise, and Doc Roberts, Randtown’s glass crater.
“How much power have you got left?” the Cat asked.
“Twenty percent. Maybe.” Morton checked his schematics. “Bit under.” He started scanning along the side of the armored car. Somewhere inside metal was grinding against metal with a terrible clattering violence. The smoke rushing out from underneath had thickened.
“It’s the one percent that’ll kill it,” the Cat said.
“Stig?” Morton asked. “Are we going to make it?” The sound coming from the armored car sounded terminal.
“We’ll make it. This thing has redundancy everywhere. Sixteen kilometers, that’s all.”
Their speed still hadn’t slackened. Up ahead, the road was angling into the foothills. The Institute valley was visible as a wide saddle that led back to the first mountains of the Dessault range. They weren’t high enough to have snowcaps, but the ones in the misty distance behind them did. He scanned the jagged skyline, looking for any hint of an approaching storm. Far Away’s vaulting sapphire atmosphere was as placid as he’d ever seen it. Damnit, I thought we could rely on the Admiral at least.
The armored car juddered sharply and recovered. He swept his radar along the road, getting a clear empty image until it curved into the valley ten kilometers ahead. The MANN truck was already inside.
“Bradley,” Morton said regretfully. “We’re not going to catch it. Do you have any notion how we can disable the starship?”
“Not disable, no. We just have to delay launch until the storm arrives.”
“How?”
“There is one possible option, if you’re willing to help me.”
That didn’t sound good in any way. Morton wanted to look at the Cat’s face, to see what she felt. Despite her thick shell, he knew her well enough now to read her thoughts.
She could obviously read him a lot better. “We’ve come this far,” she said.
The amethyst plasma inside the Dark Fortress churned in violent torment as it was bombarded by radiation from salvos of fifty-megaton fusion bombs. Thousand-kilometer peaks soared up through the gaps in the outer lattice sphere like solar prominences, their extremities evanescing away into tattered streamers. The Charybdis dived down between them and struck the plasma at fourteen gees.
Ozzie had been bracing himself for a spine-snapping impact, even though he knew the plasma had a density that barely disqualified it from being a vacuum. There was a slight tremor, which he had to strain to notice amid the brutal acceleration. He disengaged the drive, and was plunged into freefall so abruptly his maltreated body interpreted it as being flung forward.
“What the fuck?” Mark mumbled.
Ozzie shut down their active sensors. “Flying dark, see?” The passive sensors showed fusion drives drilling through the plasma all around as the Prime missiles hurtled past. “They’re overshooting.”
“Can we navigate like this?”
“Sure. Look at the returns. The plasma is illuminating the lattice spheres in twenty different spectra. We can fly through this, but slowly.” Their velocity was already taking them toward the second lattice sphere at twenty kilometers per second. Behind them, three hundred twenty Prime ships slid through the outer lattice sphere and plunged into the plasma. They launched another massive missile salvo.
“Uh …”
“It’s fine, I can steer us through the second lattice no problem. It’s the negative mass one, there’s like no way we c
an hit it, we just get shoved away if we get too close, like magnets.”
“Ozzie … Christ! They can see our wake.”
“Huh?”
Behind the Charybdis, a five-hundred-kilometer-long contrail of plasma spiraled like a gargantuan tornado. The armada of missiles was all converging toward the apex at seventeen gees. They started to detonate. The frigate’s hull field blazed rose-gold as it warded off their directed radiation pulses, flinging vast webbed lightning zephyrs off into the plasma. “Shit.” Ozzie pushed power back into the secondary drive, accelerating the Charybdis away from the vector it had been coasting along. G-force shunted him down into the cushioning again. “Are we losing them?”
“No!”
“Mark, you control the weapons, do something!”
“What? I can fire a quantumbuster, a nova bomb, or a neutron laser.”
Behind them, another wave of missiles detonated. Radiation turned the plasma to an opalescent violet.
“Use a quantumbuster.”
“We need to be a million kilometers away at least when one of those goes off—anything closer than that and this frigate is dead.”
“Son of a bitch, we’re not going to make it.”
“You have an incoming call,” the SIsubroutine said. “An encrypted maser link originating outside the first lattice sphere.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ozzie groaned.
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 229
