Line War

by Neal Asher

  The graser beam melted through the far wall of the lounge, but luckily beyond that lay only sections of the complex containing the cargo runcibles, and there it finally spent its energy slagging the massive handler robots. The fire the beam had generated exploded down neighbouring corridors, where it splashed against rapidly closing blast doors. However, the massive concourse blast doors took time to close, so for a full ten seconds the inferno played down the concourse and erupted into the main lounge.

  It was like taking a blowtorch to an ants’ nest. Such scenes had been seen before on news programmes, but witnessing realtime a human being staggering along, screaming, while sheets of skin peeled away from his body had the power to shock even the Salvaston AI. Yet all this death and destruction, Salvaston soon realized, was not the primary objective of the attack.

  The Skaidon warp was gone now, shut down, but everything beyond it in U-space had not ceased to exist. Within the spoon the massive blast abruptly ceased expanding then rapidly began to collapse back in on itself. Monitoring this, the AI deduced that the weapon used was an imploder. The implications were obvious, for the AIs had previously discussed this eventuality at length.

  The USER, or underspace interference emitter, disrupted the underspace continuum by oscillating a singularity through a runcible gate. An imploder exploded first, then a complicated form of field technology fed off the energy generated by that explosion to cause a massive gravity phenomenon. This collapsed much of what was encompassed within the explosion down into a briefly generated singularity, then the singularity disrupted, releasing the same energy again. The intended result was that anything hit by such a weapon would be rendered down to energy and discrete atoms only. The aim here, however, was the singularity alone.

  A singularity within a runcible gate.

  The Salvaston AI had now shut down all the runcible gates, though it had not needed to. The disruption from this event spread instantly as a U-space shock wave, encompassing a realspace volume twenty light years across. The runcibles simply would not function and, as was almost certainly the aim, neither would the U-space drives of the Polity fleet hovering in space above. Now utterly cut off from the rest of the Polity until this U-space disruption ended, the Salvaston AI was not to know that this cataclysm had also happened on twenty-seven other worlds.

  Chevron had achieved her purpose: now Erebus could move on Earth itself.

  The events reported from Xanadu did not come to Jerusalem’s attention until 0.001 seconds after a world called Amaranthe abruptly went out of contact, but even then the AI did not realize how critical things were becoming. Only 0.102 seconds later, sensors in solar systems adjacent to Amaranthe detected U-space disruption extending in a twenty-light-year sphere, with that world directly at its centre. This was now an event of extreme tactical importance, since at Amaranthe a whole ECS fleet had been taken out of play, therefore Jerusalem onlined more processing power to deal with the problem. First the AI ordered the refusal of all runcible transmissions from Xanadu, using maximum transmission power for its own orders so that they would arrive at AIs within this quadrant in under a tenth of a second, and at all other AIs across the Polity in under a second. Then, 0.001 seconds later, as another world went offline, the AI understood precisely what was happening and that mere transmission refusal would not stop spoon detonation of the imploders sent from Xanadu, so it now ordered the immediate shutdown of the runcible network in this entire quadrant. And it was only in that same moment that the AI comprehended the entirety of Erebus’s plan of attack.

  The earlier attack upon Ramone had knocked out the connections to the massive geothermal power stations buried under the continent on which sat the city of Transheim. The oversized runcible buffers on the oceanic world Prometheus were no longer connected to massive heat sinks situated deep in its ocean. Suicide attacks by Erebus’s wormships had finally taken out the solar energy collectors about the Caldera worlds. These were the main events, but other worlds had lost energy-handling systems that were vital components in the runcible network. The network was now running like a car without brakes, driven by an engine without a cutoff button–for those worlds had been the real targets of Erebus’s onslaught. Immediate shutdown would now cause energy feedbacks resulting in massive death and destruction, even if that option was still available. And it was not.

  Then U-com shut down as a wave of disruption slammed out from Scarflow to completely block travel or com through that continuum. Sluggardly interminable minutes later, radio communications began to take up the slack–with inevitable delays–and finally Jerusalem began to learn what had happened on the nearby world.

  ‘So it seems that Erebus has been one step ahead of us,’ said the Golem Azroc.

  Jerusalem focused a fragment of its consciousness on Azroc while simultaneously learning that the graser blast and ensuing firestorm on Scarflow had killed over four thousand people and that an estimated six thousand more would need to be hospitalized, though the figure was not entirely clear yet, since people were still dying. Luckily a big ECS Rescue ship was in orbit about Scarflow and, upon Jerusalem’s instruction, would be landing there within an hour.

  ‘Yes, so it would seem,’ Jerusalem replied to Azroc.

  All of Azroc’s links to the Line war were now down and like Jerusalem he could only guess at what had happened beyond this small section of space. In the control area, where robot fabricators and welders were still repairing the hole torn through the floor, personnel were already sitting back from their consoles, pulling out earplugs or disconnecting optic cables from their augmentations or, in the case of Golem, from their bodies. Jerusalem noted that Azroc was now checking his models of battles that must still be ongoing–this time with reference to this present attack using the runcible network. The Golem nodded, doubtless seeing the pattern, removed his skeletal hand from the palm interface, then slipped his glove of syntheskin back on. He was showing signs of anger almost human in the lack of control, for both his hands were shaking.

  This manifestation of humanity was why Jerusalem had given Azroc the position he held, for the Golem, his mind built by imposing loose order on synaptic chaos, was that step closer to being human, just as some humans were a step closer than their fellows to being AI. Doubtless Jerusalem’s flat tones and seeming lack of emotional response to the unfolding events annoyed Azroc too.

  ‘Erebus specifically attacked several highly populous Line worlds in order to draw a proportion of our forces there,’ the Golem observed. ‘Throughout those attacks he ensured the runcible network components at Ramone, the Caldera Worlds and Prometheus were disabled or destroyed, so that the response time in shutting down the network within this quadrant would be delayed.’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ replied Jerusalem, again flat and emotionless.

  ‘I’m guessing even that was unnecessary?’

  Jerusalem focused more processing power on the Golem and carefully introduced some emulation of emotion. ‘How can we possibly know?’ Now, surely the Golem must understood how isolated they were.

  ‘How long before the disruption settles enough to allow U-com again?’

  ‘Ten solstan days at least.’

  Azroc stood with fists balled and face twisted with rage.

  ‘And we must be ready for what we find out there,’ Jerusalem added, then returned his attention to local events. This Golem, with his tendency to humanity, was an interesting diversion and a subtext to the larger issue concerning the development of human intelligence, but Jerusalem’s greatest concerns now lay elsewhere. It might be that miscalculations had been made. The threat Erebus posed had pushed, and would continue to push, the human race out of its evident stagnation. However, the threat Erebus posed should never have been allowed to reach this level in the first place. Consequently, it was likely the Polity would incur huge losses–losses it might not easily recover from.

  Jerusalem then decided that the resultant developmental benefit of Erebus’s attack on the Polity had been outwe
ighed, and the experiment it had not itself initiated was, as far as it was concerned, over.

  During the first few hours of the journey through U-space Cormac felt as if he was floating in a grey fog with perilous geometries stretching away from him in every direction, ready to drag him down. He knew, with utter certainty now, that he only had to relax his attention for a little while and he would be outside the attack ship, and then it would be gone, leaving him to drift in numb void. But he had fought the feelings of dislocation, of being neither here nor there, and tried to bring both his immediate surroundings and exterior U-space into sharper focus. The effort had made his brain feel like it was turning to lead in his skull, and increasingly he began to rely on cognitive programs meticulously constructed within his gridlink for the task.

  After four hours he had realized that spending time in his cabin indulging in such introspection took his focus away from the reality of the ship around him, which was why he went off to find his remaining companions.

  ‘Stick me down for five,’ said Arach, his playing cards fanned out before his gleaming ruby eyes.

  Cormac peered closely at the spider drone, then increased the magnification of his own eyes to record the reflected image from those red eyes and cleaned it up in his gridlink…that device in his skull that apparently was not even functioning. But he had decided it would be best to forget that assertion and just pretend it was.

  Now, perfectly lined up in his mind, he apparently knew what cards Arach was holding. He was suspicious, however, since the last time he had tried this Arach’s eyes had immediately turned matt so there was no reflection. The present image therefore had to be false. Cormac now set about analysing why the drone had chosen those particular cards for this false image.

  ‘I’ll go two,’ said Smith, his cards face down on the table and his hand poised over them, detectors in the skin of his hand primed to pick up any sneaky scanning. Had these been normal playing cards there might have been some need for this, but they were sensitized and would scream if scanned, unless by extremely sophisticated means. Also, had these been normal cards, there would have been no point in even playing the game, since everyone around this table was capable of memorizing the order of the pack even as the cards were picked up and shuffled, and thus capable of analysing most of the resultant probabilities. But these cards electronically shuffled themselves, changing their face value at the end of each game, and the usual fifty-two cards were played, but chosen out of twenty suits of two hundred and sixty cards.

  While Smith’s call automatically appeared in the grid displayed in the glass tabletop, Cormac examined the Golem and wondered about those alterations made to Henrietta Ipatus Chang’s record. It seemed evident to him that the black op she was involved in must have originally been something to do with Erebus but, since her abrupt reappearance in that wormship on the surface of Ramone, this connection had been abruptly covered up. Why so, he was not entirely sure, but he was beginning to indulge in some nasty speculations. Certainly Earth Central had known about the threat long before it became apparent. But how? And what had been going on back then?

  Frowning, Cormac returned his attention to the others seated around the table. He would have expected them to choose a game like poker, or maybe one of those derivatives of chess in which the pieces actually fought each other on the table top and died messily. That they chose to play contract whist seemed odd to him. He shifted his attention to the next player and found he still felt slightly unnerved by its presence.

  He guessed it wasn’t unexpected that an attack ship AI that had named itself King of Hearts might be interested in such a game. What unnerved him was how the AI chose to manifest itself. Hunched over his cards, the ship’s avatar had adopted the external appearance of one of those sleer–human hybrids from the planet Cull, though its internal construction was doubtless based around a Golem chassis. In form it was a male human with silvery faceted eyes and pincers curving from the jawline in front of its beaked mouth.

  ‘Three,’ it lisped.

  Now it was Cormac’s turn to declare how many tricks he intended to win. In the light of the previous bids, he again studied his hand, though not the actual cards but the images in his gridlink. He felt himself becoming the focus of much attention and wondered what the others might be trying to read from him. He deliberately raised his heart rate and made random small movements. Unfortunately he could not alter his pheromonal output, but hoped that would give nothing away. About to go for a safe zero, he suddenly had a sharp perception of himself seated at this table, with the others nearby, and the whole of U-space bearing down claustrophobically.

  Something…

  King’s avatar dropped its cards, then slowly bowed over until its pincers clinked against the glass table. Cormac received the impression of something like a hemispherical shock wave hurtling towards the ship. It passed through and he felt the vessel ejected up into the real. His chair slid back and he oophed as if someone had just gut-punched him, then the ship bucked and rang with a sound like a blow delivered against some massive porcelain bowl.

  ‘Oh bollocks,’ said Arach, tossing down his cards.

  In a moment they were all on their different kinds of feet and heading for the bridge.

  ‘That felt like a USER,’ said Smith.

  Cormac could not comment on that since he very much doubted his own feelings bore any relation to anyone else’s.

  ‘Could be Erebus,’ suggested Arach hopefully. ‘Or this Orlandine?’ The two hatches on his abdomen opened tentatively.

  ‘Could be,’ Cormac conceded. He didn’t know why the drone seemed so happy since, if they had just inadvertently encountered one of those two before safely joining the Polity fleet out of Salvaston, Arach’s only involvement with any fight would be his addition to an expanding vapour cloud that had once been the King of Hearts.

  Soon they were clattering into the bridge–where Cormac quickly noted that King had added a couple more sculptures to his collection. One was of Scar, a monument or an exercise in tasteless insensitivity? Hard to tell. The other one was a Prador second-child brandishing a multi-barrelled rail-gun much like the weapons Arach currently sprouted from his back.

  ‘King, what’s happening?’ Cormac asked.

  U-space was distant from him now, but still there. It seemed to be heaving underneath the real, like a sea in motion underneath a mat of sargassum, but what this meant Cormac had no clear idea.

  ‘There has been a major disruption throughout U-space,’ King replied.

  ‘No shit?’ said Arach dryly.

  Cormac glared at the drone. It wouldn’t do to irritate King now, since the attack ship AI did have an inclination to sulkiness. ‘A USER?’ he suggested.

  King continued as if the drone hadn’t even spoken. ‘The effect has been similar but is much more chaotic. I am still analysing the data.’

  ‘Does this mean we are trapped out here?’ wondered Smith.

  That thought had not even occurred to Cormac. He gazed out throught the ersatz dome at the stars winking in the blackness. Certainly the King of Hearts had been knocked up into the real of interstellar space, so if travelling through U-space had ceased to be an option, he would probably soon have to be making use of a cold-coffin. This idea did not appeal, since who knew what his frigid dreaming mind might do with his body the moment travelling in U-space once again became possible.

  ‘We were knocked out of underspace by what appears to be some kind of shock wave and, unless there are further waves, we should be able to return to it within the next few minutes.’

  ‘A shock wave from what and where?’ Cormac asked.

  ‘Still analysing.’ King paused for a moment, whereupon gridded spheres expanded from numerous surrounding stars to crowd up against each other. Next, grid lines appeared across the starscape, sinking away directly ahead to sketch out a funnel shape running through the intersecting spheres till its neck closed down to almost nothing. This image then became clearer when the
whole scene went photo-negative. Cormac blinked at the brightness, since the starscape was now represented as black dots in a white firmament.

  ‘What am I seeing here?’ he asked.

  ‘We were merely knocked out of U-space by a side effect of the main event. U-space disruption has expanded from between twenty and thirty different locations, in each case encompassing a volume of twenty light years,’ said King. ‘It seems evident that Erebus has instigated a runcible-based multiple attack against the Polity.’

  ‘Why so evident?’

  ‘Fifteen of the planetary systems concerned were the temporary or permanent bases of ECS fleets. Many of the other planetary systems disrupted are those where Jerusalem’s forces have been engaging. Jerusalem’s own base was also a target.’

  ‘What kind of runcible-based attack are we talking about here?’ Cormac felt the skin crawling on the back of his neck as he recollected a threat the original Dragon had once made–namely turning runcibles into black holes. Were ‘between twenty and thirty’ Polity worlds therefore now rubble? Were billions of citizens now dead or dying?

  ‘Once an enemy has obtained access to the runcible network, the most likely scenario is the transmission of imploders to detonate within the target runcible gate, and what I am seeing seems to confirm that. The effect is similar to that generated by a USER: the disruption of a large volume of surrounding U-space, though the disruption will be of limited duration and unstable.’

  ‘What about the effect upon the worlds involved?’

  ‘Minimal,’ said King. ‘The gates would emit only gamma radiation, whose destructive potential should not extend beyond any medium-sized runcible complex.’

  So, no worlds trashed and no billions killed. Merely thousands, though it seemed wrong to feel so relieved to hear that. Now he speculated on what precisely was going on. Presumably this Orlandine must have used the stolen war runcible to key into the Polity network and thus send the imploders.