were fired, adding to the blockages and sending thick plumes of black smoke billowing deep into the tunnels. Management processor blocks were blasted to cinders, exposing their interface with Valisk’s nerve fibres. Wave after wave of static discharges were pumped at the raw ends, sending what they hoped were pulses of pure pain down into the neural strata.
Bolstered by their successful vandalism, and Rubra’s apparent inability to retaliate, the possessed began to move en mass down into the starscrapers. They sent waves of energistic power surging ahead of them, annihilating any mechanical or electrical system, wrecking artefacts and fittings. Every room, every corridor, every stairwell, were searched for non-possessed. Floor by floor they descended, recapturing the heady excitement and spirit of the original takeover. Unity infected them with strength. Individuals began to shapeshift into fantastic monsters and Earthly heroes. They weren’t just going to flush out the traitor enemy, they were going to do it with malevolent finesse.
Hellhawks fluttered up from the docking ledges and began to spiral around the tubular starscrapers: an infernal flock peering into the bright oval windows with their potent senses, assisting their comrades inside.
Together they would flush him out. It was only a matter of time now.
Dariat sat opposite Tatiana in the tube carriage they took from the southern endcap. “We’re going to put you in one of the spaceport’s emergency escape pods,” he told her. “It’s going to be tough to start with, they launch at about twelve gees to get away fast. But it only lasts for eight seconds. You can take that. There’s a voidhawk squadron from Kohistan standing by to pick you up as soon as you’re clear.”
“What about the possessed?” she asked. “Won’t they try and stop me, shoot at me or something?”
“They won’t know what the hell’s going on. Rubra is going to fire all two hundred pods at once. The voidhawks will swallow in and snatch your pod before the hellhawks even know you’re out there.”
A smirk of good-humoured dubiety stroked Tatiana’s face. “If you say so. I’m proud of you, Dariat. You’ve come through when it really counts, shown your true self. And it’s a good self. Anastasia would be proud of you, too.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You should enjoy your victory, take heart from it. Lady Chi-ri will be smiling on you tonight. Bask in that warmth.”
“We haven’t won yet.”
“You have. Don’t you see? After all those years of struggle you’ve finally beaten Anstid. He hasn’t dictated what you’re doing now. This act is not motivated by hatred and revenge.”
Dariat grinned. “Not hatred. But I’m certainly enjoying putting one over on that witch queen Bonney.”
Tatiana laughed. “Me too!”
Dariat had to grab at his seat as the carriage braked sharply. Tatiana gasped as she clung to one of the vertical poles, hanging on frantically as the lights began to dim.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
The carriage juddered to a halt. The lights went out, then slowly returned as the vehicle’s backup electron matrix came on line.
Rubra?
Little bastards are smashing up the station you were heading for. They’ve cut the power to the magnetic rail, I haven’t even got the reserve circuits.
Dariat hooked into the neural strata’s observation routines to survey the damage. The starscraper station was a scene of violent devastation. Smouldering lumps of polyp were chiselled out of the tunnel by invisible surges of energy; the guidance rail writhed and flexed, screaming shrilly as its movements yanked its own fixing pins out of the floor; severed electrical cables swung from broken conduits overhead, spitting sparks. Laughter and catcalls rang out over the noise of the violence.
A rapid flick through other stations showed him how widespread the destruction was.
Bloody hell.
Damn right,rubra said. She’s overdosing on the fury routine, but she’s playing smart with it.
A schematic of the tube network appeared in Dariat’s mind. Look, there are plenty of alternative routes left up to the spindle.
Yes, right now there are. But you’ll have to go back two stations before I can switch you to another tunnel. I can’t restore power to the rail in your tunnel, they’ve fucked the relays. The carriage will have to make it there on its own power reserve. You’d almost be quicker walking. And by the time you get there, the possessed will have wrecked a whole lot more stations. Bonney’s thought this out well; the way she’s isolating each stretch of tunnel will break up the entire network in another forty minutes.
So how the hell do we get to the spindle now?
Forwards. Go up to the station and walk though it. I can bring another carriage to the tunnel on the other side; that’ll get you directly up to the endcap.
Walk through? You’re kidding.
There’s only a couple of possessed left to guard each station after they’ve had their rampage. Two won’t be a problem.
All right, do it.
The lights dipped again as the carriage slid forwards slowly.
“Well?” Tatiana asked.
Dariat began to explain.
Starscrapers formed the major nodes in the habitat’s tube network; each of them had seven stations ringing the lobby, enabling the carriages to reach any part of the interior. Individual stations were identical; chambers with a double-arch ceiling and a central platform twenty metres long which served two tubes. The polyp walls were a light powder-blue, with strips of electrophorescent cells running the entire length above the rails. There were stairs at each end of the platform, one set leading up to the starscraper lobby, the other an emergency exit to the parkland.
In the station ahead of Dariat, the possessed finished their wrecking spree and went off up the stairs to start searching the starscraper. As Rubra predicted, they left two of their number behind to watch over the four tunnel entrances. Smoke from the attack was layering the air. Flames were still licking around the big piles of ragged polyp slabs blocking the end of each tunnel. Several hologram adverts flashed on and off overhead; an already damaged projector suffering from the proximity of the possessed turned the images to a nonsense splash of colours.
Given that the fire was dying away naturally, the two possessed were somewhat bemused when, seven minutes after everyone else left, the station’s sprinklers suddenly came on.
Dariat was three hundred metres down the tube tunnel, helping Tatiana out of the carriage’s front emergency hatch. The tunnel had only the faintest illumination, a weak blue glow coming from a couple of narrow electrophorescent strips on the walls. It curved away gently ahead of him, putting enough solid polyp between him and the station to prevent the two possessed from perceiving him.
Tatiana jumped down the last half metre and steadied herself.
“Ready?” Dariat asked. He was already using the habitat’s sensitive cells to study the pile of polyp they would have to climb over to get into the station. It didn’t look too difficult, there was an easy metre and a half gap at the top.
“Ready.”
Let’s go,dariat said.
The two possessed guards had given up any attempt to shield themselves from the torrent of water falling from the sprinklers. They were retreating back to the shelter of the stairs. Their clothes had turned to sturdy anoraks, streaked with glistening runnels. Every surface was slick with water now: walls, platform, floor, the piles of polyp.
Rubra overrode the circuit breakers governing the cables which powered the tube, then shunted thirteen thousand volts back into the induction rail. It was the absolute limit for the habitat’s integral organic conductors, and three times the amount the carriages used. The broken guide rail jumped about as it had while it was being tormented by the possessed. Blinding white light leapt out of the magnetic couplings as it split open. It was as
