Star Corps(118)
And then…a blessed, dazed silence.
Behind them the mountain continued to settle, slumping into a mound about half as high as the original peak. Seams opened in the rock on all sides, emitting boiling, furious clouds of ash and smoke.
Captain Warhurst watched the mountain’s funeral pyre with dark broodings.
Chamber of Seeing
Deeps of An-Kur
Eleventh Period of Dawn
Once again he was Tu-Kur-La, only Tu-Kur-La. The Abzu-il, the living Gateway to the Sea of Knowing, had recoiled, shrieking, and Tu-Kur-La and his fellow members of the Zu-Din found themselves again in the Chamber of Seeing, deep below An-Kur.
Seismic quakes continued to rattle walls, ceiling, and floor, and a fine mist of dust filled the air. For a few moments the cavern was plunged into an abysmal darkness, but power lines from the Deep Core regrew themselves in moments, and the light, with uncertain flickers, returned. Slowly, slowly, the quakings died away, though ominous rumblings continued to filter down from the upper levels of An-Kur, many salet overhead.
A full sixty Ahannu were gathered in the Chamber of Seeing, resting in couches recessed into niches in the circular stone walls, and these, Tu-Kur-La knew, were only a few of the minds comprising an active Zu-Din, a Godmind. Some hundreds of others were scattered throughout the region, some as far away as the city of Shumur-Unu.
Across the chamber, dimly seen through sifting dust and wavering light, Gal-Irim-Let rose from its couch. “The Mountain of the Gods is no more,” it said.
“Kingal!” Tu-Kur-La cried, rolling from his own couch. He drew a breath, then sneezed sharply in the dust. “Kingal,” he said again. “We have lost the Sea of Knowing!”
“The Sea shall return,” the Kingal An-Kur replied. “It has been injured but will regrow. But we can do no more here.”
“What do you advise, Lord?” a high-ranking warrior named Sha-Ah-Il asked.
“The fight will center now on Shumur-Unu,” Usum-Gal told them, interrupting. “We will travel there with all we can find and gather here beneath An-Kur. There, we will find more of the Abzu-il. There we will continue the fight.”
“Death to all untamed Blackheads!” someone cried, and the others took up the cheer, a throaty, almost growled susurration filling the Chamber of Seeing more completely than the dust.
“Quickly, god-warriors!” Gal-Irim-Let cried. “To the Deep Ways!”
Shouting and hissing, the Ahannu filed from the chamber.
Combat Information Center
IST Derna, Ishtar orbit
0022 hours ST
Lighting was restored, a fitful gleam from emergency battle lanterns at first, but a full-blown artificial daylight as the emergency power plant finally came on line. Moments later the slow tumble of the crippled starship was arrested as automatic thrusters fired. As the ship’s spin slowed to nothing, gravity faded away. Ramsey drifted in the wreckage of the CIC with General King, Ricia, and a handful of techs.
“Cassius!” he called, using his cerebralink. He felt, heard, sensed only a dull and faintly horrifying emptiness. Damn. The net was down, the noumenon lost. Still, Cassius would be online within Derna’s ship computer…should be, anyway, assuming the central processor complex hadn’t suffered serious physical damage.
“I’ve got a radio link to Cassius,” Ricia told him. She was floating next to one of the CIC consoles, clinging to a desktop with one hand and working the controls with the other.
“Give me audio, Major,” he said. “Cassius?”
“I am here, Colonel,” the familiar AI voice replied.
“Give me a sitrep.”
“Affirmative, Colonel. Derna has taken serious damage from an impact with a piece of wreckage from the Algol, a mass estimated at 215 kilograms, traveling at 12.4 kilometers per second. The debris passed through our reaction mass tank near the rim at Section Nineteen, causing explosive loss of reaction mass and radical destabilization of our trim. Secondary debris damaged our main power plant, heat radiator fins, high gain antenna and comm laser unit, carousel drive, and an estimated four supply modules. Ship remotes are still assessing damage while beginning repairs on major ship systems.”
“But are we going to make it?” King asked.
“Probability of survival is high,” Cassius replied, “barring further attacks by the Ahannu planetary defense system. Since there is nothing we can do here to prevent further attacks, our efforts now should be directed at damage control. Of more immediate concern from a tactical perspective, the MIEU data net is offline, as you have ascertained, and we have lost contact with the ARLT.”
Cassius fell silent. “What is it?” King demanded.
“Easy, General,” Ramsey said. “Cassius has his figurative hands full right now.”