‘Can you give me a view of the Cable?’ he requested.

A rectangular frame immediately expanded to encompass starlit space in which Centurion-class attack ships hung like a shoal of barracuda, their drive flames like white-tailed stars behind them. The frame greyed over for a moment, then the massive Cable Hogue expanded into view. In one respect the warship was less impressive than the hammerheads, since it was a simple sphere, but closer inspection revealed something almost like a cityscape utterly encompassing it.

Cormac had only recently begun accessing the information available about this monster. It employed rail-guns that fired projectiles the size of attack ships. It possessed gravtech weapons, one of which could throw a wave out through space to sweep away just about anything in its path. The throats of its particle cannons were as wide as mine shafts… but would it be enough? He imagined so. The problem, however, was that Jerusalem possessed only one ship of this size and power, while Erebus was attacking numerous worlds in separate solar systems.

‘How much longer?’ Cormac asked, then glanced around as Scar, Arach and Hubbert Smith entered the bridge.

‘We’re going to U-jump in just three minutes, when our realspace speed is sufficient for insertion,’ King explained. ‘I suggest that you make yourself secure, as I may have to divert some power from internal gravplates to weapons.’

How thoughtful of the AI, or maybe it just didn’t want then splattered messily around its pristine interior. Cormac dropped into one of the seats and pulled the safety straps across him. Field technology could have held him in place, but even the power for that might soon be needed elsewhere. Hubbert Smith sat down next to him, and Scar took his place on the strange saddle-like affair that accommodated his ostrich-like legs. Arach settled down behind them and, on hearing a clonking sound, Cormac glanced round to see the spider drone engaging its sharp feet in recesses specially made in the floor.

‘Should be interesting to watch the Cable Hogue in action,’ said Smith.

Yes, interesting, thought Cormac. But they would be lucky if King could maintain this stable outside view throughout what was about to come. EMR levels would be high, and the ship’s sensors would be blocking much of it to preserve themselves. King would be switching rapidly to whichever electromagnetic band gave the best view of events unfolding, so just might not have the time to convert that input into a pretty picture for the rest of them. Considering this, Cormac used his U-sense to gaze beyond the attack ship at the fleet surrounding it, then, because it was the kind thing he normally would have done, he also applied to King through his gridlink — going after data direct from King’s sensors. Surprisingly, King gave him access immediately.

‘Better to see it this way,’ said Smith. ‘Almost puts you inside the mind of an attack ship.’

‘Not sure I’d want to be in the mind of this one,’ said Arach.

‘Not as sane and balanced as you, then,’ suggested Smith.

Arach made a clicking sound suspiciously like a bullet being fed into a breech. Smith just grinned and closed his eyes.

So, that meant the two of them already had access to King’s sensors. Cormac then glanced across at Scar and watched the dracoman closing his eyes and baring his teeth. Was he too now viewing the same sensory data? Probably yes, since Dragon had given its creations all the advantages of human augmentation, and then some.

Now gazing out on the surrounding ships, with the view supplied not only by his own new perception but also King’s sensors, from which he could pick and choose across the electromagnetic spectrum rather than be confined to that usual narrow band between infrared and ultraviolet, Cormac dug his fingers into his chair arms, for it was all so much more immediate now and the input seemed almost too much. He felt overexposed and shut down that other sense, though it seemed reluctant to go offline. It annoyed him to think how King would have had no problem with such input, since the AI possessed a far greater ability to process it than did any mere human.

‘I have to wonder how Jerusalem knows there will be a legate down on Ramone,’ he said — maybe searching for a distraction from the cold reality looming beyond the ship.

A thrumming sound suddenly issued through the body of the King of Hearts. It was clearly preparing to drop into U-space, though he guessed this sound was not from the U-space engine but from numerous weapons charging up in readiness. Cormac slackened the tension in his fingers and tried to prepare himself again for an experience that now seemed to be becoming unwholesomely attractive to him, almost like a growing addiction.

‘It is understood that the major wormships are captained by partially distinct entities, which are sub-minds of Erebus. Maintaining a meld of AI minds over such distances is not feasible, hence some self-determination of Erebus’s sub-units must be allowed,’ stated King.

‘Didn’t you just make a little slip there?’ enquired Hubbert Smith. ‘When you said “Maintaining a meld of AI minds” didn’t you mean “Keeping these AI minds utterly subjugated”?’

‘Quite,’ replied King.

‘Putting aside Smith’s quite relevant point,’ said Cormac, ‘how does Jerusalem know wormships are controlled by “partially distinct entities”, and that those entities are in fact legates?’

‘The chances are high that at least one of those controlling a wormship down on the planet is a legate, since the proportion of Golem and other viable minds that fled the Polity after the end of the Prador war is high.’

‘So Jerusalem is supposing that each of these ships is controlled by one of those “Golem or other viable minds”, though now subjugated to Erebus’s will and quite possibly since remodelled?’

‘Your orders were sent by one of Jerusalem’s subordinates, but even so Jerusalem is supposing nothing, since that wormships are captained is accepted fact across the AI nets.’

‘Which brings me back to the original question: how does Jerusalem know?’

‘The information became available.’

‘From where?’

‘I don’t know,’ King admitted.

At that moment Cormac observed the image of the Cable Hogue seem to stretch in some indefinable direction — then disappear. Even though he was trying to keep his U-sense repressed, he saw it entering U-space like a moon dropping into some vast sea. The time for questions had just ended, since the short hop insystem would take only moments. He then felt the twisting shift as the King of Hearts dropped into U-space. The apparent dome over them turned grey, and many of the ship’s sensors he was accessing now registered zero input. But again he was there, alone, in that same vast sea, feeling its currents and knowing that he could push a little there, move there, just a little effort and… Again that weird twisting sensation as the King of Hearts surfaced like a submarine, but Cormac felt as if the ship was leaving him behind. It took an effort of will for him to stay with it.

However, unlike a submarine, this ship — along with all the others — surfaced at the same speed at which it had entered the ‘sea’. Immediately the grey in the dome screen was replaced by starlit space filled with the flashes of munitions. Then abruptly it blacked out. Cormac closed his eyes, tried to ignore the slick sweat on his palms, and concentrated instead on what he was seeing through King’s sensors. The attack ship veered past a clump of three interconnected rod-forms, all radiating far into the infrared before one of them exploded to send the other two tumbling. Something crashed against the hull and bounced off, the impact of it rumbling through his seat, but the object rapidly tumbling away hadn’t been ejected by the nearby explosion. Instead, Cormac recognized a box-like segment — a piece of a wormship. A particle beam, stabbing out behind, lit it up briefly and it burst into vaporizing fragments.