Neal Asher - Prador Moon

The attachment came through and Conlan hesitated before opening it. It could contain some military virus or something equally nasty, but he realised he was too tired to care. As he opened the attachment and viewed the scene displayed, and Moria's projections, he felt a steady vibration through the floor, growing in intensity.

" The positional drives have just started up ," Krong noted.

"Can you see… outside? Can you see it?"

"Certainly can."

"Give me a visual link and I'll do what you want."

It came through quickly, and in his third eye Conlan gazed up through a chainglass dome across the Boh runcible, fusion flames of the positional drives gleaming in his vision. He rolled over and began crawling towards that vent, in the end not because he hated the Prador nor loved the Polity, but because of the sheer audacity of what that woman planned.

Hellish fire spewed across vacuum as the masers struck twelve targets out of a possible twenty, though it was difficult to be sure of the latter number since the missiles used many techniques of concealment. The ship's meteor defence laser struck five more, but the EM output of those close antimatter blasts threw his sensors into disarray. Two missiles struck his ship, the massive detonations hurling it back towards the runcible, a huge glowing dent in its hull.

Where are the rest?

His sensors finally unscrambled enough for him to see not one but three missiles now past his ship and bearing down on the runcible. A sudden detonation ensued and a drone tumbled out of the extremity of the explosion and then righted itself. A second detonation as a second missile passed through the enfilading fire from two other drones. Those drones were closer to the blast however, and their carrier signals flatlined. Despite the possibility of damage to the runcible, Immanence redirected masers to target the remaining missile—since there seemed few drones in the vicinity—but before his own weapons fired again the missile detonated, spreading a ball of white fire.

What?

He analysed what happened, and laughed his Pradorish laugh: the runcible's own meteor defences had fired up, destroying the missile. But the laughter did not last. For a moment he thought the runcible itself damaged from the close blast and now burning, then realised the flames he was seeing were too evenly spaced for that.

"Gnores, what is happening down there?"

"I am investigating now, Father. It seems that the engines used to position each section of the runcible are now operating."

Gnores did not sound particularly enthusiastic about his investigation, but Immanence could do nothing about that right then. He returned his attention to sensor data, seeing the Polity vessel decelerating hard and slightly altering its course, but that did not account for why it ceased firing. Immanence used manoeuvring thrusters to reposition his own ship to retain maximum cover of the runcible, then turned his attention to the damage received.

Numerous casualties and quite a lot of wreckage, but not sufficient to be concerned about. He redirected some of the stored power to memory metal layers in the hull and observed the dent gradually easing out. Again a scan of the runcible.

"Gnores, the runcible is spreading its five sections."

"Yes, I am aware of that… Father."

Immanence champed angrily. He again adjusted the position of his vessel, moving it further out to cover this expansion, still blocking line-of-sight from the Polity ship. But if Gnores did not come up with an explanation soon, Immanence decided he would move away. He did not like what was happening there. Then, at that moment, he became aware of a com channel signalling for his attention.

The Separatist.

"Explain," said Immanence succinctly.

"There's a Polity warship… out there," said the one called Conlan.

"I am aware of that."

"They got through… somehow. I'm injured."

"Explain!" Immanence spat.

"They want to destroy it."

Immanence spun round in frustration on his grav-motors.

"Explain yourself clearly, human!"

"The technicians—those few left here at Trajeen—they managed to break into the system—got control of the positional drives out there. They know you want it, and the Polity ship is there to destroy it. They're spreading it out… making it more difficult for you to cover."

"I see." Immanence cut the link. He eased his vessel out further, to keep the runcible covered. So this was why the Polity ship ceased firing: it was waiting until the five sections of the runcible presented easier targets and would then pick them off. Even now those sections lay on the edges of a circle a hundred kilometres across. The complex around it also separated, though Gnores and most of the second-children lay inside the largest piece attached to one gatepost.

"Gnores, recall all the second-children to the gatepost you presently occupy and concentrate your search there. Be thorough and be quick."

"Yeah…whatever."

Gnores would pay very heavily indeed for that. Immanence gazed through the cams on the first-child's carapace and saw that he was lingering by one of the corridors, peering down at a trail of human blood. Quickly reviewing the situation there, the captain saw that all the second-children were returning to that one gatepost, but was further angered to find that those inside that part of the complex were no longer searching for booby traps, but the injured human who had escaped. Gnashing his mandibles in frustration, Immanence cut the link and returned his attention to matters he could attend to now. Gnores would have to wait.

The Polity ship was manoeuvring again. Runcible a hundred and twenty kilometres wide. Immanence again shifted his ship to cover it; lower down towards Boh, the five gateposts marking points on the circumference of a perfect circle behind him. The Polity ship's tactics were admirable: Immanence needed to move his ship further and further out to cover the runcible, this meanwhile meant a greater chance of missiles getting round him. He would, he already decided, concentrate on defending the gatepost Gnores occupied, for snatching part of this runcible would be better than none at all.

Twenty seconds.

Moria was panicking, correction after correction, small stabs of the positional drives and adjustments to field strengths and energy feeds, calculations screaming through her mind like a hysterical crowd. The meniscus spread before her like a new horizon, wavering, seeming close to going out, the further gateposts out of sight. One small error and it would fail. Already the drain from the solar satellites had maxed out.

Fifteen seconds.

Fluctuation: G3. In her virtual vision the meniscus began bowing in between posts three and four. In less than a hundredth of a second an AI on the planet shut down the smaller runcible there for the evacuees, and opened its own processing space for her. The screaming crowd of calculations spilled in and spread, and gave her room for just one more. She ran it, sent the corrections, watched the bow straightening out again.

Ten seconds.

"You can do this?" Moria asked out loud.

Over the tumult she heard, "Desperate diseases have desperate remedies."

Yeah—right.

Five seconds.

It hurtled into view, tumbling end over end, two hundred kilometres across at its widest point, trillions of tonnes of asteroidal iron and stone: Vina — the fast moon. The last seconds counted down as slow as years as the moon loomed before her—a crushing, unimaginable force.

"Work, damn you!" Moria screamed.

The moon tumbled into the meniscus, gone. Moria released her hold and errors stacked a thousandfold. The runcible went out.