Peter Hamilton - Judas Unchained

Alic’s particle lances boomed, sending pulses streaming toward the cluster of soldier motiles that had fired the missiles. They toppled to the ground, then started to pull themselves upright again.

Morton scanned his sensors around, building a tactical profile. It wasn’t good. So far they’d traveled about three kilometers on from the original blockade. At least a hundred fifty soldier motiles had them effectively surrounded. The Guardians on their Charlemagnes were a kilometer behind, and holding off—not that they could help. His suit power cells were down to under fifty percent. There had been too many close calls in combat. None of them had any HVvixens left.

His radar scanned ahead, picking out the MANN truck with its escort eight kilometers away. It was traveling fast along the clear road. Bradley wasn’t going to catch it, let alone ram it.

“We’ll ride shotgun,” he said. “Stig, switch off your X-ray lasers. We’re hitching a ride.”

“Morton, we have to catch up,” Bradley said.

Morton could hear panic edging into his voice. “We can cut through if we combine our firepower.” He’d already started running; the other suits were beside him firing energy weapons into the elusive line of soldier motiles. Up ahead, the armored cars took more hits from micromissiles. The road surface was completely trashed, reduced to a mire of loose fragments that bogged them down.

“Shit,” Rob screamed.

Morton’s sensors caught two soldier motiles pouncing. They’d been lurking in a shallow depression, their suits powered down to avoid detection. Limbs lashed out at Rob’s suit as the three of them crashed to the ground in a tangled bucking heap. Force fields flickered between lavender and cerise as weapons fired at point-blank range.

“Keep going,” The Cat insisted.

It was hard. Morton wanted to halt and pound the wrestling figures with shots from his hyper-rifle. Imagery shot into his brain at accelerated speed, and he saw just how many soldier motiles were charging after them. Front rank almost on top of Rob. “Rob!”

“Do it,” Rob grunted. “I’m gonna show them a little Doc Roberts trick any second. These motherfuckers don’t ever learn.”

Morton’s virtual hand flashed into his grid and hauled out Rob’s telemetry. He could see the safety overrides clicking off one by one. Powdery gravel crunched underfoot. The armored car was ten meters ahead. Morton leaped, powerdiving over the curving wedge-shaped vehicle. He’d almost landed on the other side when Rob shorted out every power cell he was carrying. The explosion turned the empty sapphire sky solar white.

“Way to go, Robby boy,” the Cat cried.

Morton’s outstretched hands touched the ruined road. He curled himself into a ball and rolled forward to kill momentum. The fearsome glare drained away. Behind him the armored car was skidding sideways. Stig fought for traction, slewing it back on course. Morton hopped on the front, clinging to one of the X-ray laser mounts.

The Cat appeared beside him as if she’d teleported in. A lone sensor image showed him the smoldering blast crater where Rob had been. Alic thudded onto the roof, gauntlets gripping narrow ridges tight enough to gouge the metal. Morton’s hyper-rifle deployed out of his forearm; targeting graphics slid out of his grid. The three of them began to shoot any soldier motile in a broad swathe ahead of the armored car. “Use everything,” Alic shouted. “Punch them out of the way.”

Morton’s grenade canisters thrummed as they fired. His plasma carbine switched to continuous pulse, hosing out energy. The hyper-rifle swung around as he picked out target after target. Power cell charge wound down at an alarming rate. More ion rifle shots came from behind them where Jim and Matthew were clinging to the armored car Ayub was driving. Micromissiles burst all around, hyperfilament lashing against the suits, streamers of ion fire clawed at the grizzly bodywork of the armored cars. They were driving through a demonic inferno that blotted out every sensor return in a digitized blizzard. His suit surface screeched as the demented energy slashed against it.

Then they were past the bedlam, racing down the gray-white concrete strip of Highway One, shedding static tendrils like chaff. Stig had cranked their speed up over a hundred sixty kilometers an hour; smoke was shooting out from somewhere underneath. Morton hunted around, finding the bulk of the soldier motiles streaming together behind them. Their weapons fire contracted, centering on the last armored car. Jim and Matthew were doing their best to return fire, but they were swamped by the colossal barrage. Hyperfilament shrapnel mauled the road right in front. The armored car exploded.

“No!” Alic cried. “Godfuck all of you. Oh, sweet Jesus, why can we never catch this monster?”

Morton wanted to answer, but all he saw was Rob’s demise, and Doc Roberts, Randtown’s glass crater.

“How much power have you got left?” the Cat asked.

“Twenty percent. Maybe.” Morton checked his schematics. “Bit under.” He started scanning along the side of the armored car. Somewhere inside metal was grinding against metal with a terrible clattering violence. The smoke rushing out from underneath had thickened.

“It’s the one percent that’ll kill it,” the Cat said.

“Stig?” Morton asked. “Are we going to make it?” The sound coming from the armored car sounded terminal.

“We’ll make it. This thing has redundancy everywhere. Sixteen kilometers, that’s all.”

Their speed still hadn’t slackened. Up ahead, the road was angling into the foothills. The Institute valley was visible as a wide saddle that led back to the first mountains of the Dessault range. They weren’t high enough to have snowcaps, but the ones in the misty distance behind them did. He scanned the jagged skyline, looking for any hint of an approaching storm. Far Away’s vaulting sapphire atmosphere was as placid as he’d ever seen it. Damnit, I thought we could rely on the Admiral at least.

The armored car juddered sharply and recovered. He swept his radar along the road, getting a clear empty image until it curved into the valley ten kilometers ahead. The MANN truck was already inside.

“Bradley,” Morton said regretfully. “We’re not going to catch it. Do you have any notion how we can disable the starship?”

“Not disable, no. We just have to delay launch until the storm arrives.”

“How?”

“There is one possible option, if you’re willing to help me.”

That didn’t sound good in any way. Morton wanted to look at the Cat’s face, to see what she felt. Despite her thick shell, he knew her well enough now to read her thoughts.

She could obviously read him a lot better. “We’ve come this far,” she said.

***

The amethyst plasma inside the Dark Fortress churned in violent torment as it was bombarded by radiation from salvos of fifty-megaton fusion bombs. Thousand-kilometer peaks soared up through the gaps in the outer lattice sphere like solar prominences, their extremities evanescing away into tattered streamers. The Charybdis dived down between them and struck the plasma at fourteen gees.

Ozzie had been bracing himself for a spine-snapping impact, even though he knew the plasma had a density that barely disqualified it from being a vacuum. There was a slight tremor, which he had to strain to notice amid the brutal acceleration. He disengaged the drive, and was plunged into freefall so abruptly his maltreated body interpreted it as being flung forward.

“What the fuck?” Mark mumbled.

Ozzie shut down their active sensors. “Flying dark, see?” The passive sensors showed fusion drives drilling through the plasma all around as the Prime missiles hurtled past. “They’re overshooting.”