Akreen took this in greedily, a banquet of knowledge and revelation which laid bare so much yet presented so many more questions. Especially when it came to Gredaz’s purpose, and why he had waited until now to make himself known. When he voiced these queries his precursor’s dull silvered features creased slightly with a bleak smile.
“Your predecessor, First Blade Tevashir,” he began. “That was the catalyst, witnessing his ignominious death at the hands of Xra-Huld.” He gave Akreen a sombre look. “I have always been there, you know, far back in the shadowy recesses of your thoughts. It has taken a long time for me to reach this level of awareness and ability, and it is no shame to admit that I had help. The very nature of our biology can allow us to tune into certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, if we have already been taught how.”
“I was never instructed in the body-sense disciplines,” Akreen said. “I take it that you were.”
A nod. “Some years ago I began to notice, at the very edge of my already tenuous perceptions, a kind of whispering. Fragmentary, inconstantly fading in and out, but definitely there. I found, remembered, the capacity to respond and did so, and over time and many exchanges I learned how to define my tiny territory at the back of your mind, how to refine and strengthen my sense of self and how to relearn much that had been forgotten.”
“Who was it?” Akreen said. “Who was talking to you?”
“By the end of the Great Unshackling War, nearly a fifth of the worlds of the Warcage had been ruined, bombed, burnt, poisoned or wrecked, to some vile degree or other. Those which had been the Apparatarch’s citadels were so comprehensively bombarded and engulfed by destruction that we now call them the Ashen Worlds.”
“Kasramyl, Gatuzna and Stoam, all quarantined from the portal network.”
“Just so. No orbits or landings permitted, on pain of death. But even though the Shuskar techniciars did all they could to sever connection to the portal network some vestigial links remained, and it was through them that thready, fitful messages were able to reach me.” Gredaz leaned in a little closer, as if confiding. “The Shuskar fancied that their world-shattering weapons had obliterated the Apparatarch, rendering down every last piece of tech and machinery to burnt and twisted wreckage, but its constituent machine intelligences had been devised by the original Builders, thus their capacity for guile and subterfuge was considerable.”
Akreen gazed at his precursor, tempted by several threads of inquiry which beckoned from this abundance of exposed knowledge. But he kept to what seemed to be the most urgent.
“So the Apparatarch still survives,” he said. “Does it act through you? Are you its agent?”
“I am a messenger. In the last days of the Great Unshackling War, when the last of the Apparatarch’s forces were being hunted down and destroyed, and when almost all of the Zavri had been taken prisoner and neutralised, contingency plans were activated and the intelligences’ cognitive cores were hidden from destruction. After the war, deeply buried microassembly seeds awoke and began to fabricate a passive sensor web through which the hidden cores could monitor events across the Warcage. They were aware of the Beshephis insurgency but were too weak and isolated to play any part, but now, after so many passing centuries, the cores of the Apparatarch have rebuilt some essential resources.”
Akreen studied Gredaz, engrossment and wonder vying now with an undercurrent of curiosity driven by a growing bushel of unanswered questions. “What did they do with these resources?”
“Oh, these were device assemblages created to listen in on the Shuskar’s communications and to monitor activity in the portal web. And to protect the cores.” He gave a secretive smile. “And the other things that they buried out of sight–like a Zavri lineager, from the generation before me!”
Akreen was appropriately amazed, his thoughts roiled by the possibilities this presented. Lineagers were like him, the one scion from a scission group in whom the precursors of past generations were able to live on. If such a Zavri from before the Unshackling War yet survived, then it would be a precious repository of lost knowledge…
His thoughts came to a sudden halt. “Are you saying that this is a still-living ancestor? Is that possible? Thousands of years old…”
“Neither living nor dead,” said Gredaz. “Changeless and sealed in what the cores call a terminal-shift field, shielded in an armoured chamber sequestered deep within one of the worlds, one of the Ashen Worlds. And at this very moment ancient machinery is gradually bringing it to the surface.”
Akreen and Gredaz stared at each other for a moment.
“You can regain the history of our people,” Gredaz said. “You will be able to see their memories of all these worlds before conflict and insanity wrecked them.”
“Why?” Akreen found himself saying in spite of himself. “Why would the Apparatarch go to such lengths to preserve one of our ancestors?”
Gredaz shrugged slightly. “Foresight? A gamble? Perhaps they knew that even if our people were suborned into allegiance to the Shuskar, our intrinsic nature and integrity would maintain itself, a pure thread passing unbroken from generation to generation.”
“Does it… do they hope that we will switch sides, go back to serving them?”
Gredaz shook his head. “They have neither the strength nor the followers and allies to mount the kind of open rebellion in which that scenario would make sense. But the Chainers do have the backing and the skills and the will to mount just such a challenge, sufficient at least to distract the attention of the Shuskar Gun-Lords and tie down their ships and troops. It is the cores’ hope that, if you join them, you will be able to use your position and influence to bring some of the Zavri over, enough to form a strike force that can be used like an assassin’s blade to attack them where they are most vulnerable. But first you must get to the Ashen World Gatuzna and meet our long-lost ancestor.”
Akreen thought for a second. “There’s no point in using my ship since the Ashen Worlds are interdicted, and they’ve all been isolated from the portal network… apart from these vestigial links you mentioned.”
“Correct. You are headed for Armag, and Armag has two functioning portal gates,” Gredaz said. “Can you come up with a plausible excuse for visiting one?”
Akreen offered a sly smile. “Hot pursuit of dangerous Chainer operatives seeking to sabotage vital installations–that should be enough.”
“I believe it would.”
“Good,” Akreen said. “Then we have a plan. Do I need to worry about how my precursors might react?”
Gredaz looked amused. “Zivolin might hear you out but, like the others, his instincts are still informed by Shuskar allegiances. Don’t worry about them–they are still in there, muttering and ranting and recycling old arguments. All I’ve done is deny them access to the particular pathway clusters which allow them to intrude on your thoughts. The peace and quiet should give you plenty of room for consideration of tactical matters.”
Now, as he sat in the command chair on the bridge of the Urtesh, that inner peace and quiet felt so deep and encompassing that a ripple of unease passed through his mind. As if at some level he had grown accustomed to that non-stop carnival of aged small talk and archaic self-importance and its cessation was depriving him of some indeterminate element of…
Akreen frowned, straightened his posture and resolutely put that shade of unease out of mind.
Tactical matters, he thought. And his thoughts were like musical droplets echoing in a vast glowing cavern.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The grey-purple storm-skeins of hyperspace streamed past the Construct shimmership as it hurtled onwards in pursuit. The quarry–now identified as a Type-38 Ombilan transport called the Scarabus–was on course for a location in Indroma space, with its hyperdrive pushing near the design limits. The stealthed shimmership had managed to cut the transport’s lead to a mere hundred klicks-subjective and now a fist-sized silver-white probe was gliding out ahead of it, heading straight for the
transport.
In control of the probe was Lt Sam Brock. She was strapped into a recess in the shimmership’s compartment, knees drawn up, arms crossed and eyes closed as the interface tiarette cued her sensorium into the probe’s function set. She could see the Scarabus directly ahead and growing larger as the intervening distance shrank.
“Four minutes and twelve seconds until clusterbulb launch, Lieutenant,” said the drone, Rensik Estemil. “This stealth-hunt tactic of yours is beginning to look promising.”
Brock smiled tolerantly (or was she just imagining herself smiling?). She was sure that the drone had expected her to be so disorientated and nonplussed that she would have asked to relinquish control to the shimmership’s own AI, or even to Rensik. Which would have turned her surveillance idea into the drone’s–but that wasn’t going to happen.
“All systems are optimal, sir,” she said. “Launch-prep is complete.”
“Versatile efficiency in a Human! My probabilistics partition may never fully recover.”
On through the roiling, mad-cyclone chaos of raw hyperspace the ships flew, pursuer and pursued, with the small probe sitting at the tip of a forcefield array braided in a spear configuration. That spear of structured energies now projected thirty kilometres in front of the shimmership and was still extending.
The seconds ticked away and the probe steadily moved closer. With ten seconds to go the intervening distance was not quite the five klicks Brock had presented in her simulation but was still within the clusterbulb’s range. The countdown reached finality and the probe/Brock’s awareness experienced a slight kick as the clusterbulb was launched. It was about the size and shape of a small egg and a cross-shaped aperture in its rear was emitting a blue-white flame, the output of a tiny reaction drive burning some propellant of the drone’s own devising. It shot away from the probe, steep acceleration sending it across the last few klicks in less than a minute. Two hundred metres from the transport an inner mechanism triggered the dispersion stage and the bulb broke apart into an expanding cloud of nano-assembled sensor mites.
“Impact in five seconds,” Brock said, although to be more accurate the leading edge of the mite cloud would land on the transport’s stern first with the rest touching down all across the upper hull from aft to prow. “First scans coming in–compiling initial list of accessible hull ports and devices—”
“How good of you to keep me informed,” said the drone. “Notify me when we have any data that’s of any use.”
It did not take long. Every sensor mite was equipped with a squad of nanobots capable of breaking into hull devices and conduits and using the ship’s own cables and substrates to build their own surveillance network. In one layer of the tiarette interface Brock could see the clandestine connections spreading and multiplying, reaching out to encompass the shipboard comm-web, node by node. Data began to stream, audio feeds coming from two areas of the ship, voice conversing. The shimmership’s linguistics AI was ready with a battery of cognitisers to deal with vocabulary and syntax based on–but not limited to–the intel gathered at the last planet. Heuristic conversion yielded dialogue strings that were subjected to response logic analysis. After entire minutes both Brock and the drone were taking in the content of two discussions, one from the vicinity of the main cargo hold, the other from the ship’s bridge.
The former involved two bodyguards pledged to one G’Brozen Mav, also on board: they discussed which clans they came from, any possible family connections, favourite sidearms and melee weapons, and the incomprehensible strangeness of the ship’s previous crew, going by the enigmatic things they kept in their cabins.
The other conversation was between G’Brozen Mav himself and another follower called Hechec, also referred to as “Tool-bearer”. As they talked about their situation it quickly became clear that some catastrophic trap or ambush was due to happen at a place called Armag City and that it would lead to the death or capture of several important resistance leaders.
Other pieces of background and recent events cropped up here and there: the ship’s original crew and its captain, a Human called Pyke, how G’Brozen Mav and his followers had been marooned shortly after his discovery that the trusted Khorr was a traitor. And there was mention of the rulers of the megasystem, a species or authority called the Shuskar against whom they were rebelling, and a small group of senior Shuskar called the Gun-Lords. There was also speculation as to whether the Shuskar would deploy the Zavri or the Avang against the unsuspecting resistance forces–both options were framed in overtones of dread.
“Well, at least now we know who the Big Bad is, or are,” said the drone, Rensik. “The Shuskar–not heard of them before but cultural data from the Andromeda galaxy has never been comprehensive by any means. Preliminary cultural analysis indicated that they have been in control for several centuries, though, so these tournament battles clearly serve a purpose of value.”
“Like pitching possible allies against one another?” Brock said. “Divide and conquer, foster tribal rivalries to fever pitch to ensure the minions never unite against their rulers.”
“Point being?”
“Sir, if this ambush succeeds it could seriously affect the outcome of our mission.”
“You’re suggesting that we ride to the rescue, Lieutenant? This is a spy ship, not a planet-burning super-dreadnought.”
Sam smiled, sure that she had the drone’s measure. “I think we can, sir, but subtly. Throwing spanners in the works when they’re looking the other way, that kind of thing.”
“Nice use of action-based metaphor, there. Must admit that I almost wish we were flying a battleship, one of those big jobs the Ufan-Gir used to make, multicycle shields and an insane number of gun batteries… but this is a clandestine mission, nominally anyway, so subtlety is our middle name and we’re not at home to Mr Frontal Assault. What do you have in mind?”
Sam glanced at the status updates. “Well, sir, we need a lot more intel and we won’t get it from the Scarabus memory banks, therefore we need to shadow G’Brozen Mav all the way to the Great Harbour system. When we reach this Armag City hopefully there will be some kind of datanet that we can infiltrate and cajole into giving up its secrets.”
“That’s refreshingly practical of you, Lieutenant. You can decouple from the probe now–my monitors indicate that our quarry is about to drop out of hyperspace.”
The probe was already being pulled back to its little recess in the shimmership’s hull as Sam took off the tiarette.
“Sir,” she said. “Would this be a good time for me to learn the basics of the ship’s weaponry?”
“Weaponry? I think you may have misconstrued the shimmership’s design philosophy, Lieutenant. Essentially, it’s built for sneaking, not for skirmishing. It has no attack capability, but its stealth systems are second to none.”
“I see. May I ask if you have a decent-sized nanofac onboard?”
“I do. Why?”
“I was not permitted to leave the base with standard-issue weapons but I did bring along some templates for useful handweapons. Sir, if mission progress requires actual boots-on-the-ground intervention at some point I would like to be able to defend myself.”
“I already have a selection of small arms designs drawn from the Construct’s archives, but feel free to load your own if you prefer… there, you now have access to the builder systems. You’ll see that there are dimensional limits so portable pulse cannons are sadly off the menu.”
Sam smiled brightly. “Thank you, sir. I am sure that I can come up with something… practical.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When the lighter slid into the bay in Khorr’s ship and was docked and locked, Dervla and Win were hustled along the walkway at gunpoint and through a sliding hatch. The passageways were narrow, the lighting was muted, and the few other crew members they passed on the way looked just as barbarous and feral as Khorr and his guards and, seemingly, of the same brawny humanoid species. And when they arrived at a brighter cha
mber and were pushed back into recesses that suddenly held them immobile, she knew with a dark, bitter certainty that she would never see Pyke again.
Win flung a string of florid curses in Anglic at their burly, over-armoured guards, eventually falling as silent as Dervla when her verbal stamina ran low. Moments later the guards stiffened and hoisted their weapons as Khorr entered, gave the Human women a single appraising look and said, “Are you able to understand me when I speak in the Omnilect?”
Dervla glowered at him. It was several hours ago that a couple of his skagsniffing underlings force-fed them small crystalline capsules, washed down with a spurt of brackish water.
“Sure I can understand you,” she said. “All we need to do now is learn how to swear in it.”
“Not advisable since new lives begin for you today, so forget your pasts and forget any notions of defiance. Those I obey have determined that you shall serve the needs of one of our supreme leaders. In time, you will understand what a great honour this is.”
There was a sick feeling in Dervla’s stomach.
“So you’re not with the rebels… but Pyke and the others…”
“They have key parts to play in the grand drama about to unfold, and their inevitable deaths will ultimately serve the ends of my masters. But as I have said, your fates lie along a different course.”
Khorr nodded to one of his guards, who stepped forward and sprayed something in Dervla’s face before turning to do the same to Win.
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