Nova War Part 12

'Miss Merrick,' the creature announced, 'my name is Days of Wine and Roses, until recently a representative to the Consortium on behalf of my n.o.ble Hive, Darkening Skies Prior to Dawn.'

To Dakota's amazement, the creature affected something like a bow, its wings crinkling with that distinctive paper-rustling sound. 'I am here to rescue you, Miss Merrick, on the orders of my Queen. I'm afraid we don't have much time before Immortal Light can muster a far more effective counter-defence, so-'

Pull yourself together, thought Dakota, glancing around. The rest of the Bandati who'd arrived with Days of Wine and Roses were slowly spreading out to totally encircle her hiding place. thought Dakota, glancing around. The rest of the Bandati who'd arrived with Days of Wine and Roses were slowly spreading out to totally encircle her hiding place.

She put one hand up and Days of Wine and Roses halted in mid-flow.

'Hold that thought,' she said, and darted away quickly, past the egg-gatherers, who milled in frightened consternation as she ran right through the middle of them and then underneath the adjacent warehouse.

'Stop!' she heard a voice call out behind her. 'I insist-'

The Night's End system was right on the edge of Consortium territory, and had a small but sizeable human colony, though this was something she'd previously long been only vaguely aware of. Nevertheless the derelict's a.n.a.lysis of local communications traffic had confirmed a human population several kilometres east of her current location, conveniently near a s.p.a.ceport. There she could get someone to help her hide or help get her off Ironbloom altogether.

Unfortunately, she hadn't accounted for the possibility that Darkwater might be invaded, irradiated and set ablaze in the middle of her grand escape attempt. As it was, her original plan was proving to be a less than workable proposition.

The ground underfoot was uneven. Dakota soon hit an incline, a low, soft dune of sand and pebbles that crunched painfully under her bare feet and came to a peak beneath a huddled collection of raised huts and a few larger buildings whose roofs were fiercely ablaze.

The darkness of the city's stilted underbelly was cut through here and there by shafts of light that slanted through gaps in the superstructure. Thick, cloying smoke began to billow towards her, making her cough and gasp uncontrollably. She worked her way up the incline until she was forced to get down on her knees and crawl through a narrow gap where the floor of the building above her almost met the soil beneath.

She squeezed through, then ran in a half-crouch down the far side of the slope, nearly smas.h.i.+ng her head on a stilt in the process. She could hear the tick-tack of Bandati voices right behind her and to both sides.

She sprinted on through a maze of struts and supports, trying to lose herself in the smoke and darkness.

Dakota felt scorching heat on her skin as she ran through a narrow, sun-filled gap between two buildings and back into another darkened forest of struts. Part of the floor of an overhead building had collapsed, sending smoke and flames twisting and turning against its underside. She changed direction, running to one side and covering her mouth, afraid of losing her direction and running back towards Days of Wine and Roses.

The fire was spreading almost as fast as she could run, jumping from support to pillar at an increasing rate, the heat searing her bare skin even at a distance. The whole building was going to come down on top of her if she didn't soon find her way to safety. The smoke suddenly billowed around her. She choked, trying to hold her breath, her eyes stinging until she was half-blind.

Got to get out of here, lady.

She was completely disoriented. She'd hoped she might spot a way up a ladder, anything but there was nothing. All she could do was keep running.

There! Through watery eyes she squinted at sunlight dead ahead. She sprinted towards it, wis.h.i.+ng she could reactivate her filmsuit, aware it was much too soon. She bent low as she ran, desperate now to get some clean air into her lungs. Through watery eyes she squinted at sunlight dead ahead. She sprinted towards it, wis.h.i.+ng she could reactivate her filmsuit, aware it was much too soon. She bent low as she ran, desperate now to get some clean air into her lungs.

She emerged into an open s.p.a.ce between buildings mostly ablaze. Standing on waterlogged sand, she must be getting close to the river. Nearby was a tangled mess of curved metal struts draped with rags of material that were still burning; after a moment this vision resolved itself into the ruins of one of the cargo blimps.

She could still see the top of the Orion s.h.i.+p peeking up over the rooftops. It was so big that at first she mistook it for just another building.

Something hit Dakota hard from behind, pressing her face down into the wet sand. She yelled and kicked, but whoever or whatever it was, they had her arms locked behind her back so she couldn't move. She pulled her face up out of the sand just to s.n.a.t.c.h air, and saw dark shadows moving across the sand, accompanied by the dry-paper rustle of wings.

'Miss Merrick.' Did she hear a certain impatience seeping through the synthesized voice? 'My name is Days of Wine and Roses and, as an agent of the Hive of Darkening Skies Prior to Dusk, I am here to rescue you whether you like it or not. Your cooperation is mandatory.'

'f.u.c.k y-'

A small black hand reached out and pushed her face back into the wet earth. She kicked again in outrage, feeling her anger taking over. She swore and cursed, spitting the mud out of her mouth. A moment later she was dragged upright and found herself surrounded by another three heavily armed Bandati, in addition to the one who still had her pinioned.

They crowded in close, and Dakota felt something wrap around her wrists, then waist and thighs, making it totally impossible to move. Small limbs grabbed at her extremities, holding her tight. She yelled with fright.

'Please shut up,' said a synthesized voice.

Two of them had taken an arm each, while a third had hold of her legs. She was suspended between them. Then the sound of their beating wings filled her ears, as they skimmed so low over the rooftops that she was convinced they were bound to collide. Despite her terror, a part of her mind marvelled at how they could fly so close together without cras.h.i.+ng into each other.

They were only airborne for a minute before they came to a hard landing in an alleyway where several large vehicles were parked, crude-looking things with heavy caterpillar tracks and weapons mounted on the back.

Dakota was unceremoniously dumped into the back of one of these vehicles. It roared into life, swivelling a hundred and eighty degrees before tearing off through a maze of stilts at high speed, bouncing violently as it went.

It didn't take much guesswork to realize they were heading for the Orion s.h.i.+p.

She caught glimpses of the enormous s.p.a.cecraft, where it squatted close by the river, right next to the still-burning ruins of several buildings. Beams flickered from its upper hull nacelles, striking faraway targets, while the occasional missile was fired at it in retaliation from the neighbouring towers.

Dakota's transporters came to an open patch of ground and she saw now just how far the conflagration had spread. She spied a dozen dirigibles in the distance, with water gus.h.i.+ng down from them in a half-hearted attempt to put out the flames.

Then the Orion s.h.i.+p filled her view. It rested on ma.s.sive struts, the sands beneath it steaming. Her escort accelerated towards the ramp and shot up into its darkened interior.

Twelve.

Less than ten minutes later, the nuclear pulse-s.h.i.+p lifted back up into the skies above Darkwater, with Dakota and Days of Wine and Roses now safely on board. It left behind it a shallow, irradiated crater and a circle of devastation almost two kilometres across, with fires still raging across its perimeter. The s.h.i.+p rose fast, spitting out nuclear fire as it accelerated towards escape velocity.

It came under heavy bombardment from orbital defence platforms as it burned its way through the upper stratosphere; beams of directed energy ionized hydrogen accelerated close to the speed of light played across it, its outline blurring as protective shaped fields flickered on and off, deflecting the brilliant focused energies before they could compromise the vulnerable hull beneath.

Dakota had been forcibly strapped into a gel-chair that sheltered her from the worst effects of this enormously high acceleration. She was surrounded by other gel-chairs in a tiny cabin that also carried the four Bandati responsible for capturing her. She stared upwards at a grey metal ceiling just above her head, feeling like a thousand hands were pus.h.i.+ng her deeper into the chair.

The s.h.i.+p's commander was an ancient Bandati whose scent-name might be loosely translated as 'The Victorious Aroma of the Bodies of My Enemies, Left Rotting under the First Light of Dawn'. That he did in fact smell literally like death to his fellow Hive-members did little to distract from his status and reputation amongst them.

He was a crippled veteran lacking two wings, who had suffered badly at the hands of Immortal Light, and so Roses' suggestion to the commander that they might steal one of Immortal Light's own craft a museum-piece nuclear pulse-drive s.h.i.+p whose exhaust doubled as an offensive weapon had a great deal of emotional appeal for him. But at the same time, Old Victory as he was sometimes known was far from unaware that Immortal Light's planetary defence forces would be formidable when it came to mustering a response. Nonetheless, Roses' plan was not only quickly approved by the Queen of Darkening Skies, but had so far proven wildly successful.

A surprise attack was one thing; maintaining the edge thereby gained was another matter. Old Victory knew they needed to put distance between themselves and Ironbloom, and fast. The vessel was on its way to a rendezvous with a cores.h.i.+p scheduled to materialize in the outer system within the next few days, and the fighting would surely intensify once they reached it.

Victory spat out a rapid series of clicks, the slim dark fingers of his primary battle-crew flickering across a variety of bridge interfaces in response. Manoeuvring jets in the pulse-s.h.i.+p's hull started the vessel rotating around its length as it rose above the atmosphere and towards the nearest of Ironbloom's...o...b..tal platforms.

As often among the Bandati, the staff of the orbital platform in question were all closely related. All twenty-five were, in fact, siblings, hatched within several days of each other, and sharing the wing-patterning of a brood-male who was briefly favoured by the Queen of Immortal Light.

Old Victory was entirely unaware he was the product of the same brood-male, and therefore shared close lineage with every Bandati dwelling within the network of pressurized compartments that comprised the platform and he would have cared little even if he had known. Brood-males were often sold and bartered between Queens of different Hives, so that Victory and the crew he was about to murder should be half-brothers would have been no great revelation to him.

Victory s.h.i.+fted in his gel-chair and watched the surrounding displays as the pulse-s.h.i.+p stopped rotating and banked to one side, tipping towards a horizon that looked increasingly curved from his perspective.

The pulse-s.h.i.+p blasted straight through the centre of the orbital platform, sending its components spinning apart. The nuclear fire of the s.h.i.+p's exhaust finished the job, spraying across the pressurized living s.p.a.ces and command systems, turning them white-hot in an instant and vaporizing everything inside.

The pulse-s.h.i.+p sped on, with minimal damage reports. Att.i.tudinal systems rapidly brought it back onto its original trajectory. A few moments after the manoeuvre had been completed, it was boosting hard away from Ironbloom, with no reported casualties amongst the crew.

Roses loved his Queen in many ways, yet he couldn't help but question the wisdom of reviving this ancient conflict a war whose legacy remained in the form of deep scars cut into worlds throughout the Night's End system.

Millennia ago, the Fair Sisters the Queens of both Immortal Light and Darkening Skies had financed a joint exploration of Night's End in order to a.s.sess its suitability for a new Bandati colony. Such an undertaking was bound to mean dealing with the Shoal and their despicable colonial contracts.

That relations between the Sisters had become strained at this time was a matter of historical record, but the reasons why why had never emerged, and records from that time proved a source of considerable frustration to any interested historian. Until a few days before, Days of Wine and Roses had been as much in the dark about the roots of that b.l.o.o.d.y conflict as any other Bandati. had never emerged, and records from that time proved a source of considerable frustration to any interested historian. Until a few days before, Days of Wine and Roses had been as much in the dark about the roots of that b.l.o.o.d.y conflict as any other Bandati.

Since then, however, he had been permitted to learn the cause of that ancient war, and this knowledge brought a sense of foreboding.

Less than a few centuries after being granted a joint development contract for Night's End, the Sisters had discovered something as ancient as it was remarkable. They had fallen out over what to do with their discovery, and this disagreement had proven contentious enough to engender a conflict still remembered throughout the Bandati worlds even after several millennia a conflict in which Darkening Skies had been the loser.

And then this ancient stars.h.i.+p had materialized out of nowhere on the edge of the Night's End system, carrying two humans about whom there was something sufficiently important to rekindle that ancient conflict something closely involved with that long-ago discovery.

Roses was forced to concede the possibility that one might know too much.

Dakota rode in her gel-chair, eyes closed, only peripherally aware of the similarly racked Bandati soldiers around her, who nevertheless endured the sudden multiple-gee accelerations and wild s.h.i.+fts with only the occasional click. Her filmsuit had reactivated about twenty minutes after lift-off, and Days of Wine and Roses hadn't made any objection to it, or attempted to shut it off remotely.

She escaped from her pain and discomfort by communicating with the derelict, which had by now tapped into dozens of live visual feeds from tracking systems both on the ground and in orbit. She found herself confronted with a mult.i.tude of viewpoints on the pulse-s.h.i.+p, as it blasted away from the small, blue-red world.

She finally had the time to think more clearly about some of the things Moss had said to her.

It chilled Dakota to the marrow that he might actually be in a position to take the derelict away from her, and yet the freshness of the scars he bore made it clear he himself had received his implants only very recently. At a guess, he very likely hadn't yet had nearly enough time to break them in. Dakota herself had required months of careful tutelage in order to learn how to use her own. More than likely Moss was still overwhelmed by the sheer sensory overload.

Had he known her filmsuit would activate once she was far enough away from her cell? Perhaps, yes. It seemed far less likely, however, that he could possibly have antic.i.p.ated a rival Hive grabbing her in the way they had.

Dakota thought hard, staring at the alien faces so close around her. He'd very nearly got what he wanted. If these rescuers rescuers if that was what they were hadn't turned up when they did, she'd still be running around Darkwater with no plan and no immediate way to get off-world. But she couldn't bring herself to be thankful; whatever they told her, it was inevitable they wanted her for the same reasons everyone else did the Magi derelict still held in orbit above Blackflower. if that was what they were hadn't turned up when they did, she'd still be running around Darkwater with no plan and no immediate way to get off-world. But she couldn't bring herself to be thankful; whatever they told her, it was inevitable they wanted her for the same reasons everyone else did the Magi derelict still held in orbit above Blackflower.

She could feel the derelict as a distinct presence in the back of her thoughts, both a blessing and a terrible burden.

A solution to her troubles had been forming in her mind ever since she'd re-established contact with the derelict. Even contemplating it, however, had frightened her so badly that even after all she'd been through, she couldn't be at all sure she had the courage to carry it out.

And yet it was so simple, so perfect, a way of resolving everything all at once. And with that, she knew she was ready to act, and found herself wondering just why she'd taken so long to make this necessary decision.

She merged her senses fully with those of the derelict, seeing the complex framework that surrounded it, almost as if it had been snared from out of the stars by some vast, cybernetic spider and wrapped in a metal coc.o.o.n. She could see the pocked and ruined surface of Blackflower far below.

Although subverting the orbital facility's computer networks was a relatively simple matter for the derelict, what she had in mind was going to take time, because she couldn't afford to draw attention. The derelict began to power up its systems as the shaped-field generators holding it in place shut down, one by one.

She hesitated, appalled by the enormity of what she had in mind. She was doing the right thing, the necessary necessary thing. Yet she needed more time to think, to consider the consequences of her actions . . . thing. Yet she needed more time to think, to consider the consequences of her actions . . .

Dakota pulled back, switching her attention back to the immediate vicinity of the pulse-s.h.i.+p. The derelict responded by feeding her views of the s.h.i.+p as seen through the electronic senses of the pursuing Immortal Light forces.

She found herself contemplating a disorienting number of perspectives. Laid over it all was a cotton-wool tangle of discrete communications channels in their millions, comprising the totality of instantaneous tach-net traffic throughout the entire Night's End system.

At the heart of this nightmare tangle was a knot of data so complex it shone like a second star from the derelict's perspective, a white-hot informational nexus centred on Ironbloom. Dakota found herself trying to make some sense out of a deluge of tactical, defensive and offensive data that spilled over her as Immortal Light struggled to muster a coherent response to the attack.

In informational terms, it was like standing in a crowded stadium just as a bomb went off; a million voices shouting in your ear at once while you struggled to find the exit.

Dakota pulled her focus back to the immediate vicinity of the pulse-s.h.i.+p, and the deluge dropped back to manageable levels.

Something new: a bright sparkle of points, some tens of thousands of kilometres ahead of them, directly in the pulse-s.h.i.+p's path.

She s.h.i.+fted her focus back to Ironbloom, the derelict antic.i.p.ating her request and grabbing control of orbital reconnaissance systems, reaming them of any data relating to the expanding cloud. Within seconds she discovered the points of light were in fact proximity nukes, launched from a network of automated defensive platforms. The nukes were already spreading out to intercept the pulse-s.h.i.+p.

Closer at hand, she became aware the s.h.i.+p's Bandati pilot was already working on a response to this newest threat. But, from Dakota's perspective, his response was impossibly slow; worse, he was relying heavily on pre-programmed evasion patterns.

I don't know if they'll thank me or shoot me for what I'm about to do.

The derelict wormed its way deep inside the pulse-s.h.i.+p's core stacks, rapidly subverting them. Within seconds Dakota had full control of the s.h.i.+p. Its programmed defensive algorithms were laid bare before her, her machine-senses a.n.a.lysing them in a moment and finding them distinctly wanting.

The proximity mines wouldn't have any problem getting close enough to the pulse-s.h.i.+p to detonate, and there was no guarantee its shaped-field generators could hold up to the damage they could cause.

She had a mental flash of the Bandati commander and his crew on the s.h.i.+p's bridge; he lacked a couple of wings, while those that remained carefully bundled against his back appeared ragged and torn from old wounds. She watched as he desperately twisted around in his gel-chair restraints, trying to figure out why his vessel had suddenly stopped responding to his commands.

Dakota closed her eyes, drawing on her training. Focus. Focus.

Only seconds remained before they met the first of the nukes.

Her mind flashed back to Bellhaven and her first day of training, when the implants had been fresh in her skull. Everything that makes us human the ability to think and to reason is a recent development in evolutionary terms, Everything that makes us human the ability to think and to reason is a recent development in evolutionary terms, Tutor Langley had said Tutor Langley had said. Underlying all of it is a sea of instinct a billion years old carefully adapted for life at the bottom of a gravity well. That is not to be underestimated. It can react instantaneously, breaking down and a.n.a.lysing any situation or potential threat far faster than our conscious minds can even- Something accelerated hard towards the pulse-s.h.i.+p from dead ahead. The pulse-s.h.i.+p's manoeuvring jets fired in response to Dakota's non-verbal commands, subjecting every living thing on board to dangerously high levels of acceleration. Alarms began to wail throughout the s.h.i.+p, and the helpless Bandati commander found himself at the centre of a deluge of automated threat-a.s.sessment reports and status requests from a dozen different locations.

Some of the proximity mines detonated in the wake of the pulse-s.h.i.+p's unantic.i.p.ated new trajectory, but none within several kilometres of the hull. Dakota kept the s.h.i.+p veering, mines slipping out of range before they could get close enough to detonate with any effectiveness, betrayed by their own momentum as they boosted into empty vacuum where the s.h.i.+p had been only moments before.

The worst of the danger was past, the receding nukes burning up the last of their fuel in a futile attempt to gain on them as they boosted towards the outer system. Dakota let out a long, shuddering sigh and opened her eyes to just narrow slits, feeling the painful tension in her body.

Now there was only the question of exactly where the pulse-s.h.i.+p was headed.

Something sent a burst of static through her machine-head senses and Dakota finally lost control of the s.h.i.+p's systems. She caught one last glimpse of the grizzled-looking commander as he swiftly rerouted the primary navigation systems. sent a burst of static through her machine-head senses and Dakota finally lost control of the s.h.i.+p's systems. She caught one last glimpse of the grizzled-looking commander as he swiftly rerouted the primary navigation systems.

Perhaps she could- 'Please don't do that,' said a voice very close to her.

Dakota opened her eyes wide to see that one of the Bandati had pulled himself free of his gel-chair restraints and now stood next to her with something very much like a pistol held close to her forehead. She couldn't help but notice the hand holding the weapon was shaking.

'Days of Wine and Roses,' she said, remembering the alien's name.

'Yes. Now, relinquish control of the s.h.i.+p.'

The Bandati remained standing with relative ease, which surprised Dakota since they were still undergoing substantial acceleration. Then she noticed the fine web of silver struts and servos encasing the alien's body and his narrow, spindly legs: a motorized exoskeleton.

'Already done,' she told him carefully. They were out of immediate danger anyway. 'You can put the gun down.'

Roses didn't respond directly. Instead he clicked rapidly into his gently glowing interpreter, which had changed from its usual hue.

Dakota didn't need to tap into the flow of data around them to know he was making sure she was telling the truth. The barrel of his weapon remained where it was, cool and hard against her head.

Dakota cleared her throat. 'You know, if I hadn't done what I just did, we'd all be dead. Those mines would have taken this s.h.i.+p out.'

'Thank you. Please don't do it again, though, or I'll be forced to kill you.'

She studied the wide black eyes staring down at her. 'You're not going to just casually kill me, not after you went to this much trouble to find me. You have your orders, right?'

Roses adjusted his grip on the gun, switching hands. 'Accidents are possible. Perhaps you were injured during the sudden acceleration. You came free of your gel-chair in an attempt to escape, and were smashed to a pulp.' The alien paused for a moment, quietly clicking to himself. 'That can be arranged.'

'Okay' She nodded slowly, and realized she believed him. 'Put that thing away, please. I won't do it again.'

The Bandati's wings twitched in their shoulder-restraints, and he finally let the barrel drop until it pointed down at the deck.