Polity Agent

Telefactors and drones filled nearby space. A modern Centurion-class attack ship lay close, and missiles streaked in from all sides. The Legate scanned those missiles: decoys mixed with rail-gun accelerated solid projectiles hurtled up from below; CTD and planar warheads came in from above and to the left; and EM shells and more rail-gun projectiles came from the right. The current attack appeared designed to drive it down and to the right, into dense gas, where it would necessarily take longer to drop into U-space. In an instant the Legate had created a defence to take it on through. The ship could survive rail-gun strikes so long as they hit nothing vital. The decoys and EM shells could be ignored. Nothing else must get close.

It altered its course sharply to the right. EM shells ignited all around it, and rail-gun projectiles slammed into the ship. Systems scrambled, fire exploded around the Legate, then vacuum sucked it away through punctures in the hull. Diagnostics briefly online: five projectiles punched right through the ship—inert rail-gun projectiles that missed the ship’s drives, else the craft and Legate would be a spreading cloud of vapour by now. Hull mesh and mycelial repair already working. The Legate glanced down to see part of its own thigh had been torn away, while jags of hot metal penetrated its chest. Ignoring these injuries, it put its ship into a five hundred gravity turn, downwards, then abruptly back up again. It targeted nearby missiles with lasers, but only two of the six weapons worked. A detonating CTD cleared a hole, and the Legate aimed for it. More impacts: sheet lightning of energy discharges throughout the ship, molten metal spattering the screen from the inside. Then, utterly on the edge of disaster, the Legate dropped its vessel into U-space.

* * * *

‘A risky strategy,’ Blegg said.

Cormac shrugged as he gazed at the bridge display. ‘We would have gained very little by trying to capture that ship. The Legate would probably have destroyed itself rather than allow that. Now at least we might learn something.’

At that moment the bridge display blinked out, then came on again to show the grey roiling of U-space—or rather a human-tolerable simulacrum. Feeling that familiar shift into the ineffable, Cormac nodded to himself in satisfaction. He turned to where Jack had thoughtfully provided two reclining chairs and a coffee table, now sitting incongruously at the centre of the black glass floor. He noted that one of those dracomen saddle seats had also appeared. Evidently Scar would be joining them. Cormac walked over and plumped himself down in a recliner.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You still tracking it, Jack?’

‘I am,’ replied the ship’s AI.

‘We have three other state-of-the-art Centurions like the NEJ,’ he explained to Blegg as the Oriental joined him. ‘They all possess the new chameleonware.’

‘Yes.’ Grudgingly said.

Cormac stared at Blegg for a long moment. There now seemed something different about him, something wrong. He did not ask about this, because he knew his chances of receiving a straight answer were minimal. Instead he said, ‘Jack, all the older ships are to deny themselves the ability to track the signature of a Jain node. They’ll probably lose sight of the Legate’s ship after the first two or three jumps. You, and the other three Centurions, start using your ‘ware right now. You’ll relay our coordinates to the other ships, whenever possible, but they are to stand off meanwhile unless we call them in.’

‘You are supposing it will run for home,’ suggested Blegg.

‘I am, yes, but if it doesn’t and looks set to approach any Polity worlds or bases, we’ll then attempt capture. I think it will run for home, and I can only—’

‘Something has occurred,’ Jack interrupted.

The bridge display changed, and once again they gazed upon the Dyson segment hanging in the clouds from the demolished gas giant. Cormac realized he now viewed a recording from one of the dreadnoughts, for he could see the shape of the NEJ much closer to the segment itself. He watched the Legate’s escape, the storm of explosions, and the subsequent winking out of the Legate’s ship, then the NEJ and other ships as they dropped into U-space. The dreadnought held station, and its view closed in on the opposite side of the Dyson segment, where something flashed away at high speed and then also winked out. The view froze, reversed, then a frame enclosed a fusion drive flame and the object it propelled. Selecting that image out, it magnified it for them. Programs rapidly cleaned up the image.

‘The Heliotrope? said Jack.

‘So she was hiding there,’ said Blegg.

Cormac grimaced. ‘Overseer Orlandine.’ He added, ‘I suppose the question we should have been asking was why did the Legate come here?’

‘And the answer?’ asked Blegg.

Cormac shook his head, then asked Jack, ‘Did the Heliotrope escape completely?’