by Neal Asher
Duelling with hardfields against a mile-wide lens-shaped vessel using telefactored warheads, Haruspex seemed in danger of being swamped by a rapidly forming wall of the bacilliforms. Jack sent a coded transmission to Haruspex then swung round in a sharp 400 gravity turn to put the NEJ behind that threatening wall. He fired a combined CTD and EM warhead at the rod-ships then, after a delay, followed it with a fusillade of near-c rail-gun projectiles. Haruspex immediately dropped out of the fight. The missile detonated amid the rod-ships, cutting a hole in the wall they created. The rail-gun projectiles shot through the hole, following the wave of EM radiation. The big lens’s instruments could detect nothing but the EM, so did not react quickly enough to the following projectiles. A hundred impacts collapsed one side of the lens like a punctured balloon. Both the NEJ and the Haruspex then used their chameleonware to cover their run towards the spiral ship pursuing Coriolanus.
‘I have the USER located,’ Coriolanus reported and sent coordinates.
Jack scanned and confirmed, and Haruspex agreed. During the recent battle they had managed to take readings of the interference strength of the device. It was located on a small moon orbiting the cold world—half the planetary system away from their present position.
‘We have to make the run,’ Jack informed the other two ships.
‘That will mean abandoning those on the planet,’ Coriolanus informed him.
Jack scanned in that direction and saw some of the enemy ships deployed down inside atmosphere. ‘My assessment of our current situation is that by running from the system on conventional drives we could survive. If we stay to protect Cormac and co, we will eventually be destroyed. The greatest hope for them is if we destroy that USER, then return to fight a delaying action until the dreadnoughts arrive. We can only hope our erstwhile passengers manage to survive on the surface.’
After a short pause, the other two ships concurred.
* * * *
The moment his boots hit the soft ground, Thorn’s envirosuit muttered warnings in his ear and flashed them up on his visor. He turned those persistent warnings off, since he did not need the suit to tell him he occupied a highly radioactive area. The incinerated terrain ahead stretched for five hundred miles along the base of the mountains, and seemed likely to be the result of multiple nuclear explosions. However, in this heavy rain, he could see only a few yards ahead—in the planet’s lower gravity the raindrops falling slowly were twice the size of those on Earth, and also were turbid with ash as a consequence of explosions that had occurred here.
‘Out-spectrum vision—search,’ he instructed his suit.
After a moment a transparent band drew across his visor directly before his eyes, and within that band the rain seemed simply to be erased. However, above and below the band he could still see the downpour. Though accustomed to using this kind of sensory enhancement, he did not trust it, it being too easy to interfere with—already the surrounding radioactivity began to cause flecks across his vision. He now surveyed his surroundings.
The remaining dracoman shuttle from the NEJ was just landing, and the soldiers around him were checking their weaponry and loading up ridiculously large packs, while the four autoguns patrolled around them like hounds anxious for the hunt. No badinage passed between the troops. Many of them had known Bhutan and the others aboard the Sparkind shuttle that didn’t make it here.
‘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.
His last words were drowned out in a low roar as one of the rod-ships
breasted the plant canopy to his left. The dracomen hit the jungle ahead of Cormac as he himself broke into a run. Behind him the weird vessel crashed down on the wrecked Polity ship. Sheltering for a moment under a leaf like a duvet filled with blood, he observed the rod-ship extrude its tendrils as if it were intent on throttling some opponent, then he heard the sound of rending metal. To one side he saw Arach bouncing along with his spidery legs folded into a caged ball. Rolling to a halt the drone abruptly opened out again. Hatches then opened in his rear torso, and up folded two Gatling design cannons. These whirled into action, and both rod-ship and shuttle disappeared under a storm of explosions.
‘Shit!’ Cormac ducked to avoid flying debris. He then glanced up and saw more objects detach from the spiral ship and begin dropping towards them: more rod-ships, writhing anguine things, and translucent coins in which indistinct shapes shifted. Then another shape he recognized: the Legate’s vessel, or something very much like it.
‘Save your ammo, Arach—you’re going to need it!’
Arach came dancing after him as Cormac stood initiating Shuriken in its holster, then followed Blegg and the dracomen into deeper jungle shade.
They moved fast as the shadow deepened and extended around them with the descent of the spiral ship. Most of the surrounding vegetation sported big leaves raised up, three or four yards, on top of thick fibrous stalks, while in their shade lay little undergrowth to hinder progress. In some areas vines shifted like tangles of somnolent red snakes, but these were easily avoided. The ground itself was a spongy lamination of decaying leaves over-spread with fungi like spills of blue paint. Around the bases of the fibrous stems, nodular sprouts fisted from the leaf litter, doubtless awaiting the collapse of leaves above them and the subsequent chance of enlivening sunlight. Occasionally they would encounter one of those globular red creatures crouching by one of these stems, a crunching sucking sound issuing from underneath it as it grazed on the sprouts.
Within a few minutes they reached softer ground. Rain rumbled thunderously on the overhead leaves and rivulets of water slithered like drool down the stems. They were out of the huge ship’s shadow now. From behind them came a low roar and then a blast of wind, lifting leaves to let in the actinic glare of the sun, now penetrating cloud.
‘It’s down!’ Blegg called.
It would not be the only thing come down, Cormac realized. The leaves lifting had given him a glimpse of those objects he earlier observed descending, now falling into the jungle all around them. Then he heard something crashing through the canopy over to his right.
‘We may soon have company,’ he broadcast over com.
Their first company turned out to be one of those tripedal saurians Jack had warned about and detailed in the download to Cormac’s gridlink. Its gait on just three long legs was smooth and fast, but utterly bewildering to witness. A whiplike tail flicked around ceaselessly behind it, while on the end of a thick, hinged neck jutted the head of a three-eyed hippopotamus. It emitted a sawing growl as it dodged one of the dracomen, growled again and skidded to a halt when faced with Blegg and two more dracomen. Then it took off again as they moved aside for it. Numerous weapons carefully tracked its progress, but none was fired, as it showed no inclination to attack and just kept on going.
‘Something spooked it,’ Blegg observed.
Perfectly on cue that same something came hurtling towards them out of the deeper shade.
It might be some indigene of this strange world, yet instantly reminded Cormac of the creatures Chaline had seen attacking the expedition sent to the Small Magellanic Cloud. Its thorax extended fifteen feet long, seemingly camouflage painted in the shades of red of the vegetation surrounding them, and was flanged on either side as if made to glide. Its head, an ugly lump sprouting sensory tufts and black bulbous eyes seemingly at random, was equipped with trimember mandibles. From behind the head, like gill tendrils, extended two sets of three long, multiply jointed limbs. It moved very fast, only the lower two of the sets of limbs hitting the ground—the rest gripping at surrounding stalks to propel it forwards.
Seeing the creature’s speed, and the rapid reaction of the dracoman diving from its path, Cormac realized he himself must move a lot faster to now stay alive. He located a long unused program in his gridlink and put it instantly online. His perception of time now slowed as his thought processes accelerated. The program simultaneously stimulated his body’s production of adrenaline. Then he raised his carbine—but far too slowly. Fire flared from his left, hitting the point where the creature’s legs joined behind its head on one side. It slammed into the ground ploughing up soil, the legs on its other side still gripping stalks and pulling down some of the sheltering leaves as well. Now in bright sunlight, it tried to rise again. Arach hurdled over towards it in an instant, a particle cannon’s beam flashing turquoise between his pincers, and incinerating the attacker’s head.
‘Let’s keep moving,’ urged Cormac. He reached into a pocket on the side of his pack and removed a flat case from which he extracted one of eight short glass tubes, which he now inserted into his envirosuit’s med-access. A prickling at his wrists as the stimulants entered his bloodstream, an abrupt coolness, and then he began sprinting. Blegg and the dracomen kept up with him easily. He knew he must be the slowest moving among them. As he ran, he opened the bandwidth of his connection to Shuriken, now feeling as ready as he could be.
The dracomen spread out wider, and became difficult to spot as they resorted to their own natural chameleonware. They could only be seen at all because at this rapid pace their shifting skin patterns could not keep up to speed with their changing surroundings, and because their weapons and equipment could not be similarly concealed. The second creature did not even get close. Glimpsing a shape speeding in towards them, Cormac initiated Shuriken and sent it spinning five yards out from his body, humming as it extended its chainglass blades, but the dracomen promptly fired upon the attacker simultaneously from three different directions. It body blew to fragments leaving only its limbs still clinging to nearby stalks. Arach scuttled inquisitively through this mess, Gatling cannons swivelling, then moved back into deeper jungle to one side of Cormac.
‘Aw, leave some for me,’ the drone called out to the dracomen.
It soon received its wish as a new type of beast joined the fray.
They kept running on, many other creatures attacking. Proton and pulse-gun fire all around, Arach seemed to be everywhere, concentrating his huge firepower on grouped masses of the alien assailants, in the process bringing down swathes of jungle in burning fragments. The long-legged things could extend their heads, Cormac discovered, as he sent Shuriken hammering through one telescopic neck. The detached head landed beside a fallen dracoman, who rolled aside quickly and came upright to fire down at it, as the head now scuttled off on its mandibles like some independent beast. The target bounced briefly in red flame and then flew apart. Cormac recalled Shuriken and sent it skimming towards another such creature. Premature action, as the headless body of the first one, still suspended in midair, extruded a long metallic tongue which wrapped around the dracoman and wrenched him back viciously. A strange groaning squeal ensued, then two separate halves of smoking dracoman hit the ground. Cormac fired his carbine, its flame meeting the tongue as it now shot towards him. Shuriken, almost as if angry about the dracoman’s death, hammered in and out horizontally through its own opponent, then chopped up and down vertically on its return course. The creature fell to pieces.
Blegg, beside him, keeping pace. ‘Seems they’ve decided we are the ones to be captured alive, and the dracomen are now dispensable.’
‘How many?’ Cormac asked.
‘Five dracomen down.’ Blegg pointed at something weaving towards them. It resembled a long iron nematode hovering a foot from the ground, sliding through the air with the writhing of a snake. A red scythe of fire hit it in the middle, then two shorter versions of the same thing darted away. They both swung round on the source of the sh
ot: a dracoman, clearly visible now since in using their camouflage there was too much danger of hitting each other in this fire-fight. One of the metallic things slammed into his chest, and with a sound like a cleaver striking a butcher’s block, pieces of dracoman and long shards of metal exploded in every direction. More and more Jain-factored creatures were coming in from every direction. A dracoman was snatched up in triple jaws, and the explosion of its carbine energy canister hurled Cormac to his knees. Up again. Left arm numb against his side where smoking shrapnel was embedded. Pain blocking program initiated, then firing one-handed into a nightmare head looming over him. Blegg slammed into his side, just as Shuriken came screaming overhead and straight into the creature’s mouth.
‘Up!’ Blegg spun him round, drew a carbide commando knife, and in one quick movement levered the hot metal from his arm. ‘Not too bad,’ he observed
With movement returning to that arm, Cormac drew his thin-gun and fired off to his left with that, while simultaneously firing with the carbine past Blegg. The tracking and targeting program he was using was sending him cross-eyed. A whumph as a rod-ship crashed down amid them, crushing foliage and ejecting tendrils as thick as falling trees. Cormac saw another dracoman caught up as he himself concentrated fire on the deflating but spreading rod-ship. Spearing towards him, the ground lumped up like a worm track. He aimed downwards just as tendrils exploded from the earth and wrapped around his leg. Severing them with fire, he subliminally saw the captured dracoman slammed hard against the ground and discarded. Not even a complete thought sent Shuriken whirring over above the dracoman while it shook itself like a dog and staggered upright again.