“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total traction loss.”
“Culture ship level with us now, sir. Starting to draw ahead. It’s not changing—”
“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total sensor loss.”
“Engineering telemetry down.”
“Sir, the Laskuil-Hliz reports total loss of power.”
“—velocity. We’re slowing. Fleet formation breaking up.”
“Sir, the Abalule-Sheliz reports it’s being targeted by the Quiatrea-Anang’s Target Illumination Systems.”
“What?”
“Our engines beginning stepped disengagement on false telemetry, sir. Trying to head them off and re-initialise but they keep—”
Tyun could hear and feel something alter in the ship; a single great deep note was deepening still further, like something winding down, while a forward drag stirred micro-currents into the waters around him.
“Sir, the Abalule-Sheliz reports it’s being targeted by our own TIS.”
“That’s shit,” the junior combat/targeting officer said, voice shaking. “That’s just shit, not true. Sir.”
“This is an attack!” Tyun said. “This is hostile action! Fire to disable.”
“Hard small target, sir. Doubt we can be that accurate.”
“Well, just hit it!”
“Sir, the Fulanya-Guang reports total loss of engine telemetry.”
“No weapon control. All weapons aboard shutting to fail-safe mode, active systems powering down.”
“Hit it with something! Disable it, destroy it, I don’t care!”
“Nothing to throw at it, sir.”
“Sir, the Quiatrea-Anang reports total weapon control loss.”
“Sir, the Culture ship is within quick strike range of the missile platform launched earlier. Might not have spotted it.”
“Can the platform fire? Have we comms with it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, the Fulanya-Guang reports total loss of main power.”
“Well fire it!”
“Sir, how many—?”
“Everything! All the missiles!”
“Six missiles firing,” the combat officer said. “Four sec – one missile gone – two destruct – three, four gone, five … five gone … Shit!”
“We … we hit it.”
“Last one got it. Holy fuck.”
“We got it, sir.”
“The fucker’s dust.”
“We got it! We fucking got it!”
“Order on the bridge,” Tyun said.
“Sir.”
“Engine telemetry re-established,” the damage control officer reported.
The main screen went into start-up mode, checking itself out with quick darting blocks of colour and sudden scrolls of text and logos, gone too quickly to read.
“Sir, all other ships reporting all controls and telemetry returning to normalcy.”
The main screen came alive. It showed a view on medium magnification, looking twenty degrees astern at one edge, of a small cloud of expanding, radiative debris. Dotted alongside, leading away into the darkness, were five even smaller clouds.
“Ronte fleet ahead, sir. Within range. They’re targeting aggressively.”
Tyun tore his gaze away from the puff of slowly cooling debris falling further away into the night behind them. He switched his attention to the Ronte fleet as the screen view swung back round. The Ronte ships were close now; they had started moving around in one of their odd, forever-changing patterns, as though unsure what formation to fly in. Not that that would make any difference to the targeting AIs. It was even quite pretty, in a pathetic sort of way. Tyun collected himself. “Send the hail.”
“Sent, sir.”
“All systems aboard at prime, sir. Minimal radiation damage to rear sensors.”
“All ships at prime, sir.”
“Confirm that, sir. Back to full battle-ready state, zero damage, all ships.”
“Positive locks on all twelve Ronte ships, sir.”
“Ronte reply in, sir.”
“And?”
“Obscene, sir. Absolute non-compliance.”
Tyun looked at the message on his now properly functioning in-helmet display. It was indeed obscene; almost inventively so. The Ronte must have been doing their homework on Liseiden physiology.
Salvage and Reprocessing Team Principal Ny-Xandabo Tyun floated back a little in his command bubble. He checked the distance and the time to Vatrelles system, or to any other known ships. Nothing around for light days. They had hours to play with.
“Officers, we are going to fire to disable, targeting their engines.”
“Historically, they don’t disable too well, sir,” the combat officer said.
“Yes. They tend to explode. I know,” Tyun said. “Let their high command regard what’s going to follow as an incentive to improve their engine design. All combat officers?”
“Sir?” was said in chorus.
“Concentrate all fire, full squadron, flagship combat officer coordinating,” he commanded. “Pick them off, one at a time, nearest at all times unless they turn and attack. They probably will. Then each ship to deal with the most immediate threat to it. The flagship will re-send the hail to stop and submit to inspection to all remaining Ronte vessels after each successful engagement. Begin.”
The first Ronte ship became an expanding flower of plasma within a minute. The Ronte employed better tactics than had been anticipated and each subsequent ship took a little longer to destroy than the one before; nevertheless, the whole engagement lasted less than a third of an hour. The Fulanya-Guang was lost with all hands when what was left of the last Ronte ship, believed to be the fleet flagship, rammed it.
This last development was, Tyun felt – secretly – almost a relief. To overwhelm an inferior fleet with no losses at all made it look like a dishonourably unequal contest; almost a massacre. Losing a ship made everything look a lot better, and would give him an opportunity to sound grave and caring for the dead and their loved ones when he wrote his memoirs.
Besting a suicidal Culture ship gone native – even if it was “just” a Contact Unit, and only tiny – was merely the crustal fronding on the meat-shell, though apparently that phrase, too, was “awkward/over-species-specific in translation”.
Twenty-two
(S -2)
xGSV Empiricist
oLOU Caconym
oGSV Contents May Differ
oGCU Displacement Activity
oGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
oUe Mistake Not …
oMSV Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In
oMSV Pressure Drop
oLSV You Call This Clean?
This is all very sad. I especially regret that my own vessels were unable to help in time.
∞
xMSV Pressure Drop
I trust the lead ship of your “string” formation, the ROU Learned Response, has no thought of revenging the destruction of the Beats Working. Our comrade brought its end upon itself. The Liseiden are hardly to be commended, but their principal crime was not offing a semi-civilian craft of ours intent on making amends for earlier over-enthusiasm, but destroying the Ronte ships with all their crews. And even that they had an excuse for, miserable and legalistic though it may have been.
∞
xGSV Empiricist
Indeed. I think no immediate action need or should be taken against the Liseiden. Our long-term disapproval, and the implications that this will have for their reputation, might prove most effective. The ROU will continue to the combat volume to retrieve the Beats Working’s shuttle with the humans aboard, and check whether any other remains are recoverable, but will not pursue the Liseiden ships.
∞
xGSV Contents May Differ
A sealed sub-packet that came with the Beats Working’s mind-state just popped. Seems it was so troubled by its own earlier actions that it’s requesting that it not be reactivated, s
ave for second-party study, comparative or research purposes. Poor lame bastard doesn’t even want to be a ship again.
∞
xLOU Caconym
oMSV Pressure Drop
Told you. Five humans: too few.
∞
xLOU Caconym
Meanwhile, on Xown? … Reality calling Mistake Not …, yes; we’re talking about you.
∞
xUe Mistake Not …
Yes, hi. It’s all getting terribly interesting.
Colonel?
~Ma’am? Agansu replied. The signal-adjunct protocols indicated he was addressing Marshal Chekwri.
~This is Marshal Chekwri.
~I am aware. An honour.
~Your current status?
~I am walking alongside the airship Equatorial 353 awaiting confirmation from the Churkun regarding the disposition of its forces and that of the other side. Media reports indicate that those in charge of the airship have undertaken to open the vessel to the public sometime in the next few minutes. I intend to board then. Or before, should we find our adversaries are already aboard.
~Permit me awareness through your own senses.
~Of course.
The sensation of manipulating aspects of his sensorium was a new one for Agansu, and yet one which felt perfectly natural. He briefly marvelled at all the thought and careful design that must have gone into making it seem routine for something like himself – something which felt like a human – to delve into what was basically its own being and adjust the settings it found there so that a live link of what it was experiencing through its senses was now being sent to another person.
At the same time, Agansu was becoming aware of how many differences there were between his own, biological body and this one. With the possible exception of being considerably heavier than the bio version – despite being precisely the same volume – all the differences were positive.
How much more powerful, capable and sophisticated this new form was. How much more sensitive where it needed to be – his own bio-body held many augmentations and desirable amendments over the human-basic standard, yet in this new one, for example, he could see in much greater detail and over a far greater spread of the electro-magnetic spectrum than the old version was able to – yet how much less vulnerable it was where it didn’t require such sensitivity (this android body felt no pain at all; one’s motivation for avoiding harm was knowing that harm reduced one’s ability to function, while the indication that harm had been inflicted was no more than that – a sign; something to be noted, taken into account and acted upon, but no more).
~Thank you, the marshal sent.
There had been almost no delay between him agreeing to let the marshal see through his eyes and generally sense through his senses, him setting this up and her beginning to receive the data, and yet he had had time to take a look round inside himself as it were and start to appreciate all the differences between his bio-body and this one, and then to think about all this, all before the marshal had thanked him.
Agansu marvelled at how little time it had all taken. His bio-self would hardly have had time for one completed thought in that half-second or so.
~Right, Colonel, the marshal sent, ~we think the Culture people are trying to get to this Ximenyr guy, because of something he has or something he knows about this QiRia person. You have to stop them. That done, you get Ximenyr. Find out what he has, or knows. You may be as brusque as you like.
~I understand, ma’am, Agansu sent, as he looked about the crowds of chanting, singing, dancing people and gaudily painted, bannered and holo’d machines keeping pace with the giant airship.
~Sounds loud, Colonel.
~Yes ma’am.
He was aware of many different sound streams around him, principally dance music emanating from the various vehicles around him on the broad balcony roadway. More seemed to be joining the throng all the time.
~Kind of crowded there, too.
A burst of fireworks lit up the open-work tunnel around the nose of the Equatorial 353. Some set of automatic reactions built into the android he inhabited seemed to be reacting to the fireworks, clenching instinctively as it witnessed nearby mortars firing – nearby mortars which were not flagged as friendly – and their payloads – unguided, highly inaccurately aimed payloads – detonating. Bursts of light were followed by booms, thuds and crackles. A few echoes came back, but most of the sound was swallowed by the huge spaces of the Girdlecity and absorbed within the surrounding patchwork of musics.
Knowing the speed of sound in Xown’s atmosphere and the altitude here, he was able to tell exactly how far away he was from each exploding mortar shell.
~Yes, it is, ma’am. Quite crowded.
~Uh-huh. You know, if anything serious does kick off there, Colonel, you will need to limit civilian casualties as far as possible.
~I am aware of that, ma’am, Agansu sent, thinking how typical – and shameful – it was that a superior tried to cover themselves against any unfortunate outcome by re-stating something that was already entirely and properly covered in ambient standing orders and by military rules of engagement. At the same time, if he failed to do as he was required to do by those same superiors because, anxious to avoid collateral civilian damage, he pulled back from using the most destructive weaponry he might have been able to deploy, he’d be blamed for that, too. He had, thanks to her reputation, thought better of Marshal Chekwri, but obviously he’d been wrong to think her any different.
~Marshal, Colonel, the Churkun’s captain sent. ~Further on the current situation. We intercepted and re-disloc’d a relatively massive Displace by the Culture vessel and captured what is probably its principal auxiliary craft; however, it was unoccupied and unarmed and probably constituted a diversion. A number of further Displaces occurred almost immediately thereafter, centred on the volume immediately around the airship, but we were unable to intercept or disrupt them. Neither are we able to pin down their destinations further. We are confident they are not actually inside the ship due to the four-dimensional aspect of its construction. It is, effectively, shielded against disloc. This means that the other side must achieve entry to the airship by conventional means. As we have had sensors watching the craft for some time, and discerned no suspicious activity, we are confident that this has not thus far been achieved. Further, the full force of all four of this ships’ marine platoons are now available for disloc at instant notice on the colonel’s order.
~I see, Captain, Agansu sent. He might have said more, but there would be time later for pinning down the responsibility for the Churkun being unable to do more regarding the Culture ship’s Displaces. Now was not the time for that. ~So, our adversaries are here, but we don’t know where?
~Indeed, Colonel.
~In that case I suggest that you bring in all the marine arbite platoons immediately. Place some ahead of the ship, some behind – say half a platoon in each position – but most in a couple of concentric shells of arbites entirely surrounding the vessel, keeping within tens out to a hundred metres of it but distributed within the structure, with only a squad-level force stationed on the outside of the Girdlecity. Order all of them to keep pace with the airship. Have them stealthed as far as possible, or camo’d to resemble camera drones or other civilian devices.
At that moment, a woman danced out of the crowd of people around him and started trying to get him to dance with her. He shook his head and drew back his hands as she tried to grab them. She persisted, trying to again get hold of his hands, so he turned quickly and walked off, towards the wire parapet at the edge of the roadway, pushing between a couple of people, apologising as he went.
~Suggest we stagger their arrival, Colonel, the Churkun’s captain sent, ~or it’ll be kind of obvious, popping in that many; you’re liable to hear them as well as maybe see them. A second or two between each arrival ought to be okay.
~If you think so, Captain, Agansu replied as another flicker of mortar fire presaged yet more
smokey, low-explosive detonations in the tunnel ahead of the airship.
~Captain, Marshal Chekwri sent, ~might I suggest you time more intense disloc bursts to coincide with barrages of fireworks?
~Good idea, ma’am.
Seconds later, Agansu heard a series of additional, dulled crackles sounding all around him, just as the next fusillade of fireworks detonated. He looked around and saw a couple more of what looked like media-cam platforms than had been there before. A few hazy disturbances in the air high over and ahead of the airship – easily missable by the normal human eye – were probably the marine arbites too, camouflaged.
He called up confirmation. Immediately, a picture began to build up inside his mind: a schematic of the Girdlecity around him, showing the tube that the airship Equatorial 353 moved through at its centre and all the structure around it, along with the positions of all the arbite marines popping into existence.
All that was missing from the picture was any sign of where his adversaries might be.
~Okay, Marshal Chekwri sent, ~I’m at a reception, with stuff that needs to be done. I’ll check in later. But let me know if anything dramatic happens, Captain, Colonel.
“You are fucking joking me. We’re where?”
“We’re in the stern ventral waste disposal semi-solids holding tank,” Berdle said through the suit. His voice in her ears sounded perfectly unconcerned. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anything, basically, or touch anything solid.
Cossont was aware of floating in something thick and warm, in complete darkness at normal wavelengths. Her augmented eyes, working in unison with the combat suit’s sensors, were happy to relay the fact that the stuff she was surrounded by and floating within was just a little beneath normal Gzilt body core temperature.
“You have literally landed us in the fucking shit?” she said, trying not to sound panicked. Not being able to touch, see or really sense anything very much was, she told herself, worse than knowing what she was submerged within.
“It’s ideal,” Berdle told her. “This bit of the airship’s not shielded with 4D because, I imagine, it gets emptied rather than recycled. Very old-fashioned. Anyway, it means we were able to blat right in. Of course, it’s well sensored-up to look out for this sort of intrusion, but the clever bit was Displacing out an exactly similar volume just before dropping us in. Don’t think we troubled the header tank or the relief valves at all … or caused any blow-back anywhere for that matter. That might have been really messy.”