Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

Scourge

The background noise aboard the ship had changed, as the preparations being made by the troops transmitted through the metalwork like infernal machines ticking over in a cellar. Clay Ruger reached up, touched his aching head, and couldn’t quite believe that he was still alive. Only now, as he hazily recollected events in the bridge, did he realize that the weapon Scotonis had held must have been loaded with taser bullets – the kind that delivered a disabling charge on impact.

He sat upright, then tried to use his fone to get through to Scotonis himself, but heard only a fizzing noise. The taser bullet had obviously taken out his fone too. He carefully climbed out of his bed and went to the door, but it wouldn’t open. Next he began walking over to his console, to reach Scotonis that way, but the ship shuddered, a sound like thunder rumbling through it, then came the throaty roar of a side drive, which sent him staggering against a wall.

Clay clung in place until the shuddering ceased, his eyes closed and a cold sweat sticking his ship suit to his back. Distantly he could hear people shouting and a breach klaxon sounding. He took a deep breath, then turned and walked over to his console, sat down and put through a call, to which the captain immediately responded, but with only his image icon appearing on the screen.

‘How’s your head?’ Scotonis asked distractedly.

‘It’s been better,’ Clay replied. ‘Why did you do that, anyway, and what the hell’s going on now?’

‘The point was that you were supposed to be dead,’ the captain replied calmly, ‘and I couldn’t risk you walking out of the bridge and being seen by the staff officers that Commander Liang had sent up into the executive area. We had you carted out in a body bag to Medical, where Dr Myers checked you out, then we had you moved to your own cabin after Liang’s men were gone.’

Clay absorbed that information, but still a big question remained. Why the hell had Scotonis not just killed him? In the same position, he himself wouldn’t have hesitated. It occurred to him then that maybe Scotonis was a better human being than Clay was, but that wasn’t a thought he wanted to examine too closely.

‘So Liang had been told that I was supposed to die?’ he ventured.

A voice in the background spoke and Clay recognized the gunnery officer, Cookson. ‘Glancing hit,’ he explained. ‘We’re low profile right now. Close defences can handle most of it.’

The captain replied, ‘That’ll change.’ Then, ‘What was that you said, Ruger?’

‘So, now I’ve got to stay in my cabin?’ Clay replied instead.

‘No, too risky,’ said Scotonis. ‘Now you’re awake, I want you to move yourself to Messina’s quarters. You’ll be able to get a good view on the big screens in there.’

‘What’s happening, Scotonis?’

‘We’ve arrived,’ the captain snapped in response. ‘Now get moving – because Liang’s men might be back at any time.’

‘My door is locked.’

‘It isn’t now. I just unlocked it.’

Clay shut down the console, stood up and surveyed his room, considering what personal belongings he needed from here, but decided not to delay further since Messina’s quarters were better protected than the rest of the ship. So he headed for the door. Immediately outside his cabin, the acrid smell of burning plastic hit his nostrils and, looking up, he saw a stratum of smoke across the ceiling. The breach klaxon was still sounding somewhere in the distance and he could hear a robotic voice saying something repetitive but indistinct. The moment he stepped out into the corridor, the ship shuddered once again and another klaxon opened up nearby. Clay stood dumbfounded for a moment, but when, on looking up, he saw the smoke was on the move, he immediately broke into a run. Ten minutes of sweaty panic brought him to Messina’s apartments, which were positioned below the bridge. He entered and hit the control closing the airtight door. In here, he was surrounded by impact armour and breach-foam layers within the walls, similar to those located in every essential bulkhead throughout the ship.

He swung his gaze across the partially completed furnishings, and then headed over to a large and comfortable acceleration chair positioned before a multi-screen which looked like a minimalist sculpture fashioned out of one huge curving sheet of black glass. He sat down, strapped himself in, flipped over the chair-arm console and set both the screen and bridge communication running. Images appeared of the views currently available to the bridge crew, and one more showing them all seated and watching the action on their multi-screen.

‘What’s the situation?’ Clay asked.

‘Tell him, Cookson,’ said Scotonis.

Gunnery Officer Cookson eyed his captain askance, then said, ‘We’ve railed out five test shots, and from them located some of their weaponry, but of course they’re not too happy about that.’

Another image now: a close view of Argus Station. Above it streaks of fire appeared, like white contrails, before deforming and fading down to orange, then to red, and finally disappearing. Targeting frames next appeared all over the station like a sudden pox.

‘We’ve precisely located the two railguns Alex detailed, and will shortly be opening fire on them. But first we’re going to fuck up their targeting.’

‘How?’ asked Clay.

‘You will see shortly,’ said Scotonis. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, we have work to do.’

Clay grimaced at that, then, using his console, he first opened up the command channels so that he could hear all the exchanges between command staff, then began calling up other views and additional data. In the troops’ quarters things had changed drastically. Large areas of the accommodation had been collapsed so as to leave three long hexagonal compartments where now the troops were massing with all their equipment. They were all suited up and carrying weapons, and those behind the primary assault teams were already heading out into a newly connected tube leading to the main exterior airlock, carrying the various sections of vacuum-warfare penetration locks.

‘Detonation in five,’ Cookson announced. ‘Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . and now .’

The image of Argus Station whited out, then came back with a ball of fire expanding above it. The image fizzed, breaking into squares – the EM radiation pulse delivered by the blast. As this ball of fire inflated, it grew diffuse but even so, when its perimeter hit the station, the effect was visible. The whole massive structure tilted, and debris was blown away like chaff from a plate.

‘Reacquiring,’ said Scotonis.

Clay did not need to ask what had happened. They’d detonated a nuke close to the station to interfere with electronics and now, since the station had shifted, Cookson was retargeting the station’s weapons. Clay tried to sit back and relax, but found he couldn’t. Really, he decided, he had too much intelligence and imagination to be a soldier. It was bad enough having to fight in a place where there was air to breathe, but here?

Next a sonorous thrumming that penetrated bone-deep filled the ship. The first time the railguns fired, Clay must have still been unconscious, for he had never heard or felt this sensation before. But he just knew this had to be their sound.

‘They’re returning fire again,’ Cookson noted, ‘but their targeting is off.’

Even so, the Scourge shuddered again, and somewhere another klaxon started howling. Contrails flared into being all across the top of the station, until it was nearly lost to visibility behind a curiously regular pattern like some epiphyte made of fire, but this only lasted until the next nuclear detonation, which swept it all away before going on to peel hull plates off Argus like a scaling knife. Shortly after this, fire began to glare from inside it, and vapour belched from the newly torn holes.