by Neal Asher
‘Help yourself,’ Frordor replies.
Sniper draws in his tentacles from the gesture of surrender, assuming he is now no longer a prisoner. It strikes him as unusual for Prador, even the Guard, to adapt to a new situation so quickly, but then these, being with the King, must constitute the elite. He fires up his fusion engine and speeds over, scanning more deeply the armaments currently being distributed. The missiles are of about the right size, so he begins adapting his rail-gun to take them. As he approaches, the Guard unloading this particular dodecahedron, and flinging packages on courses to other Guards, suddenly sends three of the rolled-up missile belts in his direction. Sniper decelerates, fielding them with his tentacles, and then abruptly unravelling one of them. Closer scan reveals that the missiles contain balls of high-pressure metalized hydrogen wrapped about a layer of very dense explosive with a plutonium core. To the rear of each lies a chemical drive, and steering-jet holes ring the equator. Even as he tries to fiddle with the computer hardware inside them, Frordor sends him the access code. Sniper opens a hatch just above his rail-gun and begins feeding the missiles inside himself, as if eating sweets, reprogramming them as he slots them internally into his missile carousel.
Now Sniper jets over to another weapons cache, from which spherical crates of mines are being distributed. Again some packages get diverted his way. The mines are simple enough: they possess no propulsion but can be programmed to detonate in varying circumstances. He feeds a good number of these inside himself for later use, the remainder he sticks to his shell for easy access. Then he pauses to survey the overall situation.
The Guard seem as ready as they can be, Frordor having successfully deployed the claw formation, with its rotational use of hardfields to prevent too many of his comrades taking too much of the load at once. The Golgoloth’s ship has stabilized, and distanced itself behind and to one side of this formation, and now some of the Guard abandon it to join those already here. Perhaps the Golgoloth is hoping it will not need to get directly involved.
Sniper now considers his own position. He could easily take up a place within this formation and fight with the rest of the grunts, but that isn’t how he likes to operate. He prefers to bring in something from outfield, something others have not thought of. In fact he likes to win, not just slug it out. He therefore sends a probing signal to the Golgoloth’s ship, to try and open up some communication.
After a moment the creature replies. ‘Yes, I did note that you’ve survived, Polity drone,’ it says. ‘And it appears you managed to gain access to my ship without me noticing. How did you do that?’
‘I got in through one of your rail-gun ports then I used your maintenance robot ID code–you might like to take a look at that, because if I can do it, then so can the Jain.’
After a pause, ‘I now see where you came in. I have therefore randomized the code, and now all maintenance robots possess a personal code, to be altered on a randomized schedule.’
Fast.
‘Are you in this fight or not?’ Sniper asks, deliberately including Frordor in the communication.
‘Since the Jain have seen fit to strand us all here, it seems that I am in,’ the Golgoloth replies. ‘I do not think these creatures recognize neutrality.’
‘So what have you got?’
‘You expect me to detail the firepower I possess to a temporary ally and potential enemy?’
Sniper shrugs as he again focuses on the approaching Jain. Five of them are clustered about an object shaped like a doughnut, which has various receptor and transmission dishes dotted over its surface. The rest don’t carry anything more than those Sniper originally faced and, despite them being very very dangerous, there is only so much energy that creatures of this scale can individually deploy. He considers what he would do if he were one of them, intent on destroying a defence just like this.
‘You’re gonna be the main target,’ Sniper informs the Golgo-loth. ‘They won’t fully engage the Guard here, but they’ll go for you. They like to hijack and subvert, and your ship is perfect for that purpose. If they get to it, they’ll enter and force the Guard to fire on you.’
‘I agree,’ Frordor interjects.
Steering thrusters suddenly fire up on the Golgoloth’s big melon-shaped vessel, and it begins to draw nearer to the formation, whilst Frordor issues orders in battle code, moving that formation over towards the approaching ship. Even now missiles are zipping towards them from the converging Jain, and little time now remains to get the defence properly organized.
Sniper now watches the approaching doughnut-shaped object, noting how it is being kept to the centre and rear of the Jain formation.
‘What is that damned thing?’ he broadcasts.
Immediately the Golgoloth sends to him a recording of the problems it earlier encountered while leaving the planetoid: how the Jain contrived to use the same energy the hermaphrodite deployed against them. It seems likely that this object serves a similar function, or is a relay from the vessel back there within the cloud, or both, so it needs to be taken out, quickly.
Clearly visible because of the surrounding dust and gas, green lasers spear up from the Jain. They blur and fray as they strike hardfields, but still enough gets through to form a viral attack.
‘Colour-shift all sensors,’ Frordor instructs.
Now why didn’t I think of that? Sniper grumps to himself. He does the same as all the Prador do, excluding the green of those lasers from the spectrum he can receive. Almost immediately these lasers shift to blue.
‘Keep shifting,’ Frordor instructs.
‘Watch for feedback through hardfields,’ Sniper sends.
‘Rotating.’
The Prador positioned to the fore of the formation break off and circle round to the rear. Now particle beams spear up, splashing on hardfields. The lasers start rapidly shifting their spectrum, and the Jain begin manoeuvring in a swirling pattern. Now they are so much closer, Sniper begins firing his own laser, loading it with the code Vrell passed to him when they were on the planetoid–the one designed to detonate the tacticals within the Guard these assailants once were. No response; they’ve obviously disabled that option, even as Frordor just did. He accelerates, curving out between Frordor’s formation into the gap between it and the Golgoloth’s ship. Distantly he observes another object approaching from off to one side, fusion engines at full blast: the Gurnard.
‘Come to join the fun?’ Sniper enquires.
Gurnard’s reply is less than polite.
Now the Guard launch missiles, and in moments the space between the two opposing forces begins blossoming with explosions. The projectiles impact on hardfield walls, flaring scales of energy into existence. Particle cannons probe from either side as the Jain come in closer, then, from a point on the exterior of the ship of bones deep in the cloud, a beam spears out, only visible because it heats the dispersed gas and dust along its course. Microwave beam, Sniper realizes, as it strikes precisely at the centre of the doughnut, and from there divides into a hundred narrower beams, licking out to be intercepted by a select few of the Jain. From these issue particle beams of incredible intensity, all focused on Frordor’s formation. The first three Prador forming the tip of each claw simply rupture as first their hardfield generators blow and then the beams hit them. Explosions of claws, legs and chunks of armour carapace spread, and others of the Guard cannot rotate into position fast enough to replace the casualties.
‘Break for individual combat,’ Frordor instructs needlessly.
From the moment he regained consciousness and found himself a captive of King Oberon, Vrell decided he would not beg, he would not grovel, and he would grab any opportunity that comes his way to fight for survival. However, on finally coming before the King, he has realized that he does not face a creature who will want those satisfactions from him. He has found himself before an entity even more frightening and even more potent than the Golgoloth, and which functions on a level far above himself. Upon having his restraint
s removed, he perhaps should have made some futile gesture, hopefully thus speeding his own end. But he did not, because he knew when he was utterly outclassed.
Probing the controls made available to him, Vrell discovers he has been allowed a great deal of leeway. He can call up onboard information within the mask, which provides him with a three-dimensional virtuality. Some of this data is classified even to members of the Guard. He can also open private com channels and run the kinds of complex calculations and programs he is accustomed to. He can access sensors aboard this same ship, and the dreadnoughts, and even those carried by individual Prador out there, so through the mask he can see every detail of the desperate fight taking place out in space. However, the ship’s weapons, defences and command channels lie outside his remit. Instead he opens another channel to send a probing signal, and then waits.
‘Gotcha,’ Thirteen replies, his voice relayed through small speakers in Vrell’s mask and the words also displayed as Prador glyphs should he need them. ‘Orbus is in the circuit too.’
Vrell turns his head to glance over at the prisoners, the mask moving with him and responding to his wish by providing an outside view, then turns his attention back to the King, his attendant Human and the two chrome-armoured third-children. The two small Prador are currently attaching optics, power feeds and various fluid pipes to the numerous devices woven throughout the King’s body, thus connecting him to the mechanisms of the pillar. As yet Vrell has been unable to access any information about what is occurring there.
‘Any idea what’s going on?’ he asks.
‘I am scanning,’ Thirteen replies, ‘but the technology is awfully complex.’
‘Whatever it is,’ says Orbus, ‘the thought of it is scaring that Sadurian character even more than those nasty buggers out there are.’
‘How do you know this?’ Vrell asks.
‘Trust me,’ the Old Captain replies. ‘She started shitting herself the moment the King told her he “must become”– whatever that means.’
Vrell studies the King further, trying to put aside his initial reaction of awe and terror. The King is obviously a creature already well advanced in mutation by the Spatterjay virus. But now he has decided he ‘must become’ after being faced with the evidently superior firepower of the Jain. He has obviously decided on an option he was reluctant to choose before and, if Orbus is correct about the reaction of the Human woman, whom Vrell has ascertained to be a first-class Polity mind specializing in reproduction and genetics, it seems likely this choice is a dangerous one. Vrell already has some idea of what that might be even as he seeks confirmation from the masses of data made available to him, but numerous searches render him nothing more than an arrow pointing directly towards the King’s private files. Vrell takes a long hardlook at the codes needed to give him access, and proceeds to formulate programs that might enable him to crack them.
‘I can’t see how he can become anything worse than he is,’ Orbus adds.
Vrell cannot find the spare processing power within his own mind to respond, as he inserts every available limb into pit-controls and frantically works his programs. He calls up data from ship’s systems, programs or fragments of the same that are stored there. He combines them, alters them, tests them, puts them through high-speed computerized evolutionary processes. Trying to cover every bet, for he feels sure he will have only one chance at this, his mind goes into overdrive. Then, almost on a level that is not quite consciousness, he launches his programs against the King’s files and finds himself in an informational battle that seems to mirror the chaos unfolding in vacuum outside.
He punches through firewalls, and then has to either disinfect or sacrifice the programs he uses for that purpose when they become loaded with killer viruses from the walls themselves. He has to weave together his own programs to fight killer programs deployed against him, has to even reformat his own thinking and sensory input so as to prevent some of the things sent by those same killers from loading into his own mind–but the King’s earlier attack on him aboard Vrost’s ship has prepared him for this. At many points he finds himself making no headway at all, being diverted into blind tunnels or lured towards data precipices, and every time he finds he has to exert more effort in pushing the functionality of his mind to its limits, and beyond its limits, yet finding something there even so. Reaching a certain depth in he knows there is no turning back, as this determined penetration becomes a fight for survival. His breathing accelerates to its limit and hunger grows inside him as his mind constantly sucks up and burns nutrients. His brain becomes hot and his heart pumps at its maximum, to feed it food and oxygen and to draw away heat. Some of his limbs and some internal organs shut down, superfluous to this process. Then, when it seems he is about to be crushed under those powerful defences, he is through, all of them collapsing simultaneously around him. He feels he has been deliberately tested to the utter limit, which in itself seems far too neat to be coincidental.
‘So you are in,’ says something, and Vrell cringes, exhausted, immediately expecting to come under either an informational attack or a physical one. For the thing here is something the Prador so much dread: an artificial intelligence.
‘What are you?’ Vrell asks, unable to think of a more coherent question.
‘I am Sphinx.’
‘Are you Polity?’
‘I am,’ replies Sphinx. ‘I am the property of Sadurian, though of course I also belong to myself. She fed me into the ship’s system about two hours ago, when she realized just how badly fucked-up things might get here.’
‘How do you intend to react to me?’ Vrell asks.
‘I do not intend to react to you as you fear,’ the AI replies. ‘My own presence here is as unrequested as your own.’
As his breathing and heart rate slow, Vrell mulls that over. This AI could be either an enemy or an ally. Certainly it can find information more quickly than he can…
‘What is the King doing?’
‘He is in the process of opening up quantum Jain memstorage inside himself, so as to provide himself with the knowledge to defeat them,’ Sphinx replies, simultaneously opening and presenting files in a quickly growing virtual space. These show Vrell the details of the operation, which Vrell briefly inspects.
‘It is, as you might imagine,’ says the AI, ‘a risky venture which will probably result in the mind of some Jain soldier taking complete control of him. He believes, however, that he can control things for long enough to obtain the necessary knowledge.’
Vrell peers across at the King. All the pipes, optics and cables are finally attached, and the pillar now quietly humming to itself. The effect upon Oberon is noticeable already. Clear fluid drips from gaps between sections of his carapace, and he is swinging his head from side to side as if in agony. Perhaps he is.
Vrell inspects the information contained in the files, but is still not up to speed. ‘How is he doing this?’
‘He is using nanites to kill off the last of the Spatterjay genome stored inside every one of his cells, thus leaving only Jain DNA, the virus itself and those quantum stores. The disruption to his cellular machinery is very great, and many of the cybernetic mechanisms spread throughout his body are there just to keep him alive.’
‘So in the end it will be just his mind pitted against whatever comes out of quantum storage,’ Vrell notes.
He is starting to feel better now, almost euphoric. With the kind of access previously denied him, he initiates searches into the files. It surprises him to find that the only weapons in the near area are the wall-mounted defensive weapons in the atrium and a cache of the weapons taken from himself, Orbus and the Golgo-loth’s children. There is nothing he can gain control of from here to turn against the King. However he does find out how to open the small cache, and how to turn off the force-fence around his comrades, but this does not seem enough, for these same files also provide him with a great deal of data about the King’s physical structure and the power of his mind. There is even s
tuff here Vrell simply cannot comprehend, and he doubts, if it comes to a fight, that he and the others can win. It would be like a crowd of Human children armed with bows and arrows attacking a fully-armed Prador. The result would likely be messy.
‘And if you attack the King now,’ says Sphinx, ‘you’ll probably destroy the only hope for survival any of us has right now.’
That is certainly a valid point, but another valid point is that if the King does manage to repel the Jain using their own knowledge, it will not be long before he becomes one of them too. This newly made Jain soldier controlling the King’s body will then be right in the middle of its enemy, and with access to many conveniently placed weapons and primary controls. In such a position it could, given time, reactivate the Guard’s tacticals and destroy them all at once, seize control of the dreadnoughts and force them to fire on each other, or send the codes to reactivate their self-destructs. Vrell needs to be ready.
Then he spots it: the one small chance they have.
‘Our weapons,’ Vrell tells Orbus, ‘are in a store set into the wall over to your right, and I can deactivate the fence surrounding you. As soon as I shut down the fence and open the store, here is what we must do.’
The Prador formation shatters, its separate armoured troops now making less easy targets for the persistent particle beams. Along with the relay device they draw their energy from, the Jain shooters now hold back, whilst the rest come on. But still those beams are methodically incinerating members of the Guard. As if this was not bad enough, that plaited beam lances out again from the Jain ship’s main dish, passing through the periphery of this skirmish.
Sniper tracks its course and watches it flash against a hardfield off to one side. There, two of the King’s dreadnoughts are attempting to cover each other. As the first hardfield goes out, the dreadnought it issued from drops back shedding fire from numerous ports, and another hardfield intercepts the beam. The damaged dreadnought stabilizes for a moment, even whilst the detonations of hardfield generators star the hull of its replacement. It manages to emit an intermittent field, but this isn’t enough. Something big then blows inside the replacement ship, hurling out a chunk of hull armour from a glowing wound, and its field winks out. At once the beam stabs through. It hits the vessel like a slow-turning metal drill, and just tears into it, spewing debris into space, before punching its way out the other side. However, this time it does not shut down but rips out the side of its target then bores into its fellow. The beam’s first target is now just an unrecognizable mass of wreckage, while it cores its second and leaves it tumbling inert through vacuum. Meanwhile, the darkness surrounding the Jain ship begins to grow again as it draws in energy for yet another strike.
