“Thanks.” She gave Samuel a forlorn look. “Something wrong?”
The Edenist had been accessing their exchange via his bitek processor block. “I am reminded of the time she left Tranquillity. We were all following after her rather like this, and look what happened that time. Possibly we should be the ones taking the initiative. If the foundry is her intended destination, she may well have a method of eluding us already in place.”
“Could be. But the only way of stopping her now is to shoot the car. That would bring the police storming in.”
Samuel accessed the ESA operations centre computer and reviewed the security police deployment status. “We are a long way from their designated reinforcements; and we can have the flyers here in minutes. Hurting the feelings of the Tonala government is an irrelevance compared to securing the Alchemist. Mzu has done us a favour by coming to such a remote place.”
“Yeah. Well, if you’re willing to bring your flyers in to evac us, I’m certainly prepared to commit our people. We’ve got enough firepower to stomp on the police if—” She broke off as Adrian datavised again.
“The city air defence network has just located those missing Organization spaceplanes,” he told her. “They’re heading right at you, Monica; three of them coming in over the sea at Mach five. Looks like you were right about the foundry being a pickup zone.”
“My God, she is selling out to Capone. What a bitch.”
“Looks that way.”
“Can you direct the city network to shoot the spaceplanes?”
“Yes, if they get closer, but at the moment they’re out of range.”
“Will they be in range at the foundry?” Samuel asked.
“No. The network doesn’t have any missiles, it’s all beam weapons. Tonala relies on its SD platforms to kill any threat approaching from outside its boundaries.”
“The flyers,” Monica asked Samuel. “Can they intercept?”
“Yes.” Launch please, he instructed the pilots.
Monica datavised her armour suit management processor to run a readiness diagnostic, then pulled her shell helmet on and sealed it. The other agents began checking their own weapons.
* * *
“Joshua, the flyers are all leaving,” Ashly datavised.
“I was wondering about that,” Joshua replied. “We’re only about ten kilometres from the ironberg foundry now. Mzu must have arranged some kind of rendezvous there. Dick’s been running some checks for us; he says that sections of the foundry electronics are glitched. There could be some possessed up ahead.”
“Do you need an evac?”
Joshua glanced around the car. Melvyn and Dahybi weren’t giving anything away, while Dick Keaton was merely curious. “We’re not in any danger yet,” one of the serjeants said.
“No. But if it happens, it’s going to happen fast; and we’re not in the strongest position.”
“You can’t pull out now. We’re too close.”
“You’re telling me,” he muttered. “All right, we’ll keep on her for now. If we can get close enough to make our offer, well and good. But if the agencies start getting aggressive, then we back off. Understood, Ione?”
“Understood.”
“I may be able to offer some assistance,” Dick Keaton said.
“Oh?”
“The cars in this convoy are all local models. I have some program commands which could cause trouble in their control processors. It might help us get closer to your target.”
“If we start doing that to the agencies, they’ll use their own electronic warfare capability on us,” Melvyn said. “That’s if they don’t just use a TIP carbine. Everybody knows what’s at stake.”
“They won’t know it’s us,” Dick Keaton said.
“You hope,” Melvyn said. “They’re good, Joshua. No offence to Dick, but the agencies have entire departments of computer science professors writing black software for them.”
Joshua enjoyed the idea of screwing up the other cars, but the way they were driving further and further into isolation was a big mitigating factor. Normal agency rules of minimum visibility wouldn’t apply out here. If he upset the status quo, Melvyn was probably right about the reaction he’d get. What he really wanted was Lady Mac above the horizon to give them some fire support, although even her sensors would struggle to resolve anything through this snowstorm, and she wasn’t due up for another forty minutes. “Dick, see what you can do to strengthen our car processors against agency software. I’ll use your idea if it looks like she’s getting away from us.”
“Sure thing.”
“Ashly, can you launch without causing undue attention?”
“I think so. There has to be someone observing me, but I’m not picking up any active sensor activity.”
“Okay, launch and fly a low-visibility holding pattern ten kilometres from the yard. We’ll shout for you.”
* * *
The four Edenist flyers picked up velocity as they curved around the outskirts of Harrisburg, hitting Mach two thirty kilometres from the coast. Their smoothly rounded noses lined up on the ironberg foundry. Snowflakes flowing through their coherent magnetic fields sparkled a vivid blue around the forward fuselages, then vaporised to fluorescent purple streamers. To anyone under their path, it appeared as though four sunburst comets were rumbling through the atmosphere.
It was the one failing of Kulu’s ion field technology that it could never be successfully hidden from sensors. The three Organization spaceplanes streaking in from the sea spotted them as soon as they lifted from the spaceport. Electronic warfare arrays were activated, seeking to blind the flyers with a full-spectrum barrage. Air-to-air missiles dropped out of their wing recesses and shot ahead at Mach ten.
The Edenist flyers saw them coming through the electronic hash. They peeled away from each other, arcing through the sky in complex evasion manoeuvres. Chaff and signature decoys spewed out of the flyers. Masers locked on and fired continuous pulses at the incoming drones.
Explosions thundered unseen above the farmland. Some of the missiles succumbed to the masers, while others followed their programs to detonate in preloaded patterns. Clouds of kinetic shrapnel threw up lethal blockades along the trajectories they predicted the flyers would use. But there were too few missiles left to create an effective kill zone.
The flyers stormed through.
It should have ended then, a duel between energy beam weapons and fuselage shielding, the two opponents so far away that in all probability they would never even see each other. But the snow forbade that; absorbing maser and thermal induction energy, cutting the effective strike range of both sides to less than five hundred metres. Flyers and spaceplanes had to get close to each other, spiralling around and around, looping, twisting, diving, climbing. Aggressors desperate to keep their beams on one point of their target’s fuselage; targets frantic to keep moving, spinning to disperse the energy input. A genuine dogfight developed. Pilots blinded by the snow and clouds, dependent on sensors harassed by unremitting electronic warfare impulses. Given that both the flyers and the spaceplanes were multi-role craft, the manoeuvres lacked any real acrobatic innovation. Predication programs were the true knights of the sky, allowing pilots to keep a steady lock on their opponents. The flyers’ superior agility began to pay dividends. The spaceplanes were limited by the ancient laws of aerodynamic lift and stability, restricting their tactics to classical aerial manoeuvres. While the flyers could move in any direction they wanted to providing their fusion generators had enough power.
The Organization was always going to lose.
One by one, the crippled spaceplanes tumbled out of the sky. Two of them smashed into the frozen soil outside the foundry yard, the third into the sea.
Overhead, the flyers closed formation and began to circle the vast foundry yard in anticipation of claiming their prize.
Urschel and Pinzola slid up over the horizon. Warned by the screams of souls torn back into the beyond, they knew what to look fo
r. X-ray lasers stabbed down four times, their power unchecked by gravid clouds or swirling ice crystals.
* * *
The docking cradle rose out of the spaceport bay, exposing the fuselage of the Mount’s Delta to a blaze of sunlight. At this juncture of a normal departure, a starship would spread its thermo-dump panels before it disengaged. Quinn told Dwyer to switch their heat exchange circuits to an internal store. Umbilical feeds withdrew from their couplings in the lower hull, then the hold-down latches retracted.
“Fly us fifty kilometres along Jesup’s spin axis,” Quinn said. “Then hold us there.”
Dwyer flicked a throat mike down from his headset and muttered instructions to the flight computer. Ion thrusters lifted the clipper-class ship clear of the bay, then the secondary drive came on. Mount’s Delta accelerated away at a fifteenth of a gee, following a clean arc above the surface of the counter-rotating spaceport.
Quinn used the holoscreens surrounding his acceleration couch to display images from the external sensor suite. Nothing else moved around the gigantic asteroid. The surrounding industrial stations had been shut down for days and were now drifting out of alignment. An inert fleet of personnel commuters, MSVs, inter-orbit cargo craft, and tankers were all docked to Jesup’s counter-rotating spaceport, filling nearly every bay.
As soon as the starship rose away from the apex of the spaceport, Quinn switched the optical sensors to track the other asteroids. Dwyer watched the screens in silence as the three deserted asteroids appeared. This time there was movement visible, tiny stars were closing on the dark rocks at high velocity.
“Looks like we’re just in time,” Quinn said. “The nations are getting upset about losing their ships.” He spoke briefly into his mike, instructing the flight computer.
Four secure military-grade laser communicators deployed from the starship’s fuselage. One pointed back at Jesup, while the other three acquired a lock on the abandoned asteroids. Each one fired an ultraviolet beam at their target, its encrypted code requesting a response. In answer, four similar ultraviolet beams transfixed the Mount’s Delta. Impossible to intercept or interfere, they linked Quinn into the equipment his teams had been setting up.
Diagrams flashed up on the bridge screens as modulated information flooded back along the beams. Quinn entered a series of codes and watched in satisfaction as the equipment acknowledged his command authority.
“Ninety-seven nukes on-line,” he said. “By the look of it, they’re rigging another five as we speak. Dumb arseholes.”
“Is that enough?” Dwyer asked anxiously. Loyalty would probably not be any defence if things weren’t going precisely to plan. He just wished he knew what that plan was.
Quinn’s grin was playful. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
* * *
“No survivors,” Samuel said. “None.” His dignified face betrayed a profound sorrow, one hardened by the grey light of the snow-veiled landscape.
For Monica the loss was heightened by the terrible remoteness of the event. A few swift diffuse flashes of light lost among the occluded sky above the convoy, as if sheet lightning were flaring amid the snowstorm. They had seen and heard nothing of the decimated flyers crashing on the eastern edge of the foundry yard.
We have the pilots safe, the Hoya told Samuel and the other Edenists. Fortunately the flyers’ shielding held out long enough for the transfer to complete.
Thank you, that’s excellent news, Samuel said. “But not their souls,” he whispered under his breath.
Monica heard him, and met his gaze. Their minds were a unison of grief, less than affinity but certainly sharing awareness.
“Practicalities,” he said forlornly.
“Yes.”
The car gave a fast unexpected lurch as the brakes suddenly engaged, then cut out. Everyone inside was flung forwards against their seat straps.
“Electronic warfare,” shouted the ESA electronics expert who was riding with them. “They’re glitching our processor.”
“Is it the possessed?” Monica asked.
“No. Definitely coming through the net.”
The car braked again. This time the wheels locked for several seconds, starting to skid across the slushy road before an emergency program released them.
“Go to manual,” Monica instructed. She could see other cars in the convoy twisting and slithering across the dual roadway. One of the police vehicles hit the safety barrier and shot down the embankment into a frozen ditch, spraying snow as it went. Another of the big embassy cars thumped into the rear of Monica’s car, crunching some of the bodywork. The impact spun them around. Monica’s armour suit stiffened as she was shaken from side to side.
“It’s not affecting Mzu,” Samuel said. “She’s pulling away from us.”
“Disable the police cars,” Monica told the electronics expert. “And that bloody Calvert, too.” She felt a sincerely unprofessional glee as she ordered that, but it was perfectly legitimate. By separating herself and Mzu from the police and Calvert she was reducing the opportunity for interference in the mission goal.
Their driver finally seemed to master the intricacies of the car’s manual controls, and they shot forwards, weaving around the other disorientated cars. “Adrian?” Monica datavised.
“With you. Nobody here can origin that electronic warfare outbreak.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’re on top of it.”
“Calvert’s in front of us,” the driver said. “He’s right on Mzu’s tail, this hasn’t affected him at all.”
“Shit!” Monica directed her shell helmet sensors to switch to infrared, and just caught the pink blob of Calvert’s car hidden by snow a hundred and twenty metres ahead of them. Behind her, two embassy cars were already pulling away from the stalled police vehicles, while another one was creeping along the verge, trying to get around.
“Adrian, we’re going to need an evac. Fast.”
“Not easy.”
“What do you fucking mean? Where are the embassy’s Royal Marine utility planes? They should be on backup, for God’s sake!”
“They’re both liaising with the local defence force. It would have been suspicious if I’d called them back.”
“Do it now!”
“I’m on it. You should have one there in about twenty minutes.”
Monica thumped an armoured fist into the seat, splitting some of the fabric. The car was racing on through the snow, surprisingly stable for one under manual control. Four sets of headlights were visible behind them. A fast datavised review informed Monica they were all embassy cars, which gave her some satisfaction.
She put her machine gun down and picked up a maser carbine, then undid her seat belt.
“Now what?” Samuel asked as she leaned forward to get a better view through the windscreen.
“Joshua Calvert, your time is up.”
“Uh oh,” said the electronics expert. He looked up in reflex.
* * *
Ashly approached the ironberg foundry yard from the west, following five minutes behind the Edenist flyers. The spaceplane’s forward passive sensor suite revealed the basics of the missile launch and dogfight. Then the X-ray lasers had fired from orbit. He held his breath as the sensors reported a microwave radar beam sweep across the fuselage. It came from the starships seven hundred kilometres above.
Now is not a good time to die. Especially as I know what’s in store if I do. Kelly was right: screw fate and destiny, just spend the rest of time in zero-tau. I think I might try that if I get out of this.
Nothing happened.
Ashly let out a shudder of breath, finding his palms sweating. “Thank you whoever thought up low-visibility profiling,” he said out loud. With its top-grade stealth systems active, the spaceplane was probably invisible to any sensor on, or orbiting, Nyvan. His only worry had been an infrared signature, but the thick snow eradicated that.
He ordered the spaceplane’s computer to open a secure channel to Tonala’s net, hoping no one wit
h heavy weaponry would detect the tiny signal. “Joshua?” he datavised.
“Jesus, Ashly, we thought you’d been hit.”
“Not in this machine.”
“Where are you?”
“Thirty kilometres from the foundry yard. I’m about to go into a holding pattern. What’s happening down there?”
“Some idiot used electronic warfare on the cars. We’re okay; Dick hardened our programs. But the police are out of it for the moment. We’re still on Mzu’s tail. I think a couple of embassy cars are behind us, maybe more.”
“Is Mzu still heading for the foundry yard?”
“Looks like it.”
“Well unless the cavalry comes up over the hill, we’re the only pickup she’s got left. There’s nothing flying within my sensor range.”
“Unless they’re stealthed, too.”
“You’ve always got to look on the bleak side, haven’t you?”
“Just being cautious.”
“Well if they’re stealthed, I . . .” Ashly broke off as the flight computer warned him of another radar sweep emanating from the starships. The beam was configured differently this time, a ground scan profile. “Joshua, they’re hunting you. Get out! Get out of the car!”
* * *
Every electronic warfare block in the embassy car was datavising frantic alerts.
We are being targeted by the Organization frigates, Samuel told Hoya and Niveu. There was little he could do to conceal his rising panic. Once, the knowledge that his memories would be held safely in the Hoya would have been enough for him. Now he wasn’t so sure that was all that mattered. You must stop them. If they kill Mzu, it’s all over.
The snow-lashed sky behind the car flashed purple.
After tens of kilometres of entirely passive pursuit across the tundralike farmland, the Tonala security police had been caught out badly by the sudden electronic warfare attack. Of all the cars, theirs came off worst, leaving them scattered across both roadways as their surveillance suspects, quite infuriatingly, dodged around them as if they were nothing more than inconvenient roadcones. It took time for them to rally; processors had to be disengaged to allow the manual controls to be activated, officers from cars that had gone over the embankment or smashed into the barrier sprinted for cars that were still functional, swiping huge gobs of crash cushion foam from their suits. Once they had reorganized they began to drive fast after their quarry.
The Night's Dawn Trilogy Page 231