but the circumstances that brought it to his plate left him lacking in appetite. He continued to listen, hoping to hear something about the drone that had brought Dax in, but the conversation just did not go that way. Dax sat back, a glass of beer in his hand rather than whisky this time.
'Do you remember that time Dad went harpoon fishing around the wreck—that shark?' he said.
'I remember,' said Hannah.
'Damn but we were shitting ourselves when he tried to get it through the lock back into the hotel. Even though he got it straight through the head it kept on moving. It was like being in a confined space with a sanding machine.'
'Sanding machine?' Hannah looked distracted, almost disinterested.
Dax tapped his forearm. 'If it wasn't for my suit I'd have needed a skin graft here. The shark's skin took off the outer layer right down to the protective mesh.'
'Yes,' said Hannah, 'your father had just finished basic training then… That was when Ian was only two. David went to war just six months afterwards.'
'Have you heard anything from him recently?' Dax paused, looking puzzled. 'I'm sure I asked something about that, but can't seem to recollect—something to do with the editing I think.'
'Just the usual,' Hannah replied. 'He keeps me updated with where he is, but mostly he's after news from here rather than telling me what he's doing. He knows I don't want to hear the detail, to know what attack he's been involved in or how it went. He knows I'll only worry about his safety…'
What was it about their mother, Cormac wondered. She looked quite ill and there was something quite odd in her tone.
'You're not interested?' Dax asked.
'I just want to know that he is alive.' Hannah put her whisky glass to one side. 'I'm very tired now, Dax. Can we call it a day?'
'Certainly.' Dax drained his beer glass, then stood up to wander over to the drinks cabinet and place it there. 'See you in the morning.' Hannah stood up as he headed for the door, then caught hold of his arm and embraced him. Cormac felt slightly embarrassed—she wasn't usually so touchy-feely.
'Good night, Mother,' said Dax, his expression puzzled.
Cormac thought now might be a good time for him to sign off. More diving tomorrow, and perhaps this time without any traumatic aftermath. He was about to switch off his p-top when he observed his mother sitting down in her chair again and taking up her glass. She wasn't heading as expected to her bed. She took up her whisky and held it up before her.
'Here's to editing,' she said. 'Please forgive me, David.'
What on earth did that mean?
Cormac walked over and gazed about at the wreckage. Someone was making little grunting sounds and, stepping round a collapsed table and jumble of burning consoles, Cormac gazed down at a slug trail of blood, plasma and charred fragments of either clothing or skin. The person—it was not possible to tell if it was a man or a woman—had been hideously burnt from the waist upwards. Cormac considered it neutralized, and was about to turn away, then some sympathy kicked in and he fired once, the shot completely exploding the upper body and sending head and arms bouncing away at three compass points.
What now?
He searched the wreckage, the pain from his injuries steadily increasing as adrenaline washed away. Eventually he found the first-aid kit he sought inside the ATV's luggage compartment. It was difficult to open, for his left hand was now completely useless and as soon as he tucked the flack gun in the top of his trousers his right hand began to stiffen too. First he found some antishock capsules and swallowed two of them dry. Next he found some local analgaesic patches, stuck one above his left wrist and one directly over the burn on his thigh. Blessed numbness immediately spread in those areas, also taking the edge off the agony of his hand and the elbow above it, which felt broken. Using a can of analgaesic spray skin he completely covered the ruin of his left hand. With a tube of wound glue held in his mouth, he squirted into the deep cut on his right wrist, closing the cut by tilting his wrist and waiting a moment for the glue to bond. Another patch went on his collar bone, then he paused. He didn't want to deaden himself completely—there was still work to be done. Now he found a micropore bandage and wrapped it about his left hand to give it more protection than given by the spray skin, which was already leaking in places. Sticky dressings on his other wounds, for more padding. Enough. Now weapons.
Weapons weren't difficult to find, since there were pulse-rifles scattered all about the area. He picked up five of these and tossed them in the passenger seat of the ATV, then, after further searching, he found a satchel of gecko mines and a pack of old-style bullet magazines for a machinegun, included them and, as an afterthought, threw in the first aid kit too—the effect of the analgaesics he had used was limited. He climbed into the driver's seat and checked the controls: simple start button and single joystick, which was useful when having only one hand. He set the electric motor running, pulled back on the stick and the ATV shot backwards, crashing over burning wreckage and wheel-spinning on a wet corpse as he turned the vehicle. Forwards now and it shot towards the door. No remote door control visible, no matter. The ATV slammed into the door, tearing it out of its runners, the roller mechanism crashing down on the roof. For a moment it hung draped over the vehicle, but when he turned it and brought it to a halt, the door slid off.
Now Cormac took his time checking out the onboard computer and communication system. As expected the radio and line-of-sight laser communications were encoded, sealed, it wasn't possible for him to send a message to ECS via that route. All that was available was a netlink, and that had numerous restrictions upon it. He was, however, able to tap in a text message and route it to his own infrequently used net-space and hope that an AI, somewhere, was keeping watch:
Cormac dedicated a subscreen down in the bottom right-hand corner of the main console screen for any reply he might receive, then called up a local map on the main screen. It flicked up, showing the location of his own ATV within it. He spent a moment sending another message giving the coordinates of the Separatist base behind him, then stared at the map. He had hoped it would show him where the other ATV was, but it didn't. He frantically searched through menus, eventually pulling up a list. Highlighted was Veh3, amidst numerous other designations, presumably including Separatist positions in the woodlands and maybe even known ECS ones. He highlighted each «Veh» on the list and went back to the map. Four were visible. The one on a road behind him he assumed was the old ATV heading away, and there were two others out in the woods. He checked through menus again, selected the coordinates of the nearest vehicle then chose autopilot. The ATV immediately lurched into motion—chances were that the closest one had the CTD aboard. Now he turned his attention to the weapons on the seat beside him.
Checking the displays on each rifle, he chose the two with the highest charge and laboriously set about stripping both of them of their buttstocks and one of them of everything he could to reduce weight without impairing function. He also removed its electronic trigger mechanism, which would have screwed it up as a single weapon, but he did not have that in mind for it. The ATV was now jouncing over rough ground so this made his task doubly difficult. Glancing up he saw hundred-foot-tall diseased-looking skarches from which the husks were peeling. Obviously the Prador had hit this area with something, but he had no idea what.
Detaching the end of a wire from the remaining trigger mechanism he inserted it into the relevant plug in the wholly stripped rifle. Now, when he pulled the trigger, both rifles would fire at once. He taped the weapons together with surgical tape, tested their weight with the barrels resting across his left forearm, then grimaced to himself. Carl had shown him how to do this.
Next Cormac removed the power supplies from the other three rifles, which were essentially contained in their moulded forestocks. To two each of these he attached a pliable gecko mine and then he set the timers to four seconds once he hit the priming button. To the third he stuck the remaining four mines and rather than use the timer, he set just one of the detonators to a violent-movement setting with a delay of two seconds. He put this device back in the satchel, then proceeded to empty the machinegun magazines of bullets and pack them around it, along with anything hard and small within reach, including the plastic magazines themselves. Last, he lifted his feet up off the floor and, bracing his back against the seat, kicked out one section of the front screen. He was
