The Naked God — Faith

One of the serjeants stayed with Baulona-PWM and Quantook-LOU to act as an arbitrator as they tried to sort out the parameters of a new agreement. A triumph of optimism, she thought: that both of them believed the ZTT drive would bring about a new era among the diskcities orbiting Mastrit-PJ. It was clear that they were both conceding the remaining Tyrathca population would be evacuated to the flightship colony worlds. Their enclaves among the diskcities would not be expanded. Such a premise made it even more important that the two species didn’t clash over who had claim on new star systems. Retrieving the flightship information really had become essential to the agreement. An intriguing irony. Now all she had to worry about was Quantook-LOU’s sincerity. It made her suggest several safeguards to Baulona-PWM, such as ensuring communications were opened up to all the remaining enclaves. Not that either of them knew how many there were scattered among the diskcities. Quantook- LOU admitted even he didn’t know how many diskcities there were.

The other serjeant accompanied a team of six breeders that Baulona-PWM had designated to reactivate their electronics. They escorted her to the band of fat towers around the end of the cylinder. It was Lalarin-MG’s utilities district, with the towers housing water treatment plants, air filtration, fusion generators (appallingly crude, she thought), and the heat exchangers. Fortunately each service was provided by parallel stations, giving it a failsoft capability. A third of the systems were inoperable, the machinery inert and tarnished, testifying as to how long it had been since Lalarin-MG had a full population.

She was taken to a tower which the breeders said was an electrical and communications station. The ground floor was occupied by three tokamaks, only one of which was working. A ramp spiralled up to the first floor. There were no windows, and the ceiling lights didn’t work. Her infrared sensors showed her the silent ranks of electronic consoles, very reminiscent of those in Tanjuntic-RI. The Tyrathca had brought portable lights with them, which they set up revealing the true state of the consoles. Humidity had succoured a fur of algae over the rosette keyboards and display screens. Access panel catches had to be drilled through to release them, exposing rubbery fungal growths over the circuitry inside. The breeders had to run cables down to the generator below to power up the consoles.

One console actually burst into flames when they switched it on. Oski’s curses echoed through the general communication link.

“Ask them if we can integrate our processor blocks with their network,” she told Ione. “If I’ve got access, I’ll be able to load some questors in. That should speed the process up. And while we’re about it, let’s see if they’ll accept a little advice on reactivation procedures.”

The wormhole terminus opened six hundred kilometres above Tojolt-HI’s darkside, deep in the umbra. The Stryla flew out; Etchells was in his harpy form, red eyes blazing as he looked round in surprise. From his position the huge disk eclipsed most of the sun’s surface, with a tide of crimson light appearing to sweep up over the rim, as if it was sinking into an ooze of photons.

His distortion field billowed out, probing the xenoc structure. It also clashed with another distortion field.

What are you doing here? Oenone asked.

Same thing as you.he found the voidhawk, three thousand kilometres away. It was next to a large hollow cylinder, a habitation station of some kind. There was another Confederation ship close by. When he focused his optical senses in their direction he saw a small glimmer of sunlight erupting through the disk directly behind them.

He quickly altered his distortion field, opening another wormhole interstice. This time he came out a hundred kilometres from the voidhawk. Red sunlight washed over his leathery scale-like feathers, and he looked down curiously at the tear in the disk. Its melted edges were radiating strongly in the infrared. The mountainous heat exchangers surrounding it were operating at their upper limit, trying to radiate away the immense thermal load imposed by overheated tubes.

“I’d say the Adamist ship used its antimatter drive to push the cylinder clear of the disk,” he told Kiera. “Nothing else could cause that kind of damage.”

“Which means they consider it important,” she said.

“I don’t see why. It’s inhabited, and very fragile. It can’t be a weapon.” His distortion field caught flocks of small chemically fuelled missiles flitting among the sharp, hot cones bristling out of the darkside. Lasers shot at them, blowing them apart in mid-flight. Over thirty radar beams from all sections of the disk were sweeping across him. One of the missiles plunged down among the heat exchange mountains, exploding. Atmospheric gas puffed out into space from the tube it shattered. “And there’s some kind of war being fought down there. Widespread by the look of it.”

“They flew all the way round the Orion Nebula, and when they get here they rip that cylinder out of a war zone,” Kiera said.

“All right, it’s important.”

“Which means it’s bad for us. Minimize your energistic effect, please.”

The hellhawk’s shape rippled back to its natural profile.

Kiera’s fingers typed quickly over the weapons console. Targeting sensors locked on to the cylinder.

Disengage your weapons, now, Oenone ordered.

Etchells let Kiera hear the affinity voice, routing it through one of the AV pillars on the bridge.

“Why?” she asked. “What’s in there?”

Several thousand unarmed Tyrathca. You would be committing butchery.

“What do you care? In fact, why are you here?”

To help.

“Very noble. And total bollocks.”

Do not fire, Oenone appealed to Etchells. We will defend the cylinder.

That cylinder contains the means to destroy me,etchells replied. I’m quite sure of that.

We are not barbarians. Physical destruction solves nothing.

Kiera fired four combat wasps at the cylinder.

The response from Oenone and Lady Macbeth was instant. Fifteen combat wasps launched on interception trajectories, scattering submunitions. Lady Macbeth ’s defence masers speared the incoming drones as their submunitions ejected. Two hundred and fifty fusion bombs detonated in the space of three seconds. Some pumped gamma lasers, but most were missile warheads.

Joshua absorbed the burst of sensor data disgorged by the tactical program, desperate for an overview. Visual sensors were useless against the blaze of destruction, but none of the attacking combat wasps electronic warfare submunitions had targeted Lady Mac —strangely negligent programming. The starship’s sensors stared into the heart of the mayhem, filtering out the atomic and electromagnetic interference. Three small kinetic impacts registered against the cylinder, along with several beam strikes. But the structure remained intact.