Pandora's Star

Wilson kicked off from the girder, heading in toward the life-support ring. As he glided forward he reviewed the onboard power sources. Most of the backup emergency reserves were in place, and two of the fusion generators had been tested before being shut down again. That ought to give them enough power to sustain a few decks while the situation on the ground sorted itself out. If things started to stretch out they might even be able to start a fusion reactor and plug it into the force field generator—the drain that was exerting on reserves was uncomfortably large.

“Do we have any external communications links to the planetary datasphere available?”

“The assembly platform is equipped with emergency transmitters which can link to geostationary satellites.”

“Activate them. I need to know what’s happening down there.”

So many lights had gone off he was having trouble seeing where he was going. Girders and structural poles were invisible until he was really close. It slowed his progress; he was practically having to feel his way along now. His retinal inserts fed an infrared image into his virtual vision, turning his sight to sparkling pink and white.

The bright flood of light coming through the gateway faded away to a soft jaundiced glow given out by the assessment building’s emergency lighting. Then there was a bright orange flash, which his retinal inserts had to damp down to prevent it from dazzling him. Wilson blinked his eyes, finding himself in near darkness now the flash had died away; the main power lines had also been lost, leaving just a few emergency lighting systems functional inside the platform. The gateway was completely black. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered. His suspicions had been right all along. They were targeting Second Chance.

Le

Except this delay had probably blown that option.

He made his way along the main concourse to the transport holding area for the starship complex. There were a couple of extensive security checks, then he was outside in the wretchedly humid air, joining several other people milling about waiting for a bus. He asked his e-butler to contact the media officer he’d been dealing with.

“I’m having trouble establishing an interface to the datasphere,” the e-butler told him. “Kaos software is contaminating the local datanet nodes.”

“Really?” Le

A crashing sound so loud he assumed it was an explosion reverberated over the transport holding area. Along with everyone else in the queue, Le

“Full record, all senses,” he told his e-butler. He started ru

Le

“Let us in!” Le

Then the kaos contamination suddenly vanished, emptying out of the cybersphere like water draining down a pipe. Everything was on-line, and Le

“The SI has cleaned the local network,” his e-butler told him; there might have been a small note of awe in the program construct’s artificial voice. Le

The three horrific machines swung around in unison; their exhaust jets vectored horizontal and they accelerated away over the station’s wilderness yard. “They’re Alamo Avengers,” Le

The two guards left sitting in the gatehouse were just starting to wonder where Rob had got to when their standard cybersphere co

“God, that was a generator,” one managed to say as flames billowed up after the expanding fireball. “Looks like the whole fuel storage section went up with it.”

Three floors of windows in one of the towers erupted, a million spi

“Security command center not responding,” the gatehouse array reported. “You now have autonomous control of perimeter security.”

“Seal it!” the senior guard shouted. He loaded his pattern code into the gatehouse array, watching the protective systems come to life. The guardbots halted where they were; hatches opened down the sides of their bodywork, and weapons deployed, locking into ready positions. More reassuringly, the force field generators came on; triplicated and self-powered, they erected a huge dome-shape shield over the entire complex. Air molecules trapped inside the bonding effect sparkled as they absorbed the energy input, aligning themselves into a rigid lattice.

A further two explosions went off inside the complex. The senior guard tried to work out what was being destroyed. His status display was almost devoid of information.

“What do we do?” his partner demanded.

“Just sit tight. We can’t turn off the force field, we don’t have that authority. We’re safe in here.”

“No we’re bloody not.” The guard pointed frantically at the huge flames and black smoke rising over the complex’s buildings. “We’re locked in with a bunch of goddamn terrorists.”

“Don’t panic. They just caught us by surprise. The whole place is going to seal up tighter than a lagoon o