‘You’ll have a smile like me soon,’ Merle said, grinning viciously. Not that he had much of a choice these days. I had to settle for giving him the finger as well.
‘Merle, look after the wound,’ Cat told her brother.
‘Fuck that.’
‘Don’t be an arsehole.’
‘Later,’ I tried to say but just ended up gargling and bleeding all over myself.
Pagan was already tranced in. There were a number of plugs on the ground. I picked one up and plugged it into one of my jacks.
‘Christ, Pagan, why does it always have to be so cold here?’ I asked. Or rather I thought, and my icon, who hadn’t just had its cheek torn open, asked. We were standing in some kind of great stone hall. One wall was missing and instead there was a large balcony open to the night sky. It was a welcome sight.
‘Sorry,’ Pagan said. The flames in a fire pit crackled and leaped as a wave of heat swept out of it. I was beginning to like it here. In the real world everything was pain and air that smelled of rotten eggs. I remembered how easy it had been to lose myself in the sense booths.
The others started to appear as Pagan passed me a stone bottle full of fake whisky. Normally I considered this sort of thing pointless, but he’d almost managed to program the taste of good whisky and at least it didn’t taste of greasy farts in here.
I had appeared near a decoratively carved, sturdy wooden table. On the table were two travel-stained, patched and ancient-looking cloaks.
‘This what was in my head?’ I asked when everyone was here.
‘Sort of, the components were,’ Pagan said.
He still didn’t seem comfortable with me. Couldn’t say I blamed him. I hadn’t ruled out beating the shit out of him yet. Still, I’d probably end up losing that fight as well.
‘Whatever they put in your head, it was well hidden. We couldn’t find it. It seems that Nuada needed to expose you to Demiurge.’
‘And they did that when they used the sense booth on you,’ Morag as Black Annis said. Where I betrayed everything for you, I thought. This explained the dreams of plains of black glass and the dark burning sun.
‘Nuada’s program could hide from Demiurge?’ I asked.
‘Which means you can hack Demiurge?’ Tailgunner asked.
‘Yes. More to the point, we can hack Demiurge without being noticed,’ Pagan said. The atmosphere in the virtual construct lightened. This was good news. This was a chance. There was a sense of relief, a relaxing of tension. Hope.
‘Can we fight Demiurge?’ Mother asked.
‘We can’t, not with our resources. But a data raid’s not out of the question and, more to the point, if they don’t know we’ve been there then they don’t know they’ve been compromised.’
‘Surely you can do that from any system in Lalande?’ Cat asked. She had a new icon that looked just like her. It was Morag’s work. Merle had a new one as well. Tailgunner had presumably designed the whanau ’s high-quality icons.
‘Yes, if we just want to creep around and look at non-vital info,’ Annis said, her voice like grinding stones. ‘All the useful stuff is kept in isolated systems. They have learned from our mistakes.’
‘So they think they have an unassailable, completely secure system, but all the juicy stuff they still hold on an isolated system. And I thought I was paranoid,’ Mudge said.
‘You’re not paranoid; everyone hates you,’ I told him.
He brightened up. ‘Thank goodness for that.’
‘It’s SOP, good tradecraft. They’ve got no reason to stop using things that have worked for them in the past,’ Salem said.
‘Particularly when God demonstrated just how vulnerable non-isolated systems were,’ Pagan added.
‘So we’re right back to square one?’ Mother asked.
‘Where are these systems?’ said Rannu.
‘I’m guessing the fleet flagship will have one,’ Pagan told him.
‘Not going to happen,’ I said.
‘Or the Citadel,’ Annis told us. A lot of virtual air was sucked past virtual teeth.
‘Do we have a valid plan?’ Cat asked.
‘Kind of your job, but I think I can get us in, sort of. I just can’t figure a way out,’ Annis said.
‘Even if you do, so what?’ Mother asked. ‘How much use to you is it? Surely you’re stuck here until the war ends, and before then all of Rolleston and Cronin’s forces are going to pull out.’
‘It could help liberate Lalande 2,’ Tailgunner said.
‘And if Earth loses, then they just come back,’ Mother answered.
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Pagan said. ‘We use what we know too soon and our advantage is gone as they’ll know that Demiurge is compromised and change their plans accordingly.’
It was an old military intelligence paradox.
‘Let’s see your in,’ Mother asked. Scrolls appeared in front of us and unrolled glyphs on the scrolls lit up and disappeared as information was transferred into our internal memories. I reviewed the data.
‘That doesn’t get us in; that gets us close, and then we die in a hail of vastly superior firepower,’ I said. It was good as far as it went but it was messy. Annis still looked like I’d slapped her.
‘He’s right,’ Rannu said.
‘It’s worth it if we get their entire strategy,’ Annis said.
‘But what use is it to you if you can’t get out?’ Mother asked.
‘Either we have to get into orbit undetected-’ Annis began.
‘Not going to happen,’ Mother countered, but I noticed that Salem looked like he had something to say.
‘We can do it with a tight beam broadcast from the surface,’ Pagan said.
‘Only on a clear enough day,’ Salem said. ‘There may however be a way to get you into orbit undetected. I would like some time to look into it.’
‘Can we use their exo-armour to infiltrate?’ I asked.
Pagan and Annis were shaking their heads. Presumably Tailgunner or Mother had told them about Soloso’s final delivery.
‘You can’t bluff them because the moment you don’t respond to hails they know something’s up, and they’ll know that eight of their exo-armours are missing and who has them. And we can’t reliably use them for a stealthy approach,’ Annis told us. Having looked at her plan I already knew she was right.
‘We’re also assuming that we don’t climb into them and Demiurge takes the suits over,’ Rannu said before turning to Pagan. ‘Can you give them a proper look over?’ Pagan nodded.
‘Can’t you hack Demiurge so it thinks the armour is theirs?’ Mudge asked.
‘No, that won’t work either. As soon as we hit them they’ll know we’ve broken Demiurge,’ I said. ‘Shame though, it’s a good idea.’
‘With a clear corridor of fire you can’t get them in with a direct attack?’ Mother asked. I saw Tailgunner glance at Mother. ‘I’m just asking,’ she told him.
It was Cat who shook her head this time. ‘Too far. I don’t fancy their chances of not getting picked out of the sky – even with the added confusion of looking like their machines, and believe me, I’d much rather be in exo- armour.’
‘You haven’t seen the inside of those things,’ I told her. ‘With a bit of tinkering the in is solid if fucking hairy, but we’re dead as soon as we get in, or more likely as soon as we get close. The only advantage we have is surprise. Once that’s gone, it’s over for us. Even if we get in there’s no way we can get out.’
‘Well isn’t that your job, Jakob?’ Annis growled.
‘Yes, but only if there’s an actual solution. We can look at it some more, but we’re not going to piss everyone’s life away.’ Cat and Rannu were nodding in agreement.
‘You know how much they need this info back on Earth – what’s at stake here?’ Annis demanded.
‘Fuck Earth,’ Mother said. Everyone turned to look at her. There were a lot of angry faces. ‘I’m tired of risking my life and watching my friends die for a place I’ve never seen, couldn’t afford to go to and wouldn’t accept me even if I got there. I know it’s important to you people but not at our expense.’
