Surface Detail

The hazily shining wall of the field enclosure approached the stricken ship, moved smoothly over it and left it outside, exposed to the distant stars. The view switched to beyond the field enclo-sure, to where the lifeless body of the Bodhisattva floated naked, without any fields or shields about it at all. It was drawing slowly away, falling behind.

“Oh well,” the drone said.

The Bodhisattva convulsed, almost as though shaking itself awake after a long asleep, then started to come slowly apart as though it was an exploded diagram made real. A spherical mirror field appeared all about it for an instant, then, when it dropped, the ship was ablaze, light flaring from every part of it, burning brighter and brighter as they watched; flameless, orderly, still non-explosive but searing in its intensity, the pure fires raged until gradually they started to fade and go out, and when they had entirely gone, there was nothing left of the ship at all, save light-slow radiation, flowing out in every direction towards the distant suns.

“There,” the Bodhisattva’s drone said, turning to Yime and the avatar. “Full speed ahead, I think.”

Himerance nodded. The stars on the screen started to drift away. “Fields at naked-hull minimum,” he said. “Going to a velocity which will be traction-injurious within about forty hours.”

“When do we get there?” Yime asked.

“Eighteen hours,” Himerance said. The avatar stared at the screen. The view had swung to dead ahead. “I’d better check my Manual files, see if I remember how to work as a functioning warship. Probably all sorts of stuff I need to do. Prepping shields, calibrating Effectors, manufacturing warheads; that sort of thing.”

“Anything I can-?” Yime began to say, then realised how absurd this would sound to a ship. “Sorry. Never mind,” she said, flapping one hand, which hurt a little.

The avatar just smiled at her.

He woke to a sort of busy quietness. There was a ringing noise somewhere, and some distinctly annoying beeping, and something else he couldn’t immediately identify, but it all felt terribly muffled, like it was happening somewhere down the other end of a very long tunnel and he really needn’t be concerned about it. He kept his eyes open and looked around, but nothing made sense. He closed his eyes again. Then thought that was probably a bad idea. Something bad had happened and it might not have stopped happening yet; he needed to keep alert, keep his eyes open, keep focused.

He felt heavy in a strange way, as though his weight was being taken by his head and neck and shoulders. He turned his head to one side, then the other.

Fuck; he knew where he was. He was in the back of the flier. All this dark, tipped chaos around him was the remains of the aircraft. What the fuck had happened?

He was lying in the seat he’d been in when whatever had happened… had happened. He wanted to shake his head to clear it but wasn’t sure that was a good idea. He brought one hand up to his face, wiping. Sticky. He looked at his hand. That was blood. He was breathing heavily.

His feet were up in the air, pointing towards the sky, which he could see through the contorted remains of the flier’s rear deck. Where the ultraclear glass should be, there appeared to be nothing. Stuff was falling out of the cloud-dark sky and landing on him, landing all about him. Black and grey. Soot and ash.

He remembered the fireball he’d glimpsed.

Had that been a nuke?

Had some fucker tried to nuke him?

Had some motherfucker tried to nuke him in his own plane on his own fucking estate?

“Motherfucker,” he said, his voice sounding heavy and slurred and far away.

He didn’t seem to be badly injured; nothing broken. He glanced behind him – that did hurt, as though he’d been bruised – then pushed himself back down the seat, head first, grabbing onto the support for the laser rifle – still on, little tell-tale lights blinking – to stop himself from falling backwards against the bulkhead, which was now tipped so that it was nearer to being a floor than a wall.

He got himself standing upright and stood there swaying, brushing the dirt and bits of glass and smears of blood off his clothes. What a state. He looked at the soot and ash still falling down around him through the space where the ultraclear had been. He’d have to climb if he was going to get out that way. He brushed some of the ash and soot out of his hair. Fucking radioactive shit, he’d bet. When he found who’d been responsible he’d have them fucking skinned alive while he hosed them with saline solution. He wondered who to suspect. Had there been anybody meant to come on this flight who’d called off at the last moment? He couldn’t think of anybody. All present. His whole entourage, all his people.

He looked along to the door into the rest of the flier, then reached up and struggled to detach the laser rifle from its stand, eventually giving up.