Oh, yes… this was finesse.
“Now give me something a novice can use,” Khouri said, dithering in front of the warchive’s dispensary. “I’m not talking about a toy, though—it’s got to have real stopping power.”
“Beam or projectile, madame?”
“Make it a low-yield beam. We don’t want Pascale putting holes in the hull.”
“Oh, marvellous choice, madame. Would madame care to rest her feet while I search for something which matches madame’s discerning requirements?”
“Madame will stand, if you don’t mind.”
She was being served by the dispensary’s gamma-level persona, which consisted of a rather glum and simpering holographic head projected at chest height above the slot-topped counter. At first she had restricted her choices to those arms which were arrayed along the walls, stowed behind glass with little illuminated plaques detailing their operation, era-of-origin and history of usage. That was fine, in principle, and she had soon selected lightweight weapons for herself and Volyova, choosing a pair of electromagnetic needle-guns which were similar in design to Shadowplay equipment.
Volyova had, rather ominously, mentioned heavier ordnance, and Khouri had taken care of that as well, but only partially from the displayed wares. There had been a nice rapid-cycle plasma rifle, manufactured three centuries ago, but by no means outdated, and its neural-feed aiming system would make it very useful in close combat. It was light, as well, and when she hefted it, she felt that she knew the weapon immediately. There was also something obscenely alluring about the weapon’s protective jacket of black leather: mottled and oiled to a high sheen, with patches cut away to expose controls, readouts and attachment points. It would suit her, but what could she bring back for Volyova? She perused the shelves for as long as she dared (which could not have been more than five minutes), and while there was no shortage of intriguing and even bewildering hardware, there was nothing which exactly matched what she had in mind.
Instead, she had turned to the warchive’s memory. There were, Khouri was reliably informed, exemplars of in excess of four million hand weapons, spanning twelve centuries of gunsmithery, from the simplest spark-ignited projectile blunderbusses to the most gruesomely compact concentrations of death-directed technology imaginable.
But even that vast assortment was small compared to the warchive’s total potential, because the warchive could also be creative. Given specifications, the warchive could sift its blueprints and merge the optimum characteristics of pre-existing weapons until it had forged something new and highly customised. Which, in minutes, it could synthesise.
When it was done—as it was with the little pistol Khouri had imagined for Pascale—the slot in the tabletop would whir open and the finished weapon would rise on a little felt-topped platter, gleaming with ultrasterility, still warm with the residual heat of its manufacture.
She lifted Pascale’s pistol, sighting along the barrel, feeling the balance, running through the beam-yield settings, accessed by a stud recessed into the grip.
“Suits you, madame,” said the dispensary.
“It isn’t for me,” Khouri said, hiding the gun in a pocket.
Volyova’s six cache-weapons powered up their thrusters and vectored rapidly away from the ship, following a complex course which would position them to strike against the impact point, albeit obliquely. And the bridgehead, meanwhile, continued to reduce the distance between itself and the surface, always slowing. She was certain that the world had already decided that it was being approached by an artificial object, and a big one at that. The world might even recognise that the thing approaching it had once been the Lorean. Doubtless, somewhere down in that machine-permeated crust, a kind of debate was going on. Some components would be arguing that it was best to attack now; best to strike against the nearing thing before it became a real problem. Other components would be urging caution, pointing out that the object was still a long way from Cerberus, and that any attack against it now would have to be very large to ensure the object was annihilated before it could retaliate, and that such an open display of strength might attract more attention from elsewhere. And furthermore, the pacifist systems might say, so far this object had done nothing unambiguously hostile. It might not even suspect the artificiality of Cerberus. It might only want to sniff the world and leave it alone.
Volyova did not want the pacifists to win. She wanted the advocates of a massive pre-emptive strike to win, and she wanted it to happen now, before another minute passed. She wanted to observe Cerberus lash out and remove the bridgehead from existence. That would end their problems, and—because something similar had already happened to Sylveste’s probes—they would not be any worse off than they were now. Perhaps the mere incitement of a counterstrike from Cerberus would not constitute the interference which the Mademoiselle had sought to prevent. After all, no one would have entered the place. And then they could admit defeat and go home.
Except none of that was going to happen.
“These cache-weapons,” Sajaki said, nodding at the display. “Are you planning to arm and fire them from here, Ilia?”
“There’s no reason not to.”
“I would have expected Khouri to direct them from the gunnery. After all, that’s her role.” He turned to Hegazi and whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m beginning to wonder why we recruited that one—or why I allowed Volyova to stop the trawling.”
“I presume she has her uses,” said the chimeric.
“Khouri is in the gunnery,” Volyova lied. “As a precaution, of course. But I won’t call on her unless absolutely necessary. That’s fair, isn’t it? These are my weapons as well—you can’t begrudge me the use of them when the situation is so controlled.”
The readouts on her bracelet—partially echoed on the display sphere in the middle of the bridge—-informed her that in thirty minutes the cache-weapons would arrive at their designated firing positions nearly a quarter of a million kilometres away from the ship. At that point there would be no plausible reason not to fire them.
“Good,” Sajaki said. “For a moment I worried that we didn’t have your complete commitment to the cause. But that sounds suspiciously like a flash of the old Volyova.”
“How very gratifying,” Sylveste said.