Line War

The scan data came through piecemeal owing to the interference and constant electronic attacks. Cormac cursed and resorted to his U-sense to fill in the gaps. He mapped hollows, energy concentrations and movement, from which he built up a schematic of what lay ahead. He then formed a protean attack plan and saw it instantly applied. An explosion flung chunks of Jain coral through the air and opened up the wormship core. Soldiers stormed inside, and tanks and gun platforms entered wherever access was wide enough. Scar guided their platform in behind Smith’s adapted tank and one other to which it was still paired in wheel formation. With the still-functioning particle ca

As he processed the information now being presented to him by the various sca

T3 and 5 concentrate fire on your 6 elevation 3… units 3, 5 and 7 advance and secure area designated 12 axial on globe grid…

He issued orders faster than human speech, also ru

And something was moving inside it.

Then suddenly all enemy movement within the ship’s core ceased.

Through the eyes of others Cormac saw biomechs simply freeze in place, automated weapons that a moment before had leapt out at them like trapdoor spiders now sagging and dying. Firing still continued for a while, but it all came from Cormac’s own forces. In reply to his query, someone in the gunship above informed him that all enemy movement for miles around had also ceased, all the Jain biomechs frozen.

Just now, Cormac thought with cold clarity, the legate right there ahead of us has obviously realized we are here to capture it, so it will destroy itself. We will be very lucky if such destruction does not include us and the entire ship’s core.

But nothing was happening.

Smith, Cormac sent, needing to add no more.

The two tanks ahead finally separated, and Smith’s vehicle accelerated, smashing its way through glassy struts. A stream of superfluid jetted towards the synapse thing like the beam of an energy weapon, but merely splashed against it and rained down. Surrounding struts shattered and the central structure tumbled. Still playing a stream of liquid helium upon it, Smith followed it down. It hit the chamber floor and shattered, spilling out something bulky and metallic. Focusing in with his gun sights, Cormac could see no sign of a legate.

‘Scar, take us down there,’ he ordered.

Soon the gravplatform was crunching down into what looked like the wreckage of an immense greenhouse. Smith’s tank settled over to one side, its superfluid gun still directed at a grey bulk amid the wreckage. Cormac unstrapped himself and stepped down to the floor, enviroboots crunching on the mess. Interference was dying all around him, while outside cha

‘What is that?’ he wondered.

‘Still alive — I think,’ Arach replied.

Cormac turned to the drone and to Scar. ‘Stay put but be ready to get out of here fast.’

They reluctantly obeyed as he moved forward.

Drawing closer to the grey bulk he observed something like a huge coiled grub, with cold fog billowing from it. Maybe this was merely some sort of protective coating with the legate inside? Drawing his thin-gun, perhaps more for reassurance than any real expectation that it would be effective, he advanced to stand directly over the strange object. Gazing down at it, he mentally peeled away various layers to get to the core. There was something humanoid inside… something rather too humanoid. The grub-thing abruptly opened out to reveal what was bonded into its i

‘Oddly,’ began the woman entrapped there, ‘it was his final destruct order that enabled me to break his hold… at least for a while.’ She blinked, licked her lips. ‘But now I find I am anxious for this all to end.’

‘Stay alive and help us defeat him,’ said Cormac, catching on at once.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘While the betrayer still sits on his throne I won’t be allowed to live, and anyway I don’t want to. You have precisely ten minutes from now to get your people beyond the blast radius.’

Betrayer?

Cormac glanced towards the single barrel of Hubbert Smith’s tank, from which depended a neat line of icicles.

‘That won’t work,’ the woman advised him. ‘Get out of here now.’

‘We’ll take you with us.’

‘One of the many CTDs here sits inside what is left of me,’ she said.

Cormac didn’t have any difficulty believing her, for within the grublike object that both held her and of which she had become a component, he could see a dense mass sitting amid the spread-out parts of her body.

‘Who are you?’ he asked out loud.

‘Run now,’ she replied dreamily.

Cormac reached out and scraped a fingernail down her cheek. He was damned if he was going to leave here with absolutely nothing — there was a good chance that this little scrap of tissue under his fingernail would be able to at least tell them who she was. Then, inside her, he spotted movement: changes in electrical activity around the CTD.

‘Okay, out of here!’

Smith’s tank flipped up to rejoin its partner, the two tanks slamming together like cymbals. Cormac turned back towards the AG platform, expecting obliteration at any moment. He needed to be on that platform and away, so, without conscious consideration, he stepped past the intervening space between them, his boots slamming down on the ceramal deck. A Gatling ca

‘Go! Now!’ Cormac ordered as he quickly strapped himself into the gu