Information Cloud: Science fiction and fantasy series (Tales of Cinnamon City Book 1)

by Peter James West

  Riser tried to relax, ignoring the acid taste in his mouth. He was aware of fighting taking place in dozens of places all across the compound even though the details of those fights were little more than a blur. To look more closely at any single location, he just directed his thoughts towards it and it sprang into sharp focus.

  The kind of mental gymnastics he was performing was meant to be learnt over many months of specialised training but Riser didn't have the luxury of time. His need was pressing. He had to do the best that he could in the here and now. With some effort, he cleared the fog of sensations from his mind, and gathered the scattered remnants of his thoughts into one place. Before long his attention settled on one net-feed droid in particular. He couldn't say what exactly had caused him to choose this location, rather than any other, except perhaps that it was quieter than many of the others. The peacefulness of the room was in sharp contrast to the blood and destruction everywhere else in Havers Compound.

  Two men stood in the sparse, clean room, working on a device on a makeshift bench. Moving the net-feed droid closer, Riser could see that the device was about a metre long and quite bulky. He wondered what it could be. The men hadn't noticed the droid watching them yet. They were focussed on their task, nodding from time to time as they used hand-held tools to work on the device between them. The smaller of the two technicians adjusted his spectacles, rubbing a bony hand through his thinning grey hair. His hands moved in a constant stream of gestures as though he was explaining something to his younger colleague.

  Riser increased the sensitivity of the droid's audio receiver but he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. It sounded as though they might be arguing about something. The technician with spectacles started waving his finger and shouting. The younger technician shook his head, shaking his mop of thick brown hair. He was about to shout back, when he suddenly turned and looked straight at the net-feed droid as it hovered at the back of the room. His eyes went wide and he reached out, slapping his colleague's arm to get his attention.

  The two of them stared straight at the droid with the eyebrows climbing ever further up their foreheads. Belatedly, they placed themselves in front of the device, shielding it from Riser's view. When they called out in alarm, the words they used were strangely alien to Riser. He couldn't make them out at all, even with the filtering and translation software that the Sphynx-II controller rack had triggered on his behalf.

  The sound of pounding footsteps approached from somewhere outside the room. The droid's rear visual log recorder picked up two Kamari soldiers running down the corridor with their impact pistols already in their hands. On seeing the net-feed droid, they both opened fire at once. A jolt ran through Riser's mind as the droid exploded. His body shook uncontrollably, and his lips pulled back from his teeth like a frightened horse. Panic ripped through his mind, burning into his nerves, blinding him to everything around him. He cried out in agony. He was dead! No! He couldn't be. How could he observe his own demise? He had to keep telling himself it was just a fucking news droid until the panic receded.

  The sensations running through his body were not his own but they had felt so real. Even now, shards of pain ran up and down the length of his spine. The droids didn't feel pain. They only transmitted raw data that the Sphynx-II controller rack translated into whatever form it believed to be most appropriate for its human operator. The raw data from a fireball was not the sort of sensations that Riser needed ravaging his exhausted mind. He knew that the controller rack had dampened down the experience, but it hadn't done nearly enough for his liking.

  The software was designed to translate raw data into more natural feelings and sensations that a human operator would be able to assimilate into their own mind. That was its strength and also its weakness. The experience of the exploding droid had been too real. Riser clung to his chair and coughed to clear his burning lungs. His head pounded with the beginnings of a new migraine. He scrunched up his face and rubbed at his tightly closed eyes, struggling to calm himself.

  With a great effort, he forced his mind to focus on the swarm of net-feed droids as a whole, pushing the pain to the back of his mind. It took him a little while, but he managed to focus at last. He was learning fast. The pain would just accelerate his learning. Others would have given up by now, but not Riser Trent. He would learn. He would improve. He would make the Information Cloud a natural extension of himself.

  Riser focussed on the centre of his mind, pushing away all unwanted memories. He had to work out where the technicians might have been within Havers Compound. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't thought to check the droid's physical location before it had been destroyed. Whatever the technicians were working on, it had to be something important. They clearly didn't want others to know about it. Riser knew from experience that where there were secrets, there were those who would pay for those secrets. He might even be able to use this to his own advantage. He just had to find out what device they were hiding from him and where the technicians had taken it.

  Slow Paralysis

  Two Bull Rangers stood motionless in a rubble-strewn conference room. A third stood in the corridor, looking in. Half a dozen maintenance workers stood huddled in the corner, trying their best to fade into the peeling paintwork. The new arrival noticed the men and powered up its legs, getting ready to charge. Its metal claws smashed the concrete as it sprinted towards them.

  Halfway across the room it noticed a small movement from one of the two defunct Rangers. As it passed between them, the nearest Ranger thrust out one of its thick arms, striking a precision blow to the side of the charging Ranger's head. Its forward motion continued, but something was suddenly wrong.

  The side of a Bull Ranger's head was a weakness in its design - perhaps the only weakness. But to exploit it, an enemy would require very specific details from schematics that were classified. The stationary Bull Ranger in the centre of the room had security access to all of those schematics. Its newly installed firmware showed it exactly when and where to strike.

  The sudden blow to the charging Bull Ranger's head had already started the process of 'slow paralysis'. The systems used to control movement had received only minor damage. That in itself would not stop the Ranger. The problems would arise from the Bull Ranger's continuing attempts at self-diagnosis and repair. The neural maintenance algorithms were designed to find inconsistency, and to 'rationalise' damaged systems within itself. Ordinarily this process was successful at targeting hostile viruses and other nano-grade weapons, but if the damage was caused in just the right way, in just the right place, the system could be turned against itself.

  The Bull Ranger's systems tried to compensate for the minor lack of control in its charging legs. Fail-safe systems reduced its speed as it slammed into the huddled crowd of maintenance workers, slapping their bodies into the wall, and bursting their organs, leaving bones jutting out from unnaturally bent limbs. The men cried out, falling to the floor in a heap of bloody, tangled limbs. One of them tried to call for help but blood frothed from his mouth in a fine spray, and a few seconds later, he was dead. The others lay motionless around him as silence filled the room once more.

  The Ranger paused, leaning against the wall while it tried to diagnose its own condition. The blow to the side of its head had resulted in a full self-diagnostic system test. Triggering the algorithm was the true aim of the attack, rather than the minor damage of the blow itself. Now that the T7 diagnostic systems had been activated, it was only a matter of time before the Bull Ranger would cripple itself. The diagnostic algorithms would search through all the Ranger's systems, seeking viruses or nano-grade weapons. Any variation would be identified, isolated and shut down. When the diagnostic systems located the movement control network, they would see that it was damaged, and due to bugs in the analysis software, they would mistakenly conclude that it was being attacked by a virus. The algorithms would do what no weapon could ever do - destroy the Ranger's movement control systems piece by piec
e from the inside. Slow paralysis ensued.

  Within seconds, the Ranger stood motionless, neural systems raging against its own broken body. Algorithms fought algorithms. Systems were shut down or forcibly destroyed. The once formidable Bull Ranger stood forever motionless, a useless casualty of war. It would not move again.

  + + +

  The Ranger that had struck the deciding blow, straightened itself and strode out of the conference hall in search of more Rangers to cripple. As it left the room, it transmitted an encrypted status update to Isor.

  RANGER DOWN.

  Prepare the Roaches

  The readouts on Rachel's console showed her that extensive fighting had broken out inside Havers Compound. Even without the console, she could see the devastation beyond the top of the steaming riverbank through the Perspex dome of her Croc's cockpit. She had run out of patience long ago. Sitting tight was not something she had ever been good at - not when the charred bodies of her crew lay dead only a few metres away.

  Unstrapping herself from her bucket chair, she stepped over to the steep ladder by her feet and climbed down the narrow vertical shaft that led down into the control room below. Mathews and Royce looked surprised to see her. Their heads were held close in discussion.

  'Prepare the roaches,' Rachel said. 'We're moving in.'

  She paused just long enough to see the lack of comprehension on their faces, and then strode through to the weapons bay, strapping on an impact pistol, and glancing through the blackened door that led to the smouldering rear pods. The lingering stench of burnt flesh was all that she needed to harden her resolve.

  'We can't go into the compound yet,' Royce said, 'the Bull Rangers are still active.' He was standing in the doorway, a thin film of sweat making his ghostly white face glisten in the dim overhead lights. His dark rimmed eyes made him look like a man who was already dead.

  'We will be... careful,' Rachel managed.

  'A Bull Rangers' targeting system is... loose,' Mathews said. His thick blonde hair made his head look more like a helmet as he stared over Royce's shoulder, but he made no attempt to push forward into the small enclosure.

  'I'm aware of that,' Rachel said. 'We'll track the Rangers on our consoles and stay clear of the areas they're working in. That's all we need to do. Havers Compound is a big place, Lieutenant.'

  A small chime stole Mathews' attention. Ducking back into the control room, he tapped half a dozen keys on his console before calling out the news. 'We have company.'

  Rachel and Royce herded through the doorway to see what he was talking about.

  'It looks like Central Command don't want to wait either, Major. They're launching another ground assault.'

  His console switched to a view from a visual log recorder mounted on top of the Croc. Its cracked lens showed banks of spotlights approaching from the woods behind them. Dozens of small craft poured out across the ploughed fields, adding their own guns to the cacophony of battle in the smoking buildings beyond.

  'Let's move,' Rachel said, 'there's no reason to wait any longer.'

  Moving in

  Backup had finally arrived, even though nobody had notified Nick that it was coming. It was yet another way that Thompson had undermined his authority at every step. Dozens of small combat vehicles had already raced passed his position, heading for Havers Compound. Proton cannons blazed towards them, and they returned fire with missiles and energy weapons of their own. The sky was awash with red tracer lines, criss-crossing in every direction. Nick rubbed the fresh stubble on his chin as he tried to take in the scenes of madness around him. He used his console to watch huge RS12 personnel carriers lumbering out of the forest behind him. They made their way across the open fields, rumbling over the tracks left by hundreds of smaller vehicles.

  The RS12s were like a hotels on wheels compared to the nimble Crocs. They always arrived late to a party. They were heavily armoured, capable of carrying five hundred members of the Security Forces wearing full combat armour. Their rear sections were heavily loaded with weapons and munitions as well as the standard communications and medical equipment. Their main problem was that they were damned slow. They had to rely heavily on their armour because they had no way of taking any kind of evasive action.

  Nick shook his head, finding it hard to believe what he was seeing. RS12s had a reputation for getting stuck on uneven terrain but the eight personnel carriers he could seen were doing just fine. They left long trails of flattened mud as they dragged themselves across the battlefield on dozens of wide bubble wheels.

  It was difficult watching such large vehicles cross the river. Nick couldn't escape the feeling of impending disaster. The RS12s were such clumsy combat vehicles. Anything requiring finesse made them look exposed and vulnerable. They extended long reinforced panels from beneath their wide chassis, forming rudimentary bridges that spanned the river's flowing water. The panels sank deep into the riverbanks on both sides, bowing as the immense weight of the RS12s trundled over them. Normally they would retrieve the panels to use again, but they were stuck so deep into the mud that they just left them there and continued on their journey.

  The first RS12 had already parked itself close to the compound wall, laying down suppressing fire towards the last of the compound's external defences. Security Forces swarmed down a dozen ramps, running towards the nearest breached wall to fight their way inside the compound.

  The fields were now swamped with military hardware in various shapes and sizes. The area in front of the compound was starting to look like a huge arms exhibition. Nick's console was going into overdrive. Transmissions from the various armed units scrolled across his display in a continuous rolling mass of confusion. He had no way to read it all, even if he had wanted to.

  He could feel his temper rising as he sat in the confines of his damaged Croc, staring out through the semi-opaque Perspex dome that surrounded him. The air conditioning was broken, and the various malodours of the Croc were combining into a potent cocktail that he really didn't care for.

  When he noticed that Rachel's squad had joined the wave of Security Forces who were heading for the compound, he almost swallowed his own tongue. Attempts to contact her were unfruitful. Her comms pack was switched off. There was no way that he was going to be the only person who sat useless in the middle of the battlefield. He abandoned all hope of understanding his consoles, and opened a broadcast comms channel to all sections of the Croc.

  'There's some crazy shit going on out there,' he said. 'I, for one, intend to be part of it. Those who are injured, make your way towards the woods and find the medical units that are coming in behind us. The rest of you buckle up and join me. It's time we saw what Havers Compound looks like from the inside.'

  A fit of coughing from engineering was his only response.

  The Assault

  The roach sped towards Havers Compound, bouncing across the rough ploughed field. Rachel clung to the front rail, leaving the flatbed droid to steer itself as it ran on six scrambling legs that stumbled and skidded with every second step. The other crew shadowed her on their own roaches, looking as though they might fall off at any moment.

  Central Command's belated reinforcements merged in amongst them, pouring forth like a plague of angry beetles. They brought light armoured vehicles, and roaches of various shapes and sizes. Rachel was excited at the thought of attacking the Kamari, rather than sitting helpless in her damaged personnel carrier. She wanted to find out what was happening inside. Havers Compound still sputtered with occasional proton cannon fire, but it was clear that most of the fighting had turned inwards, no doubt due to the chaos unleashed by the rampaging Bull Rangers. Smoke billowed out from the many fractures in the compound wall.

  Rachel hoped there wouldn't be any Bull Rangers nearby. They hadn't shown up on her scans, but they were so fast that it was difficult to keep track of them. She hadn't mentioned this fact to Royce. It would only make him even more troubled than he already was.

  Nudging her roach in t
he general direction of the nearest breach in the compound wall, she hung on tight as its six short legs ran, stumbled, corrected themselves and then surged forwards. She had to veer to one side to make way for Mathews' roach as it raced in beside her. They were all heading for the same opening, and a continuous stream of vehicles poured in behind them.

  Rachel sped through a wide opening in the compound wall, ignoring the bodies that lay scattered about the floor. She leant to her right, forcing her roach to turn with her, and then jumped off into an adjoining corridor. Dozens of black marks stained the white walls around her, and bloody footprints covered the stone floor.

  The roach slowed to a halt without her and waited patiently where she had left it. Mathews appeared shortly afterwards, his thick hair looking like it had been dragged through a bush in the wind.

  'You okay?' Rachel said.

  Mathews nodded with a grin.

  'Where's Royce?'

  'I don't know. He was right behind me until a minute ago. Maybe he's still pushing his way through. That was quite a crowd out there.'

  Rachel pulled her impact pistol from its holster, checking the ammunition. The clip was full. 'We need to be careful,' she said. 'The Kamari could be anywhere.'

  The corridor was empty ahead apart from a couple of dead soldiers lying on the ground some distance away. She turned when she heard footsteps, and saw Royce running along the corridor behind her.

  'Sorry,' Royce said, trying to catch his breath. 'There was a commander back there. He wanted to know where I was going.'

  'You mean Nick?'

  'No, it was Commander Rodnig. He's just arrived. He brought quite a crowd with him. He said four RS12s are on their way too.'

  Rachel nodded, 'What did you tell him?'