The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [108]
‘This is why we came to see you,’ Harry said. ‘I know we had some parts of a puzzle, of the bigger picture, but even putting them together with yours does not seem to produce an answer that makes sense.’
As they watched, the drone Reski Emantes floated over to the table with the consoles. Ready lights winked on and holopanels appeared, thick slabs of opacity awaiting input. It was practically an exercise in irony, Julia decided, depicting virtual devices within a virtual reality.
‘There are several seemingly disconnected conflicts which, as information emerges, turn out to have been instigated by the Godhead working through its instruments.’ Within the glassy ovoid bright motes of blue and amber swirled like a miniature galaxy. ‘The vermax that Robert Horst and I encountered, as well as the elaborate pocket universe trap, the thermonuclear missiles, the raids and sieges carried out by Vor and Shyntanil forces down in hyperspace, and now the Vor escorting Talavera to some destination crucial to her and those missiles … ’
Julia nodded but the drone’s references to this being, the Godhead, made her feel dwarfed by the scale of such an adversary.
Data polytables appeared in some of the holopanels, their permutations taking place too quickly for her to follow. Then three of the bigger consoles realigned their emitters and merged their projections into a much larger single holopanel that was angled down from above the table.
‘Let’s get a good mix of news feeds up,’ said the drone and suddenly the big panel was filled with an array of subscreens, a cornucopia of sights and creatures from scores of media gateways. There was sound but Reski Emantes was keeping it low, a surflike babbling.
‘We need to filter this,’ said Harry. ‘Can you narrow the sources to the Aranja Tesh, the likes of the Yamanon, the Kahimbryk, even Buranj and Shul … ’
‘Wait,’ said Julia. ‘I heard some talking about Darien, saying something about a battle … ’
‘I can find it if you wish,’ said the drone.
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t if it’ll slow you down,’ Harry said.
‘Slow me down? I see that you need reminding of my expertise.’ There was a pause. ‘There it is, Citivox, indienews channel casting from Daliborka in the Vox Humana.’
One of the smaller holopanels began to show a graphic of a green shoot emerging from the ground, growing into clasped leaves that parted to reveal a blue and white planet nestling there while a shiny gold logo unfolded above it. This dissolved into the image of a woman in dark formal dress who then spoke, auto-translated by the system.
‘Welcome to Faktor 23. We begin today with yet another amazing report from Kaphiri Farag, who is still in hiding in the Darien system and still sending us regular updates. We received the latest one just a few hours ago and present it to you now, unedited.’
The screen switched to a view of Darien at a distance, a coin-sized planet half in shadow. The image leaped forward, Darien now football-sized with the green forest moon Nivyesta passing across it. Then nearer still, a high-orbit perspective revealing the shapes of coastlines, the dark extent of mountain ranges, the veinlike traceries of rivers. A man’s voice spoke:
‘Darien’s beauty is the beauty of a world unspoiled. But what happens when the violence and destruction of battle explode across the skies above?’
There then followed a sequence of excerpts of open space combat, starting with a clash between a very large vessel, with its support ships, and a handful of lesser craft. Waves of fighters were launched from the big ship to engage with the adversaries. The support ships unleashed massive concentrations of dazzling weaponsfire, beam clusters, tight formations of missiles. Kaphiri Farag identified the large vessel and its companions as a Hegemony carrier group and its attackers as possibly of Imisil Mergence origin.
Then the battle seemed to be over. There were shots of one ship with its side blown out, torn and jagged wreckage still glowing from recent detonations while