by Neal Asher
"I don't think there's much else I want to ask," I said, standing up.
"I will obtain further details," Rhodane informed me.
I left that place, clamping down on my need to vomit.
13
The first five hilldiggers were built during the first twenty years of the War and it was this effort that pushed the economy of Sudoria into collapse. The Planetary Council plutocrats had of course gathered to themselves a huge proportion of Sudoria's wealthy and lived sybaritic lifestyles utterly at odds with the famine and want experienced by the majority. The revolt, when it came, was led by workers in the space industry and by Fleet personnel returning groundside. Chaos ensued and many of those sybarites turned up in the Komarl, bolted to rocks with the kind of fixings used in the construction of hilldigger skeletons. Things settled down a little, but there was much argument about what kind of regime should come next, how wealth should be distributed, who should be in charge of what…The list just kept growing. The old planetary parties began scrabbling for power, and some infighting ensued. The people lost focus and indulged in some rather silly squabbling. The fifty-megaton Brumallian warhead that annihilated the city of Cairo-Desit came as a timely reminder. It took just ten days to form Parliament after that.
— Uskaron
Harald
Feet thundered on the deck plates, the racket of machinery was constant. A hot metal smell permeated the air, as did the drifting smoke from welding whose arc flashes lit the interior of the engine galleries. Standing on a high catwalk, his guards deployed around him, Harald was hardly aware of this commotion. He instead stared at the code scrolling down in one segment of his eye-screen, while clenching and unclenching his hand to stretch his fingers inside the control glove. One of the other two screen segments, either side of this main one, held his cracker programs, worms and viral decoders—a toolkit he had built up over many years of breaking into Fleet com. He began working the glove, selecting out lines of code to copy and then apply his programs to, before dropping the results through analytical sieves. It soon became evident to him that Lambrack was using a standard randomising protocol, but obviously running a book code behind that, for the third screen divided itself into blocks displaying parts of images, and from the speaker issued something sounding like an alien tongue. He made the obvious selection—Uskaron's damned book—and felt a cynical contempt when two more screen sections lit up to show Captains Davidson and Lambrack, and their voices became clear.
Lambrack: "… to come over to his side. In a way I admire that. It shows a degree of ruthlessness we need in an Admiral, but I still cannot agree with his obvious intent. The purpose of Fleet is to defend Sudoria, obeying the dictates of Parliament. If we follow Harald, we'll end up with a military dictatorship."
Davidson: "I understand that probability, but wonder if that is really his intent. It could be that he feels, as do many in Fleet, that Parliament is making a mistake in its dealings with this Polity."
Lambrack: "Maybe our politicians are making a mistake, but it's theirs to make. Yet think about it. Sudoria's defence is not weakened by Combine continuing to run those defence platforms. The only question is one of centralised command, which is always preferable in conducting a war. Do you think that is a question worth internecine conflict—worth killing our own people over?"
Davidson: "It won't necessarily come to that."
Lambrack: "Davidson, you're only giving him the benefit of the doubt because he cleared your way to the Captaincy of the Resilience. Don't be naive. He's manipulating you."
Davidson: "But he still could have killed me rather than Grune."
Lambrack: "No one would have believed you guilty and Grune innocent. This way, all the other Captains who were wavering are more likely to take Harald's side."
And so Lambrack continued to work on Davidson. Harald began recording their exchange in case anything useful to him arose. With Lambrack being a long-established and respected Captain, Harald could not employ the same peremptory justice he had used against Grune, but with the present recordings he had sufficient to bring the man before a Fleet court. The problem would be extracting him from his ship, and that Harald did not have time for currently. However, there was an alternative.
Harald wiped the code screens and put through a direct call to Captain Lambrack. Watching the man, he saw him glance to one side and frown.
"We'll have to cut this now, Davidson. It seems Harald would like to speak to me. Just consider all I've said. We will need to act quickly and decisively to prevent an all-out firefight with Orbital Combine."
Harald would have liked Lambrack to elaborate on that, but the man cut his connection with Davidson, then his image appeared alone.
"Admiral Strone, what can I do for you?"
"I note," Harald replied, "that you and Captain Davidson have been rather stretching the definition of the 'diamond formation'."
"We wished to conduct a private conversation," replied Lambrack.
The two ships had pulled back only a little way, to a position where they could use com lasers without any possibility of interception of laser reflection from their own hulls. Harald had not intercepted the lasers; he had simply subverted Davidson's onboard com system remotely. It would certainly come as a surprise to many hilldigger Captains just how well he had penetrated the security of their ships, both informationally and physically.
"I have to wonder what you needed to talk about that required such privacy," he said.
"Yes, I imagine you do."
Harald knew he was not going to get anywhere with this so decided to take a new tack. "No matter. We have some more immediate concerns that I'll get to in a moment. But first, I understand that your brother is a senior researcher aboard Corisanthe II and that you have recently been in communication with him?"
Lambrack glanced to one side, then returned with, "I note this is not encoded com. A rather shoddy attempt to smear my name, don't you think?"
"You misunderstand me. How could I use such a fact to smear your name when my own sister ranks so high aboard Corisanthe Main? I am merely seeking to confirm some rumours concerning equipment recently moved from II to Main."
"Equipment?"
"Weapons."
"That's not the kind of thing my brother and I would discuss."
"Then what do you discuss?"
"Our recent conversation centred around events in Parliament and how they may affect us both. I imagine this was a subject raised by many officers in Fleet who have relatives in Combine and on Sudoria itself. Or rather, it was something undoubtedly raised until you restricted communication."
Harald awarded Lambrack that point and smiled and nodded for the benefit of those who would certainly be watching this or would view a later recording. Inside he seethed, however. By not pretending loyalty to Harald or his aims, Lambrack placed himself in an unassailable position. Harald could accuse the man of sedition, but that would only cause more problems than it would solve.
"It's an unfortunate situation and of course I would perfectly understand any reluctance you might have to obey any orders putting members of your family in danger."
"I have not disobeyed any of your orders, Admiral Strone," replied Lambrack firmly.
"No, you haven't as yet."
"Are you implying that I intend to?"
"I would never question your loyalty to Fleet."
"I am so glad. Now what were these 'more immediate concerns'?"
Harald paused for a moment. The fact that Lambrack had a brother aboard Corisanthe II with whom he had recently been in communication was now firmly established in the minds of any listeners. Yes, his own sister Yishna occupied a high position aboard Main but, since he was Admiral and the initiator of Fleet's present actions, his own motives would not be questioned. Lambrack's would—however, that was a lever he could use at another time. His aim now was to get Lambrack away from Davidson, and away from this entire mission.
"I have a task for which you are best s
uited," said Harald, "in view of your probable reluctance to be involved in what lies ahead." Lambrack just stared at him in silence so he continued, "Our satellites around Brumal have detected the launch of a ship from the planet's surface. It is a Brumallian biotech vessel and its course is presently taking it towards Sudoria."
"What?" Lambrack looked shocked.
"Yes, those who question whether the Brumallians have been complicit in recent events, or even capable of involvement, perhaps need to examine their assumptions. One doubts that such a ship—flying in flagrant breach of the surrender terms—has anything but hostile intentions. What would you think, Lambrack?"
"I think this is certainly something that needs to be checked."
"You'll do more than check, Captain Lambrack. You'll intercept and destroy this vessel, then you will progress to Brumal to destroy its launch site, which lies above BC30—the city they call ReconYork."
"You're sending me?"
"You're right for the task, Captain, and here is an enemy about whom you'll have fewer reservations."
Lambrack swore and cut the connection. A little while later, as he continued his inspection of Engineering, Harald watched the Captain's ship dropping out of formation and turning to head back towards Brumal.
McCrooger
A long intestinal corridor ran right around the ship's internal ring, the walls braced by cartilaginous bulwarks, and ceilings and floors either held together or apart by pillars of a substance like glass heavily streaked with impurities, and through which ran capillaries with lucent fluids flowing inside. With little else to do once I could manage to stand for more than a few hours at a time without falling poleaxed into sleep immediately afterwards, I walked this ring, Tigger pacing at my side, the ship wheezing and glubbing around us like a hungry stomach. Convalescence, I tasted the word and found it bitter. I had never needed to convalesce since my first visit to Spatterjay, and now found weakness abhorrent. Six days remained until we arrived at Sudoria, and by then I needed to be fully ready.
"Still no luck trying to get a transmission through?"
"Not much," said Tigger. "The EM chaff broadcast from Fleet satellites swamps everything. I could probably get something through, but it would be loud, and everyone would know where it came from."
I noticed how his heavy paws and my booted feet left bruise-like marks in the translucent floor behind us, which had faded by the time we came round full circle to this same stretch of floor again. I couldn't shake the feeling that someone else was following us just out of sight, and kept looking out for the imprints they must leave. "I think we should hold off on that for the present, though I wonder what the general reaction would be to a Brumallian ship arriving unexpectedly in orbit, if we don't get something through to them beforehand."
"The least of our worries," the drone stated.
"Um." I grimaced. "Fleet?"
"Fleet ships are a long way off right now, but watch stations will still spot us, and Harald could get a hilldigger out to squash us before we arrived at Sudoria."
"That will depend upon how much he considers us a threat."
"We won't worry him at all, but he might think it handy to tell everyone he destroyed a Brumallian ship that was heading for Sudoria. That'd make him look like the good guy."
"And what is the plan should they send such a ship?"
"There is none—as yet."
It wasn't particularly comforting to know that the virus left inside me might not, in the end, be the cause of my death.
"You must have studied this ship carefully," I said. "How well would it stand up to a hilldigger?"
"There's an old expression…a snowball's chance in hell?"
"You seem decidedly unworried about it all."
"The emotional range of a tiger's facial expression isn't huge, but like yourself I find little to recommend mortality—even more so now I am…diminished."
"Does it hurt to have lost your other half?"
"I've lost my ability to travel through space, many tools, weapons and processing space, so my loss is like yours, one of strength. Didn't lose much memory and knowledge—just a few seconds." Those amber eyes fixed on me. "Given time and materials I could easily rebuild my other half, with all its previous advantages. I might have lost a lot, but I still do possess sufficient tools."
I realised, as Tigger spoke, that he was gently prodding me in some direction. I replayed our recent conversation in my mind and asked, "So how could this ship be saved in the event of Harald sending one of his hilldiggers against it?"
"With current Brumallian technology, not a chance."
Ah.
"And how well do you understand Brumallian technology?" I asked.
"Better than them."
Tigger halted, sat back on his haunches, raised a paw and, peering down at it, extended one claw at a time for inspection. I halted as well and rested my back against a pillar, feeling a muted vibration through the ship's bones. Guessing where this conversation was leading I took a leap ahead.
"Providing the Brumallians with any technology that would give them a definite military advantage would seriously piss off Geronamid, but obviously having that AI angry with us is substantially better than being dead."
"Oh, I agree." Tigger raised his head to meet my gaze.
"Were you waiting for permission from me?"
"Well," Tigger shrugged, "I'd then only be following orders."
Tigger, who could have been a major AI but chose to be a drone, was clearly not a great lover of responsibility. He wanted me to take the rap. I considered then who we should talk to, since this being a Brumallian ship, there was no Captain aboard.
"Tell Rhodane," I said. "She can put it to the Consensus." I wondered if that would be limited to a consensus of the present crew, for Fleet's blocking of signals prevented communication back to Brumal. I saw then how their system might not work so well in some situations.
Only later did I find out how they got round that one. They asked the ship.
Harald
With AC hum permeating the air and vibrating the catwalk below his feet, Harald folded his eye-screen to one side and peered over the rail down at the linear accelerator. Having finished the final checks, the gunnery crewmen were now moving into position on their monitoring platform above the aseptic gleam of the machinery surrounding the vacuum breech. The 800-foot-long accelerator—six feet wide, wrapped in heavily insulated coil sections and cooling jackets, and trailing massive power cables—slanted down through the body of the ship, its mouth opening directly below Ironfist's nose. A conveyor belt crammed with resin-encased iron projectiles snaked down to the breech machinery. Unlike the solid projectiles fired at the military infrastructure around Brumal throughout the war, Harald knew that inside their bullet-shaped cases these consisted of a block of irregularly shaped iron fragments bound together by the resin.
"It will be interesting to see how closely fact matches theory," he commented.
Standing next to him, with her hands folded behind her back, Jeon grimaced. "The ballistics formulae incorporate a degree of error, but on hitting an orbital target these projectiles should break apart like antipersonnel bullets to inflict maximum damage. Missing the target and entering atmosphere, they should quickly burn off their cases, then break apart and burn up before reaching the planet's surface."
"Should?" Harald repeated.
"We can't be entirely certain with a ton of iron travelling at such speeds. At the worst, one in ten will forge-weld into one single lump on atmospheric impact, and retain coherence long enough to strike the ground as a plasma column, but thereafter there's a less than point one per cent chance of hitting a major population centre."
Harald nodded slowly, then pushed his microphone across in front of his mouth. "Run test," he ordered.
After a moment the hum dropped to a lower note, which it held for a couple of seconds before rising back to its previous level. Through Harald's headset, his gunnery officer informed him, "Resonance
in coils four and fifteen, but within operational parameters." Harald flipped his eye-screen back into position and read the data feeds from the other five hilldiggers chosen for this chore. Four of them were ready, but one had detected major faults in its linear accelerator. How surprising that one should be Davidson's Resilience. However, Harald had already factored in that at least one hilldigger would be unable to fire.
"Estimated damage such a forge-welded lump could cause?" he enquired of Jeon.
"About five hundred kilotons."
"Enough to take out a small city, then."
"Yes."
Harald stared down at his hands and observed how he was white-knuckling the rail. He deliberately relaxed his fingers. "Commence firing," he ordered over general com.
Down below, a snake of missiles advanced one segment down a conveyor, an arm slid one translucent yellow bullet—in which could be seen dark iron bones—into one of the two inner breech sections. With a hiss this section slid down into place in the vacuum breech. The hum dropped to a low note. Simultaneously the second inner breech section clonked across, and another projectile was fed into that too. The hum rose as the first section retracted, dropped again as the next fed in. So it continued for the first five shots—the motion similar to that of a simple pump. Then, after these second-stage test shots, the firing accelerated until the hum never rose again; the breech sections were in constant motion with projectiles being fired once every second.
Harald summoned up an exterior view of the fleet, but there was very little to see as the projectiles departed at near relativistic speeds other than the occasional spurt of a drive flame to keep the hilldiggers in position. The time until the projectiles reached their targets was one hour, but within only a few minutes Director Gneiss and the rest of the Oversight Committee would know Combine was being fired upon. Harald now keyed into feeds from Fleet stations all around Sudoria and flicked through multiple views, observing landing craft in the process of evacuation, as ordered previously. Accounting for the transmission delay, those craft should already be on their way down to the planet's surface. Quite probably the personnel aboard would be arrested once the wardens managed to reach them, but that was a problem to be resolved later. Those personnel would be safer in custody on the surface, for most certainly, knowing it was under attack, Combine would react fast to remove Fleet eyes from orbit. He waited, constantly checking the time display.
