But then it began to slow, the sense of panic starting to recede. Though even at this surface level he found that he was absorbing a low pulse of sensory input which his mind struggled to shape into a form that he could make sense of. It took what seemed like an awfully long time but was in reality no more than a few seconds before he realised that what he was dealing with here wasn’t just circuitry and supporting walls but a fully functioning bio-mechanical organism. The ship was truly alive.
Small clusters of dormant cells started coming to life as they began to realise what was happening, surging outwards in an attempt to alert their neighbours. Webster experienced this as a warm glow spreading up through his body as if touched by the first rays of the sun.
It was bringing a newly heightened sense throughout the entire fabric of the hull.
It was as if they’d been waiting for this union, yearning for some taste of the outside world and he quickly became their conduit, giving shape to their concerns. Were they safe? Was the hull intact? Were they being attacked?
And it was the last of these questions which seemed to enliven them the most and the one which Webster duly homed in on. He didn’t know how he did it, only that he could do it simply by focussing on the word.
Attack. Attack. Attack.
Repeating it over and over until it took on a life of its own.
Then it was simply a matter of helping them focus their growing antagonism, guiding them past the Confederation ships in order to better pinpoint their enemy.
They chittered away to themselves, their calculations reckoned in billionths of a second. Targeting the Da’al ship came so readily to them and before he’d realised it, they were starting to gather the ship’s full destructive arsenal.
They seemed to sense the risk that Webster posed only as an afterthought. He was other, unknown to them and their first and overriding response was to try and disbar him from the ongoing process and yet there was disagreement also. He got the feeling that he was viewed as a useful ally by certain parts of the ships shared consciousness. He had, after all alerted them to this new danger when other minds had not. What did they have to fear from him?
Others reached out to the sub-minds, hoping to find some reassurance there but nothing was forthcoming. The sub-minds had withdrawn into themselves leaving the minds at the ship’s core to settle on their own path. But just because they refused to respond to the ship’s demands did not mean that they could block their wishes.
A huge multi angled debate finished almost as soon as it had begun ending the disquiet over Webster’s role, crushed by the cells’ overwhelming urge for retribution against the Da’al. The close proximity of their prey helping to push aside any reticence they might have felt.
For vital seconds the sub-minds were forgotten and Webster became aware of various booster jets firing as the ship rotated itself so that it was in the absolute best position to vaporise the Da’al ship.
But before the cells were able to commit, they needed to interrogate Webster and they did this by sending an army of nanites coursing through his circulatory system. In their headlong rush for information they analysed everything, from the acidity of his stomach to the speed of his muscles’ electrical responses. But the most telling discovery was within his head as they sorted through the conflicting cauldron of emotions circulating around his brain stem.
Sensing this, Webster tried to answer them in their own chemical language but because he lacked the subtlety for such a nuanced interaction they quickly dismissed him, plunging instead straight into his temporal lobe, plundering his store of memories.
Straight into Joanna Silva.
She’d been manning the helm when the Da’al had opened fire.
Webster had been trapped in one of the main corridors, focussed on how his team were going to get clear. Focussed on Tigris.
They’d spoken briefly on the ship’s comms. He couldn’t even remember what he’d said. Too aware that their conversation might be overheard.
In that moment he might have said anything to her.
Told her that he loved her.
How he wanted her to bear his children.
Instead, he had said nothing.
Too concerned with getting the job done to find time for what truly mattered.
The pain and hurt of his loss was savored by the cells. They had a finely tuned palate as far as suffering was concerned and in that moment they recognised Webster as a kindred spirit. They’d seen enough but, in the simple act of withdrawing from his mind, they’d unwittingly released the backlog of emotions he’d been storing up. Conflicting emotions which he’d been able to put to one side as he concentrated on the simple act of surviving. So now all that rage and anger started to spill out.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He couldn’t forgive himself for his own stupidity. Joanna been the one person in his whole life who he’d truly cared about and now she was dead.
And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
He was aware of the cool presence of the ship as it observed him, monitoring the swell of emotion as he fought to control it. Anger at himself, for the way he’d abandoned her aboard the Dardelion, and anger at the Da’al for the cruel way that they’d snatched her from him.
This growing sense of fury seemed to trigger something in the surrounding cells. He wasn’t sensitive enough to read what was happening on an instinctual level but he was aware of a flood of conflicting emotions on their part as they relived again some of the pivotal encounters they’d shared with the Da’al. From the grim destruction of their planet to their pursuit across the stars, they had faced extinction on numerous occasions only to survive because of their propensity for brutally uncompromising counter-maneuvers.
Their urge to confront the old enemy and destroy them seemed to know no bounds and Webster realised with grim certainty that in their rush to neutralise the enemy vessel they had unwittingly vectored in on the Confederation ships also.
Webster’s reaction was to throw up a defensive perimeter which took in the friendly ships but found that he met with resistance at every turn. The very vulnerability of the ships seemed to draw the attention of the ship’s guns for no sooner had he thrown up a protective area than the ship was retargeting them again. What an irony it would be if, in attempting to protect his allies, he ended up precipitating their premature destruction.
Slowly, he began to prevail, beating back wave after wave of aggression as he forced the cells to cooperate. Yet they were still suspicious of him and in the end he was forced to concede. There was only one way of satisfying their homicidal tendencies. And that was to give in to them.
Acquiring target. The ship known as the Tyr.
With a super-human act of will, he found he was able to resist the rush of their blood lust by targeting exclusively the Da’al ship which was, even then, coming to full awareness - scanning them as a potential target.
With a fatalistic detachment, Webster switched power to the ship’s main guns, painting the Da’al ship as the only proscribed target. For a brief moment it took on a luminescent quality, seeming to glow bright against the backdrop of space.
His communion with the ship was wonderful and terrible in equal measure and it seemed for an instant as though the ship’s high energy lance was firing directly through him. For several seconds, he struggled to control the beacon of blue flame which arced across the gulf of space but slowly he felt the ship starting to respond. It orientated itself so that the lance came around, slicing through Da’al’s external plates immolating everything inside, the veneer of her impregnability gone in an instant.
The voices in his head were jubilant driving him on to excoriate the enemy, directing the lance across its hull in a series of zigzags designed to ensure that nothing could remain alive inside.
For a brief while, Webster was lost within this frenzy of destruction. It was only when he succeeded in hitting one of the fuel cells, buckling the hull plates i
n an endless procession of destruction that he became fully aware of what it was he was doing: cutting signatures of vaporising atmospherics across the face of the enemy.
In all his years of loyal service to the Confederation, he’d never experienced such simple, unfettered joy. The unambiguous delight to be found in simple, mindless mayhem.
So, this was what it was like to live free of consequences, to let loose the demons and to run amok.
It was intoxicating.
And yet, at the same time he experienced a very real sense of disassociation. The last time he’d done something like this he’d been captain of the Syracuse slaughtering those Yakutian pirates. Though it had felt absolutely right at the time, he’d later regretted it. For some reason, such a random act had demeaned him in Faulkner’s eyes, the absolute opposite effect of what he’d been trying to achieve.
Destruction tended to turn ugly once you started relishing it.
Webster broke the contact and stepped back, his breath ragged and uncertain as adrenaline continued to course through his system.
He slowly became aware of The Librarian watching him from the other side of the room, a look of elation on his face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, seeming to enjoy Webster’s relative discomfort. “Aren’t you going to finish them?”
Webster took a faltering step down, off the raised deck, allowing his weight to carry him towards the doorway.
“I’ve done enough. I’m leaving.”
“Really?” The Librarian said, clearly skeptical. “Where will you go?”
“I’m going to get Dalbiri. Then the two of us are going for a short walk.”
*
Schwartz’ ear-bead buzzed and she tapped it once to accept the communication.
“XO, it’s me,” Khan said. “I’m down in The Gun Room.”
The sense of relief she felt on hearing his voice was indescribable.
“Is Powers with you?”
“Unfortunately, PO Powers was hit in that last attack, so it looks like I’m the one in charge down here.”
With anyone else in this situation, she might have panicked but Khan sounded calm, serene even.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“The delivery system worked fine. I’m working the starboard gun and there’s another team on the port side. We’ve got more than enough TTs down here but the difficulty’s been loading them. Because of the way things are set up down here, we can only load fifty at a time.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Not really, no. We’re only going to get one shot at this, so I was kind of hoping for … oh, wait a second.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine. I’ve just had an idea how we might get round this.”
“Well, make it quick, we’ve only got a few more minutes.”
“Okay. Look, I’m going to have to get back to you.”
And then the connection was cut.
Leaving her feeling confused. What was going on down there?
She turned to find Faulkner standing by the edge of the torn deck plates. The way that his face was lit from underneath making him look like some music hall villain.
She thought about bringing him up to speed with the rail guns but then decided against it.
Khan would sort it. He always did.
“Have we heard any more from the Serrayu?” she asked.
“Not yet but then I imagine they’re pretty stretched at the moment.”
Which was true. The last salvo Thor had launched against the Yakutians would have decimated a lesser ship.
“So, no word on those shields?”
It was an honest question and one which was no doubt occupying the thoughts of the rest of the senior crew. With the shields still in place, Renheim would be left in a desperate situation. One she might well not recover from.
The Yakutians had been loath to engage the Da’al under Muhbarat and now, under Sunderam, it seemed that not much had changed.
“Don’t worry,” Faulkner said. “Sunderam won’t let us down.”
“How well do you know him, then?”
“Only met him once. Governor Ardent’s garden party but I was impressed. I don’t pretend to know how these Yakutian house systems work but for someone like Sunderam to supplant an established figure like Muhbarat and live to tell the tale– well, that really is impressive.”
Something flashed on Schwartz’s console and force of habit caused her to look down.
Another damage report.
She saw the number of wounded, highlighted in green, and looked away before it showed her the number of dead.
She tapped the screen without a second glance and the figures disappeared.
*
They could see Thor now clearly on their main monitors and Schwartz had to check the distance to ensure that they hadn’t left it too late.
No. They were closing to within two hundred thousand kilometres.
The enemy could no doubt see what was happening and would be delaying their next salvo to launch at the optimum moment. By her reckoning, that would be around the hundred and fifty thousand mark. At that distance, they wouldn’t even need to rely on their warheads, the velocity of their missiles alone would be enough to rip the Renheim apart.
At that precise moment she felt something shift inside of her. A precise internal pressure, painful and yet somehow sublime.
Immediately, she forced her mind to focus on the matters at hand, but it wasn’t easy. Something strange was happening to her body, she had to at least acknowledge that. Yet common sense told her to ignore it. She had another two months to go.
Phantom pains were common during pregnancy. She was just going to have to get used to it.
Still, it hurt, and she couldn’t help probing her stomach to see what, if anything, had changed. It was while she was doing this that she became aware of the Tactical team anxiously looking over in her direction. They were awaiting her next set of instructions.
She pointed towards her console, her expression suggesting that they should do the same.
One by one they turned back to their screens.
The pain came again and this time she gritted her teeth.
She’d sacrificed an awful lot to be in this position and she could think of nowhere else she’d rather be. When she’d first gone into the service, the expectation had been that if she ever did see action, it would be up against the Yakutians but things changed and now, with the Da’al, they were up against the greatest threat mankind had ever faced.
What happened in the next few minutes would mark a decisive moment for the Confederation. If she could find a way to secure a victory here then that might be enough to tip the scales slightly in their favor. And, having held off the Da’al’s first foray into their system, they would hopefully have an opportunity to strengthen their position. Reinforcements from Lincoln couldn’t be that far away.
But if they failed to hold their nerve, if they blinked at this most inopportune of moments and let Thor evade them, allowed her to slip through, then everything that had gone before, all those sacrifices, would count for nothing.
This was her moment. Her opportunity to defend those things which she held dear. And if she couldn’t stay true to those, then how else was she going to safeguard her child’s future?
She adjusted her screen so that she could talk to the entire rail gun crew, taking pleasure in the fact that Stephen would be hearing this as well.
“Targeting. I want us locked on that sonovabitch with viable targets cycled through to me as soon as they appear. Once I’ve given them the green light you may fire at will, no need to check with me after that.”
“Just to remind you, ma’am, the enemy’s shields are still operational.”
She ground her teeth together at that.
“Yes. But, hopefully, not for long.”
Her targeting screen was automatically selecting viable options across Thor’s hull using the d
ata they’d gathered from the previous Da’al ships they’d encountered. This way, they hoped to try and pinpoint where their weaknesses lay via heat signatures and electrical impulses.
But none of it would matter if they couldn’t get those shields down.
What was Sunderam playing at?
“Ma’am, we are ready to fire.”
Stephen’s voice. Brisk and efficient.
“Acknowledged. We’re just waiting for the go ahead.”
“Ma’am, are you seeing this?”
With Topeka obscuring the sun, Thor had been thrown into deep shadow. So, all that she could see was the port side laid out beneath her like some vast Mediterranean city at night.
It looked tremendously peaceful, beautiful even.
Then she became aware of something odd happening. The lights around the ship’s prow seemed to twinkle before disappearing completely, suggesting some kind of localised power surge.
But then she realised that this was happening in vast swathes all across the face of the ship. The individual pinpricks of light surging before quickly being extinguished. One by one, all the lights were being turned off, swathing the forward section in almost total darkness.
With some difficulty, her mind started to work out what it was that she was seeing.
Someone said, “The whole ship appears to be shutting down.”
“Lieutenant commander,” Faulkner’s voice echoed around the bridge, jarring her from her reverie. “The shields are down. You may fire when ready!”
Schwartz’s mind went suddenly blank as she stared at the main targeting display. It had suddenly come alive, automatically scanning Thor’s hull in order to highlight points of tactical significance.
As each new target was acquired, the resolution of the screen became pin sharp, the chosen image swelling to fill the screen. It would stay there for only a couple of seconds before being replaced by a second target and a third, then a fourth.
The woman monitoring the display looked back at Schwartz and nodded.
“Targets acquired, ma’am.”
Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series Page 36