The Naked God - Flight nd-5

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “No hot spots yet,” Sarha reported. “That extra layer of nulltherm foam is doing its job quite well. But it is picking up a lot of particle radiation, far more than we’re used to. We’ll have to watch that.”

  “Should lose it when we get behind the shield,” Liol said. “Won’t be long now.”

  “See?” Beaulieu told Dahybi. “You are surrounded by optimists.”

  The squadron’s interception ships were sliding into an orbital slot three thousand kilometres behind the antimatter station. If Renko did decide to switch off the storage confinement chambers, the radiation impact from the blast would tax the shielding on the starships to an uncomfortable degree. But they should be safe. So far, he appeared to be cooperating.

  Commander Kroeber was handling the negotiation on how the hand over was to be accomplished. The civil starship already docked at the station was to depart with everyone on board. It would rendezvous with one of the squadron’s marine cruisers. The possessed would disembark and proceed directly to the brig under heavily armed guard where they would stay for the duration of the flight. Any indication of them using their energistic power, for whatever reason, would result in a forty-thousand-volt current being run through the brig. The cruiser, accompanied by two frigates, would fly directly to an uninhabited terracompatible world (currently in the middle of an ice age) where the possessed would be shot down to the tropical-zone surface in one-way descent capsules, with a supply of survival equipment. There would be no further contact with that planet by the Confederation, apart from delivering any further possessed with whom similar exceptional deals had been made.

  Kroeber’s other offer, that they help the CNIS with its research into energistic power until such time as a solution was found for possession, was summarily rejected.

  Once the possessed were safely incarcerated, another marine cruiser would rendezvous with the starship and take off the station’s regular crew ready to transport them to a penal planet. Complete control of the station systems was to be handed over to the Navy technical crew, who would remote test their new domain. If total access was confirmed, a third marine cruiser would dock with the station itself, and perform a boarding and securement manoeuvre.

  After some haggling, mainly over the contents of the survival equipment they could take with them down to the icy planet, Renko agreed to the arrangement. Lady Macbeth ’s crew watched the proceedings through the sensors. The hand-over went remarkably smoothly, taking just less than a day. A datavise from the first marine cruiser showed the possessed, dressed defiantly in double-breasted suits, laughing brashly as they were led into the brig. The station crew looked frankly relieved that they’d escaped with exile. They datavised over their access codes without a qualm.

  “You may proceed to docking, Captain Calvert,” Admiral Saldana datavised. “Lieutenant Grese informs me we are now in full command of the station. There is enough antimatter in storage for your requirements.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Joshua replied. He triggered the fusion drives. The simple course over to the station had been plotted for hours. Accelerate, flip, and decelerate. They were already inside the station’s umbra and commencing final rendezvous manoeuvres when the Organization’s convoy arrived.

  “Eleven of them, sir,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said. “Confirmed emergence twenty-three million miles out from the star, eighty-nine million miles from the station.”

  “Threat assessment?” the admiral enquired. How typical, he thought, that something should come along to thwart the squadron’s mission once again.

  “Minimal.” The Edenist liaison officer appeared almost happy. “Ilex and Oenone report there are five hellhawks and six frigates in the enemy formation. Their hellhawks can’t swallow down to us, not at this altitude. And even if we assume the frigates are armed with antimatter combat wasps, they would take hours to reach us accelerating continually. I’ve never heard of a combat wasp that has an hour’s fuel in it.”

  “They’d have to be custom built,” Grese said. “Which is unlikely for Capone. And even if they do exist, we can evade them easily at this distance.”

  “Then Calvert can carry on?” the admiral asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. Kroeber, inform the Lady Macbeth to proceed as planned. I’d appreciate it if the good captain didn’t dawdle.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Meredith reviewed the tactical display. The Oenone was barely five million kilometres from the cluster of Organization ships. “Lieutenant Rhoecus, voidhawks to group together twenty-five million kilometres directly above the antimatter station. I don’t want them isolated, it might give the hellhawks ideas. Commander Kroeber, move the rest of the squadron up to rendezvous with the voidhawks, the frigates in high inclination orbits to meet us there. Two of our frigates to remain with the station until Lady Macbeth has completed her fuelling. Once they’re at a safe distance, the station is to be destroyed.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Meredith instructed the tactical computer to compile options. The resulting assessment just about matched his own opinion. The two sides were evenly matched. He had more ships, but the Organization was expected to be armed with antimatter combat wasps. And if he did order the squadron up to intercept, it would take hours to reach them. The Organization ships could simply jump away, leaving only the voidhawks to pursue them—who would then be outgunned.

  Effectively, it was a stand-off. Neither side could do much to affect the other.

  Yet I cannot allow them to go unchallenged, Meredith thought, it sets a bad precedent. “Lieutenant Grese? What do we know about the non-possessed crews on board Organization ships? Just how much of a hold does Capone have on them?”

  “According to the debriefings we’ve conducted; they all have family being held captive on Monterey. Capone is very careful about who is given command authority over antimatter. So far it’s a strategy that’s worked for him. A number of crews on ordinary Organization starships have managed to eliminate their possessed officers and desert. But we’ve never had any indication of attempted mutiny on ships equipped with antimatter.”

  “Pity,” Meredith grunted as the Arikara started to accelerate up to the rendezvous with the voidhawks. “Nevertheless, I’ll issue them with the same ultimatum as the station was given. Who knows, the opportunity to capitulate might be enough to spark a small rebellion.”

  Etchells listened to the admiral’s message as it was beamed out to the convoy. Slippery, vague promises of pardons and safe passage. None of it was relevant to him.

  We repeat Edenism’s offer to you,the voidhawks added. You may transfer your host’s personality over to us, and we will provide your nutrient fluid. All we ask in return is your help in finding a satisfactory resolution.

  Don’t any of you bastards even answer,etchells warned his fellow hellhawks. They’re running scared. They wouldn’t make that kind of offer unless they were absolutely desperate.

  He could sense the uncertainty rumbling through their affinity bond. But none of them were brave enough to challenge him directly. Satisfied he’d kept them in line for now, Etchells asked the convoy’s commander what he intended to do. Withdraw, came the answer, there’s nothing else we can do.

  Etchells wasn’t so sure. The Navy hadn’t destroyed the station. And that went against everything the Confederation stood for. There had to be a phenomenal reason for such a change of policy. We should stay, he told the convoy commander. They cannot engage us for hours yet. That gives us a chance to discover what they are doing here. If they’re going to start using antimatter against us, Capone should be told. Reluctantly, the commander agreed. However, he did order the Adamist ships to accelerate towards a new jump coordinate that would take them back to New California, leaving the hellhawks to observe the station.

  It was difficult to look directly into that dangerous glare. Etchells’s sensor blisters began to suffer from glare spots, similar to purple after-images which plagued human eyes. He started to roll lazi
ly, flicking his ebony wingtips to bank against the gusts of solar particles, switching the view between the blisters. Even then, concentrating on that tiny speck millions of kilometres away was inordinately stressful. A headache began to pound away inside his stolen neurone structure.

  None of the electronic sensors loaded into his cargo cradles were any use, they were mostly military systems, intended for close defence work. And his distortion field couldn’t reach that far. The visual spectrum provided him with the greatest coverage. He could see the Navy’s Adamist ships accelerating up out of the star’s enormous gravity field, little sparks of light, actually brighter than the photosphere.

  After half an hour, three more fusion drives ignited around the station. Two of them started to follow the Navy squadron. The last one took a different course altogether; curving round the star’s southern hemisphere on a very high inclination trajectory.

  Etchells opened his beak wide to let out an imaginary warble of success. Whatever it was doing, the lone starship had to be the reason behind the Navy’s strange action. He issued a flurry of instructions to the other hellhawks. Despite his brute-boy attitude, Etchells had actually absorbed a great deal of information from his host’s mentality. The facade of toughness was a deliberate ploy—always let your opponents believe you’re dumber than you are. Becoming Kiera’s most dependable and trusted hellhawk made sure she wouldn’t risk him on those mad seeding flights, or any other dangerous actions. Convoy escort was about the safest duty to pull.

  Wasted decades spent bumming round pointless mercenary actions across the Confederation, had taught him to disguise his true potential. Survival was dependent on intelligence and the lowest cunning, not worthy courage. And he knew for sure that surviving his current situation was going to take a great deal of ingenuity. Like Rocio in the Mindori , he had come to admire his new bitek form, finding it utterly superior to a human body. Quite how he could hang on to it was a question he’d been unable to resolve. There would be no place for hellhawks in the place where possessed took their planets to escape the universe, he was sure. And the Confederation would never rest until they’d solved the problem of how to evict souls back into the beyond permanently.

  So he bided his time, keeping a giant yellowing eye open for some opportunity to save his own ass, and to hell with his comrades.

  The Navy’s unconventional behaviour might just be the break he’d been looking for.

  When the last three starships were thirty thousand kilometres from the antimatter station, it exploded with a violence which outshone the prominence arching through the chromosphere below. As if in acknowledgement of their defeat, the hellhawks swallowed away.

  The voidhawks analysed the way their distortion fields applied energy against space-time to open a wormhole interstice. All five hellhawks appeared to be heading back to New California.

  They have left the remaining frigates extremely vulnerable,auster,Ilex ’s captain, reported to Rhoecus. What are the admiral’s orders?

  Hold your position. If you attack they will just jump clear. We could harass them all the way home, but there is no tactical advantage to be gained from that. Our objective has been accomplished.

  Very well.

  Syrinx.

  Yes, Rhoecus.

  Oenone is cleared to rendezvous with the Lady Macbeth . The admiral wishes you both bon voyage.

  Thank you.

  Etchells didn’t believe the voidhawks would follow, certainly not instantaneously. The hellhawks all swallowed ten light-years clear of the star, then swallowed again three seconds later. Unless a voidhawk had been with them to observe the second swallow, there was no way of knowing where they’d gone.

  Four of them carried on back to New California. Etchells returned directly to the star, emerging twenty-two million kilometres above its south pole. With the voidhawks all clustered together in their twenty-five million kilometre equatorial orbit, there was no way they could detect his wormhole terminus opening and closing. His position was ideal to observe the Navy starships flying out from their low orbit. His sensor blisters didn’t have to focus against the overwhelming white blaze. Even his headache started to fade.

  He did keep a cursory watch on the Navy ships as they rose out of the gravity field, but it was the lone ship heading south that interested him. When it was twenty million kilometres from the star its drive cut out. Etchells projected its course, and started to check his captured spatial memories. Given its jump alignment there were twenty possible Confederation systems it could be heading for. And one other. Hesperi-LN. The Tyrathca planet.

  Chapter 12

  Fifteen minutes Courtney sat up at the bar waiting. Four men offered to buy her a drink. Not as many as usual, but then there were very few civilians abroad these days. Even the Blue Orchid was suffering from the scare stories flashing across the net, its numbers well down. Normally it would be jammed at this time of night; the kind of not-quite-sleazy club where lower-middle management could hang out after work and not have to worry if someone else from the company saw them. Courtney had been in a lot worse than this. The doormen didn’t give her any hassle even though her ass was virtually hanging out of her cocktail dress. Courtney liked the dress, cool black fabric with straps on the front to hold her titties up high, and more cross straps down the cut out back. It made her look hot, without being too cheap.

  Banneth said she looked good wearing it. Best thing the sect had ever done putting her in this dress; she’d never been so fem before. And it worked. There hadn’t been a night she didn’t deliver for them. Sometimes twice. It was a good gig, taking the men back to one of the student rent hotels where the sect had squeezed the manager. Then as soon as the mark’s pants were off, Billy-Joe, Rav, and Julie would storm in and kick the shit out of him. Then when he was unconscious Billy-Joe took a recording of his biolectric pattern and emptied his credit disk.

  She’d done much the same thing for all of the last three years since her brother introduced her to the Light Bringer. Except to start with she’d attracted paedopervs, who mostly had their own dens to take her to, or just hauled her into the dark end of a downtown alley. Those days, it had been Quinn Dexter who pimped her. In a strange way, she’d always been safer with him in charge. No matter how big a sicko the man was, Quinn had always arrived in time.

  Now she was fifteen, and too big to pass for a juvenile any more. Banneth had switched the hormones she took. This new batch didn’t prevent her breasts from growing; quite the opposite, they promoted development. She’d still got a skinny frame, but now she was huge with it. In the last nine months her targets had changed completely. It wasn’t the pervs who wanted her now, just the losers. Courtney reckoned she’d come out of the alteration okay. Big tits was one of the mildest modifications Banneth made to sect members.

  The fifth man to ask if she was all right and did her glass need freshening had what it took. Overweight, round face with perspiration on his brow, hair slicked back with gel, a good suit cleaned too often. His expression was hesitant, ready for a slapdown. Courtney drained her glass, and held it out to him, smiling. “Thanks.”

  He was too fat to dance. That was a shame, she liked to dance. So that meant having to sit and listen to about an hour of bitching—his boss, his family, his apartment; how none of it was going right for him. The drone was so she’d see he was a real genuine guy who’d had a couple of bad breaks lately, hoping for the sympathy fuck.

  She made all the right sounds at the right places. After this time working the arcology’s clubs she could probably have filled in his life story just by looking at him. Proof of that: she never chose wrong. They always had a loaded disk. After the hour and three drinks he had enough nerve to make his innocent suggestion. To his utter surprise the answer was a demure smile and a hurried nod.

  It wasn’t far to the student hall, which was good. Courtney didn’t like getting into a cab with them; there was too much chance Billy-Joe might lose her. She didn’t look to see if the three sect me
mbers were trailing after her down the street. They’d be there. This was a real smooth routine now.

  Twice though, she thought she heard footsteps following. Real distinctive, regular thuds of someone using a lot of metal in their heels. Dumb idea, there was a whole bunch of people walking along the street. When she did snatch a look, there was no one she could see that looked like a cop. Just a bunch of civilians scurrying around, making out their stupid lives meant something.

  The cops were her only worry. Even given the fact less than a quarter of the targets reported the assault and theft, it wouldn’t take an AI to spot the pattern. But Banneth would know if there was any sort of operation being mounted. Banneth knew fucking everything going down in Edmonton. It was scary, sometimes. Courtney knew some of the sect’s acolytes didn’t really believe in God’s Brother, they were just too shit-scared of Banneth to step out of line.

  “This is it,” she told the man. They’d stopped outside the worn entrance of a two-century-old skyscraper. A couple of genuine students were sitting on the steps, taking charges from a power inhaler. They looked at Courtney with glazed uncaring eyes. She pulled the man past and into the foyer.

  In the elevator he made his first tentative move. Going for a kiss, which she let him have. Tongue straight down her throat. He didn’t have time for anything more; the room they’d hijacked for the night was on the third floor. Its real owner lost somewhere in the arcology as the black stimulant program shorted out her neurones.

  “What are you studying?” he asked once they were inside.

  That caught her short. She didn’t have a story in place for that—he wasn’t supposed to care. Nothing to help here, either. The room was a usual student’s jumble, badly lit with fleks and clothes everywhere, a decades-old desktop block on the one shabby table. Courtney didn’t read too good, so she couldn’t tell what the tiny print on the flek cases said.