Neal Asher - The Engineer Reconditioned

“Clarify.”

“The Cable Hogue arrived forty hours ahead of schedule and now stands within striking distance of the Separatist ship. It will not strike because the Separatist ship is carrying CTDs and is threatening to use them on the planet.”

“Sounds like a stand-off to me.”

“The Separatist in charge is General David Conard. His gunships are even now entering atmosphere. I project that he intends to destroy us and the Jain. If he does not succeed with the gunships he will use atomics. If he does not succeed with atomics he will use the CTDs. If the Cable Hogue intervenes he will use the CTDs anyway.”

“But that’s crazy!” said Abaron. “If they do that they won’t get away from here.”

“Who ever accused Separatists of sanity?” said Chapra, and turned to walk to the gunship. Jane went with Judd. Abaron followed Chapra. We humans should stick together, she thought, we get on so well. Kellor stared at the read-outs. Nothing.

“Any reply yet?” he asked communications officer Speck.

“Nothing for us, and I can’t pick up anything else through those scramble fields.”

“Any idea of what class we’re up against?”

“Not a clue. It could be a shuttle behind that chaff or an Alpha dreadnought. At least they’re holding off.”

“Yeah, but for how long?”

“They’ll hold off,” said Conard. “This is a classic terrorist hostage situation.” Yes , thought Kellor, and we all know the usual messy denouement of such situations: no win for anyone but the fanatics . And this situation was getting messier every moment. First the four soldiers taken out in the CTD blast just, as far as Kellor could see, because they were at the top of Conard’s shit list. Then the loss of contact with the shuttle planetside. Now this. It was time to resolve a thing or two. Before he could turn his attention to that Speck said, “Wait a minute. We’ve got a communication coming through.”

“Put it through on holo,” said Kellor, and turned his chair to a flickering cylinder appearing in the middle of the floor. In it resolved a woman’s face. Kellor thought the captain of the ECS ship very attractive, in an Amazonian way.

“Who am I speaking to?” she asked.

Kellor glanced at Conard. Conard nodded.

“Speck, let the General talk to her,” said Kellor.

Speck operated the controls to the ceiling holocamera. The woman’s image turned toward Conard. In the bridge of the ECS ship Conard would now be projected.

“Conard,” she said, and Kellor immediately noted a hardness to her face.

“Sergeant Windermere, you have risen through the ranks.”

“No doubt they still call you The General.”

“They do. What can I do for you, Windermere? You know the situation and you can do nothing. If you bring your ship any closer or intervene in any way, the three CTDs, which were stolen from the Droon complex on Titan, will be fired at this planet.”

“I had hoped to appeal to some source of common sense there. You realise, Conard, that you won’t get away from this one unless I allow you to go.”

“What do you mean by that curious statement?”

“I’ve been authorised to allow you to pull away and leave unmolested so long as you do it now. So long as you call back those gunships.”

“That would be so fine for you,” spat Conard. “Then ECS can just drift on in and pick up a science to subjugate us all.”

Ah , thought Kellor, now this conversation is getting interesting.

“What science? You destroyed the Jain and its machine when you destroyed the Schrödinger’s Box .”

“I cannot believe that your scientists learned nothing in that time.”

“They learned a great deal and it was instantly transmitted into the net. By now the things they learned are common knowledge to thousands of researchers.”

“I am supposed to believe that? ECS would not allow such technology into the public domain. No. I will make certain.”

Conard signalled for communications to be cut.

The cave was huge. The sea flowed into it and the roof was fifty metres above. Chapra followed the shuttle inside and before it was necessary for her to turn on the gunship’s lights, Judd put the shuttle down on a stony shore.

“I’m not sure I want to go out there,” said Chapra.

Abaron nodded in agreement. On the shore stood two lobster creatures, each about three metres long.

“I bet they’ve got triangles on their backs,” he said to Chapra. They both remained seated as Judd and Jane came over from the shuttle and boarded.

“The other gunships are very close. Why have you remained in here?” asked Jane.

“We were a little worried about them,” said Abaron, pointing.

“They are the equivalent of your PSRs. They are here to demount the guns from this ship and set them for defence.”

“Okay,” said Abaron, and stood.

Chapra noted he had acquired a handgun from somewhere and tucked it in his utility belt.

“Come with me,” said Judd once they were outside the ship, and he led them to the dark mouths of caves worn into the stone at the head of the dark beach. From behind them came a ripping crash. They turned to see that one of the lobster-things had ripped a gun turret out of the gunship. They turned back when Judd took up a veined sphere and shook it to produce a chemical light. As they entered the cave, Jane passed them on her way out. There must have been another entrance. When two Janes came walking toward them carrying objects like living rifles, they began to understand. The Junger twenty-eight was a square-sectioned stubby cross with a spherical cockpit at one end. On the arms either side of the cockpit were sideways projecting gun turrets each containing one rapid-fire ten millimetre cannon and one pulsed laser. The cannon’s rate of fire was adjustable from one to five thousand shells a second. Each spherical shell contained enough explosive to vaporise a human being. The lasers could cut a human being in half. Slung underneath were missiles that could not be used in the close confines of the cave for fear of collapsing it on the ship. The opposition had no such fears. With a low droning the first Junger entered the cave as fast as its pilot dared in the confines. A burst of fire from its right turret gun jerked the shuttle fifty metres into the air and slammed it against the back of the cave. At that point a missile from a demounted launcher hit the Junger. The flash was brief and bright enough to blind. Molten metal and fragments of white hot ceramoplastics hit the walls of the cave. The next Junger went the same way and perhaps because it managed to take out the beached gunship two more followed it in. Rapid fire hit these. Bits of them hit the walls of the cave. When no more gunships followed, the two lobster-things with turret guns mounted on their backs, retreated into the smaller caves at the back of the beach. They were well clear by the time the incendiary missiles swarmed in and converted the main cavern into a furnace. They only came out of hiding when the bombardment had finished. A hot glow from molten spots on the walls lit the way for the soldiers who flew in using AG harnesses. The lobster things made a rain of human wreckage in the steam until there were no more bullets for their guns. They kept on aiming and firing, like the mechanisms they were. Pulsed energy fire cooked them on the beach.

The first soldier to encounter the enemy in the smaller caves hesitated too long. He just found it too difficult to open fire on a naked pubescent girl. The girl raised something like a metre-long razor fish and it repeatedly spat at him. The soldier hung in the air screaming as worms bored through his environment suit and into his flesh. The next soldier shot the girl, hurling her back with her chest burst open and jetting smoke. Then it was his turn to scream when the worms leaped from his comrade and started on him. The General’s aides were both young men, and probably very inexperienced. Kellor had noticed that people who did not feel secure in positions of power tended to gather other people around them who were not too much of a threat. He, on the other hand, felt completely secure and had as his first officer and com officer, Jurens and Speck, who were both hardened mercenaries with years of experience. Kellor glanced at Jurens and gave a slight nod when Talist, the aide Jurens had chosen, went to puke in the toilet just off the bridge, then returned his attention to Conard. There would be no sound from the toilet, but there might be a bit of a mess. Jurens’ preference was a knife for close work. The young man in the hologram was trying not to cry. Blood was pouring from two circular holes in his cheek and in the background other soldiers were screaming.