Veteran (56 page)

‘What you’re talking about is fighting for the sake of it,’ I snapped. ‘You can end this now.’

‘What you’re talking about is using me as a labour-saving device, a convenient weapon.’

‘If the ends justify the means,’ I said, and meant it.

‘That was Rolleston’s argument,’ Morag said quietly over the tac net. I would have glared at her but instead looked down at her curled up on the floor. Blind, deaf, possibly suffering from hypoxia and any number of other pressure-change-related problems. It must have taken a tremendous amount of will for her to even join the conversation. I still felt betrayed and angry, though at least I knew I was being an arsehole.

Later, when I calmed down, I’d realise she had a point. Rolleston and me seeing certain things the same way wasn’t really a surprise. After all we did operate in the same shady world. He was just a bit more of an evil prick than I was. At least I hoped I wasn’t as evil a prick as Rolleston. I certainly wasn’t as dangerous as him.

‘And what if the Cabal are right?’ God asked. I couldn’t believe I’d heard that right.

‘Come again?’ I said angrily. ‘Did you see what those inhuman fucks just did to us!’ I shouted over the tac net. I saw Morag twitch on the ground. Arsehole, I thought, meaning me.

‘What if humanity needs strong leaders and control to survive? What if in order for your race to survive you need the lies and the conflict? What if the truth just leads to more violence and finally you consume yourself?’ God asked. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. ‘I hope that your way is right. I hope you find peace and can live that way, but I cannot side with you in case you are wrong.’

The tac net went quiet for a while. What God had said was slowly sinking in, but we needed to do something if we still believed in what we were doing. Even if what we were doing was making it up as we went along.

‘Not really feeling like a philosophical argument right now,’ I told God.

‘God, he’ll take control of the fleets,’ Pagan said. ‘Their comms anyway.’

‘That just means they won’t have access to the same truth as us,’ I said, maybe not realising how that sounded.

‘Depending on his authority,’ Pagan said.

‘Who’s idea was it to make him so as not to interfere?’ I asked rhetorically.

‘Him?’ Morag asked, showing more presence of mind than I had been capable of after my first few firefights.

‘Obviously it’s a him; look how stupid he is,’ Cat said, joining in on the tac net, as everyone could now. Inappropriate humour, great.

‘God, is this cluster fuck still being broadcast?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ God answered. Wonderful.

‘Can anyone else stop the
Vindictive,
anyone watching this, I mean?’

God brought up the image of Air Marshal Kaaria again. We could see him in what I assumed to be High Nyota Mlima Command and Control. He was shouting orders in Swahili to personnel who were either hard-wired in or rapidly working hologramatic control panels.

I saw one of his uniformed aides point to a screen and almost got his head bitten off for doing so.

‘I believe that both Kenyan and British authorities are currently attempting to intercept the
Vindictive,’
God said. I looked back to the image of the
Vindictive,
wondering if all the billions of viewers were finding this as tense as I was. The docking arm attached to the frigate seemed to split as if cut by some invisible force. The
Vindictive’
s manoeuvring engines burnt, glowing pale blue like the engines on one of Their vehicles. The remaining part of the docking arm fell away from the craft.

In Nyota Mlima C&C I could see various targeting symbols appearing on the
Vindictive
from the Spoke’s multiple weapon systems.

The screen split again and I was looking at an impossibly tall spur of rock. It looked like a cross between a medieval tower and a mountain reaching up into the net’s purple sky. It took me a moment to realise that I was looking at the net representation of Nyota Mlima. Then our POV moved rapidly and we were inside it, moving through its stone corridors following a trail of white fire that was painfully bright. I didn’t understand this. We entered a high chamber, a cathedrallike cave - Nyota Mlima’s virtual C&C. I heard screaming, human and something else. God was screaming as well. I finally realised in horror. The cave was full of impossibly bright white fire. I could see the Simba, lion-people icons of the Kenyan Spoke’s military hackers, burning. A figure moved in the flames. The silhouette of enormous wings unfolded and beat once, taking the figure into the air. It was blue-skinned, hairless, naked but smooth between the legs, making its powerful androgynous form even more alien. Its eyes burnt with the white fire that was all around it. Four huge feathered wings extended from its back. I had never seen an icon like it, somehow beatific and utterly malevolent at the same time.

I looked back to the footage of Nyota Mlima’s virtual C&C. Most of the personnel who had been hard-wired in were either writhing on the floor screaming in agony or lying still in their harnesses, their plugs smoking and their eyes dead. Air Marshal Kaaria was looking around at his people in shock.

I looked back to the net feed. The terrible angel beat its wings and was gone.

‘I got burnt,’ I heard God say, sounding more intrigued than in pain. On the floor of the gunship I saw Morag start to thrash around. She was panicking, terrified. The cursing medic gave her a stronger sedative.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

That was Ezekiel,’ God answered. ‘She is a chimerical hacker in the employ of the Cabal; she spends all her time in the net. Apparently she was utilising software developed from Demiurge.’ Morag was shaking badly now. being held down by the medic. ‘It is okay, Morag. It was not Demiurge.’ God said reassuringly. I wasn’t sure if his regard for Morag worried or reassured me.

On the external footage from High Nyota Mlima the whole system could see the
Vindictive
moving away from the orbital city. There were many times in my life where I had felt helpless; this was another one of them.

‘Hailing HMS
Vindictive
, this is Captain Damien Bloor of the HMS
Warchilde.
You will immediately down-power your ship’s systems and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance in the net or during the boarding will result in the immediate and total destruction of your craft. Is that understood?’ The voice was upper class, filled with the confidence and arrogance of the British officer. In many ways the voice was similar to Rolleston’s, though younger-sounding.

On the screen we could see the rake-thin image of a surprisingly young-looking man in an RASF uniform against the backdrop of the
Warchilde’
s bridge. Just about every human child had heard stories of the
Warchilde.
It was an eighty-year-old light cruiser. Too old to take part in the war, it was now used only for system defence, but when the war had first started the
Warchilde
had seen action.

The
Warchilde
had been running escort duty for a convoy of refugee ships fleeing Proxima Prime. The convoy was jumped by a much larger Them fleet. The
Warchilde
fought what was still considered to be one of the most valiant rearguard actions in space combat. The majority of the refugee convoy and their escorts managed to get to a safe point to set sail and the last they saw of the
Warchilde
was as she was about to be completely overwhelmed by Their ships. Of course the the cruiser was thought lost. Memorial services were held for her two hundred and some crew, until three weeks after the battle the
Warchilde
limped back into system. She was badly damaged, low on life support but still just about functioning. It was the early days of the war so the ship was re-outfitted at great expense and sent back to rejoin the fleet. Nowadays she would’ve been scrapped.

Some of Cat’s SWAT people cheered when they heard the
Warchilde’
s name. I saw Pagan smile. As a military person it was hard not to feel a surge of pride when you heard the name. Which is what I would have been feeling, except for the pain of a huge wound in my stomach and the fact that I was dying of radiation sickness.

The
Warchilde
was ugly, its long utilitarian shape scarred from the rigours of space and old wounds. Various generations of weapons, defence and sensor technology fought for space on its crowded hull. God was sending scanner information to our internal visual displays. It was quiet in the gunship except for the medic working. We were all watching the
Warchilde’
s manoeuvring engines burn as it took position in a higher orbit over the
Vindictive’
s position. I guessed it would be locking its various weapon systems on to the
Vindictive,
its onboard hackers preparing to repel boarders in the net. Despite the eighty years between them I could not see how a frigate could take on a light cruiser, not when the cruiser had the position. There was no answering hail from the
Vindictive,
however.

We watched in silence. I wondered how quiet the billions of other people watching these events unfold around the world were. Then it all happened at once. The stars seemed to wink out in a thin line between the
Vindictive
and the
Warchilde.
Black light, more Themtech. I saw the
Warchilde
rupture where the black light played over it.

On the net feed there was more white light as Ezekiel rode the answering hail to the cruiser. From the split-screen net feed I saw more of the white fire, so bright the image just whited out for a moment. The
Warchilde’s
net representation was of a grand, nineteenth-century ironclad. I watched it burn. Wolf attack programs and the
Warchilde’
s own hackers, mostly using knight icons, were also burnt by Ezekiel’s fire. I glanced at Morag, who was still now. The sedative would be dulling the terror of the angel dancing in the flickering flames.

In real space the
Warchilde
managed to fire its laser and missile batteries but the
Vindictive
filled the void with its anti-missile defence lasers. The frigate’s engines glowed blue in a neck-breaking, high-G manoeuvre as it moved out of harm’s way. The frigate’s black light was still cutting, and all over the world and orbit we watched as the
Warchilde,
in agonising, silent, slow motion, broke in two. I tried not to think about how much of what looked like debris from the ship was actually its crew. I watched the
Vindictive
manoeuvre at high Gs, making to rendezvous with Rolleston’s shuttle. Surely someone had to be able to get them now.

I was almost immured to the horror of Ezekiel hitting High Atlantis’ C&C. The angel burnt it like it had High Nyota Mlima and the
Warchilde,
providing cover for Rolleston’s assault shuttle to escape. The
Vindictive
fought and hacked its way to rendezvous with Rolleston’s shuttle.

The assault shuttle docked with the frigate. The Themtech on the frigate made it look like they were mating or the shuttle was being eaten. Its engines on high burn, I watched the
Vindictive
head out of orbit at speeds I could only assume would powder the crew’s bones and crush their internal organs. It travelled through a narrow tunnel it had hacked in Earth’s defences. Other orbitals attempted to target it, fighters and other system patrol ships attempted to intercept, but none of them were going to reach the
Vindictive
in time.

Worse, apparently scenes not unlike this were being played out all over orbit. Frigates of a similar design to the
Vindictive,
built for American and various western European space forces, were fighting their way out. These were the Black Squadrons, I guessed. Only two frigates, a German one called the
Siegfried
and the USS
Perry,
were successfully intercepted and destroyed. I felt tired as I watched the
Vindictive
set sail once it was free of the Earth’s gravitational pull, its induction sail blossoming before it disappeared from our screens.

It was Mudge who broke the deathly silence that had fallen over the tac net.

‘This is our impregnable system defence?’ he said, bitterness and incredulity warring in his voice.

‘He had the keys to the system. Besides, they weren’t attacking. Everything points out, not in,’ I told him. I was too depressed and fatigued to be properly impressed that he was still alive.

‘Not the actions of people who have nothing to hide,’ Pagan said. I think he was trying to salvage something from this debacle.

‘Where’s the
Vindictive
going?’ Gregor demanded. I guessed he was still back on the node. The gunship was slowly circling the massive structure of the Spoke. In a moment or two I’d be able to see the mess we’d help make of it.

‘Sirius,’ God answered. ‘Though the ships from the Black Squadrons are setting sail for each of the colonial systems.’

‘Will you be able to get there first?’ Gregor asked God.

‘I’m afraid not. I have left systems on a number of ships, but none of them have the capability of the Black Squadrons’ frigates,’ God said, and I knew that the Cabal would broadcast Demiurge as soon as they made it to the colonies.

‘They’ll infect Them with Crom,’ Gregor said.

‘From the information I have managed to collect,’ God said, the corroborating data scrolling across the screen and ready for anyone to download as he spoke, ‘only Rolleston had access to Crom.’

‘So Crom’s on the
Vindictive
?’ Gregor asked.

‘I believe that is the case,’ God said. I did not like how vague that sounded.

‘Why just Sirius?’ I asked. Surprisingly it was Gregor who answered.

‘That was the plan. Crom was less evolved than Demiurge - it was little more than a side project really - and Sirius is the greatest concentration of Them.’

‘What’s the worst-case scenario here?’ I said, sounding hollow and pointless even to myself.