'Damn, Kazimir grunted. 'That has to be it. The idiots. Not enough to try and wreck the galaxy, they've got to start a war with the most powerful race in existence.
'There is one factor which might work to our advantage, Paula said.
'What?
'The Primes.
Centuries of experience had taught Kazimir never to be surprised at Paula's ideas. 'Go on.
'They're not stupid. At least not the ones still living in the Commonwealth, which is the group the Accelerators have manipulated. A standard Prime immotile knows that if there is any possibility of them threatening us again, we will simply exterminate them.
'Yes. Actually, given the new nature and developing psychology of the five surviving Prime civilizations, the Navy has downgraded their threat potential twice in the last thousand years.
'So they're not going to risk triggering human retaliation. They are extremely unlikely to agree to cooperate with the Accelerator plan. However, we know that human personalities can operate within a Prime neural structure. I once met the Bose-motile. The integration was flawless, he functioned without any problem. That gives us our potential evidence.
'What does? Kazimir asked.
'They might be Prime bodies inside those warships, but I'll give you very good odds that they're animated by human thought routines. It would be a simple matter to snatch some motiles that have just come out of the birthing pond. At that stage their brains are completely empty, it's their immotiles which instil them with baseline thoughts and memories. So if you did snatch one at that stage, it would be a simple procedure to load in a human mind and memories instead, it's our basic re-life procedure but with an alien body. And there you have it, the core of a completely independent Prime hierarchy. The Ocisen Empire thinks they've found a genuine enemy of humanity to give their cause some particularly sharp teeth, while in fact they're being manipulated by the Accelerators just like everyone else.
'So all we have to do is catch one and download its thoughts, Kazimir said.
'Exactly. When you go to the Senate Commission, explain that you're going to give the Ocisen Empire fleet one last chance to turn round now you and they know Capital-class ships can defeat the Prime. Use the Capital-class to disable a Prime ship and board it.
'If they are human driven Prime they'll suicide, ANA: Governance said.
'Will that be sufficient evidence for you? Paula asked.
'Not conclusively, no. I would have to be inserted into the inter-Prime communication network and analyse the thoughtstream.
'Attempt the Capital-class interception, Paula said. 'It acts completely in our favour. If it works and we prove the Primes are just biological shells for the Accelerators, then you can suspend all Accelerator activities. If not, then Kazimir still has plenty of time to use the deterrent fleet before the Ocisens reach the Commonwealth, and as a bonus you delay Accelerator acquisition of the fleet weapons.
'I agree that's a logical course of action, Kazimir said.
'But? Paula enquired.
'We didn't really know how powerful the warrior Raiel were until my mother flew past them in the Gulf. While from what we can determine, this plan of the Accelerators has been in motion for at least fifty years.
'We've known the Raiel had defence systems around the Wall stars since the day Wilson Kime discovered them in back in 2560. It was inevitable that those Raiel would have adequate firepower to back up their mission. After all, they're the ones who once tried to invade the Void. That's not something you attempt with anything as pitiful as a novabomb. The Accelerators have always known they'll need serious firepower to reach the Void boundary.
'Maybe, Kazimir said reluctantly. 'There's just something about this that bothers me, and I can't define it.
'If they don't want to see the deterrence fleet weapons in action, what else could they be using the Ocisen Empire fleet for?
'I don't know, he said. 'ANA?
'Paula's scenario is the obvious one. An exceptionally large effort is being made to draw the deterrence fleet out to the Ocisen invasion forces. Primes are the one species which will still unite every political and cultural bloc within the Commonwealth. And I would point out that even if you're right, and the Primes are exposed as Accelerator agents, the Ocisens themselves will still keep coming.
'Very well, Kazimir finally got his collar straight. 'I'll ask the Senate Commission for permission to deploy the deterrent fleet, but only after we make one final attempt to warn them off.
'Do let me know how Ilanthe responds to that, Paula told him.
It was as humiliating as Honious, but Corrie-Lyn had to rely on Aaron as well as Inigo to make it across the hundred-metre gap between the remains of the ground crawler, and the Navy starship. As well as her broken arm, her ankle was badly twisted and sprained, as she discovered when she tried to put any weight on it.
Aaron had simply knelt down on the rim of the ground crawler's bodywork that he'd sheared off with his disruptor pulse, and extended his arm. She'd reluctantly grasped it with her good hand, and allowed him to haul her up with no more effort than if he'd been lifting a bag of gromal puffs. It was only when he'd put her down that she gasped with pain and nearly collapsed back on to the ice. Aaron, of course, had caught her easily.
So she had to sling an arm around each of them, and let them take the weight as she hopped all the way over to the starship. Her body was shivering violently from the terrible cold. Huge flashes of lightning ripped overhead, their muted thunder rolling round the little bubble of calm which the starship's force field had cast over them. Even without any enriched sensors she could see the craft had taken a terrible beating. The fuselage actually had splits in it, and fluids were seeping out of various valves and exposed pipes.
The ground shook violently, and all three of them went tumbling down.
'Move, Aaron snapped. His integral force field strengthened, surrounding him in a mild blue haze.
Corrie-Lyn was slightly disconcerted to see Inigo had also protected himself the same way. Then the pair of them picked her up and started jogging over the last twenty metres with her hanging ignominiously between them. While they were doing that she started to pay attention to the red symbols appearing in her exovision. She was receiving a very unhealthy dose of radiation from the atmosphere trapped under the force field.
It was a Navy ship, she could see the name CNE Lindau on the fuselage. But the crew weren't responding to her desperate pings. She wondered what kind of cover story Aaron could possibly have spun them. Somehow she never thought to ask herself how he could have survived the glacier. It was sort of inevitable.
They hurried up the ramp and into the airlock. The outer hull was already flowing closed as they crossed the threshold. Another quake made the starship tremble. Then there was the unmistakable whine of power feeding into the drive, and they lifted from the surface. The floor immediately shuddered badly, and the decking shifted out of horizontal alignment. It juddered its way back level as the unnerving sounds of equipment straining at its safety margins set her teeth on edge.
The airlock's inner door unfurled as her weight began to build up.
'Hold her, Aaron instructed curtly as he let go of Corrie-Lyn's arm and lurched his way into the ship against the rapidly increasing acceleration.
Inigo quickly lowered her on to the floor of the short corridor. 'Don't move your neck, he said urgently. 'Keep your spine level. I don't know how bad this is going to get. The decking seemed to be made from a grey plyplastic. It wasn't comfortable, but with the gee force approaching five she was grateful to be lying prone. Medical symbols warned her what the acceleration was doing to her broken arm, which might have accounted for her mounting nausea.