Polity Agent

‘I take it that’s where we want to go?’ Chalter pointed off to Thorn’s left where the lower mountain slopes were now visible. This area had been Cormac’s own choice for various reasons: it lay at the edge of the incinerated area, so provided the option of using the jungle for cover, and if that vegetation turned out to be occupied by a whole chapter of the flesh-eating monsters society, from here they could also head into the mountains, which were riddled with gullies, cave systems, and a sufficient mixture of hot springs, seams of metal, and radioactives from the recent explosions nearby to make it easier for them to hide from detection equipment.

‘Certainly is,’ Thorn confirmed.

The NEJ shuttle landed and the dracomen disembarked. Thorn noted that again they wore no protective clothing. Though there was sufficient oxygen here, any unequipped human would have drowned in this rain, and despite the downpour the temperature reached nearly 5 °Celsius. Thorn hauled up his own pack and shouldered it, then over com issued his instructions.

‘Seal up the shuttles and let’s move out. Sparkind, keep to your units—cover for imminent attack. Dracomen…’Thorn considered for a moment how he knew the dracomen could perform. ‘Scout ahead and find us cover: defensible positions, good visibility, but nothing to get trapped in. Let’s get moving.’

The dracomen took off at speed, bounding towards the lower slopes. Soon loaded up, the Sparkind units followed them, with the autoguns patrolling out to either side. A series of flashes then lit the sky and Thorn supposed Cormac was now engaging the remaining pursuers. He checked his footing before setting out, noticed red shoots of growth like droplets of blood scattered across the ground. Then a shadow began drawing across the sky.

‘Cormac, status?’ he asked.

‘Not too brilliant,’ the agent growled in reply.

* * * *

The ship lay upside-down in dense red jungle. Through the screen Cormac could see a path of smashed thick stems and enormous smouldering leaves the ship had left as it plunged in backwards. Because he had been in similar situations before, he first instructed his envirosuit to close up completely, for any kind of poisonous air mix might be leaking into the ship. The visor shot up out of the neck ring and engaged with the helmet, which extended itself in segmented sections up around the back of his head, from the rear of the neck ring. He then looked across at Blegg beside him.

Horace Blegg had also closed up his own suit.

‘Interesting landing,’ said Cormac. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘High intensity laser—drilled right through our engine,’ Blegg replied. ‘Did you notice the source?’

In the last moment, just before the explosion wiped out the ship’s exterior sensors, he had seen one of the spiral ships descending on them like an express elevator.

‘I think we need to get out of here—fast.’ Reaching up he hit his strap release and, spinning himself round as he dropped from his seat, came down feet first on the ceiling. Blegg landed there an instant after him. Scar was waiting to the rear of the cockpit, fangs exposed in what was definitely not a grin. Cormac searched round for Arach, then looked up at what had been the floor, and saw the drone still clinging there. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ The drone needed no more instruction. Without descending, it scuttled to the rear of the lander and dropped out through the airlock the dracomen had just opened.

Cormac followed the departing dracomen, snatching up his own pack of supplies, and his proton carbine on the way. Once outside, via his gridlink, he instructed both the inner and outer door of the airlock to close, then began leading the way through the pall of smoke and steam around the overturned vessel.

Something globular, the size of a potato sack and the colour of old blood, crouched on three legs on the smouldering ground less than ten yards from the ship. It shivered, emitting a warbling squeal. Scar aimed his carbine at the creature, then swung the weapon away. The dracoman clearly knew the creature to be harmless, though it might attract other more dangerous predators. As the dracomen spread out, Cormac glanced up at Arach, now squatting atop the lander, before peering higher into the occluded sky.

‘Nice of them to give us shelter from the rain,’ he quipped. They stood in a twilight created by the ammonite spiral filling half the sky above them as it slowly descended. ‘Thorn?’ he queried, receiving nothing but static over com. So as to ascertain their position he ran a program to track Thorn’s last signal to them. ‘We’ll see if we can link up,’ he said to the others, gesturing over to his right into the thick wall of jungle.