Polity Agent

The Battle Wagon went first, then in waves the other ships followed, winking from black existence. Azroc watched armoured shutters draw across the chainglass screen, as they would be drawn across many other screens throughout the Brutal Blade. Next the ship’s U-space engines came online with a grumble that reverberated through its massive hull, and warning lights came on inside to indicate that it had entered that continuum. Knowing ten hours of journey time would now ensue, unless the USER came back on, Azroc stepped back from the screen and, making an internal adjustment, shut himself down. As he descended into the Golem equivalent of unconsciousness, he understood that many of the humans aboard would not find it so easy to disconnect themselves from the world.

Later, Azroc roused, immediately conscious and thoroughly aware of his surroundings. A brief contact with the ship’s AI, Brutus, confirmed the passing of nine hours.

‘We are one hour from surfacing into realspace,’ the AI informed him.

‘Reconnaissance first?’

‘We have sent four scout ships, though I suspect any trap will not be visible to them.’

Azroc turned away and headed over to where Karischev and his men were ensconced.

The Sparkind units occupied cylindrical dormitories overlooking bays for landing craft. The humans and Golem mostly lay on their bunks, though the Golem needed no rest and such activities were engendered by their emulation programs. Only a few still checked over their equipment, since most checks had been carried out ad nauseam before now. Many gathered around screens and tactical displays positioned at either end of the dormitories. Azroc found Karischev standing before one of these.

‘A quick scan of the system first,’ declared the man, ‘then we go through.’

‘Four scout ships, apparently,’ Azroc agreed.

‘Of course we’ll probably be sitting on our butts during any ship-to-ship battle. But I’m told there are two living planets here the AIs don’t want to burn, so we’ll probably be sent to them to clear up anything the big guns can’t hit without destroying ecologies.’

‘And to find those personnel who were set down on one of those planets.’

‘Yeah—if there’s anything left of them to be found. The information we received makes that look increasingly unlikely’ — Karischev paused—‘though, admittedly, dracomen and Sparkind, along with Horace Blegg and Ian Cormac, are more likely to survive the shitstorm there than most.’

‘Admittedly,’ Azroc conceded.

‘Y’know,’ Karischev added, ‘I never used to believe those two characters existed. I thought they were fictional, like King Arthur or Rasputin.’

Azroc considered the irony of this statement before replying, ‘Well, apparently they are real.’

The ensuing half-hour dragged past slowly, then one of the tactical displays changed to show the situation within the system they intended to enter. Hundreds of enemy ships were revealed scattered across vacuum, but many less now than shown previously.

‘Data from the scouts,’ Azroc commented, while they watched some of the alien ships blink out of existence. ‘The enemy are fleeing.’

‘Sensible of them,’ Karischev replied.

Precisely on time, the entire fleet surfaced from U-space and began to deploy. Immediately the main displays changed to reveal a contracted view of the planetary system, with all its worlds gathered much closer than would be possible in reality, the various ships swarming about them like fish around reefs. All the fleet ships were represented by blue dots, and the enemy ships indicated in red. Azroc identified the Battle Wagon—close by in interplanetary terms—its cylindrical shape still discernible. While they watched, a viewing square picked out a group of enemy ships with fleet ships closing in on them and expanded the view. Then another square picked out one of the main enemy ships and displayed it on a side-screen. The large ammonite spiral spun, darkly iridescent, light flashing from the junctures between its segments and from the inner loops of its spirals. He only glimpsed the occasional object speeding away from it, but a glance at one of the tactical displays revealed the same ship launching a barrage at approaching Polity ships. Then it bucked as if slapped on the edge by a giant’s hand. The screen blanked for a second, then the vessel flew apart: lengths of spiral and separate segments hurtling away.

‘Modular construction,’ he commented.

‘Get this,’ said Karischev, pointing at something new displayed on another screen.

Now they watched as the Battle Wagon headed into a conglomeration of enemy ships, its weapons firing and wreaking havoc all around. Spiral ships burned internally and spun apart, rod-ships detonated like linked firecrackers.

‘This is not going to last very long,’ said Azroc.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Karischev.