‘Too bad we can’t get it supersonic,’ Paula said, ‘but the fans don’t have that much thrust.’
Ry was accessing a nose camera, watching the sea twelve kilometres below. Right at the centre of the image was the Sziu. A small grey shape, starting to expand.
‘Don’t forget the power cells,’ Valeri said.
‘The safety limiters are already off line,’ Paula replied. ‘The smartnet will short them out at impact.’
Five kilometres altitude and the dive speed was exhilarating. Ry knew he was smiling.
Two kilometres, and individual features were becoming apparent on the Sziu’s deck. Machinery. Crates. Human-Fallers. Beast-Fallers. Paula switched the fans back on, shoving the drone down faster.
Ry changed to the images coming from the ge-eagles. Orientation flicked to horizontal, showing the Sziu silhouetted against the horizon, grey smoke from its twin stacks gushing up into the clear azure sky. The drone came plunging down silently, almost too fast to follow. It struck in the middle of the ship. Two explosions, overlapping – the first a tangle of smoke and flame surging up, the second a sphere of bright light ripping outwards. Debris hurtled into the air, chunks trailing filthy vapour contrails.
‘Damn!’ Paula exclaimed. ‘Missed.’
‘Missed?’ Florian cried out. ‘What do you mean? That was a perfect hit.’
‘I was aiming for the mid-hold. If it had hit there, chances were good that it would have punched through the bottom of the hull and sunk them. Instead it struck the back of the superstructure. The hull is intact. That was always the risk using a drone like this. And now they’re alert.’
The ge-eagles showed Ry flames and black smoke churning out of the wrecked superstructure. He groaned; the Sziu was still moving. ‘You slowed it down,’ he said, but even he thought that sounded meagre.
‘That’s what we wanted,’ Kysandra said. ‘The Marines stand a chance now.’
Three minutes after the drone strike, Ry counted five of the huge animal-Fallers standing on deck, carrying their pump-action bazookas, looking vigilantly up into the sky. Eight of the blue-skinned human giant Fallers were with them, also keeping watch on the empty sky above. Half a dozen ordinary human-Fallers fought the superstructure fire.
Ry watched the displays, checking speed and distance for the Sziu and the Pericato. ‘The Marines will be in range in nine minutes,’ he said breathlessly. He’d watched the Marines prepare the Aseri missiles. Two trailers were lashed to the deck, supporting large metal tubes. Marines in parkas had unwound thick electric cables from each trailer, laying them across the deck to a small canvas shelter at the front of the superstructure, where the launch control consoles had been set up. Then hydraulics had elevated both tubes to vertical. They were ready to fire. All they needed now was to get in range.
‘Uh oh,’ Florian murmured.
‘What?’
‘Seibears,’ Florian said. ‘Dozens of them.’
Ry checked the feed Florian was using. He was right. Three kilometres ahead of the Pericato, a pack of forty seibears were spread out over a patch of water a kilometre wide. More were swimming out towards them.
‘I know that’s not good,’ Paula said cautiously, ‘but I don’t see what they can do to stop the Pericato.’
‘Board it?’ Kysandra suggested.
‘Unlikely at that speed; they’d get swatted aside.’
‘Are they carrying weapons?’
‘Good question.’
Paula guided a ge-eagle down towards the mass of seibears.
‘Nothing,’ she said as the ge-eagle scanned the huge amphibious creatures. ‘But they’re there for a purpose. I don’t like it.’
‘Maybe we should warn Major Danny?’ Ry said. ‘That’s a lot of Fallers to deal with.’
‘Anala isn’t due overhead for another forty minutes,’ Florian said.
‘We can use the drone and ge-eagles to relay a radio signal directly. Danny will probably listen to us.’
‘We’re missing something, I’m sure,’ Paula said. ‘But Florian is right: we have to warn the Marines.’
Ry listened to Kysandra contact Major Danny, warning him of the potential danger lurking ahead. But the Marine major was proving recalcitrant. Talking directly to the Warrior Angel – trusting her – was clearly difficult for him. He didn’t want to change course to take them round the seibear pack, claiming that would allow the Sziu to reach the shore before the missiles were in range.
As Kysandra tried to keep her exasperation in check, Ry ordered one of the ge-eagles to fly over the Sziu’s projected landing point. ‘Crud!’
‘What’s wrong?’ Paula asked.
‘Look at where they’re going to come ashore.’
The ge-eagle was showing a mass of seibears waiting patiently on the ice above the sea. More were lumbering towards them from the east and the west.
‘How many?’ Paula asked in a subdued voice.
‘Must be over a hundred,’ Ry said. ‘And they’re still coming.’ As the ge-eagle swooped along the coastline, he saw another two of the great grey-white shapes surge up out of the water onto a broad chunk of floating ice.
‘The Fallers must have taken over Lukarticar some time ago,’ Paula said.
‘They’re going to come here, aren’t they?’ Ry said, hoping there wasn’t too much anxiety in his voice. His whole life had been spent on the front line combating the Faller menace, but an army of Faller-seibears charging the Viscount . . .
‘They are a good choice to carry the atomic bombs,’ Paula said. ‘Their size will give them considerable endurance, and they’re quite fast.’
‘The Sziu might not make it ashore,’ Paula said. ‘What’s Danny doing?’
‘Being cautious,’ Kysandra admitted.
Ry immediately switched links to the three ge-eagles flying watch around the Pericato. There was considerable activity on deck. Marines were appearing with Gatling guns that they were mounting on tripods.
‘Nice,’ Florian said. ‘They’ll be able to take out the seibears in the water, so whatever the Fallers were planning isn’t going to work.’
‘Let’s just see how this plays out,’ Paula said. ‘Demitri, how’s the wormhole generator coming?’
Ry looked down the length of HGT54b to where the ANAdroids were clustered round one of the generators. Almost all of the casing had been removed, exposing the tightly packed internal systems. He was used to the infernal complexity of a Liberty module, but this was an order of magnitude above. Instruments that were little more than hairs were worming out of the ANAdroids’ modules, infiltrating every fissure. Fergus and Valeri were perfectly still, absorbing the data being fed to them.
‘Fifteen per cent of the elements we’ve investigated so far are invalid,’ Demitri reported. ‘We’re going to have to disassemble and rebuild.’ He nodded at Marek, who was carefully removing the casing from a second wormhole generator. ‘Fortunately, we have a lot of spare parts.’
‘How long?’ Paula asked.
‘A day, possibly. Hopefully no more.’
‘But . . . the Sziu,’ Florian stammered.
‘The Pericato is almost in range,’ Kysandra said. ‘They’ll be able to launch in another five minutes.’
Ry reviewed the latest speed and distance figures the ge-eagle data was producing. She was right. The Pericato would be in range of the Sziu while the ship was still over a kilometre from the shore.
‘They don’t have to score a direct hit, surely,’ Ry said, almost in prayer. ‘It’s an atom bomb, for Giu’s sake. They just have to detonate close.’ The Sziu still had smoke wheezing out of the superstructure and its speed had decreased further. It was having to alter course constantly now it was so close to the coast to avoid the ice floes bobbing idly in the sea.
‘Anything within a kilometre should do,’ Paula said. ‘Major Danny knows that.’
Ry switched back to the ge-eagles over the Pericato. The ship was closing fast on the seibear pack. One of the Gatling
guns opened up, stitching a small line of white bullet plumes through the undulating sea close to the lead seibear.
‘What was that?’ Paula demanded.
Ry couldn’t answer; he was watching the entire pack dive cleanly below the surface en masse. Within seconds, none of them were visible, plunging deeper and deeper into the icy water. ‘Where are they going?’ he murmured uneasily.
‘The ge-eagles picked up a signal in our link band,’ Paula said. ‘It came from the seibears. Have they acquired Advancer macrocellular clusters?’
‘Roxwolf said breeder Fallers could pass any victim’s traits on,’ Florian said in dismay. ‘As long as they’d eggsumed an Eliter, they’d have the pattern of the clusters.’
The remaining drone reported a radio signal broadcasting from the Pericato. ‘Where did they go?’ Major Danny asked. ‘We lost sight of them.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Kysandra replied. ‘They just dived deep.’
‘What’s down there?’ Danny asked. ‘Should we change course?’
Ry watched Kysandra and Paula exchange a glance. Paula gave a minute shake of her head.
‘No,’ Kysandra said. ‘It is imperative you stop the Sziu.’
‘Understood.’
‘Can the seibears get through a metal hull?’ Florian said.
‘Cold makes the hull a lot more brittle than usual,’ Paula said. ‘But even so—’
They all saw it at once. The Pericato juddered. And as soon as it settled, it began to curve round.
‘We’re hit,’ Danny’s voice shouted in near-panic. ‘Something under us. The rudder’s gone!’
The ship continued to turn.
‘Did it breach the hull?’ Kysandra asked.
‘No. We’ve lost steering. And— Oh Giu!’ The ship lurched again.
A ge-eagle swooped low and Ry spread every sensor readout across his exovision. Something was moving under the Pericato. Large dark shadows flitted about, clumped together tightly, and there was a weird grey-blue stain spreading out from the stern.
‘They’re under you,’ Kysandra said. ‘Danny, they’re under the ship!’
‘That’s Faller blood in the water,’ Paula said.
‘We’re losing speed,’ Danny said. ‘Something’s striking the propellers. Our engine is struggling. The gears are overloading.’
‘Kamikaze,’ Paula hissed.
‘What?’ Ry asked.
‘They’re suiciding. The Faller-seibears are deliberately swimming into the propellers. It’ll kill them, but it’s wrecking the engines. Danny, you have to stop. They can only ruin your engines if the propellers are turning.’
Even as she said it, Ry saw the Marines were firing their Gatling guns into the water all around, hitting nothing.
‘Stop firing,’ Kysandra ordered. ‘You’re wasting your ammunition.’
‘If you have any grenades, drop them into the water at the stern of the ship,’ Paula told him. ‘They’ll act like mini depth charges.’
‘Like what?’ Danny asked.
‘Just do it!’
‘How far away are they?’ Florian asked nervously.
‘Eighteen kilometres,’ Ry told him. ‘The Sziu is three kilometres from shore.’
‘Danny, launch a missile,’ Kysandra said. ‘You’re not going to get closer. This is your best chance. The blast should be enough.’
‘. . . distance . . . take me . . . launch codes . . .’ Danny’s voice was interspersed with the sound of the Gatling guns.
‘Save your ammunition!’ Kysandra implored.
‘Oh crud,’ Ry groaned. A seibear had risen up out of the water at the stern of the Pericato. It gripped a metal rail running down the hull and held itself in place. Another jumped on its back and in a moment was standing on its shoulders. Then the third came up, using the first two like a ladder, allowing it to move with incredible speed for something so bulky.
Marines swung their Gatling guns round and opened fire, the heavy-calibre rounds ripping the beast apart as it shoved its way on board. But another followed it. And two more emerged from the water under the port prow, forming another ladder.
The Gatlings fired again and again.
‘Danny, fire the missiles,’ Kysandra yelled. ‘Fire them!’
Even though it had slowed considerably, the Sziu was pulling away. It was less than two kilometres from the shore. Pericato was eighteen kilometres behind and dead in the water.
‘. . . what I can . . . Arm them now . . . defend my command . . .’ Danny said.
Ry saw a Marine race down the steps at the side of the superstructure. It could have been Danny; he wasn’t sure. More seibears were coming up over the gunwales. The Gatling guns were firing constantly and the deck was slick with blue blood and gobbets of Faller flesh. He watched the desperate human figure duck a seibear as it was torn apart by bullets, then slip on the gore just as he reached the flimsy canvas shelter.
One of the Gatling guns fell silent. Two injured seibears had reached it at the same time. The Marines operating it were ripped apart in seconds, their broken bodies flung at their terrified Comrades.
A second Gatling gun ran out of ammunition, its barrel spinning wildly as a seibear sped towards it. Marines tried to stop it with carbines. Ry grimaced, and hurriedly switched to another sensor feed. A grenade went off on the starboard side, slaughtering humans and Faller-seibears alike.
The Marines on the prow made a strategic withdrawal into the base of the superstructure and five Faller-seibears hurried after them, tearing the metal hatch from its mountings. But they were too big to fit through. A fusillade of gunfire slammed out of the companionway inside, and the one reaching in to claw whatever fragile flesh it could find staggered backwards, sticky turquoise blood streaming down its fur.
Two seibears arrived at the canvas shelter. It was pulled apart and flung over the gunwale. Danny and a missile technician were exposed, crouched over one of the launch consoles. Ry witnessed Danny’s fist slamming down on a big red button an instant before a seibear claw sliced through his throat. An arterial fountain of scarlet blood shot into the air for several seconds.
One of the Aseri missiles fired. Thick yellow smoke illuminated by an incandescent flame plume streaked out across the centre of the Pericato, obscuring the massacre.
The Aseri flashed upwards out of the bedlam, a dark-grey tube with a spiked nose cone. It scored a dense stream of glowing smoke through the clear polar air behind it, racing faster and faster. The noxious exhaust began to billow wide in its wake.
At two kilometres altitude, the solid fuel was exhausted. The missile was travelling at supersonic speed. It split in half, the forward section carrying on in a neat parabola, guided by slender fins around its base. Behind it, the spent engine casing tumbled wildly end over end, beginning the long fall back to the water.
Ry’s u-shadow immediately acquired the feed from the geeagles above the Sziu. The ship was less than two kilometres from shore now, and making reasonable speed as it trailed wisps of smoke from the bottom of the superstructure. Seibears began launching themselves from the ice floes, sliding gracefully through the sea towards it. Several of them had established links to Fallers on the Sziu.
‘Thirty seconds,’ Paula said.
The Aseri warhead was travelling too fast for the ge-eagles to obtain a decent visual lock, but their other, more sophisticated, senses tracked it hurtling down out of the sky. It struck the sea three kilometres aft of the Sziu, and detonated.
Every link from the ge-eagles at the coast and around the Pericato dropped out simultaneously. The drone switched to links from the ge-eagles further inland.
An awed Ry watched the mushroom cloud rise – a dome of vapour as bright as any sun. Around it, the sea dipped for a moment before rushing back in, collapsing the crater. A column of dazzling white vapour surged up, then the blast’s wavefront streaked out horizontally, shredding the choppy surface into a foamy miasma. Ry held his breath as it struck the Sziu. The ship rocked about violently. Fa
llers and equipment were torn off the deck. Paint was already smouldering across the hull, bubbling and crisping to black. The bodies flung into the air ignited, burning to charcoal in less than a second before disintegrating. Then he could see no more as the vast storm of superheated steam roaring out from the explosion crashed across the abused ship and carried on towards the shore. Seibears on the ice floes were hurling themselves into the water.
‘Will that protect them?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Paula replied. ‘Look.’
The boiling surface of the steam whirlwind was distorting, bulging up in a giant ripple, as if some leviathan from the deeps was rushing out from the detonation point.
‘What is that?’ Florian murmured in awed alarm.
‘Tsunami.’
*
They sent five of the surviving ge-eagles back towards the Sziu. The semiorganic birds took twenty minutes to fly through the hurricane-force winds howling out from the epicentre of the detonation. The whole area was still shrouded in hot churning cloud bands, though the core was starting to clear. Sensors probed through the thinning vapour. The fringes of the clouds were cooling rapidly now as the wind abated, turning to rain which had chilled to sleet by the time it reached the snowfield.
Along with dozens of ice floes, the Sziu had been driven onto the rocky shore. It lay there on its side across the shelf of a black pebble beach, its hull broken open from the impact. Waves lapped through the twisted fissures, flooding the engine room. Faller bodies were strewn across the deck, blackened lumps of meat slicked by the new drizzle of sleet. There was nothing left alive on the ship.
The ge-eagles dropped closer to the ground, scanning the weirdly disfigured snowscape. The radiation flash had evaporated and melted the surface layer of snow, swiftly followed by the fiery blast wave that had flattened any loosely piled slope or tough serac, slamming shut the jagged crevices. For a brief minute the surface had been awash with bubbling water, runnels carving a multitude of new channels. Then the deep polar temperature began to reassert itself, sucking away the temporary heat. The water refroze, producing a vast expanse of glazed ice-flats that stretched from the shoreline over two kilometres inland. There were strange lumps cloaked in grainy ice scattered across it at random – dead Faller-seibears, their fur singed and burnt away, ribbons of congealed blue blood spreading out from the corpses as if they’d sent out roots.
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