The Ascendant Stars (57 page)

And still the Legion cyborgs continued to rise up from the surface of Darien, a gleaming black river of deadly brutal forms. There had to be thousands of them by now, but what if there were millions yet to emerge?

At that point Ash had reached a similar conclusion and ordered a course change, but even as the
Silverlance
moved off its trajectory, the ship AI warned of approaching hostiles. Moments later a cloud of cyborgs had converged on the Tygran and Earthsphere ships as they tried to escape.

That had only been a few hours ago. All the battles and skirmishes around Darien had merged into a single gargantuan
convulsion of offensives and counter-offensives, barrages and forays, berserk charges and unavoidable routs. And from the surface of the planet still more cyborgs of the Legion poured forth in an unbroken torrent.

All the subsequent fighting, the collisions and near misses, and the devastating attack on the
Silverlance
by a Hegemony cruiser, was still clear and sharp in his mind as he clattered down the last companionway, coughing on the smoke. The lateral passage was about fifteen yards long and there, at the T-junction at its end, was the entrance to the escape pod gallery.

‘Alert for … Commander Cameron … alert … ’

‘Having problems?’ Greg said as he hurried along the passage.

‘External interference exacerbating comm-net incapacity … alert – seven point two minutes until this vessel enters atmosphere … ’

An acerbic riposte came to Greg’s lips but died when an indistinct figure dashed across the T-junction up ahead. There was something familiar about that slight physique and barefoot stride …

‘
Silverlance
,’ he said, ‘I just saw someone run past at the end of the corridor, heading aft – who else is still on board?’

‘All crew accounted for. Apart from yourself, there are no other living persons aboard this vessel.’

‘Well, I didna imagine it … ’ he began, then wondered if his mind was starting to misfire under the burden of stress and exhaustion.

This is an ex-Hegemony ship, not a Forerunner monument – there’s no way that Catriona could be here
…

Hurrying along, he had just reached the junction when the deck lurched underfoot, making him stumble and fall to his knees.

‘I am sorry, friend Gregory,’ said a voice from close by. ‘So very sorry … ’

The speaker sounded like Chel and seemed to be very near, but as Greg regained his feet he caught sight of a diminutive Uvovo figure back along the way he’d come. He raised a hand but before
he could call out the deck jolted again, worse this time, knocking him sprawling.

‘Alert! – hull breach on bridge deck!’ said the ship AI. ‘Cyborg intruders have gained access to ship interior. Depressurised passageways have been sealed off. Five point seven minutes until atmospheric entry.’

Greg struggled to his feet, looking wildly around, but saw no one else.
I definitely did not imagine that! But why did he say sorry?
…

He dived into the escape pod gallery … and found his worst fears realised as he hurried along the line of pod hatches. Out of six, two had been launched while the rest had been wrecked by enemy fire. A sick dread filled his chest and he leaned back against the gallery partition wall.

‘Acting Commander, what is the pod status?’

He sighed. ‘Junk, or gone. Guess that’s that … ’

‘I would recommend trying to reach the pods in the forward section,’ said the ship AI. ‘There is a maintenance airlock forward of your location … ’

‘Is there time?’

‘If you can cross the hull to one of the forward maintenance locks you can still get to an escape pod. And remaining suited will shield you from any temperature increase for a while.’

He nodded, feeling his heart race. ‘Okay, then. Let’s give the dice another wee roll, eh?’

Running, he reached the windowed inner hatch of the maintenance airlock – and heard a bang and clatter come from back along the corridor, veiled by the smoke. Greg wasted no time, yanked open the hatch, slipped inside and slammed it shut, flipping all the safety catches – just as a black, hulking creature rushed into view and charged at the hatch. There was a deafening crash. Through the small oval window he saw what might have been eyes or lenses peering back at him from within an armoured carapace. Greg stared for a frozen moment, then grabbed a vacuum suit and began pulling it on.

The Legion cyborg was hammering, drilling and tearing at the
hatch and inner bulkhead. Greg could hear the creak of breaking metal by the time the lock had been depressurised and he was clambering out onto the hull. Darien loomed overhead – the
Silverlance
was canted over to port relative to the planet as it rushed onwards in its decaying orbit. Darien filled the view with a dwarfing magnificence.

‘How long … have I got left?’ he said as he turned towards the bows and cursed when he saw another of the Legion cyborgs ripping up pieces of plating which its servitor machines were fixing to its carapace and occasionally their own.

‘Two point one minutes,’ said the ship AI. ‘Have you encountered difficulty?’

‘Aye, ye could put it that way,’ he said, shuffling forward, keeping the suit’s sticky boots near the hull. ‘Another Legion monster and its flock of mini-horrors. But I’m gonnae give it a shot … ’

Keeping his pace even and as quick as possible, without raising his legs too high, was draining. But he built up a rhythm and after a minute circling round the curve of the hull it looked as if he might reach the forward airlock in time. Until he came to a wide stretch of plating that was seared, dark and slightly deformed, and when he pressed the sole of one boot onto it there was no adherence. A beam strike must have damaged the plates and the darkened area was about four yards across and ran diagonally all the way across the ship’s forward flank. There was no time to go around it.

Greg raged and swore for all of ten seconds then, furious at this obstacle, he squatted down and leaned forward slightly. Then he pushed with his feet, propelling himself along, grabbing at any warped plate or protruding edge to keep himself on course. He nearly made it, getting to within a few feet of undamaged hull, but a misjudged reach punted him very gently away from the ship. Desperately he grabbed for purchase but found nothing – the action actually pushed him away faster.

So this is it
, he thought.
Is this why Chel said he was sorry? Did he know I was going to die but couldn’t help me?

He was still falling along the same path as the
Silverlance
, the
same decaying trajectory. The Legion cyborgs and their slave machines were starting to leave the doomed vessel. Noting their departure, he looked up at the planet, intermittently glimpsing landmasses through the swirling cloud formations, crinkled coastlines, the deep dark blue-green of Darien’s oceans. He wondered if Catriona was still alive somewhere on Nivyesta, not so much a ghost in the machine as a spirit in the forest.

I wish I’d stayed
, he thought.
We could have been spirits together
…

And the realisation came to him that he’d rather suffocate than die burning, and he reached for his helmet fastening ring …

‘Mr Cameron?’

He froze. The voice was coming over on the helmet comm. And it was oddly familiar.

‘ … if you can hear me please respond.’

‘Kao Chih? Is that you?’

‘Indeed it is, Mr Cameron. We seem to have located you in time.’

Greg’s mood lifted as he looked around him, seeing nothing but the ravaged hull of the
Silverlance
.

‘And where are ye … exactly?’

‘On the other side of Darien, roughly a third of an orbit away from your current position, surveying the disposition of the Legion of Avatars.’

His heart fell. ‘So you’re not really able to help me out, then … ’

‘On the contrary, Mr Cameron – if you look over to the port side of your warship your escape vehicle should be drawing near.’

Sure enough, a slender tapered shape rose into view, parallel to the
Silverlance
, and then smoothly glided towards Greg. He grinned widely and let out a whooping laugh.

‘I’m definitely impressed,’ he said. ‘But if you’re away round the back of Darien how are you tracking me?’

‘Mini-probes, Mr Cameron – we seeded Darien’s near-space orbital shell with them soon after we arrived.’

‘And who’s “we”?’

‘Oh, the Roug, Mr Cameron! – I’m aboard a Roug combat vessel, the
Vyrk-Zoshel
. I can show you a live image once you are inside the foray-pod … ’

The slender Roug craft had few curved surfaces, its rectilinear sections running lengthwise, widening at the stern into an oval fairing. A dark triangular canopy amidships slid open, revealing a cockpit couch, blue-lit by the pilot console.

‘I can activate retrieval cables if you like, Mr Cameron.’

‘Aye, if you could – these suits aren’t fitted with anything as sensible as manoeuvring jets.’

A pair of silvery lines sprang out of the cockpit, snagged him by waist and leg and hauled him to within arm’s length. As he clambered in and strapped himself into the strangely elongated couch, some of the bulbous controls pulsed brightly. A small square display screen went from pastel blue to cold black, showing an expanse of interplanetary space dominated by an immense grey vessel. Astonishingly, it was shaped like a bizarre, six-legged chimeric creature with its fangs bared and claws extended. A couple of small craft similar to the foray-pod seemed to be flying escort and they were tiny in comparison. The ship had to be at least a kilometre long.

‘Are you watching the screen, Mr Cameron?’

‘Certainly am.’

‘The sizeable grey vessel is the
Vyrk-Zoshel
, the last great war-vaunt of the Roug – I am speaking to you from the prime tactical chamber where a number of Roug interguides coordinate the foray-pod squadrons.’

‘So how is the battle going?’ he said, almost reluctant to find out. ‘Last strategic estimate I saw put the Legion cyborgs at about 350,000 and still growing … ’

‘The Roug sensors report their numerical strength to be in excess of 600,000 units,’ Kao Chih said, his voice level and unperturbed. ‘Fighting continues fiercely all around the planet’s orbital shell with chases and running skirmishes occasionally moving out as far as the orbit of the forest moon. As the groups of Hegemony, Earthsphere and other resisting warships diminish, we will soon
become the primary target for the Legion’s threat-response consensus – we expect to be drawn into a major engagement in less than five minutes.’

‘I’m surprised that the Roug could spare this nice wee boat just to rescue me.’

‘The sad truth, Mr Cameron, is that they have more attack craft than they do pilots. It was easy to persuade them to allow me to use the mini-probe net to search for you, after learning of your difficulties from Lieutenant Ash upon our arrival … ’

‘Ash is still alive, eh?’

‘According to the last update we had from his ship,’ said Kao Chih. ‘His situation, I regret to say, is looking somewhat bleak.’

Greg nodded. ‘So – what do you have in mind for me? Bringing me over to that splendid ship of yours, or sending me back down to Darien?’

The image of the Roug vessel disappeared, replaced by the familiar features of the Pyre emissary, Kao Chih.

‘Neither, I am afraid,’ he said. ‘A senior Hegemony official has managed to escape Darien aboard a stolen shuttle and our commander, High Mandator Azgemiron, insists that he be detained pending trial.’

Greg stared at the screen, silent for a moment. ‘It’s Utavess Kuros, isn’t it?’

‘The Hegemony ambassador, yes, Mr Cameron, and I realise how—’

‘I’ll do it – ye know, chase after the scumbucket and drag him back in chains or some such. Assuming that’s what you want me to do.’

On the display Kao Chih went from surprise to amusement in a couple of seconds.

‘That is correct, although I am sure that ordinary restraints will suffice. Your foray-pod is much faster than the shuttle, and faster than most of the Legion cyborgs. We are tracking the shuttle with an armed probe which has unfortunately exhausted its missile stores, but it will lead you to the quarry. Mr Cameron, I know how tired you must be … ’

‘Not any more, Kao Chih,’ he said, feeling a new impatience. Amidst all the dread, death and chaos he at last had somewhere to lay all his anger. ‘Kuros must answer for his crimes. I won’t let him get away.’

As the Roug foray-pod swept away from the doomed
Silver-lance
in a tight curve, guided by autopilot, Greg’s thoughts took on a dark and resolute edge.

And if it comes down to it, I’ll not be bringing him back alive
.

He moved carefully from torchlit foothold to foothold while trying to avoid becoming overbalanced by the big Brolt rifle that was slung across his back. He breathed heavily from the effort. The rain had eased off a little but the shattered rocks were still slick and as Theo picked his way over them he found himself reflecting on the destructive aspect of warfare.

After all the dilemmas, perils and just plain insanely hair-raising scrapes he had been through (including his experiences as a younger man during the Winter Coup), it seemed fitting at this point to be negotiating a course across an eerily lit demolished landscape, as it might have been depicted by a demented artist. Nearly two hours ago he and Rory, and the dozen or so heavies recruited from the Hakon-Haer and the Stonecutter Clan, had been approaching the vicinity of Giant’s Shoulder from the southwest, alert and aware of the noise of battle coming from the promontory. They had just reached a bushy hilltop when thunderous explosions overwhelmed the fighting sounds, roaring and echoing out through the rainy night. From the hilltop they had all stared in collective disbelief as the sheer sides of the promontory cracked and split while massive detonations tore up the flat surface of the summit. There had been craft hovering overhead at the time and at least two of them were downed by the eruptions of splintered rock.