by Neal Asher
— Uskaron
Harald
Weapons fire rumbled through Ironfist and, on the selected screens before him, the view of Sudoria kept blanking out as ship's defences intercepted some intervening missile or mine, filling surrounding space with blinding EM radiation. He sat with his hands resting on the arms of his chair, enthroned at the centre of a growing storm, and in a small part of his mind wondered if he should really be enjoying this so much. But he dismissed that thought and focused on Platform Two, as a fusillade of coil-gun missiles began to arrive there.
Multiple explosions filled space over to one side as the first projectiles slammed into some buoys, the debris from those impacts knifing towards the platform. Then finally some intact projectiles got through to detonate against the shields, momentarily throwing the curving menisci into view. Harald observed a couple of explosions aboard the platform, doubtless shield generators overloading, but the remaining shields held and not one projectile succeeded in reaching the platform itself. He had not expected otherwise, and once the fusillade ceased he observed a cruiser coming out of cover to launch another cloud of buoys, whilst under the entire defence umbrella other ships began moving in to resupply the defence platform. The fleet would have to move in closer now, so the hilldiggers could effectively employ energy weapons and atomics. When that time arrived, in about another three hours, it was going to get vicious.
"Captain Ashanti, begin your run on Corisanthe III. I am hoping it won't be necessary for you to destroy the station, just keep it nailed down." On his eye-screen Harald watched Wildfire and Resilience begin their departure from the main body of the fleet. "All other Captains, on my lead we concentrate our attack on Platform Two. Harvester, Stormfollower and Musket will strafe from close orbit, until I give the order for them to make their run on Corisanthe II. When ready, myself and Franorl will begin our atmosphere-level attack."
Another channel blinked for his attention, and he opened it to see a small fleet of Combine cruisers moving out to flank the hilldiggers. This struck him as a brave but rather pathetic response.
"Franorl, deal with that, would you."
Desert Wind began to turn. There was no visible sign of the ship using its coil-guns but Harald knew, from tacom channels, that Franorl had already opened fire. One of the five cruisers flew apart, strangely without producing even a hint of flame, another tilted and began to drift away. Two of them turned and began heading back for cover while the last one closed in on its drifting fellow cruiser. Harald watched them intermittently over the next half an hour, also switching occasionally to views of other Combine activity, and to monitor Wildfire's run. As the rescuing cruiser docked with the crippled one, both cruisers abruptly disappeared in a massive explosion. Harald just sat there, mystified, until he started checking recorded telemetry. Evidently Franorl had launched a slower-moving nuclear missile which had just arrived. Comparing the timings, Harald realised Franorl must have fired the missile during the rescue attempt, and not in the initial fusillade. He suddenly did not know how to react to this, since he found he did not consider such an action…quite honourable. Next he felt a sudden contempt for himself. How could he quibble about matters of honour considering what he himself was doing? He abruptly stood up, checked timings and realised that, unless Orbital Combine came up with something unexpected, he had a few hours yet now to spare. Everything else could be handled by the ship's automatic weapons and by its highly trained crews.
What am I doing?
This question only recurred to him at moments like this, when he was tired and when action of one kind or another ceased for a small while, and as always his reply to it was that he was fighting for the survival of Fleet. Though an inadequate answer on an intellectual level, he felt its truth in his gut and that was enough. Surely he should get some sleep now, but the need for it had left him directly after he killed Carnasus. Perhaps he should do his rounds of the ship, make himself visible, inspire confidence…Almost without thinking about it, he called up internal views of Ironfist and began checking operations. When he realised what he was doing, he deliberately shut down his tacom helmet and control glove, removed them and dropped them into his chair.
The Bridge was all activity as he stepped down into it. Many of the crew shot glances at him, then returned their attention instantly to their consoles. Though the ship's defensive armament was firing automatically, there was plenty to occupy everyone, particularly damage control since, though nothing major had got through, Ironfist was perpetually sustaining damage from debris.
His two guards falling in behind him, he approached the crewman monitoring the ship's manifest. "Status?"
The man shot out of his chair, not having seen the new Admiral approaching. He was young, probably still a teenager, and stood there with his mouth open, the look on his face of one who expected to be berated.
"What is our present internal supply status?" Harald asked.
The youth took a deep breath. "We have used only four warheads." He glanced at his screen. "Capacitance is at sixty per cent, and we can keep the reactors running at this rate for eight days…Admiral. Though we've been losing shield generators," he gained confidence, "we've more than enough at the present rate of breakdown. The greater problem is getting them installed quick enough. And we now have less than a quarter of our stock of coil-gun missiles remaining." He brightened. "But supply ships are already on their way from Carmel with new stock."
"Thank you," said Harald. "Return to your duties."
"I think we'll check the engine galleries now," he told his two escorts.
The lift section behind the Bridge, his means of getting to any of the four rail lines, was obviously very busy. By one of the lifts waited a damage-control crew with a lev-plate loaded with high-pressure sealant guns and a welder, stacked on top of sheets of hull metal, and out of another lift, just arrived, stepped a couple of officers and some crew, most of them immediately hurrying off in different directions. However, one of the officers stopped before Harald, then turned and fist-saluted over his side arm. Only the fist did not remain a fist as it opened, closed again and drew. Harald found himself looking into the barrel of a gun. With a vicious crack that barrel disappeared behind its own flame. Harald felt the bullet strike his temple, felt his own skull breaking open. The force of impact snapped his head aside and spun him round. Then he felt nothing.
McCrooger
The explosions we saw on the screen, around Sudoria and around the hilldiggers now approaching that world, seemed a distant thing that I could not help viewing with some detachment. What brought home the horrible reality was the occasional thwack, followed by flashing yellow lights denoting a hull breach, as some piece of debris travelling at thousands of miles per second slammed right through our ship. This being an organic vessel, the holes punched through its hull were closed up rapidly, but that did not dispel the vulnerability I felt. The ship might be able to heal itself easily, but if one of those pieces hit me…
"She is due to arrive shortly," said Rhodane, ducking into the quarters I shared with Slog and Flog, who as usual lately were off lurking around the spin-section hub where Tigger had subsumed our ship's AI. I swung my legs off the bed and stood up a little shakily. It had been another one of those horrible disturbed sleeps, and everything around me still looked slightly distorted. "How are you?" she added, studying me carefully.
I'd never spoken to Tigger about the distortion and the nightmares, because they seemed too personal, and having to admit that, as well as my body falling apart my mind was too, seemed just a bit too much to bear. But I chose to speak to Rhodane about it now because of some obscure desire to 'clear the decks' before our next 'action'. It is a good thing I did, because her reply was the key that started things sliding into place and interlocking in my mind.
"I'm not great," I replied. "I've been having some twisted nightmares ever since I arrived in this system, and some of them even while I'm awake."
She gazed at me for a long moment,
her expression giving away nothing, then said, "But you did not experience them on Brumal?"
I thought about it. A lot had happened to me on Brumal, but nothing like that. It struck me now that it had been my only normal time here in this system. "No, not on Brumal."
"I told you it was an oasis of sanity," she said. "That's where I finally found mine—and the change I've since undergone has helped me hold onto it," she frowned, "though sometimes my anger at Sudoria returns, and I wish I could raise the rest of the Brumallian ships to attack whatever will remain when Fleet and Combine have finished with each other." She paused speculatively. "I think the Consensus blocks the cause of those nightmares. Shared sanity?" She shrugged. "I don't know."
I absorbed that information then revealed, "Sometimes there's a dark figure. It tried to be my father, but that facade did not last. I feel it's trying to say something to me, but just doesn't know how."
"So the Shadowman is not the Sudorian conscience," she stated obscurely.
"That went right over my head, Rhodane."
The ship juddered violently. She tilted her head for a moment, then gestured towards the corridor beyond the door and led the way out.
"What would you say is the average incidence of mental illness among any normal human population?" she asked.
"Define 'normal human'."
She gave me an annoyed look. "On Sudoria, three out of four people end up having treatment for some kind of mental illness. Most Sudorians are meanwhile on some kind of drugs regimen to control one mental malady or another. There are more asylums on Sudoria now than there are schools."
This was complete news to me, yet something Geronamid and Tigger had to know about. So why hadn't I been told? Probably because by knowing I would not necessarily respond as Geronamid required me to.
Rhodane went on, "The Shadowman is a common hallucination of some of those conditions. Since Uskaron's book came along our rate of mental illness has been attributed to societal guilt, and the Shadowman is considered the manifestation of the Sudorian conscience. But quite evidently you're not guilty of involvement in a genocidal war, nor are you even Sudorian, so why then are you seeing him?"
We reached the ladder leading up out of the spin section, and Rhodane climbed it ahead of me. I felt a resurgence of nausea as soon as we reached the nil-gee part of the ship. As we propelled ourselves along one of the intestinal corridors corkscrewing into the bowels of the vessel, I asked her, "What was the explanation for the Shadowman, before Uskaron's book appeared?"
She glanced back at me. "There were so many of them. To some he was the manifestation of the War dead, to others he was some dark angel who had somehow brought about the War. The explanations given by the Churches varied from complete denial of his existence to the claim that he was evil incarnate and only when all Sudorians bow to their doctrine will he be driven away."
"Do you see the Shadowman, Rhodane?"
"Only in paintings."
"Do your three siblings see him?"
"No more than I do."
"Perhaps he is not required by you?" I suggested.
Her reply was a blank look, no more.
The corridor opened out into an oblate chamber in which the Combine shuttle rested like an ingot inside something's gut. The vessel's airlock was open and Yishna floated beside it gripping one rung of the steps curving round the shuttle's outer skin. She was clad in an insulated suit similar to Rhodane's, gloved and hooded but with no mask across her face. On seeing us, she pushed herself free, drifted over to the chamber wall, then propelled herself from there towards us. She was smiling at first, but the moment she caught hold of a nearby organic protuberance to halt herself, the smile faded and her eyes dulled as their nictitating membranes closed.
"Rhodane," she studied her sister, "like Harald you have mutilated yourself." Her face had suddenly turned ugly with anger.
"Perhaps I am merely expressing my inner self, Yishna."
"You make no sense," Yishna snapped. "Am I to believe the supposed reason for your presence here when you deliberately make no sense?"
Why was she so angry? She had already seen Rhodane on the display when we arranged for her to come here, and she had been smiling at us but a moment ago. Now she turned towards me.
"Consul Assessor," she said tightly, "you have been unwell?"
I could see the shape of things now, but there were still some details I needed to slot into place. I said to her, "The Shadowman doesn't need to reveal himself to you, Yishna."
With her gloved hands Yishna fumbled a control baton from her belt. The nictitating membranes had lifted from her eyes, and now they glistened with tears. My shoulder slammed into her chest, flinging those tears free to glitter alone. As we tumbled through the air I managed to wrest the baton away from her.
I think she let me take it.
Orduval
With a hand pressed against the comlink in his ear, Reyshank skidded the car to a halt, raising a cloud of dust. "Damn, madmen," he growled. Leaning over and searching through the pack at Trausheim's feet, he pulled out a coms helmet, stepped out of the car and walked a little distance away while fitting it on. Following the others from the car, Orduval gazed up and took a shaky breath of the cool night air.
Scarves of glowing gas spread across the firmament and bright explosions lit high up in orbit. Shooting stars cut across almost perpetually, and occasionally something would take longer to burn up in atmosphere as it descended, echoing distant sonic booms through the darkness and leaving a glowing trail. It was a stunning and awesome sight, but Orduval found difficulty connecting it with suffering and death, and he felt ashamed.
They were parked next to an abandoned desert farm, around which an underground network of water pipes supported a small oasis. Reyshank muttered and exclaimed in the background, while Trausheim and the two other wardens took their packs from the car and began delving after flasks of cold tea or bars of biltong and dried fruit. Finally the Chief removed the coms helmet and returned to them, looking pale and ill. He gazed around at his men, focused on Orduval for a moment, then addressed them all.
"We nearly lost the capital," he said. "In fact we have effectively lost the city centre and an entire outlying district."
"My apartment is in Gaskell Street," said one of the men, almost in a whisper. That street was somewhere in the mid-city, Orduval recollected, though he wasn't exactly sure where. "What happened?" the shocked man finished.
"They're not sure who did it yet," said Reyshank, "but someone tried to detonate a nuclear warhead from a wartime defensive missile. Luckily, being over twenty years old, it didn't go fissile, but the chemical explosive brought down the administration tower and has spread radioactives all across the city. The estimate is of a thousand dead, though we probably won't know the real cost for some time yet."
"What happened to Parliament?" asked Orduval.
Reyshank held up a hand to silence him, then continued to address the warden whose home was in the stricken capital. "You've a wife and children back there, haven't you?" The man nodded tightly. "Take the car," said Reyshank, "but stay out of the other cities. It's getting bad." The warden hesitated and seemed about to say something else, but Reyshank just gestured sharply towards the vehicle. After a moment the man nodded then hurried over and climbed in. When the car had disappeared in its own cloud of dust, Reyshank turned back to Orduval. "Fifteen parliamentary members were killed, the rest have been evacuated. Just as most of the population there who are still listening to instructions are being evacuated."
Orduval gazed after the departing car. Why had Reyshank let it go?
"Listening?" wondered Trausheim. "You said those who're listening are being evacuated."
"We've got martial law in place but it seems few people are taking heed of the wardens. We've had to pull out of twelve major cities because arms caches have been broken into and the only targets all the rival factions can agree on are the GDS wardens. Some idiots—we assume in the Orchid Party—ha
ve also decided that a good way of stirring things up further has been to open the asylums."
The remaining warden, whose name Orduval had yet to learn, gazed after the vehicle, now in the distance. "What are our chances of getting this back under control?"
"Not the greatest." Reyshank hauled his pack up off the ground and gestured to the abandoned farmhouse. "We'll wait in there."
Following them, Orduval wondered about the importance of his own concerns now. "Why did you let that car go?" he asked, gazing round at the desolation.
"Have patience," said Reyshank. "We're going to be picked up here."
Trausheim kicked in the door of the farmhouse, releasing a cloud of glimmer bugs and the overpowering smell of decay. They decided instead to wait under some nearby acacia trees, around a fire fuelled by the farmhouse door and some rotting furniture found inside the building. The rumbling from the sky continued, but seemed to descend to a background murmur as Orduval thoughtfully chewed on a piece of biltong. At one point they heard the sound of lunatic bellowing, but when Trausheim grabbed his weapon and stood up, Reyshank ordered him to sit down again. After they had eaten and drunk their fill they sat there in silence, then Reyshank suddenly got up and moved off through the trees towards the desert's edge. After a brief hesitation, Orduval followed him.
