Polity Agent

The curve of the horizon now rose high in the screen. The two dracomen shuttles from NEJ now sat low and to their right, and the two leading Sparkind shuttles were far ahead, just seen as black dots containing the white stars of fusion drives. The sky above them lightened to a pale green, then suddenly a sun-bright explosion ignited within it. Cormac lost com through his gridlink, and could no longer view in his mind the battle above.

‘Jack?’

Nothing in response—it could mean that the NEJ had been destroyed, but he could not know right then, might never know. A few minutes later Blegg’s vessel lurched as the Shockwave impacted. Cormac was about to make some comment on this when Blegg jerked the joystick violently to one side. Rail-gun missiles knifed down at forty-five degrees from behind. One missile found a target and Cormac saw one of the dracomen shuttles cartwheeling through the air, its rear end sheared off, humanoid figures tumbling out. The pilot obviously engaged its gravmotors, trying to stabilize it, and he seemed to be succeeding, then something blew in the shuttle’s side and it dropped like a brick.

‘Fuck,’ said Cormac. He glanced back at the team of dracomen aboard, who had just lost thirty or so of their comrades. They knew this loss, for it was his understanding that they kept constant mental contact with each other. Yet they showed no particular agitation, merely seemed to focus more intently on checking over their weaponry.

To the shuttles escaping ahead he said, ‘If you’ve got gravharnesses aboard, put them on now.’ By the silence that met this instruction he supposed Thorn and Bhutan could think of no sufficiently polite reply.

A mountain range reared over the horizon, like rotten teeth in a lower jaw, while a ceiling of grey cloud slid overhead. The leading shuttles penetrated a cloud wall and winked out. As soon as Blegg’s vessel followed them in, he touched some control and the cloud wall seemed to simply disappear. This ship’s scanning gear formed the view from emitted radiation that could penetrate the murk, and showed a terrain of steep valleys quickly filled with steaming red growth. Lower now, the sound within the shuttle turning to a dull roar; a subscreen revealing that they now flew through heavy, dirty-looking rain. The jungle melded together until it covered the ground right to the horizon. The leading Sparkind shuttles turned as did the remaining dracoman shuttle. Blegg checked coordinates and adjusted his ship’s course.

‘What’s that?’ Cormac asked, seeing some object dropping in behind the leading shuttles.

Blegg accelerated the vessel. Normally used only for the orbital insertion of troops, and supposedly covered by their mother ships, the shuttles were armed only with lasers. But right now those mother ships were rather busy. Blegg’s vessel, however, carried rail-gun missile launchers and pulse-cannons in its forward nacelles. He brought weapons systems online. Laser flashes now became visible between the leading shuttles and the object approaching them. Blegg glanced at Cormac. ‘Take control of the weapons.’

Through his gridlink, Cormac applied to the onboard computer, which instantly routed him to weapons control. Once again his sensory field expanded as data from the ship’s sensors came through to him. Sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, his view now included more than just the screens: it encompassed a wider visual area plus radar returns, and microwave and gravity maps of a huge volume surrounding the ship. He now also controlled targeting frames, and his virtual fingers wrapped around virtual triggers.

Thorn’s voice came over com, ‘Message to self: boredom is good!’

‘We’ll be with you in thirty seconds,’ Cormac replied as he laid a frame over the object pursuing the shuttles, obtained full acquisition of it, and fired. The ship bucked and white streaks cut the air on either side of it. ‘But the missiles will be with you earlier,’ he added.

Now Cormac focused the ship’s sensors and enlarged an image—transferring it to a subscreen for Blegg also to see. This revealed one of the bacilliform ships, precisely the rod-like shape of a bacterium but about twenty yards long, with its exterior a completely featureless blue-grey except where the lasers struck it, leaving livid burns like bruises. Whatever propulsion system it used showed no visual evidence, so Cormac assumed it must be somehow utilizing antigravity. While they watched, multiple laser strikes converged on its nose, and it shuddered and slowed like an aggressive dog receiving a reprimanding smack. Then it accelerated again.

‘It’s not using any weapons,’ Cormac noted, ‘and it can’t be some kind of bomb. One that large wouldn’t need to get so close to the shuttles.’

‘Capture,’ explained Blegg bluntly. ‘If they really wanted to take us out, we would be dead by now.’