Collision alarms…
Calculations wrong. A deliberate trap? King immediately began firing meteor lasers at the swarm of fist-sized objects hammering towards it, turned and ignited its fusion drive to bring its speed up to that of the projectiles. While destroying those that seemed likely to impact on its hull, it spectrally analysed the debris and deep-scanned those still intact.
They were the shape of melon seeds, with cilia-like serrations along their edges, and seemed packed with technology in the haphazard configuration of something alive. They contained power cells, some form of sensor array, small chambers holding hydrogen under sufficient pressure to turn it into the metallic state. The AI realized its danger within a fraction of a second, but that was a fraction of a second too late. Bright stars ignited all around, and King expected massive explosions but, no, the projectiles accelerated inwards as the attack ship began dropping into U-space. Three of them penetrated the U-field before it fully formed, and then slammed into the King of Hearts’s, hull as it surfaced into realspace half a light year away.
Space mines like those once used to destroy Prador vessels?
Still no explosion. King released three telefactors and directed them to the location of each impact. But, even as those devices launched, King felt the incursions through its hull. Immediately extruding antipersonnel lasers on jointed arms, it directed them back at itself and fired upon all three incursions. Viewing through the telefactors it saw two of them grow red, then white, then explode massively. Two craters were punched into hull metal, causing structural damage inside, atmosphere leaking out—but that last did not matter as the AI never intended to willingly take humans aboard it ever again. The third object grew red, white, then slowly turned red again. Unlike the others it managed to link itself to King’s own s-con hull grid, which meant it had already cut five inches deep. The AI shut down the laser and recalled two of its telefactors, leaving the other one outside watching. Through its internal scanners it viewed the inner location of the incursion through its hull, but saw nothing yet. It sent maintenance robots to that area, then from its internal armoury summoned a mosquito auto-gun, and watched the weapon stride on six legs along corridors meant for humans. The business end of this device was a small particle cannon—not something King really wanted to fire inside itself, but would do so if necessary.
The outside view showed the melon-seed shape bulging up in the middle, with ridges extending down from the bulge. Sensors in King’s hull now revealed weaknesses in the area. The maintenance robots arrived and began cutting out nearby walls and detaching and moving equipment in the vicinity. Then came a wrinkling of the inner hull, and a tendril breaking through and branching across the surface like a vein. Close scanning showed material draining away around this growth. King could not scan close enough to see the cause, but guessed it to be nanomachines taking apart the substance of the ship and drawing it away. Outside again, the seed shape had turned into a smaller version of those barnacle structures on the distant artefact. The purpose of all this seemed clear: an organic technology that grew by ingesting surrounding materials, very like Jain technology. King withdrew its maintenance robots, sealed off bulkheads, and instructed the mosquito autogun to weld its feet to the floor, then told it to fire. Turquoise flame struck the inner hull. The external telefactor observed the hull glow red around the encrustation, which turned black in silhouette. After a moment the hull bulged, then exploded into space in a stream of plasma, the growth retaining definition for a moment, then breaking apart as it was struck by the turquoise of the particle beam. King sent its maintenance robots to fetch hull patches, set them to making repairs, then contemplated recorded images of its closer view of the artefact.
It now seemed likely that the distant artefact was a ship or a station completely digested by the invading technology. The position of the projectiles the AI encountered indicated they had been fired off at about the time of Erebus’s arrival here, so that other AI had little time in which to construct something so massive. King ran through the library of images of ships that departed the Polity with Erebus, and shortly found something matching the same general outline: a troop transport called the Calydonian Boar. Maybe this ship had been another to rebel, or else its AI was removed and the hulk set here as a defence. No way of telling now, because there seemed to be nothing left of the original ship.
King surveyed the internal map it had made of nearby systems, wondering which direction Erebus took from here, for there was no way to find out from the Calydonian Boar itself without risking destruction. Then, on that internal map: the accretion disc of a solar system in the making—the perfect place for something utterly new. U-space then, to the edge of this disc, followed by conventional drives inside, for using U-engines in such a place where matter concentrated would be very risky. A difficult place, therefore, to escape from.
In the extended airlock and decontamination area, Mika donned a spacesuit before lugging her pack out to a catwalk. The bay was an upright cylinder with the walkway running around the perimeter of a circular irised hatch in the floor. This sector in the Jerusalem’s outer ring contained a selection of intership craft. None of these, however, were presently visible, being stored in concealed racks. She was about to mention this fact when abruptly the floor slid open and a lift raised her transport into view.
This might be the same craft as Cormac had used in his journey down to the surface of Dragon. A one-man vehicle without airlocks, any major drive or AI, it could be flown by a pilot, though most often Jerusalem itself controlled it. A flattened and stretched ovoid, with skids underneath, two directional thrusters mounted to fore, and a small ion drive aft, it looked precisely what it was: utile, basic but serviceable. Mika took the steps down from the catwalk and hauled her pack inside.
The pack and its contents were a recent requirement, for the Jerusalem would shortly drop into U-space to make the return jump to Cull. The AI decided that a trip to Coloron would be wasted, for any Jain technology there would soon cease to exist. Nevertheless, Mika wondered about the timing of the jump coinciding with her allotted session with Dragon. Perhaps the AI intended giving her a break from her current concerns about augmentation? Though of course it would be arrogant to assume it thought her so important.
Once ensconced in the single seat, Mika said, ‘Okay, Jerusalem, you can take me over—I’ve no overpowering urge to pilot this thing myself.’
From her suitcom the AI replied, ‘Scenic route?’
‘If you have sufficient time.’
The wing door to the craft sealed itself shut with a crump, and lights began flashing amber in the bay as pumps evacuated the air. Mika strapped herself in, felt the grav go off, then looked up through the cockpit screen as the lights turned to amber and the ceiling irised open on stars. Swivelling to point downwards, the fore thrusters fired to propel the craft out into space. It turned nose-down over the Jerusalem’s outer ring, which now looked like some vast raised highway running to the horizon of a metal planet. The giant research vessel was a sphere three miles in diameter, with the thick band around its equator containing all its shuttles, grab-ships, drones, telefactors… the tools the AI used to manipulate its environment, which Mika felt the AI defined as everything.
The small craft now turned away and headed towards a reddish green sun on the Jerusalem’s horizon. Acceleration from the ion drive kicked her in the back, and the small organic moonlet fell towards her. Around her she noted things glinting in the blackness: ships and robotic probes being recalled to the equatorial ring of the giant research vessel. She abruptly felt very vulnerable, then, looking ahead towards Dragon, a surge of excitement.