The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [186]
The Legion cyborg was hammering, drilling and tearing at the hatch and inner bulkhead. Greg could hear the creak of breaking metal by the time the lock had been depressurised and he was clambering out onto the hull. Darien loomed overhead – the Silverlance was canted over to port relative to the planet as it rushed onwards in its decaying orbit. Darien filled the view with a dwarfing magnificence.
‘How long … have I got left?’ he said as he turned towards the bows and cursed when he saw another of the Legion cyborgs ripping up pieces of plating which its servitor machines were fixing to its carapace and occasionally their own.
‘Two point one minutes,’ said the ship AI. ‘Have you encountered difficulty?’
‘Aye, ye could put it that way,’ he said, shuffling forward, keeping the suit’s sticky boots near the hull. ‘Another Legion monster and its flock of mini-horrors. But I’m gonnae give it a shot … ’
Keeping his pace even and as quick as possible, without raising his legs too high, was draining. But he built up a rhythm and after a minute circling round the curve of the hull it looked as if he might reach the forward airlock in time. Until he came to a wide stretch of plating that was seared, dark and slightly deformed, and when he pressed the sole of one boot onto it there was no adherence. A beam strike must have damaged the plates and the darkened area was about four yards across and ran diagonally all the way across the ship’s forward flank. There was no time to go around it.
Greg raged and swore for all of ten seconds then, furious at this obstacle, he squatted down and leaned forward slightly. Then he pushed with his feet, propelling himself along, grabbing at any warped plate or protruding edge to keep himself on course. He nearly made it, getting to within a few feet of undamaged hull, but a misjudged reach punted him very gently away from the ship. Desperately he grabbed for purchase but found nothing – the action actually pushed him away faster.
So this is it, he thought. Is this why Chel said he was sorry? Did he know I was going to die but couldn’t help me?
He was still falling along the same path as the Silverlance, the same decaying trajectory. The Legion cyborgs and their slave machines were starting to leave the doomed vessel. Noting their departure, he looked up at the planet, intermittently glimpsing landmasses through the swirling cloud formations, crinkled coastlines, the deep dark blue-green of Darien’s oceans. He wondered if Catriona was still alive somewhere on Nivyesta, not so much a ghost in the machine as a spirit in the forest.
I wish I’d stayed, he thought. We could have been spirits together …
And the realisation came to him that he’d rather suffocate than die burning, and he reached for his helmet fastening ring …
‘Mr Cameron?’
He froze. The voice was coming over on the helmet comm. And it was oddly familiar.
‘ … if you can hear me please respond.’
‘Kao Chih? Is that you?’
‘Indeed it is, Mr Cameron. We seem to have located you in time.’
Greg’s mood lifted as he looked around him, seeing nothing but the ravaged hull of the Silverlance.
‘And where are ye … exactly?’
‘On the other side of Darien, roughly a third of an orbit away from your current position, surveying the disposition of the Legion of Avatars.’
His heart fell. ‘So you’re not really able to help me out, then … ’
‘On the contrary, Mr Cameron – if you look over to the port side of your warship your escape vehicle should be drawing near.’
Sure enough, a slender tapered shape rose into view, parallel to the Silverlance, and then