Doctor Who_ Alien Bodies - Lawrence Miles [94]
E-Kobalt felt something tugging at its consciousness. The Metatraxi leader was sending a message, and the dynatrope was picking up the signal, trying to shunt it straight into the commander’s nervous system. E-Kobalt acquiesced. Immediately, the features of the swarmleader, the unit that referred to itself as qQqa=mo+rna=t, etched themselves across its brain.
‘Thi%s i%s yo+ur fi%rst and o+nly warni%ng,’ qQqa=mo+rna=t announced, its jaws crunching and grinding as it spat the words out from under its shell. ‘Thi%s pla=ne>t i%s u*nde>r the> pro+te>cti%o+n o+f the> Me>ta=tra=xi%. The> Kro+to+n A=bso+lute> wi%ll no+t be> pe>rmi%tte>d a=ny fu*rthe>r e>xpa=nsi%o+n wi%thi%n o+u*r ju*ri%sdi%cti%o+n. A=ny a=tte>mpt to+ a=ppro+a=ch thi%s pla=ne>t wi%ll be> co+nsi%de>re>d a=n a=ct o+f di%sho+no+u*r.’
E-Kobalt felt its head rotating in contempt. The Metatraxi had a code of ethics the Kroton Absolute found almost impenetrable. If a Kroton fleet had outnumbered its enemy on this scale, it would have opened fire without a thought.
They deserved to be dispersed, E-Kobalt decided. And, before qQqa=mo+rna=t could spew out another word, it sent the detonation order into the depths of the dynatrope’s weapons systems.
E-Kobalt could have destroyed the Metatraxi vessel two days ago. It hadn’t. Instead, it had blown a hole in the ship’s carapace, and planted a crystalline spore in its hull. The swarmleader had been allowed to escape, to return to Qu2296. The spore had gone undetected by the Metatraxi systems, and it had been growing since the battle, readying itself for detonation. E-Kobalt had expected the enemy to use a dronehusk grid formation to defend Qu2296; it was a standard Metatraxi tactic, and the Absolute knew its enemy well enough by now. The spore had been created, by the loomkeepers of Quartzel-88, for just such a situation.
The spore exploded. E-Kobalt watched a smear of white spread across the carapace of the swarmleader’s ship, as the exterior armour cracked and crystallised. Then the hull split open, and four spikes of solid crystal extended from the fissures, each pointing towards one of the four nearest dronehusks. The spikes had been grown from the matter inside the hull, E-Kobalt knew, turned to crystal by the chemical processes of the spore.
The spikes impaled the four dronehusks, cracking open their shells, planting more of the spore material inside them. There was a brief pause, before those four ships exploded, too, sending out spikes of their own. E-Kobalt watched, satisfied, as the chain reaction continued. The dronehusks, without orders from qQqa=mo+rna=t, didn’t even try to get out of the way. Those few craft occupied by Metatraxi pilots broke the formation, but the gaps in the grid weren’t big enough to stop the spread of the crystal. It swept from ship to ship, in all four directions, expanding to cover the northern hemisphere. By E-Kobalt’s reckoning, the dronehusks in the southern hemisphere would be gone by the end of the campaign day.
The planet’s defences were down. The Kroton colony planters could move in, and claim Qu2296 in the name of the Absolute. Without another thought, E-Kobalt sent new instructions into the control systems of its dynatrope. The mission objective had been achieved. It had a duty to report back to the highest of the high, the hub of all tellurium-based civilization. The First Lattice of the Kroton Absolute itself.
Since it had become Commander of the Fifth Lattice,