Neal Asher - Polity Agent

‘Reconnaissance first?’

‘We have sent four scout ships, though I suspect any trap will not be visible to them.’

Azroc turned away and headed over to where Karischev and his men were ensconced.

The Sparkind units occupied cylindrical dormitories overlooking bays for landing craft. The humans and Golem mostly lay on their bunks, though the Golem needed no rest and such activities were engendered by their emulation programs. Only a few still checked over their equipment, since most checks had been carried out ad nauseam before now. Many gathered around screens and tactical displays positioned at either end of the dormitories. Azroc found Karischev standing before one of these.

‘A quick scan of the system first,’ declared the man, ‘then we go through.’

‘Four scout ships, apparently,’ Azroc agreed.

‘Of course we’ll probably be sitting on our butts during any ship-to-ship battle. But I’m told there are two living planets here the AIs don’t want to burn, so we’ll probably be sent to them to clear up anything the big guns can’t hit without destroying ecologies.’

‘And to find those personnel who were set down on one of those planets.’

‘Yeah—if there’s anything left of them to be found. The information we received makes that look increasingly unlikely’ — Karischev paused—‘though, admittedly, dracomen and Sparkind, along with Horace Blegg and Ian Cormac, are more likely to survive the shitstorm there than most.’

‘Admittedly,’ Azroc conceded.

‘Y’know,’ Karischev added, ‘I never used to believe those two characters existed. I thought they were fictional, like King Arthur or Rasputin.’

Azroc considered the irony of this statement before replying, ‘Well, apparently they are real.’

The ensuing half-hour dragged past slowly, then one of the tactical displays changed to show the situation within the system they intended to enter. Hundreds of enemy ships were revealed scattered across vacuum, but many less now than shown previously.

‘Data from the scouts,’ Azroc commented, while they watched some of the alien ships blink out of existence. ‘The enemy are fleeing.’

‘Sensible of them,’ Karischev replied.

Precisely on time, the entire fleet surfaced from U-space and began to deploy. Immediately the main displays changed to reveal a contracted view of the planetary system, with all its worlds gathered much closer than would be possible in reality, the various ships swarming about them like fish around reefs. All the fleet ships were represented by blue dots, and the enemy ships indicated in red. Azroc identified the Battle Wagon— close by in interplanetary terms—its cylindrical shape still discernible. While they watched, a viewing square picked out a group of enemy ships with fleet ships closing in on them and expanded the view. Then another square picked out one of the main enemy ships and displayed it on a side-screen. The large ammonite spiral spun, darkly iridescent, light flashing from the junctures between its segments and from the inner loops of its spirals. He only glimpsed the occasional object speeding away from it, but a glance at one of the tactical displays revealed the same ship launching a barrage at approaching Polity ships. Then it bucked as if slapped on the edge by a giant’s hand. The screen blanked for a second, then the vessel flew apart: lengths of spiral and separate segments hurtling away.

‘Modular construction,’ he commented.

‘Get this,’ said Karischev, pointing at something new displayed on another screen.

Now they watched as the Battle Wagon headed into a conglomeration of enemy ships, its weapons firing and wreaking havoc all around. Spiral ships burned internally and spun apart, rod-ships detonated like linked firecrackers.

‘This is not going to last very long,’ said Azroc.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Karischev.

Azroc was about to comment further when he picked up something over general tac-com channels, and then saw the same information flashed up on the displays before them. Another larger and more powerful USER had just been deployed within the system.

‘Oh fuck,’ said Karischev.

From behind the ringed ice giant rose into view that other strange metallic planetoid—its presence briefly acknowledged in initial reports from the NEJ. It was no longer so smooth and clearly defined, for massive outflows broke from its surface like cold solar flares. A frame selected this object, and focused in on the surface movement. Azroc now saw the planetoid unravelling, returning to its component parts—which were thousands of enemy ships.

‘You might be right,’ said Karischev.

‘Pardon?’

‘This might not last long at all.’

The initial part of her report Mika delivered with much reference to her notescreen but, of course, in the latter stages of events she had been unable to make any notes at all. She spoke slowly and carefully, visualizing events in her mind as she described them. D’nissan, Prator Colver and Susan James—the last recently returned from her enforced and medicated rest—all now wore the top level of augs and showed impatience with that sluggish transference of information called speech. When she finished, they thanked her and, with no social niceties, quickly departed.

‘Was that entirely necessary?’ Mika asked, as she began stripping off her Dragon-repaired clothing while heading for the shower.

‘Your clothing,’ instructed Jerusalem, ‘place it in secure sampling cylinders and send it to D’nissan’s laboratory.’

Mika grimaced. She should have thought of that already, but excused herself because she had, after all, been through a lot. Naked, she picked up her strewn clothing and carried it through to her own laboratory, stuffed it into two sampling cylinders, sealed them, then placed them in the wall hatch, whence they sped away. The system was similar to that one used to send cash cylinders by compressed air through pipework leading down into the vault of an ancient casino, though of course much more sophisticated.

‘How often do I do the unnecessary?’ Jerusalem enquired as she finally stepped into her shower.

‘That is something on which I can only speculate.’

Though already thoroughly scanned, she somehow felt Jerusalem, speaking to her here and now, to be intrusive. Absurd, really. AIs constantly monitored their charges, and she had been thus monitored for many years. Why did it bother her now? She supposed that might be because of her recent intimacy with Dragon, and tried to ignore the feeling.

‘Your three fellow researchers, like many others aboard this vessel, require constant grounding in the real world. I give them this whenever the opportunity presents.’

Mika ignored the air-blast dryer—she did not have the patience for it—and stepped out of the shower to grab up a rough towel from the dispenser. As she dried herself a sudden panic surged in her throat, as she glimpsed into the immediate future. She would dress, eat and drink, but she did not feel like sleeping. So what then? She could not rejoin the other three in their research of things Jain unless she too upgraded herself, either with a gridlink or with one of those augs. The two Dragon spheres, now orbiting the Jerusalem, lay out of her reach—any data that could be obtained from them at a distance was already collected.

What do I do now?

She decided to attack. ‘You used me as confirmation of events—extra evidence to persuade the other Dragon sphere to our side.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘No denials, then. Just that: you did. You played me like a pawn in your game. I could have died.’

‘Obviously there were risks, but the possible gains outweighed them.’