Neal Asher - The Departure

‘Yes, that’s the most logical step,’ said Var, ‘but Ricard won’t see it that way.’ Lopomac was just babbling, just hoping to see some clear way of dealing with this.

‘You’ll have to play the cards you’ve got,’ said Kaskan, who, Var noted, was now holding the seismic charge. ‘There’ll be more weapons available in Hex Three.’

‘Got any suggestions on how we get there?’ Lopomac asked.

Kaskan shrugged, then began walking right across the hex towards the airlock. ‘You cut the power and you threaten to kill them all, thus forcing Ricard and his men to go after you.’

Var just then registered the words Kaskan had used: You’ll have to play the cards you’ve got. He was talking like someone who wasn’t included in their predicament.

‘And kill everyone else remaining on the base?’ asked Carol. ‘You know how fine the dividing line is between unconsciousness and death, once you start running out of air.’ She pointed to the two corpses lying on the floor.

‘Var here has already demonstrated extreme ruthlessness,’ said Kaskan. ‘She’ll surely be able to convince Ricard, then it’ll be a straight fight.’

Var suddenly understood what he was doing.

‘No, Kaskan!’

But he had already opened the airlock and stepped inside.

‘I loved Gisender,’ he called back to them. ‘You’ve no idea how much.’

He closed the inner airlock door.

Argus Station

The jagged lights were gone from his eyes, and his head no longer pounded, but that might be as much due to the drugs Hannah had fed him as anything else. Whatever, he must use every second he remained functional.

At that moment, Smith did not seem to be active, perhaps himself lying drugged in some surgical facility, and currently beyond Saul’s ability to locate him. However, already the Committee was responding, and four space planes had been launched from Minsk. They had to be dealt with so, as carefully and as quietly as possible, Saul returned his attention to the systems in Tech Central that controlled the laser satellites. Very quickly he discovered that their security had already been breached. The set-up originally required at least five members of the Committee acting jointly to bring the system online, and then input the targets. But Smith had created a back door for himself so that he could take full control, which showed how in recent times he’d been working to his own advantage only. Checking status next, Saul discovered that only 10 per cent of the network was ready to use but, even so, that was nearly seven hundred satellites, each of them fusion-powered and firing a multi-megawatt laser capable of incinerating a single human being right down on the surface.

He could do a lot of damage, but only for so long as he retained control.

As Saul moved slowly down the corridor, catching at wall handles to propel himself along, even the adhesive quality of his sticky soles seemed too strong in his present weakened state. Nevertheless he concentrated beyond his own body, slowly infiltrating the satellite control system through the same back door that Smith had created. He studied the limitation to what he could achieve before alerting Smith to his intrusion – not a lot really: just run computer diagnostics and power-source tests. Using the latter test routine, he sent the requisite instructions to power up the seven hundred available satellites. Readings at once started climbing, as fusion reactors dumped their loads into advanced super-capacitor storage, and Saul knew that within a few minutes the satellites would start signalling their readiness to him – and, unfortunately, to Smith.

Saul couldn’t use the satellite weapons to stop the space planes already heading up here. Two of them had gone into SCRAM, and there was no point in trying to laser them, since their carbon nanofibre hulls were designed to disperse point temperatures and comfortably withstand temperatures that would melt steel. But he could certainly prevent further planes launching.

‘You okay with this?’ Hannah asked him, as they reached the cageway at the very end of the corridor.

Saul looked up. Of course he was – after all, he weighed nothing here.

‘I think I can manage,’ he said, reaching out to one of the struts.

Just then, something else came to his attention. Message traffic from Earth, and from the approaching space planes, was being responded to by people aboard the station itself. As he slowly propelled himself up towards Tech Central, he ran traces that discovered these replies were coming from partially isolated computers scattered throughout.

Smith.

In a structure called the Political Office, situated down between Arcoplexes One and Two, Smith – obviously yet to visit the infirmary – sat strapped in a seat with a blood-soaked dressing taped across his bare chest. Other Inspectorate staff were busy communicating from various small security offices, while Commander Langstrom was speaking from the security force’s barracks. Right then, Saul couldn’t break the code used for the actual transmissions but, whilst the transmissions were coded, Smith stupidly hadn’t blocked Saul’s access to station microphones and cameras, so it was still possible for him to listen to any audible exchange. This gave him pause for thought. It was surely such a basic requirement to ensure secure communications, yet it seemed his erstwhile interrogator had neglected to do so. Perhaps, while Smith had underestimated Saul, Saul had equally overestimated Smith?

Saul netted all the conversations at once, and processed the resulting audio data. Langstrom was giving a pretty good assessment of the situation on the station and received orders to back up the assault troops, once they arrived. Smith was meanwhile notifying someone on Earth that he intended to arrest and adjust Langstrom once this was all over, since, as Smith had noted before, Langstrom had been showing signs of incorrect thinking. Checking data relating to this Saul discovered that, as Political Director, Smith was also in overall charge of the adjustment cells located aboard the station. Saul hadn’t so far picked up on the fact that they operated such facilities here.

‘What about the robots?’ Langstrom asked.

Saul understood the man’s concerns, because just then he took a look into the barracks’ hospital, where medics were still struggling to repair the damage resulting from hand-to-hydraulic-claw combat. It wasn’t pretty, and the surgical facilities available weren’t quite so good as those Saul had recently used. He now realized that he had occupied the kind of surgery reserved for the upper echelons, who were rated ‘more equal than others’.

Apparently the answer to the robot problem was the PA50 TB, and further research identified the ‘Pulse Action 50 Tank Buster’. This was an electromagnetic weapon developed to knock out the electronics of modern tanks, and like many such weapons had been sidelined when the Committee decided the only people left to fight would be armed merely with bricks and Molotov cocktails.

‘Langstrom,’ Saul spoke directly to the man, through his fone, ‘here’s an audio file you might like to listen to.’ He then sent him a nice clear recording of Smith’s earlier conversation about future ‘adjustment’ – then turned his attention elsewhere, as satellite after satellite reported readiness to fire.

‘Trouble on the way,’ he informed Hannah and Braddock.

‘What kind?’ Braddock asked.

‘Four space planes loaded with troops in vacuum combat gear.’ Saul finally brought himself to a halt at the top of the cage-way, and stepped out into the short corridor beyond. ‘They’re also bringing EM weapons capable of knocking out the robots. Should be quite a party.’