‘We’re talking about anti-collision systems, Pilot, not military hardware. They’re programmed to recognise incoming foreign objects, not to extrapolate back from missile exhausts.’
There was a reticence in the pilot’s voice. ‘Prefect Dreyfus said we have to assume they’ve been uploaded with new software.’
Crissel coughed. ‘Rightly so, of course. Although the likelihood of that being the case… But are you sure we can’t just fire and take out all the weapons in one hit?’
‘Can’t guarantee it, sir. Best strategy is to hold fire until we have clear solutions on all the weapons, which’ll mean suspending our attack until just before we initiate the braking phase.’
‘Right. I just needed to be clear on that. And how far outside the avoidance volume will we be at that point?’
‘Thirty kilometres inside it,’ the pilot said.
Crissel nodded as if the matter were fully settled and need not be raised again. ‘Keep on this vector, Pilot. I’m going back to speak to the prefects.’
‘You’ll need to secure yourself in five minutes, sir. Things will get bumpy, especially if we have to dodge return fire.’
Crissel clambered out of the cool, clinical sanctuary of the flight deck back into the assembly area. The majority of the prefects had now donned their helmets, and of that number more than half had lowered and sealed their visors.
‘Pilot informs me that we shall commence braking phase in just over five minutes,’ Crissel said, holding himself in position by a padded handrail as he surveyed the massed black ranks. ‘Make no mistake, this isn’t just a lockdown or disciplinary action. There are more than eight hundred thousand people inside House Aubusson, and each and every one of them is counting on our help. There may be times when the agents of Panoply are feared and hated. There isn’t a field in the organisation who doesn’t know how that feels. I’ve been there, too. I know what it’s like to be despised. But today those people will be praying for the sight of someone in Panoply black. And they’ll be expecting us to get the job done. We can do it, too. In all likelihood, we’ll be encountering an armed and efficient takeover force. But remember this: no matter how numerous the enemy, no matter how agile or aggressive, we’ll have eight hundred thousand grateful citizens on our side. Panoply will prevail today. I have never been more certain of anything in my life.’ He raised his fist, clenched in the manner of Panoply’s symbol, and drew a cautious roar of approval.
Satisfied with their response, conscious that to push them further might be to risk chastening humiliation, Crissel returned to the flight deck.
‘Status, please, Pilot.’
‘Braking in four minutes, Prefect. One hundred and twenty-two kilometres to outer edge of avoidance volume. You’d better secure yourself.’
‘About those anti-collision systems — you have a clearer view of them now, I take it?’
‘Refining all the time.’
‘And there’s been no change in the tactical situation? We still can’t guarantee a clean take-out at this range?’
‘Can’t promise it, sir.’
But he picked up a nuance in the pilot’s voice. ‘But the odds have improved in our favour?’
‘Slightly, sir.’
‘Do you have firing solutions locked in already?’
‘Ready to go, sir, as soon as we hit thirty kilometres inside the volume. Which will be in three minutes, thirty-three seconds.’
‘I’m securing for braking phase. Do likewise, Pilot.’ He turned to the rest of the flight-deck crew. ‘Listen, all of you. We’re moving the battle plan forward. I want to hit those weapons sooner, while we still have some distance to play with. You have my permission to commence missile strikes in sixty seconds.’
The pilot opened his mouth, as if he was about to frame an objection.
Crissel asked, pleasantly enough: ‘Is there a problem with that?’
‘It’s a change of plan, sir.’
‘Nothing’s set in stone. We’re simply adapting to improved intelligence.’
‘We may not take out all the weapons.’
‘And we may not take them all out even when we’re closer. This is war, Pilot. It involves an element of risk. Kindly execute my revised order at the appropriate time.’
He caught a moment of hesitation as the flight crew glanced at each other. A moment that teetered on the edge of mutiny, before pulling itself back.
‘Solutions holding,’ the pilot murmured. ‘Missiles away in thirty-five seconds.’
Crissel returned to the assembly area and slotted himself into his allocated position. He locked his helmet into place at the last moment, feeling the pressure-tight latch engage at exactly the same moment as a series of sequenced thumps announced the cruiser’s missiles darting away from their rapid-deployment launching racks. Until that instant there wouldn’t have been a single external clue that the Universal Suffrage was about to show her claws.
Crissel had already instructed his helmet to layer a representation of the external situation, compiled from the cruiser’s own cams, sensors and battle-management systems, over his normal view of the waiting prefects. He saw the intensely detailed grey disc of Aubusson, the end-on view of the cylinder. The missiles were invisible save for the blue-white hyphens of their fusion exhausts, turned at various angles as they followed different target selections. Green status boxes tracked each missile, filled with tumbling numbers that meant nothing to Crissel. Red crosses marked the intended impact points on the grey disc. Cross hairs, bull’s-eyes and vectors slid across the view in a dance of hypnotic complexity, accompanied by their own cryptic digits and symbols.
‘Status, please,’ Crissel said.
‘Missiles are ten seconds from impact,’ the pilot’s voice buzzed back. ‘Commencing braking phase.’
Quickmatter cocoons expanded to wrap the prefects, including Crissel, and then the deceleration burn kicked in with savage force. Now that the Universal Suffrage had released its missiles and was directing its exhaust towards House Aubusson, it had become a conspicuous target. The tactical display showed return fire springing up from the anti-collision slug-launchers. The cruiser plotted the trajectories of the slugs, computing and executing high-burn evasive swerves that would allow the slugs to pass by harmlessly. Crissel found himself biting down hard as the gee-force intensified. The angle of his seat was constantly adjusting itself to optimise blood flow to his brain, but he still felt his mental processes growing choppy and interrupted. The hyphenated streaks of the missile exhausts had now diminished to tiny blue-white sparks, almost lost against the looming face of Aubusson. The ten seconds since the pilot had last spoken felt like unendurable hours.
They began to hit home. Crissel didn’t need the tactical data to see that the missiles were reaching Aubusson. They damped their fusion fires at the last instant, so as not to trigger a thermonuclear explosion upon impact. Kinetic energy was still enough to do visible harm. Grey-white spheres of expanding debris swelled with dreamlike slowness, cored with hot orange fire. When the spheres had dissipated, each had left a perfect hemispherical crater, cutting tens of metres into Aubusson’s crust. They’d have felt that inside, Crissel thought. Not just the thunder of the impacts, loud as those would have been, but the earthquake-like concussion wave as the energy was dissipated along the sixty-kilometre length of the habitat. No matter what was going on inside Aubusson, the beleaguered citizens would know that someone was knocking on the door.
As the braking phase continued, the habitat’s rate of approach diminished. The bulging disc of the endcap now covered half the sky. Most of the impact debris had cleared, revealing the full extent of the damage. The return fire had abated, suggesting that the missiles had indeed neutralised the anti-collision systems in one clean strike. Crissel was also gratified to see that the docking assembly had been spared any visible harm, with the attached vessels still intact.