Polity Agent

The blast from a grenade tossed by Scar threw something like the head of an iron salamander bouncing towards them, and one of the Golem swiftly kicked it off the ledge. Another creature edged out into the light: it did look vaguely like a salamander, only without either a tail or eyes and with two sets of three legs evenly spaced in a ring around its cylindrical body—perfectly designed for crawling rapidly through tunnels. It spat briefly and Cormac glimpsed one of the Golem flung back, with some metallic octopoid clinging to his chest, to fall from the ledge without a sound. In return, Shuriken slammed through the head of the attacker, bounced ringing from the rock behind, then chopped down through its body. As two more of the biomechs appeared, Cormac lobbed a grenade down between them, but two more grenades flung by others followed it. This triple blast hurled metallic shrapnel and shards of rock from the mouth of the fissure, and threw Cormac momentarily from his feet. As he pulled himself upright, he noticed Scar tugging a piece of silvery metal from his face before discarding it. And on the front of his own envirosuit, spots of blood had appeared. Fortunately a huge wedge of stone had sheared away, dropping to block the fissure.

‘We climb. Now!’

The Golem and dracomen shouldered their weapons and leapt straight up. Cormac finally availed himself of another shot of stimulant, and began climbing to one side of the rock fall. Glancing up he saw the human Sparkind returning with the two spare harnesses. Also, rappelling down from the upper ledge appeared two of the orange-clad monofilaments weighted with rocks. Their chance of escape seemed to be improving until the two rod-ships appeared plummeting down the volcanic chimney towards them, and other things began to swarm over the volcanic rim above.

The first rod-ship descended like a pile-driver on Donache who carried the gravharnesses. Cormac heard him yell briefly and saw him stuck to the nose of the ship as it deformed around him, extruded fingers, and dragged him inside. It decelerated past Cormac, then slowly ascended again. Wedging his hand into a cleft for stability he launched Shuriken, which hovered just out from him, whirring up to a scream. The ship ignored Cormac, ascended higher and branched out a tentacle to drag one of the Golem from the rock face. But the Golem responded by detonating a grenade, which blew a cavity in the ship and sent it tumbling. The flickering of a laser and a reptilian shriek issued from above, then someone plummeted past in flames. More firing, and two dracomen hung burning on the line they had managed to reach. Cormac needed to be up on that ledge. He could be grabbed here at any moment.

U-space—the only way.

He gazed upwards, seeking the key in his newly returned memory. The rock face, and the very air around him seemed to invert. Everything within his vicinity came to a shuddering halt as if time stalled. It was easy, he had done it before: he only needed to step where he wanted to go. A short distance or a long one, in planetary terms, was nothing. He could take himself away from here—even halfway around the planet.

Reality reaffirmed with the sound of further weapon fire. Still clinging to his hold, Cormac swore and felt a wholly inappropriate amusement: Like Blegg, then. Something orange nearby caught his attention: the other line. He grabbed it, attached his winder, and set it to fast ascent. In a cold part of his mind he assessed his situation. His troops were dying around him, and soon Blegg would cease to be, and Cormac himself must choose between capture or death.

As he reached the ledge a scaly hand gripped his forearm and hauled him up. At least Scar still survived. Here crouched Blegg, along with four Golem, Hailex, Arach, Scar and three other dracomen. The fusillade they were releasing seemed to keep the other rod-ship at bay, but their firepower would soon be running out. One Golem, stepping away too far from Blegg and Cormac, who were obviously the prizes for capture, suddenly was enveloped in a column of fire, then staggered silently to the edge and toppled over.

Blegg turned towards Cormac. ‘I can give you this, at least,’ he said.

His face seemed mottled, as if small diamond-shaped patches of skin jostled for position on it. Abruptly he ran for the edge and leapt into space. One of the branching tentacles met his flight and snatched him from the air. As he impacted on the surface of the rod-ship it deformed around him as if getting ready to draw him in, but then a rash of those same diamond shapes bloomed from that point of contact and began to spread around the ship in veins. It shuddered, then began smoking, and abruptly plummeted. As it fell, an empty envirosuit peeled away from it, flapping in the wind.

‘Do we still have that CTD?’ Cormac asked calmly.