Polity Agent

More U-space signatures now, on the edge of the accretion disc, then close by. Bacilliform ships began appearing, more spiral forms, lens shapes, indistinct wormish conglomerations breaking and reforming, and sheetlike masses that only closer scan revealed to be constructed of conjoined bacilliforms. Some of these objects were no larger than a human fist, others extended miles across.

‘Doesn’t seem too healthy around here,’ Jack commented. It took him just a microsecond to transmit that message, and he did not see precisely what happened next. The Belisarius must have been struck by some of those seed objects—enough at least to disrupt its chameleonware. Whereupon that Centurion ship fled — masers refracting around its hull, then beginning to impinge—leaving an orange trail of metal vapour through space. A wall of bacilliforms, a thousand miles tall, U-jumped directly ahead of the fleeing ship. Jack shut down his ‘ware, bringing all his weapons online. He saw the Haruspex and Coriolanus do the same. The big spiral ship bore down on the Belisarius, while the wall of rodlike ships folded in around it like some huge tissue employed for catching a wasp. Blights of missiles rained down on all sides. Jack’s CTD imploder hit the big spiral ship first, collapsing its middle section and momentarily leaving a glowing doughnut of matter, before the subsequent explosion obliterated the rest. Anti-munitions scattered illusions around the Belisarius, but not enough. Missile after missile impacted on it, cutting away a nacelle, distorting its shape and peeling away a trail of its armour. It tried to U-jump, but its engine was damaged or some other weapon hit it. It shimmered, everted like a snake skin, disappeared in white fire.

Jack’s own anti-munitions created an image of the NEJ beside him as he re-engaged chameleonware. But that was no distraction for the cloud of rail-gun projectiles hammering up at the ship from underneath. His carousels whirling at blinding speed, he fired a large-yield imploder down towards that cloud, hoping to hoover up most of them, then aimed lower-yield straight CTDs towards a wall of bacilliform ships massing ahead and threw himself into a 100 gravity turn. That was the limit, since the internal gravplates would not compensate for a harder turn, and though the dracomen might survive it, Cormac would not. Blegg, of course, was another matter entirely…

The physical attack was not all of it. A constant bombardment of informational attack kept trying to breach their coms systems. Jack allowed some of this through, routing it into secure storage. A message constantly repeated: I am Erebus, merge with me, be one.

Ah, so that’s what it’s all about, Jack thought. ‘Out of here,’ he sent.

The three remaining ships dropped into U-space and jumped back along their inward course. Many of the alien ships followed. Breathing space, at least. Having located the enemy, the time had now come to call in the big guns. Jack sent a U-space package to the fleet of Polity dreadnoughts, informing them they should come and play. In a matter of days the Centurions would reach them then the pursuing ships would be in serious—

Suddenly, a solid wall of U-space interference expanded in their course, taking that option away as it slapped them out into realspace. Jack located himself, finding they now lay within the planetary system they had traversed earlier. Fusion drives igniting, they ran for cover as their pursuers began to materialize. A wall of those bacilliform ships began to form ahead of them, while masers, lasers and missiles probed space in search of the remaining three chameleonware-concealed Centurions.

‘Well, we strolled straight into that one,’ observed the Centurion’s AI.

‘What the hell was that, Jack?’ Cormac asked, also frantically applying at other levels for information.

‘We assumed we would be able to run,’ Jack replied. ‘We assumed wrong because the bad guys here possess USERs.’

‘Oh shit.’

Viewing internally, Jack noted Cormac heading for the bridge. He looked rather sick.

‘Group together,’ Jack sent. ‘We cut a hole through it at five hundred miles.’

All three ships concentrated maser fire on targets directly ahead. No point using missiles in this situation as they would be travelling as fast as any munitions they fired. The planetary system would make a perfect killing field for the three ‘ware concealed ships. They would be able to use guerrilla tactics—hitting and hiding—for some time. But the living crews aboard the three ships were a problem. By the sheer violence of their manoeuvring the aggressors demonstrated that they did not have the same liability aboard them. Jack noticed that some of the pursuers were also apparently fading out of existence, which meant the Centurions had no advantage in possessing chameleonware.