The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

“Shit. I nearly died.”

  “Yeah. But you didn’t. Concentrate on that.”

  Tolton slowly eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at each tiny movement. Once he was propped up against a table leg, he reached out and caressed the ice which was engulfing a chair, fingers stroking curiously. He gave Dariat a grim look with badly bloodshot eyes. “This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?”

  The seven hellhawks glided in towards Monterey, acknowledging the query from the SD network defence as the sensors locked on.

  The Sevilla SD network was a hell of a lot stronger than anything we were briefed about,they told jull von holger, when he asked how the mission had gone. Seven frigates were lost, and we’re all that’s left of our squadron.

  Did the infiltration succeed?

  We think over a hundred got through.

  Excellent.

  Neither side said anything more. Jull von Holger could sense the quiet rage of the surviving hellhawks. He chose not to mention the fact to Emmet Mordden; the hellhawks were all Kiera’s problem.

  Go straight to the docking ledges,hudson proctor told the hellhawks. We’ve already cleared the pedestals. You’ll be fed as soon as you land.he focused on kiera’s face. she smiled her brightest ingйnue smile, pouring as much gratitude into her thoughts as possible for her deputy to relay. “Well done. I know it’s not easy, but believe me there won’t be many more of these ridiculous seeding missions.” She arched an eyebrow in query to Hudson. “Was there a reply?”

  He coloured slightly at the emotional backlash to her little speech that flooded the affinity band. “No. They’re pretty tired.”

  “I understand.” Her sweet expression hardened. “End your contact.”

  Hudson Proctor nodded curtly, signalling it had been done.

  “You hope there ain’t going to be many more seeding flights, you mean,” Luigi said indolently.

  The three of them were sitting in one of the smaller, more private lounges above the asteroid’s docking ledges, waiting for the last member of their group to arrive. Kiera’s small revolution had picked up a respectable degree of momentum over the last ten days. The success of the seeding flights had bolstered Al’s popularity and authority considerably. But that triumph came with a high price in terms of starships, and quite a few people were starting to acknowledge that the infiltration campaign was short-termism. Slowly, quietly, Kiera had exploited that. Being able to see the dissatisfaction and worry in people’s minds gave her a handy advantage when it came to spotting potential recruits.

  Silvano Richmann came in and took his seat around the coffee table. There was a cluster of bottles in the centre, he poured himself a shot of whisky.

  “The Sevilla flotilla is back,” Kiera told him. “Seven frigates and five hellhawks got zapped.”

  “Fuck.” Silvano shook his head in dismay. “Al’s putting together another fifteen of these missions. He just doesn’t see it.”

  “He sees it the way he wants to see it,” Kiera said. “They’re successful in that they’re landing infiltrators each time. The Confederation is going apeshit. We’re knocking off five of their planets a day. It buys him complete respect and loyalty with the Organization down on the planet.”

  “While my fleet gets chopped to shit,” Luigi snapped. “That goddamn whore Jezzibella. She’s got him by the balls.”

  “Not just your fleet,” Kiera said. “I’m losing hellhawks fast. Much more of this, and they’ll leave.”

  “Where to?” Silvano asked. “They’ve got to stick with you. That was a neat sting you pulled on them with the food.”

  “The Edenists keep making offers to try and lure them away,” Hudson said. “Etchells keeps us informed. The latest offer is that they’ll actually accept the blackhawk host personality into their habitat neural strata, leaving our guys as the only soul in there. In exchange they get all the food they want, providing they just cooperate with the Edenists, help them find out about our powers.”

  “Shit,” Silvano muttered. “We gotta stop this. I’d be mighty tempted by any offer that got rid of this body’s host soul.”

  “Wouldn’t we all,” Kiera said. She sat back and sipped at her wine. “Okay, the question is, how far are you prepared to go?”

  “Pretty goddamn obvious for me,” Luigi said. “I’ll waste that shit Capone myself. Busting me down to a fucking errand boy. Nobody could have handled Tranquillity any different.”

  “Silvano?”

  “He’s got to go. But there’s one condition for me signing up with you. And it ain’t negotiable.”

  “What’s that?” Kiera asked, though she was fairly sure she knew. Silvano was feared as Al’s chief enforcer, but he did have one major difference with his boss.

  “After we do this, there are no more non-possessed in the Organization. We take them all out. Understood?”

  “Suits me,” Kiera said.

  “No way!” Luigi shouted. “I can’t run my fucking fleet with just possessed crews. You know that. You’re shitting on me here, man.”

  “Yeah? Who says there’s going to be a fucking fleet after this. Right, Kiera? We’re doing this for our own safety. We’re going to take New California out of here; out of this universe. Just like all the other possessed have done. And for that, we can’t afford no non-possessed to be around. Come on, Luigi, you know that. As long as there’s one of them left, they’re going to be plotting and scheming how to get rid of us. For Christ’s sake. We steal their bodies from them. If you was alive right now, you wouldn’t give jack shit about anything else other than getting them back from us.” He slammed his tumbler back down on the table. “We eliminate all the non-possessed, or there’s no deal.”

  “Then there’s no fucking deal,” Luigi stormed.

  Kiera held up her hands. “Boys, boys, this is how Al wins. You ever heard of divide and rule? All of us have different interests, and the only way we can hang on to them is if we’re part of the Organization. Only the Organization needs a fleet, and hellhawks, and lieutenants that have to be kept in line.” She shot Silvano a significant look. “He’s made it complicated so that we have to support him to keep our own places. What we’ve got to do is dismantle the Organization, but rig whatever’s next so that we three come out on top.”

  “Like what?” Luigi asked suspiciously.

  “Okay, you want the fleet back, right? Tell me why?”

  “Because it’s fucking mine, you dumb broad. I built that fleet up from nothing. I was here right from the start, the day Al walked into San Angeles City Hall.”

  “Fair enough. But all the fleet did was make you a player. Do you really want to risk flying to Confederation planets and going up against their SD networks? They’re getting wise to us now. These seeding flights are pissing them off bad. They’re killing us out there, Luigi.”

  “So? Like I should care. I’m the admiral. I don’t have to go with them every time.”

  “The whole fleet doesn’t have to go anywhere, Luigi; that’s the point. What you need is to exchange the fleet for something else that will keep you in the game, right?”

  Luigi eyed her cautiously. “Maybe.”

  “That’s what we’ve got to work out between the three of us. Right now, we can carry the Organization if we eliminate Capone. But the Organization’s a dead end. Dishing out tokens instead of money, for Christ’s sake. If we take it over, we’ve got to use it to establish a new type of government. One that has us at the top.”

  “Like what?” Silvano asked. “The second New California leaves this universe then nobody needs any kind of government.”

  “Says who?” Kiera sneered. “You’ve seen the cities down there. Unless the Organization keeps putting the squeeze on the farmers to supply food, they’d collapse overnight. If New California escapes this universe, everyone on it is going to have to turn into some kind of medieval peasant just to stay alive. And that’s such bullshit. Five per cent of the population working in the fields can sustain the rest of
us. Now I don’t know what kind of society we can build on the other side, but I’m damned if I’m going to live in a mud hut and spend my days walking behind a horse’s arse to plough a field. Especially when someone else can be made to do it for me.”

  “So what are you saying here?” Silvano asked. “That we keep the farmers working while the rest of us live it up?”

  “Basically, yeah. It’s just like what I’ve done with the hellhawks, but on a much bigger scale. We have to keep the farmers farming, and we have to be in charge of distributing the food to the urban areas. Convert the Organization into a giant supplier; and the only people who get supplied, are the ones who we say.”

  “You’d need a fucking army for that!” Luigi exclaimed.

  Kiera gestured magnanimously. “There you are then. That’s what you turn the fleet into. Find a portable weapon that’s effective against the possessed: something like those bastard serjeants use on Mortonridge, manufacture it up here, and equip our supporters with it. Use the same chain of command network that’s already in place, but with a land army to back it up instead of the SD platforms.”

  “That might work,” Silvano said. “So if Luigi’s got himself an army, what do I get?”

  “Communications are vital, otherwise this whole thing will just collapse. And we’d need to be more subtle with the farmers than forcing them at gunpoint. That’s an enforcer’s job.”

  He poured himself another whisky. “Okay. Let’s talk about it.”

  Western Europe always took his dogs for a walk himself. Dog ownership was a healthy reminder of responsibility; you either do it properly or not at all. There weren’t many crises which could make him skip a day. Though he suspected one of his staff was going to have to start substituting fairly soon.

  The formal lawns extended for over three hundred metres from the back of the house (they were yards back in the days when he bought the estate, but even he had fallen to using that appalling modern French metric system now). A hedge of ancient yews marked the end, ten metres high, laden with their squishy dull-red berries. He pushed through the gap marked by crumbling stone pillars that used to be gateposts, making a mental note to get a gardening construct to prune the twigs. The carpet of dry needles compressed beneath his brogues as the Labradors scampered round him. It was meadowland beyond, the shaggy grass thick with daisies and buttercups. A gentle slope led down to a long still lake eight hundred metres away. He whistled softly, and threw his stick.

  “Found them,” North America datavised.

  “Who?”

  “The possessed Quinn Dexter left behind in New York. Just to make you more insufferable, you were right. He went for the Light Bringer sect.”

  “Ah.” The Labradors found the stick, one of them clamped it in his jaw. Western Europe slapped his hands on his thighs, and the dogs started to bound back to him. “How bad is it?”

  “Not too bad, I believe. I lost the High Magus, of course. I guess he suicided. But there are several actives left. Two of them called me before the energistic effect glitched their neural nanonics. They’re taking over the covens one at a time. Eight down already, including the arcology headquarters in the Leicester skyscraper.”

  “Numbers?”

  “That’s the good news. About ten possessed to each coven. The moron acolytes are actually welcoming them, and doing as they’re told. Their new masters are just sitting tight, and holding some pretty gross orgies. They’ve made sure each coven’s electronics are switched off, not that many of their units were ever interfaced with the net anyway.”

  “I knew it. They’re moving with a purpose.”

  “Definite infiltration tactics. They’ve got their foothold, now they’re waiting.”

  “If they’re spreading to each dome, then some of them must be on the move.”

  “Yes, I know. And they’ve had it easy in all the confusion. With all those riots resulting from the vac-train shutdown there’s been a lot of vandalism; that makes it tough for the AI to locate glitches.”

  “So when are you going to hit the covens?”

  “Good question. I wanted your opinion on that. If I hit them now, then whoever’s moving about will be warned and go to ground. That’ll leave New York vulnerable.”

  Western Europe took the stick from the Labrador, and paused. “Yes, but if you wait until every coven is taken over, you’ll have a lot of the bastards to deal with. Someone will inevitably get through the police cordons, and you’ll be back in the same leaky boat. How many covens can you monitor in real time?”

  “All of them. That’s already being done. Those I have no direct access to are being watched by agents.”

  “Then you’ve got it covered. Wait until a group of possessed shows up at a new coven, then take them all out together.”

  “And if there’s more than one group moving round?”

  “I’m paranoid, but am I paranoid enough. What sort of assault were you planning?”

  “GISD tactical team, with shoot to kill orders. Wipe each coven out, I don’t want prisoners to interrogate. Fletcher is still cooperating with Halo’s science teams.”

  “Given the stakes, here, I’d suggest using a gamma pulse against them first. You’ll get peripheral casualties, but it’ll be nothing like as bad as an SD strike. Send the tactical teams in to secure and mop up afterwards.”

  “All right. I can live with that.”

  “We might even get a vote of confidence from our illustrious colleagues.”

  “Not even this century’s geneering can make pigs fly yet. I’ll get the assault organized for three hundred hours EST.”

  “If you need any help, just whistle.” Western Europe smiled happily, and slung the stick high into the air.

  Not even B7 could block news of events inside New York from spilling out across the global net. Speculation had been hot and intense ever since the arcology’s vac-trains had been shut down after the Dome One “incident.” Several riots had been captured by rover reporters; two of whom had been badly injured during the coverage, adding extra spice to the sensevise. Then eleven hours later, the North American Commissioner had appeared before the press once more to announce the investigation had been completed, and confirm the incident was not caused by the possessed. It was in fact a professional assassination carried out in Grand Central Station involving a sophisticated weapons implant and a chameleon suit. Business rivals of the deceased Bud Johnson were currently being sought for questioning.

  The vac-trains had been re-opened. The rioters and looters had cleared the streets. The police reinforcements had been stood down. Celebrity news presenters were given extended programmes to cover the paranoia raging across the planet. The arrival of the Mount’s Delta appeared to have acted as the trigger for a multitude of small events that were blamed on the possessed, culminating in the Grand Central Station disturbance. And Capone’s recent switch in tactics to flying infiltration attacks against Confederation planets served to exacerbate people’s fears. The Confederation Navy and local SD networks seemed unable to prevent the Organization’s strike flotillas. After the quarantine appeared to be preventing the spread, worlds were starting to fall again. Everyone, ran the feeling, was vulnerable.

  But the lifting of the vac-train restrictions eased the tension a little, right up until 2:50 EST when they were abruptly shut again. Frustrated commuters datavised the information to the news agencies within ten seconds. New York’s rover reporters, who had descended en masse into the arcology’s bars after a hard day’s sensationalising, were hauled back out onto the concrete canyons by their editors. Agencies which datavised information requests to the arcology’s civic authority were met with blank puzzlement. Nobody had told the graveyard shift about the vac-trains. The police precinct houses were equally baffled. Even the urgent requests to in-house sources produced a blank, at least in the ten minutes that counted.

  With all of the B7 supervisors on-line and observing, North America gave the order to launch the assault.

&nbs
p; The Internal Security Directorate tactical teams had been arriving in New York ever since the vac-trains started running again. By the time the assault was launched, there were over eight hundred personnel deployed around the various sect covens. They were all armed with projectile weapons loaded with chemical or electric rounds. Complementing them were the gamma lasers. Intended for anti-terrorist interception situations, they were powerful enough to penetrate at least five metres of carbon-concrete. Such a range would allow the teams to strike at targets holed up deep inside skyscrapers and megatowers. One would usually be sufficient to eliminate an entire room full of hostiles instantaneously.

  North America had ringed each coven with nine, while the Leicester skyscraper had fifteen ranged against it. The supervisor’s deepest worry was that the possessed with their extended senses would discover the preparations. To try and deny them any hint, engineering mechanoids had been used throughout the day to unpack and install the gamma lasers in surrounding buildings. Give-away human supervision had been kept to an absolute minimum. As well as the gamma lasers, North America had the exits and service tunnels rigged to electrify anyone who scuttled down them. That was the most dangerous aspect of the work, but again mechanoids with New York’s civic service emblem on their sides trundled along modifying wires and cables without drawing questions or interest.

  The tactical teams had assembled several blocks away to avoid attention. North America started to move them forward simultaneously with closing down the vac-trains. He also closed down all road traffic and metro transit carriages inside the arcology, and sealed the domes from each other; an aspect the news agencies didn’t realize until a lot later. According to every asset and functional bug infiltrated into the covens, neither the possessed nor the acolytes were aware of the preparations. They didn’t even know the tactical teams were advancing.

  The gamma ray lasers fired at 2:55 EST. The fifteen beams transfixing the Leicester skyscraper swept through the lower eight stories which made up the sect’s headquarters. They used a scan pattern, switching between vertical and horizontal to cover every cubic centimetre. When the beams were aimed right through the core of the skyscraper, the energy was absorbed by the structure, while furnishings and composite walls ignited instantly under the intense radiation barrage. Thick, radiant orange lines were scratched across the carbon-concrete support pillars and floors as the beams traversed the building. The air was superheated, dissolving into its component atoms. Windows detonated outward from the appalling pressure, showering the street below with daggers of glass.