‘A very critical test,’ Knobbler observed.
‘Stay on those weapons,’ Orlandine replied. ‘This might not work.’
She only momentarily considered instructing the five segments to detach so as to widen the war runcible’s gate, but it was already wide enough. Anyway, it wasn’t hard-fields that would impel them apart but very accurate steering jets. She could see that, with how this device had originally been constructed, the controlling AI would have experienced all sorts of difficulties operating it, especially while coming under attack. Each section of the runcible needed to be very accurately positioned, since the room for error in all the calculations was minute, yet firing the weapons positioned on each section might well knock them out of alignment faster than could be corrected for. With everything now cohered by the Jain mycelium, she could supposedly calculate and factor in the inertial effects of the firing of each weapon full seconds before they even fired. However, right now it would be stupid to risk the alterations she had made failing.
There were other factors also making this easier for her. It wasn’t as if she intended to transfer anything through the runcible that needed to survive that process or pass through at anything less than the speed of a meteor. For normal runcibles, calculations needed to be made to correct for relative speeds by inputting the precise energies at the departure runcible, and bleeding off into the buffer the correct amount at the arrival runcible. Simplified, these calculations involved the input of energy required to push the traveller through the Skaidon warp, plus the energy required to accelerate or decelerate him from his initial relative speed, so he came out of the gate at the other end at zero speed. But that was an extreme simplification.
Another factor in the complex calculations was the C-energy, this being the input energy of the transmission and also that drawn into the runcible buffers at the destination runcible. The events on a world called Samarkand had luridly demonstrated what happened when that energy was not removed by the receiving runcible. There the runcible buffers had been sabotaged, so that one traveller who arrived on that world by runcible came through at a fraction under the speed of light. His arrival had caused massive devastation and loss of life. Ironic, therefore, that he himself had been a runcible technician.
‘I am ready,’ said Bludgeon.
Orlandine studied the situation out in space. The little ship was now running towards them. While it might be either a friend or an enemy, there was no doubt at all about the status of the two pursuing vessels. She aimed a signal laser at the little ship.
‘If you want to survive, I suggest you get out of my targeting frame,’ she sent.
The reply was, ‘Mother of fuck,’ and the ship went into a high-gravity turn that Orlandine realized no human could have survived — which meant there were no humans aboard.
‘Knobbler,’ she said, ‘I’m going to assume that little guy is the one we are here to meet, but damn well keep a rail-gun on him till we find out for sure.’
‘Will do,’ Knobbler replied.
They were ready now — she didn’t want to give those worm-ships time to separate.
‘Proceed,’ Orlandine instructed.
She observed Heliotrope drive the cargo-runcible meniscus down, like a catch-net, onto the tumbling asteroid, swallowing it whole. Since the war runcible was linked only to the cargo runcible, she did not need to check what was now coming through, just make the necessary calculations and apply the required energies to accept that item in the war runcible’s U-space spoon, and then bring it through. And she did not bleed off the C-energy.
The million-ton rock came out through the war runcible’s Skaidon warp. In U-space the asteroid’s speed relative to realspace had been far above the speed of light. As it returned to the domain of Einsteinian physics realspace strictly applied its speed restrictions and the asteroid departed the war runcible at just a fraction below the speed of light. A material object travelling at such velocity was often described as photonic matter. You cannot see light unless its photons enter your eyes, so it should not have been possible to see the path of this object, yet it left a luminous trail like the disperse beam from a particle weapon, for there was a sufficient scattering of atoms throughout this region for it to hit and smash a few of them.
Focusing upon both the wormships, Orlandine did not get to see the impact, for the intense flash of radiation blanked out all sensors aimed in that direction. It didn’t matter that the asteroid only hit one of the wormships full on, as the force of the impact supplied sufficient energy for the cone of the blast to hit the other ship as well. When the sensors cleared again, it was to show a glowing cloud scattered through with wormish fragments.
‘Knobbler,’ she instructed, ‘clear up those bits.’
Immediately, visible particle beams began needling the cloud, selectively burning the fragments to ash. She turned her attention now to the little ship, which was swinging round to head back towards the war runcible.
‘Give me a good reason why I should not destroy you,’ she sent.
‘Chameleonware and recognition codes, apparently,’ replied a voice.
Orlandine could now discern that the approaching craft was in fact two ships bonded together, one of them of the kind customarily used by Erebus’s legates.
‘I’m not so sure that’s reason enough for me to let you even get close to us,’ she said, testing.
‘Well, Fiddler Randal tells me you need the updated version,’ replied the voice. ‘And my boss, even though he don’t say much, tells me you should stop blasting those bits of wormship out there because from one of them he can get you what you want.’
Knobbler’s particle cannons abruptly cut out. Clearly the big drone had been listening.
‘I see,’ said Orlandine.
Now she watched as the Polity craft and the legate craft abruptly separated, the latter accelerating towards the spreading cloud of wormship remains. She saw it target one large chunk of debris, decelerate down towards it, but still slam into it hard and stick for a moment. After a brief pause it then separated and turned, heading back towards the Polity craft.
‘Got your codes and ‘ware,’ said the voice.
‘I will give you docking instructions shortly,’ Orlandine replied coldly.
The aseptic smell was so familiar, as were the sounds, the current numbness of his body and the occasional tugging sensation in his flesh. He was in Medical being worked over by an autodoc, probably directed by a human medic. This wasn’t an unusual experience for Cormac, but the profound sadness he felt was unusual, and it arose for reasons he just could not nail down right then.
‘Ah, you’re with us again,’ said a voice.
Cormac tried to open his eyes but found he couldn’t, tried to say something about this but his mouth seemed like a slack bag.
‘Don’t worry about the lack of sensation,’ continued the voice. ‘I had to block you from the neck down to fix the stomach wound and your leg. I also had to knock out some facial and scalp nerves to repair the other damage.’
Great, don’t worry about the numbness, just worry about the damage. Cormac surmised, judging by his bedside manner, that whoever was working on him was not a civilian medic.
‘There, that about does it,’ the voice told him. ‘Your own internal nanites are repairing the concussion damage, and the antiinflammatories should help.’