10
It is possible to store the mind of a Human in a piece of crystal no larger than the tip of one’s little finger, and world-controlling artificial intelligences can fit into something the size of a tennis ball (larger crystal is more stable but tennis-ball AIs still exist). Both of these can be copied easily, ad infinitum. We know of three extinct, but once extremely powerful, star-spanning civilizations and, unless they were all like the Prador, they must have possessed their own artificial intelligences and ways of storing their own minds. It is therefore, a complete fucking certainty that, somewhere out there, something extremely dangerous is just waiting for someone to press the wrong button. Hey, you might be wandering the surface of an alien world when you spot an extremely pretty-looking stone at your feet. You could pick it up, and the warmth of your hand might call back into existence something that once moved suns about just for its own convenience.
– From HOW IT IS by Gordon
The dreadnought hits the thin atmosphere of the planetoid, its hull glowing red-hot and scoring an orange trail of burning metal, which spreads into a black smoke as the metal reacts with atmospheric gases to form strange nitrides and nitrates. The young Prador uses the ship’s remaining steering thrusters to keep it skating far above the icy plains and jagged mountain ranges, hoping perhaps to bounce it back out into space. However, the ship does not now have sufficient speed to escape the pull of even so small a planetoid. Its course arcs round, orbital, gravity and thin air dragging it down.
The Golgoloth wonders for a moment why Vrell even attempted to bounce the craft back out, but then, making some rapid calculations, realizes there was a 10 per cent chance of success wholly dependent on atmospheric conditions difficult to measure. Now drawing his own ship in closer, he watches the tumultuous descent of the big ship. Vrell is obviously making calculations all the way down and trying to select the most suitable landing site. He manages to institute a bit of grav-planing, but the ship is too damaged to achieve more than 40 per cent negation of its weight.
Managing one entire orbit of the planetoid, Vrell must have mapped everything below, and then included that in his calculations. Jetting the steering thrusters, he ramps up acceleration for a moment, seemingly intent on taking the ship to a particular equatorial plain. The Golgoloth realizes something more will be required, because a line of obsidian peaks, like black canines, now stands in the way of the optimum approach vector.
Vortices all around the angular ship create a long vapour trail, with the curious effect of CO2 snow falling below it. The ship speeds over one mountain chain, just the shock of its passage causing thousand-ton rockfalls behind it, and then the obsidian peaks lie ahead. Vrell fires the remainder of what must be a diminishing stock of missiles. They stab out ahead of the hurtling ship, the bright white of their fusion drives leaving a green trail in this atmosphere, and slam into the lower slopes. The ensuing massive explosions throw tons of brittle rock into the air, and two of the peaks begin to sag and collapse. Now particle cannons fire up, lancing here and there at specific targets within this falling mass just to speed its descent. Snagging outcrops are turned laval, great masses of hard water-ice melt in areas that lubricate their descent. The Golgoloth wonders if Vrell has miscalculated the speed of all this, perhaps not sufficiently accounting for the low gravity here.
The dreadnought hits falling debris, collision lasers firing nonstop but not sufficient to prevent great chunks of ice and rock exploding into fragments against the armoured hull. Some penetrate through unrepaired gaps to then tear through superstructure, and in some cases set fires burning within. The ship strikes one peak that has yet to fall all the way, tearing off a great shield of brassy armour, which tumbles along behind it to slam down into the plain beyond, throwing ahead of it an avalanche of shattered ice. Perhaps, after all, Vrell calculated it exactly right, for the impact has slowed the vessel considerably.
Now follow further stabs of fire from both the ship’s particle cannons and its lasers, aimed at somewhere far ahead, on the plain. The Golgoloth studies this target, and notes Vrell is cutting a trench at his impact point. Very clever, but will this work?
The trench tracks the angle of descent into the ice, then slowly ascends in steps. Within a minute the ship hits the start of it and begins skidding, peeling up ice like a braking ski. A great cloud of vapour explodes from the hull as this ice hits something hotter than anything that has been down there for millennia. The ship hits the first step, shuddering and tearing up more ice, this time in thick broken slabs, before rising up over this. It hits a second step, and the same thing happens, though the ship is moving much slower now. Four steps later its speed is down to that of high-speed monorail, but still thousands of tons of momentum need to be accounted for. Exiting the end of the trench it continues skidding, piling up a glacier ahead of it. Finally it hammers this into the lower slopes of the next chain of mountains, causing disruptions that bring some of them crashing down. The scar of Vrell’s crash landing extends for eighty miles, but is no longer visible from space, what with a boiling line of clouds now forming above it.
The Golgoloth emits a bubbling sigh. Perfect. Vrell has demonstrated just how quickly and accurately he can make calculations under appalling circumstances. Obviously he has done this sort of thing before, to evade being killed on Spatterjay and to then take over Vrost’s dreadnought, but the Golgoloth had not witnessed that. Understanding perfectly the situation it has manufactured here, the Golgoloth can more accurately assess the mind of the Prador below. Vrell is dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as the King himself, and the Golgoloth has made the right choice in deciding to immobilize and isolate him first. Now, however, it is time for study, experimentation and investigation.
The ancient hermaphrodite Prador places its massive vessel in close orbit about the planetoid and initiates an external ganglion. Immediately reacquainted with certain ship systems, it runs a diagnostic, the results of which are within safety parameters, then sets in motion those same systems. Great blocks of internal structure shift on ancient hydraulics, seals detach and reattach elsewhere, explosive bolts blow, and thruster motors fire up.
Over the surface of the vessel, lines of division jag around the intersection points of hexagons within the honeycomb structure covering its surface, thus outlining a misshapen area some ten miles across. This whole area then begins to extrude, the whole lot easing out like a segment of geode. Meanwhile, interfaces begin to separate, dividing off scattered ganglion control systems, but then a radio connection establishes between them. Along with itself, the Golgoloth is now separating out part of its distributed mind along with the excised chunk of ship. Contact by radio will continue with that part of its mind still residing within the main vessel, but that isn’t as good as direct optic or electrochemical connection. Anyway, the Golgoloth does not feel it will require the full power of its own mind for the chores ahead. Vrell is dangerous, but not that dangerous.
The dreadnought is down intact,’ Gurnard observes.
In the forward screen the image of the dreadnought, resting at the end of a long scar running across a planetary plain, now fades away, and that other enormous vessel once again comes into focus. Drooble gazes in awe as it extrudes a great chunk of itself, which then begins to descend towards the planetoid. First the dreadnought attacking, the captain and Sniper heading over, and now this? It is all just too much for him, lying as it does outside the simple routine of annoying his Captain, being punished, recovering, then doing the whole thing again.
‘A lot of it appears to be of Prador manufacture,’ remarks Gurnard, ‘but I daren’t scan to find out for sure.’
‘Daren’t?’ Drooble echoes. He still feels slightly unwell. The damage done to his body by the Prador rail-gun in Montmartre has healed, but his body mass is down by 20 per cent, whilst the viral mass is up at its previous levels. There is a definite imbalance between the two, which effects the way his mind works. Those around him seem slightly crazy . . . though on some level he recognizes that he is the slightly crazy one, while those around him have changed not at all.
‘I am just collecting sensor informaton, passively – not using any form of active scan,’ Gurnard replies. ‘But just that reveals layers of sensor and scanner complexity on the unknown ship’s surface – almost certainly whatever is inside will know at once if I start scanning. It probably knows we’re out here anyway. It seems improbable to me that, just by chance, it chose to attack shortly after we were driven away.’
‘Just scan it anyway,’ Drooble says abruptly. ‘Let’s see what we’re up against.’
Poised just to one side of him, with its tail resting down on his horseshoe console, the drone Thirteen revolves to inspect him.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t too readily antagonize a ship that’s ten miles across and can deploy U-space missiles,’ Thirteen suggests. ‘It’s got enough firepower and accuracy of firepower to disable a Prador dreadnought. If it wants rid of us, it can be rid of us in less time than it would take you to say "Oh shit", Drooble.’
‘The Captain gave me the bridge,’ Drooble complains.
‘That holds no weight here,’ Gurnard says. ‘Orbus was appointed by Cymbeline, but he cannot appoint his own replacement. I am in charge.’
Drooble feels a degree of resentment about that – but also relief. ‘What do we do, then?’
‘I am in communication with Earth Central,’ Gurnard replies. ‘It appears that no ship like this has been seen entering the Graveyard over the last seven hundred years. It seems to be of Prador manufacture, and in attacking Vrell is likely to be doing the King’s bidding. Perhaps it is sufficiently advanced to have avoided detection while entering the Graveyard, in which case the entire population of the Polity certainly has something to worry about. We have been told therefore to watch and gather information, without putting ourselves at too much risk.’
‘What about my Captain?’
‘Your Captain is perfectly able to look after himself, and there is nothing we can do to make him any safer.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘However, we can move much closer, for though, as Thirteen says, it will not do to antagonize whoever controls that vessel, we are in fact no safer out here than up close, since a U-space missile can remove us from existence just as quickly in either case.’
Thirteen merely snorts at that.
Gurnard adds, ‘Moving closer will also give us a better view of events, and greater option to react to them. I calculate that this will be a risk worth taking.’
The Gurnard begins accelerating, then abruptly all the screens grey. Drooble feels the odd twisted pull of U-space and it kicks something crooked in his mind onto a new path. He suddenly feels optimistic about being closer to his Captain, and thus closer to the action, and though Gurnard is not actually obeying him, it certainly seems to be doing what he wants.
The screens once again show the outside view. Far to their right rests the dead giant, a silvered orb without cloud to soften the intricate wrinkles extending over its surface. Ahead lies the planetoid, that same big vessel clearly visible in orbit about it. Drooble realizes that the Gurnard’s fusion drive is still firing and that they are steadily drawing closer to this diorama. Magnification brings the vessel right up close, and Drooble sees at once that a great splinter of the ship is pulling out of the cavity already left by the departure of that other chunk now heading down to the planetoid’s surface.
‘I take it that this all started happening the moment we arrived here,’ says Thirteen.
‘It did,’ Gurnard replies, ‘but at least it’s not a U-space missile.’
Once its point is clear of the main ship, the splinter swings round like a compass needle, perspective contracting it down into a metallic jewel – it is now pointing directly towards them. Then it flashes briefly out of existence, reappears much closer, and begins to swing round again.
‘So far and no further?’ Thirteen suggests.
Gurnard begins to decelerate. ‘So it would seem,’ the AI replies. ‘But now at least we can see the surface.’
The forward screen image changes to show a clear view of the downed dreadnought, and the first chunk that detached from that other vessel lying ahead of them now settling on the plain nearby.
‘And so the stage is set,’ says Gurnard.
‘What’s playing tonight?’ asks Drooble. ‘A drama of life and death, as always.’
Drooble nods thoughtfully, then stands up and departs the bridge, a determined set to his expression.
By slow degrees the soldier attains consciousness, knowing itself as Ebror, yet even throughout the process also knowing that Ebror the Prador is just an organic recording, a sub-component of itself, the point of the needle it uses to puncture the membrane separating itself from existence. Instinctively it retains that conscious component so it can review Ebror’s memories and understand the world it now finds itself in. It does all this for limited and clearly defined purposes: for the survival of itself and its squad and also for the destruction of the enemy.
Studying genetic tissue contained within its viral body, the soldier thoroughly understands Prador and all they are about. Reviewing substantial samples of DNA from Human beings, it gains some understanding of them too. All are the enemy. Its own species are the enemy outside its squad. Anything living – other than itself and its squad – is the enemy. This rules out confusion.
When the squad’s spaceship was attacked all those eons ago, and forced to crash-land on the planet, their time had been limited. They knew their present physical bodies would not be able to survive the ensuing attack, and so they took a very unusual route. Upon discovering the surrounding ecology of the planet to be dominated by a complex viral mycelium, they spliced this with the nano-mycelium that maintained both their vessel and their own bodies, incorporating into it their own genome and direct recordings of their long memories. It remained part of the vessel and part of themselves until the expected attack arrived, destroying both them and their ship, whereupon their bastard child spread in the oceans. They became somnolent then, sleeping, and incorporated as part of an ecology.
With an internal awareness that was a major evolutionary advantage of its kind from the beginning, the soldier explores its body and gradually understands the processes that have brought it to consciousness. The plan was for resurrection to ensue some brief years after their destruction, but the programming was too hurried, mistakes were made. Having incorporated them, the mycelial virus should have, after the running down of an internal biological clock, recoded some of the creatures it went on to infest, and turned them into exact copies of the original squad. Instead, the clock stopped and the virus just kept incorporating, at first at random, genetic samples taken from the creatures of its own world – burying the squad deep. Evolution then played its part too, so that this incorporation of genetic tissue became a tool for viral survival. Had there been no outside interference with that world, the soldier would have remained sleeping for ever.
However, the virally infected Prador, of which Ebror is one, were killed by a specific nanite that completely wiped out their nervous systems, leaving only a blank slate. They were thereafter left confined in armoured shells, completely cut off from any food supply. The result was a sequence of mutations within the shell, as the virus tried every single one of its strategies for survival, but failed. With nutrient diminishing, it worked its way through its whole eclectic genome collection until finally hitting upon what lay at the bottom: the alien genome of the squad itself. And, given the chance, that squad certainly knew how to survive. The evolutionary program of the virus had been to mutate only its given body and not to venture outside that. Once he was in control, even though unconscious, the soldier immediately turned the virus outwards; survival did not lie within, but by penetrating the simple electromechanical systems that surrounded it. And, whilst that penetration proceeded, the soldier woke.
‘The technology is primitive,’ comes a simple communication through the electronics of the armour.
‘But useful.’
‘It can be adapted, even in this environment.’
‘This ship has crash-landed. I see exterior conditions. Sharing now.’
And so it goes, as the squad calls in. As the soldier absorbs a squirt of battle code detailing the location of the vessel, exterior conditions and interior conditions, it surmises that their number is greater than it had been before the attack upon their own ship, and yet also that some of the squad is missing, but this is inevitable. Some soldiers have been multiply duplicated, whilst some have not achieved consciousness at all. It is as it should be: the strongest predominate.
The soldier now draws back his internal focus and studies the larger-scale organic make-up of his being. Most of the original Prador body is gone, while muscle, vascular systems and the organs required for running a body this size have grown, including the entwined ganglia that contain his consciousness. He has not grown bones or a shell, the armour still sufficing. However, everything is greatly stunted since he lacks nutrients, sugars and sufficient oxygen. Exploring Prador memories, he quickly locates needed information and, extending one of his internal leech mouths, manages to turn on the internal oxygen supply of the armour, thus enabling what will be a short-lived boost of energy as he further burns up the substance of his own body just to keep mobile. A quick squirt of battle code alerts his fellows to this option too.
‘Weapons cache found,’ notes one of the others.
‘Primitive again, but adaptable.’
Now turning his attention fully outwards, he gazes at his surroundings through wholly Prador eyes that the virus did not see fit to discard. He crouches in a corridor, a welding device clutched in one claw and a maglev tool chest toppled over on its side beside him. He heaves himself to his feet, discarding the welder, and, again sampling Prador memories, turns and heads up the corridor towards the nearest larder. Thankfully, the door is lying open, but the next bit is problematic: how to get some of the abundant food stored here inside him.
Again the Ebror memories do not let him down. The soldier shifts another leech mouth to some internal controls and manipulates them, and with a clunk the section of armour that once covered Ebror’s mandibles hinges open in two parts. There is pain as it rips away from internal musculature, and much bleeding, but at last the soldier manages to extrude a collection of leech mouths that start boring into a selection of Prador homeworld fish steaks and large misshapen lumps of flesh that are likely to be some kind of mollusc.
Nutrients flood through him, directly sucked into the virus itself without the intercession of a stomach. The soldier immediately begins using these to improve his internal structure, selecting from his own genome since it remains utterly superior to those of Prador, or Humans or any life-form deriving from Spatterjay. But of course it is, it being the product of some tens of thousands of years of genetic engineering.
He begins building bones against which to brace his muscles, rather than using the armour for support. He grows a stomach and digestive system, expands his circulatory system and all other support organs. He quickly replaces the rest of his electrochemical nervous system with one wholly electrical, operating so much much faster.
‘Energy supplies located,’ another notes. ‘Moving to secure.’
‘Main weapons located. Moving to secure.’
‘Force-fields located and secure. Adaptation in progress.’
The soldier contemplates this input then adds, ‘If crew still survive, they must be found and killed.’
‘Searching,’ another replies.
As the ship shudders into stillness, Vrell struggles to break through the paralysis of an unaccustomed terror. He does not recognize the code running on the screen of his armour’s CPU. It is fast, incredibly complex even for him, and seems to be shifting huge chunks of information that are changing even as they retransmit. It seems he is acting as a relay in some network, but a network formed between different suits of armour that are no longer under his control.
His first guess would have been that the sub-AI programs in each of them have made the leap to sentience, but the data format is too alien and cannot possibly arise out of the original programs. But, more important than that, the same code is running in the control units bonded to his carapace, and so invading his nervous system. Through that connection he can feel a cold nihilistic logic and terrifying intelligence.
Fighting the growing fear, Vrell tries to apply some logic. Actually using either his CPU or control unit to obtain information would be a foolish move, for whatever is operating inside his ship would immediately become aware of him and, as far as he can see, it can take control of his armour. Just by monitoring the data flow, its sheer capacity and utterly alien format, he confirms that he is not seeing AI sentience arising from his original programs. Could it be that somehow the Old Captain and the drone have penetrated his security? No, something odd was happening with the Guard even before the pair boarded. There seems only one logical conclusion: the Guard are being controlled by some alien within the unfamiliar vessel that forced him down onto this planetoid. But he cannot just lie here pondering the purpose of this invasion while that other vessel has him at its mercy; he suspects that if he waits too long he will soon be dead.
The big hydraulic clawjack, having slid across the Sanctum to knock him from his pit controls, has trapped him against one wall. If he tries to push it away, the assister motors in his armour will cut in, immediately alerting those other things aboard to his presence in the network. He just has to hope that the hydraulics of the manual fast-eject routine will be up to the task. Probing with his mandibles into the pit controls within his armoured turret, he initiates the routine. The top half of his armour pushes out, against the wall, whilst lubricant flows around his limbs. This sets the hydraulic jack sliding away from him, then, as the lid of his armour hinges up, the jack topples over with a resounding crash. Compressed gas throws Vrell out as his armour thumps down flat. The edge of his carapace hits the wall and he turns, but by chopping a claw against the same wall, he rights himself and comes down on his feet. At once he reaches down, grabs hold of the control units bonded to his shell and yanks them free, sending them skittering away from him.
‘Drone,’ he instructs, in the Prador language now because his translator is part of the armour. ‘Destroy my armour.’
The drone has secured himself in the doorway to the Sanctum, wrapping some of his tentacles around the Old Captain whilst using the rest to prevent both of them being thrown about. Sniper’s tentacles now unwrap from the Human and send him sprawling.
‘Why?’ Sniper asks, in the same clattering, bubbling speech.
‘Controlled by dangerous intelligence,’ Vrell clatters back.
Just then the suit begins moving, tentatively stretching its limbs and snapping closed one claw. The lid begins to close.
Before Vrell can say anything more, Sniper shoots into the air and, with a loud crackling, spits a stream of missiles straight down inside the armour. A series of detonations blows free the hatch, so it slams against the ceiling. With a bright fire burning inside it, the armour tries to right itself and turn, just as Sniper crashes into it, tentacles entwined around its limbs, his face directly into the flames. His particle beam stabs out next, and gobbets of molten metal spit out around him as the interior of the armour turns blastfurnace hot. Vrell sees the drone has focused the beam directly on the internal location of the CPU. The armour struggles to right itself, then for a moment the colour of internal flame flashes bright red, and it slumps. Sniper releases his hold and rises again, hovering in the air, tentacles twitching.
Vrell has no time to feel gratitude, for now he is running out of breath. With his body mutated and interlaced with the Spatterjay virus, anoxia will not kill him. However, it might cause further mutations and, knowing what he knows now, that is not a prospect he relishes. He scans all about to see the deck lying tilted, and chunks of superstructure protruding through it like shattered ribs, but what catches his attention is a frost on some surfaces, indication of an atmosphere breach.
‘What is controlling that armour?’ Sniper asks in Prador speech.
Vrell ignores the question and points at one of the storage alcoves. ‘Blow that door.’
Sniper drops down beside the storage alcove indicated, grabs protrusions in the wall surrounding it, inserts tentacles and simply tears the door off. Vrell watches this with a degree of chagrin. He has seriously underestimated this Sniper, in fact he should have ejected the drone from this ship at the first opportunity. However, circumstances have changed and now the drone’s presence might even prove welcome. Sniper reaches inside the alcove and drags out a Prador harness incorporating integral breather unit, com hardware and numerous little niches for numerous weapons.
‘This what you want?’
‘Yes,’ Vrell replies, moving forwards.
‘Then I am going to need a bit more detail.’
By now the Old Captain is on his feet and saying something. Vrell listens to it for a moment, simply not realizing he is understanding, then something clicks in his major ganglion. His earlier encounters with Humans, on many levels, and his recent use of a translator have provided all the data his enhanced intelligence needs. He now understands the Captain perfectly.
Orbus has just said, ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Vrell is not equipped with the vocal apparatus to provide him with an answer.
‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out,’ says Sniper, giving the harness a shake.
‘Something hostile has taken control of the Guard,’ Vrell states.
‘What did he say?’ asks Orbus.
Sniper ignores the man. ‘Something from that attacking ship, then. How did it penetrate your security?’
‘I do not know, but logic dictates that this is the case,’ says Vrell. But, even as he says it, Vrell does not want to admit to himself that, though all the evidence seems to confirm his supposition, he does not feel it to be true. He cannot shake off the feeling that the source of the alien code lies inside each suit of armour.
‘What’s that?’ Orbus demands.
‘Somehow,’ Sniper tells him, ‘the attacking craft has managed to take control of those suits of armour.’
‘How?’ asks Orbus.
‘Who cares?’ Sniper tosses the harness to Vrell. ‘We’re in big trouble, however you cut it.’
Vrell initiates the harness CPU, but with the com function shut down, then checks readouts in the mask to be sure nothing has invaded it, before quickly donning the equipment.
‘So what’s the plan now?’ Orbus asks Sniper.
‘Beats me,’ the big drone replies. ‘You got any ideas, Vrell?’
Vrell eyes the two of them and can think of no reply. The dreadnought came down hard and will not be going anywhere for a long while, especially now his previous workforce lies beyond his control. Perhaps they can stay aboard and fight, but he needs time to formulate some method of attack – time he suspects he will not be allowed by the alien-controlled Guard.
‘Did you recognize that attacking ship?’ Vrell asks, now using a translator.
‘Nope,’ says Orbus, glancing at Sniper. ‘We thought you might be able to tell us about it, because obviously whatever is aboard it has an overwhelming interest in you. Could it be King Oberon sent it?’
‘If it was the King, then why did it not destroy me when given the chance?’
The Human shrugs and his expression changes in ways Vrell cannot read. The drone remains as inscrutable as ever. The only way Vrell could know whether they are telling the truth would be to take them both apart and read the information directly from their minds, which is not an option at this moment. He shakes himself, and abruptly moves back over to his pit controls and array of screens. Many of the controls have been damaged by the sliding clawjack, and a lot of the screens are out but, inserting his claws and underhands, he finds some controls he can still use.
As yet there seems no corruption in the instruments and data available to him here, and what he now finds is both awesome and frightening.
‘The Guard are on the move,’ he says at last. ‘They first broke into food caches located throughout the ship, and are now securing critical areas. All the remaining fusion reactors are out of my control, as are the main weapons and force-field defences.’ He studies a screen which shows two members of the Guard taking apart a hardfield projector. They are moving with the kind of speed he has only ever seen achieved by sophisticated robots. Vrell takes a moment or two to mull this over. How can he fight something like this? As he is witnessing, the Guard can now move horribly fast and are rapidly removing the ship from his control. Even as he studies the screens, internal security systems go down and blocks of computing space are hijacked.
Abruptly coming to a decision, he calls up one of the remaining security programs – one created by Vrost and held in reserve – and initiates it. Screens begins to blink out one after another as a destructive power surge sweeps through all the internal ship eyes and scanners, burning them out. He then inspects a screen which briefly gives him a view outside the ship before it too winks out. It shows a great segment of the attacking ship now landing ten miles away across the icy plain.
‘The area of this ship you first entered after boarding is presently unoccupied,’ Vrell observes, whilst removing his claws and underhands from the pit controls, as some more screens blink out and others begins running weird writhing patterns. He backs away and turns, heading over to the alcove storage. In there he quickly begins selecting items and affixing them to his harness: a particle cannon, a rail-gun, further power supplies, oxygen, grenades and a selection of mines.
‘We gonna hide?’ Sniper wonders.
‘I intend to hide and then to watch,’ Vrell replies, turning and rapidly moving up beside the drone, to peer out into the corridor beyond. ‘Since part of the attacking ship is now landing outside, it seems likely its occupants might be heading here. That might present some . . . opportunities.’
‘There might be another option,’ suggests Orbus. ‘It might be possible to call in the Gurnard?‘ He goes over and picks up the weapon Vrell took from him earlier, plugging its leads back into his suit.
‘Yes . . . possible,’ Vrell acknowledges, as he steps out into the corridor.
Almost mirroring him, one of the Guard steps into view at the far end of the corridor, its shape now oddly distorted and its armour taking on a blue hue, and with blinding speed swings a rail-gun round to bear. Everything seems to shudder into nightmare slow-motion for Vrell. As he swings up his own weapon, he just knows he is not moving fast enough. He can normally get the drop on any Prador, or Human, or on any living thing he has previously encountered, but this thing moves as fast as a machine. His senses heightened to pinpoint and painful clarity, he sees the rail-gun aimed precisely at his unprotected mouth, and the Guard’s claw simultaneously closing to fire it, whilst his own weapon is only halfway up towards firing position. Then a missile streaks past, its passage noted only by the subliminal flicker of a black line sketched across the air. Perfectly targeted, it enters the barrel of the Guard’s rail-gun and detonates. Even as the explosion disintegrates the weapon, and part of the claw holding it, throwing the Guard backwards, Sniper slides in front of Vrell and continues firing. The war drone is thrown into abrupt silhouette by sun-bright explosions, as it turns the far end of the corridor into a furnace.
‘Run,’ Sniper advises.
Vrell spins round and, with Orbus falling in behind him, heads at high speed for the opposite end of the corridor. Then, obeying instinct, he abruptly flings himself sideways and clambers up the wall, both his weapons pointing towards his destination. One of the Guard shoots into view, and its rail-gun swings up already targeting Orbus before the Old Captain has a chance to react. A stream of projectiles slams into the Human, but amazingly he stands his ground, with shattered metal ricocheting from the front of his suit. Vrell aims carefully and fires both his weapons, targeting power supplies, and the Guard is lifted up on an explosion that finally flings Orbus to the floor. Yet, even as this particular Guard’s rail-gun sputters out, and it rises amidst the blast, another of its kind is appearing behind it.
‘The wall,’ Sniper sends over com.
Vrell flings himself from one wall to the other, then down on to the floor. The drone turns, twin-particle cannon beams stabbing out and cutting a hole through the corridor wall, even while his launcher turns like a chameleon eye and spits missiles straight down the corridor, past Vrell. Vrell feels a series of impacts in his back and sees one of his own legs go skittering past him. Rail-gun missiles racket off the wall beside him, then firing ceases upon the two detonations behind. Ignoring the pain, he surges forward as a great chunk of the wall falls through. He grabs up Orbus as he goes, not quite sure why, and, as he flings himself through, slaps two proximity mines on the floor. Sniper follows, his thinking much the same as he too sticks some device beside the hole.
Vrell falls twenty feet into a long cylindrical room through which run numerous power ducts and pipes. Scattered along its length are the huge pumps that keep all areas of the ship supplied with water and various necessary gases. He quickly inspects these, then pain surges up from his claw as it is wrenched open. Vrell has almost forgotten he is still carrying Orbus, and drops him like an unpleasant insect.