Line War

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Instead, Orlandine created targeting solutions for every drone in turn, and transmitted these as transparent graphics to the location of each one, making it absolutely clear to them that in a very short time she could a

‘Well, asshole, fire on us now and there won’t be enough left of this war runcible to put in a dustbin.’

It was true. The drones had positioned themselves near munitions caches, critical control equipment and the U-space tech of the runcible itself.

‘I am not an enemy of the Polity,’ Orlandine replied.

‘You’re a Jain-screwed fuck-up and if you come any closer we’ll take you down, even if that means we and this station go down with you.’

‘Who am I addressing?’

‘Knobbler.’

It seemed a typically war drone sort of name.

‘Well, Knobbler, there’s a lot you don’t know about Jain technology and a lot I do know. I have taken apart a Jain node and avoided all its traps.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

Knobbler was located outside the station, hidden underneath a transmission dish, from where he was transmitting by laser to four others out on the hull. They in turn were relaying the exchange inside the hull by other electromagnetic means. Already Orlandine had isolated some of the code they were using from fragments gleaned inside the station. She selected one of the visible drones — a thing that looked like a bedbug a couple of yards across — because beside it was a sufficiently reflective surface.

‘No, it’s true. I am the haiman Orlandine, once one of the overseers of the Cassius Dyson Sphere Project. I can present you with proof of my claims, along with a proposition that won’t go against any of your… military oaths?’

Coding and programs loaded, she fired a message laser at a certain point on the reflective surface.

‘Trouble is,’ said Knobbler, ‘you send us anything more complicated than a so

The laser bounced precisely into the receiver the bedbug was using to collect transmissions from Knobbler. The program it carried paralysed the little drone, and she followed it with further programs to gain access. It managed a single ‘Oh?’ before she took control of it, finding a large complex mind inside. She allowed it to remain within the drone network, but did not allow it to tell the others that she was now in. From it she spread to the other drones, even gaining access to Knobbler as well.

‘I am not lying,’ she said.

She had them now, all of them, though only one of them was aware of the fact. She could utterly subjugate them, include them as part of herself like the program she had originally transmitted to the war runcible. Instead she put together the evidence she had mentioned, along with her proposition, and revealed it to all of them at once, simultaneously paralysing each drone. All of them had no choice but to take in and view the information she transmitted. They did so, Al-fast of course. She then removed herself from them, utterly, and allowed them to do what they would, though she listened in to the lightning-fast debate that ensued. She had shown that she could sequester every one of them, but had not.

It took six minutes for the drones to come to an agreement. Present-day AIs and drones would never have taken so long, but then they weren’t as independent and irascible as these fighting machines. Five of them opted out, choosing to head for one of the shuttles aboard the runcible and take themselves away. Knobbler was one of the fourteen that remained.

‘Well, it has been a bit boring around here lately,’ that drone confessed.

‘I can promise you, that is about to change drastically.’

‘Okay, we’re in,’ said Knobbler.

On the area of charred ground it seemed that nothing remained of the two victims of the legate who had intruded on this world.

‘We’ll check that out afterwards,’ Cormac told Smith, then turned to Scar. ‘Perimeter.’

The dracoman set off at full speed, disappearing into the gloom between outbuildings and underneath the enormous rhubarb plants. Cormac now advanced on the house itself, Arach to one side of him and Smith on the other. He was very suspicious of this situation. Sca

On the house veranda he drew his thin-gun and stepped up to the door, which stood partially open, and pushed it all the way open with the barrel. Taking a pace back he allowed Arach to go in before him. The spider drone roared into a hallway, then, tearing up carpet, shot into the main downstairs room.

Moving inside, Cormac looked around then nodded towards the stairs. ‘Smith.’ The Golem took the steps four at a time and swiftly moved out of sight. Cormac followed Arach into the main room.

There had been a fight in here. A sofa lay overturned against one wall, and a glass case had been smashed and a coffee table sliced perfectly in two. Cormac stooped down beside a pile of ash, poked at it with the barrel of his gun. Then he looked up and sca

‘Smith?’ he enquired through his aug.

‘Nothing — I can’t yet find any way of identifying them. So far it seems all paperwork has been burned and all information storage wiped or completely destroyed.’

‘Why be so selective? Why not take out the whole house?’

‘Because we are being misled?’

‘Arach,’ said Cormac out loud, ‘see what you can find.’

The spider drone shot away and Cormac once again carefully surveyed his surroundings. So, this particular legate had come in, taken the two residents of this place outside, and then burned them down to ash. Prior to doing this, it had destroyed all evidence of their identity within the house, but surely had not made a very good job of doing so. There would be DNA traces either here or in the surrounding vicinity, so it made no sense. Still sca