Matter

“Steer clear of the open Tower base,” Anaplian told them, leading them away from a great disc of darkness above. Petals of material nearly a kilometre long hung down from the edges of the gap, looking so symmetrical that at first they didn’t realise they were the result of something breaking through from above. “The ship?” Anaplian asked.

“Looks like it,” Hippinse said. He sounded puzzled, and worried again. “Supposed to leave a drone or something here.”

They flew on for another minute until Turminder Xuss said, “Trouble up ahead.”

“What is it?” Anaplian asked.

“Somebody’s fighting; high-frequency CREWs, particle beams and what looks like AM by the backsplash. From the signatures, we’re outgunned. Pull to here,” the drone told them, and their visors indicated a line across the long summit of one of the kilometres-high vanes at the top edge of one of the gigantic spheres. Light flashed immediately beyond, bright enough to trip the visors’ sight-saving function. They drifted to a stop metres beneath the ridge line of the vane, each a kilometre or so apart from the other.

“Seeing this?” the drone asked, and imposed a view on their visors of a great dark gulf of space beyond, between more of the level-filling spheres and side-tipped concave torus shapes, lit by glaring bursts of light.

The view became shallowly triangulated, offered from three different points of view, then four and five as the four smaller drones all added their perspective to that of Xuss. Three different sources of pinpoint light and sudden, harsh detonations lay between sixty-five and ninety klicks distant. Much closer, only ten kilometres from them and four down, a single object was trading fire with the three faraway sources. The co-ordinated views suggested something only a few metres across was darting in and out behind the cover of great serrated blades on a vast cogwheel beneath, firing and being fired at by its three distant adversaries.

“Those three read as ours,” Hippinse said urgently. “They’re having to fall back.”

“Can we surprise that thing just underneath?” Anaplian asked.

“Looks like it.”

“Ping one of the distants, make sure we have this right,” Anaplian said. “Xuss?”

“Done,” the drone replied. “They’re the LP’s; three remaining of four combat drones it left behind under the forced open Tower. They’re damaged, retreating.”

“The fourth?”

“Dead,” Hippinse said. “Slag in the trench between us and the hostile.”

“Tell them to keep doing exactly what they’re doing. Xuss; those five and a half AM missiles? Prep all but two.”

“Armed.”

“Tell two of the extra knives to widen out now and drop — not power — on my mark, second-wave suicide- ready.”

“Prepped, moving,” the drone said.

“Everybody else, spread further out over the next eight seconds then pop over the top and empty everything. Start moving now. Ferbin, Holse, remember; work with the suit and let it move you if it needs to.”

“Of course.”

“Will do, ma’am.”

Eight seconds.

“Now, now, now!” Anaplian called. The suits bounced them up over the long curved summit of the great ridge of blade. Light flared above them. Suddenly looking down into the chasm beneath, the exhausts of the drone’s AM-powered missiles were soot-dark spots on their visors as the suits blanked out their extreme flaring. The visors blinked red circles round their target and all four of their weapons fired. Ferbin’s kinetic rifle leapt and hammered in his hand, throwing him up and back with every pulse, the rounds tiny bright trails left in the eye. He started to twist as the recoil tried to turn him round and make him somersault all at once, the suit doing its best to compensate and keep the gun pointed at their target.

Light everywhere. Something thudded into his lower right leg; there was a burst of pain as if he’d twisted his knee, but it faded almost instantly.

The target washed out in multiple, visor-tripping bursts of light which threw shadows like barbs and thorns all over the ceiling kilometres above.

“Cease fire!” Anaplian yelled. “Calling off the drop-knives.”

“They’re stopped,” Xuss said. “Here’s their view.”

Something glowing white was falling and tumbling away amongst the curved blades, unleashing yellow sparks and leaving orange debris falling slower behind. All firing had stopped. The fiery, falling object was providing the only light there was.

“That it?” Anaplian asked.

“Pretty sure,” Xuss said. “Move on, keep checking?”

“And scan that hostile debris. Let’s go. Hippinse?”

“Took a kinetic frag,” the avatoid wheezed. “Close to getting mushed, okay. Repairing. Moving.”

“Okay,” Djan Seriy said as they all moved out across the dark trench. Far below, the molten debris was still falling. “Ferbin?” Anaplian said gently. “I’m sorry about your leg.”

“What?” He looked down. His right leg was missing from the knee down.

He stared. General Yilim, he thought. He felt his mouth go dry and heard something roar in his ears.

“You’ll be all right,” his sister’s voice said quietly, soothingly in his ears. “Suit’s sealed it and pumped you with painkill and anti-shock and it was cauterised by the hit. You will be fine, brother; my word on it. Once we’re back out we’ll grow a new one. Easiest thing in the world. Okay?”

Ferbin felt remarkably all right now. Almost happy. Mouth okay, no roaring any more. Certainly there was no pain from the wound, in fact no sensation down there at all. “Yes,” he told his sister.

“You sure, sir?” Holse said.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m all right. I feel very good.” He had to keep looking at it to be sure it had really happened, and then felt down, just to confirm. Sure enough; no leg below the knee. And he felt fine! Extraordinary.

* * *

“That thing was Morth-tech, compromised,” Hippinse told them when he got information back from the microdrone sent to investigate what was left of the machine they’d been fighting. “One of twelve, if its internal records are right.”

“What the hell’s Morth stuff doing down here?” Anaplian asked. “I don’t remember any mention of that.”

“Me neither,” Hippinse said. “Kept that quiet. Probably well intentioned.”

Anaplian made a noise like a spit.

They were flying, a kilometre apart, across the edged unfolding darkness of the Machine level, weaving past the great spherical and ring-shaped components, surfaces ridged and incised with swirling patterns like cut and chiselled gears. The Liveware Problem’s three damaged drones were keeping pace ahead, hurriedly trying to repair what they could of themselves. Turminder Xuss led the way, twenty klicks to the fore.

“Any more comped?” Anaplian asked.

“All twelve were. Two left now; we got one and the ship wasted the rest on entry.”

“Okay,” Anaplian said.

“Ship took some damage from them, though.”

“It did?”

“It was hurt on the way down,” Hippinse said.

“From Nariscene tech?” Anaplian asked, incredulous.

“It had a long way to drop, totally contained, offering perfectly predictable aiming and no eGrid powering,” Hippinse said. “Tried to negotiate but they weren’t having it. They were able to throw a lot at it for a long time. It suffered.”

“How badly?”

“Badly enough. Wounded. Would have gone limping off before now if this wasn’t a desperation mission.”