Stay calm. I don’t have any proof. Yet.
‘I don’t know,’ Kenelm said. ‘But the genten will counter and purge any virus.’
‘Right.’ She nodded, hoping sie couldn’t read her doubts. ‘Ainsley, we think the Morgan’s been virused.’
Ainsley’s icon remained on, but there was still no reply. She used the deck’s sub-network to acquire feeds directly from any hull sensors it could reach. The view was restricted, but several troop ships around the Morgan were visible, keeping position a thousand kilometres out. They looked okay. In the distance was the white dot that was Ainsley. She could see the swirls of disturbed gas it had created as it ripped through the nebula. Directly behind it, their motion had arrested in mid-churn. But around the big white ship, the outer fronds of the turmoil looked as if they were still fluctuating. It was hard to be certain. The curious warped lightpoints had thickened and multiplied around Ainsley; there were so many they were disrupting the view.
‘Oh, Saints!’ She brought the focus back. The twinkles within the armada formation were appearing in greater numbers, their vivacity brightening. ‘This isn’t a network virus. They’re doing something to us.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. It’s like . . . Oh, shit! Tilliana?’
There was no answer.
Yirella hurriedly activated the general communication icon. The ship’s internal secure links were hardened against any form of electronic warfare. ‘Anyone? This is Yirella. Is anyone on the Morgan receiving this?’
The displays told her the links were open, but no one was responding.
‘What’s happening?’ Kenelm asked.
‘That twinkling we can see, it’s a lensing effect from blemishes in the enclave’s continuum,’ Yirella said. ‘The Olyix are changing something in here. I think they’re slowing time around the armada.’ But why is that affecting our internal network?
‘Hellfire.’
When she used the sensor feed to check on the neutron star, it was enveloped by a shimmer of distorted light. Here, though, the glimmers seemed warped and fuzzy, fluttering like living things in torment. The nebula around them was fluorescing brighter than she’d seen it before.
‘I need to talk with Tilliana and Ellici. We have to get to their tactical command cabin.’
Kenelm nodded reluctantly. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s on deck twenty-five. Let’s go.’
They left the canteen together. As they walked, Yirella tried to examine the ship’s network diagram. ‘I don’t get this,’ she complained. ‘The safety routines are blocking inputs from some decks where the data rate is extreme, while some are dead.’
They arrived at a portal hub. Yirella stared around in dismay. The edge of every portal was glowing red, while the centres had become black and solid-looking. She’d never seen them in that state before.
‘That sucks,’ Kenelm said.
‘Right.’ Her interface pulled up a schematic of the Morgan’s decks. She knew the general layout of the life-support section, but the exact details were vague. That’s what happens when you use portals all the time.
The life-support section had three main service-support shafts running its full height up through all the decks, providing routes for pipes, ducts and cabling, along with a spiral stair winding around the wall, and a central column that remotes could ride up and down. They started off towards the nearest one. Yirella used her interface to check if there were any available connections to a transmitter on the hull. It was possible; she had to route power from an emergency cell to a backup communication module and use alternative data cables to give her a solid connection.
She stood still and concentrated on setting up the procedure.
When she did reach the transmitter management routines, it didn’t have any navigation feed, so she couldn’t use a direct beam, because she didn’t have a clue where Dellian’s troop ship actually was in relation to the Morgan. So general broadcast it was. I will help you. I will be the guardian angel you need me to be.
‘Calling squad leader Dellian. This is Yirella in the Morgan. Are you receiving?’
There was no reply. She loaded in discrimination filters and ordered the unit to expand the reception spectrum. Her reward was a flurry of static. She overrode the safety limiters to increase the power to the transmitter as high as she dared.
‘This is Yirella on the Morgan. We’re suffering communication difficulties. I think the Olyix might be changing the time flow. Is anyone receiving me?’
Still nothing. She called a few more times, with no result. The nebula, one giant field of ionization, must have been blocking the signal. So she left her message on repeat and loaded a monitor routine to review the receiver output.
‘I can’t get anything,’ she said dejectedly.
Kenelm wasn’t there.
She frowned and looked around. ‘Kenelm?’
Sie was nowhere to be seen. Yirella told her databud to send out a ping. Kenelm’s databud didn’t respond. That’s not possible. A ping was databud to databud, with a kilometre range. But sie was here a moment ago.
All the mistrust she’d had for Kenelm surfed back in on an adrenalin wave. Her skin grew hot, heart rate soaring upwards. Fight-or-flight reflex dropped her into a kind of crouch, half-forgotten personal combat manoeuvres bubbling up in confusion. She whirled around, hunting urgently.
The brightly lit corridor curved away behind and ahead, completely empty. Innocuous, yet suddenly incredibly sinister.
There was nothing she could use as a weapon. For a second she considered running back to the canteen and arming herself with the cutlery. Yeah, a cake fork; that’ll help. Saints!
Three metres ahead there was a junction. According to the ship schematic, it led to one of the support shafts. She fixated on the junction and whatever lurked beyond as she crept along nervously, feverish thoughts alive with all sorts of nightmare scenarios. A glistening hive of monsters bulging out of the door to the shaft. Huntspheres blasting along the corridor at supersonic speed, chasing her down. Del’s cocoon dangling from the ceiling like some mouldering chunk of spider food.
Stop it.
She peeked around the
