Read Online The Ascendant Stars by Michael Cobley - Free Book Online Page B

out in thousand-strong formations, was the Aggression, the Construct’s armada of warships, each one home to a controlling AI. Construct operatives deep in the tiers of hyperspace had been tracking the progress of the Vor and the Shyntanil as their battlefleets had climbed from level to level, crushing any opposition, demolishing worlds, planetoids, artificial habitats, anything that might present a shred of resistance. And now they were poised to cross into Tier 51.
    After repeated messages and warnings, the P-Construct hadmanaged to provoke the Ixak elders into a semblance of urgency, pressing them to acknowledge the imminent threat. Long-dormant planetary defences were reactivated, councils were formed to deal with civil coordination, even some elaborate combat vessels were brought out of storage. Yet the Ixak’s response still seemed half-hearted, as if the supposed menace coming from below lacked credibility. The P-Construct wondered briefly if the real Construct would have achieved more in a shorter period.
    But in the end the battlefleets of the Vor and the Shyntanil were very real and the news of their advances was unavoidable, undeniable. Just eight hours ago, an observer subsim of the Construct had been aboard one of the Aggression’s spy-scouts, secretly watching as a Shyntanil siege force, complete with their formidable cryptships, extinguished the last embers of resistance on the planet Faskelon just two levels below, on Tier 53. As the bombardment continued, Shyntanil outriders had somehow detected the Aggression vessel; the Aggression ship immediately went into high-kinetic retreat while the subsim, as a precaution, withdrew via the continual transfer link, merging with the P-Construct as it oversaw the Reginjothal theatre, contributing the intelligence accrued.
    The fall of Faskelon was one of several similar front-line reports that the P-Construct had gathered. Now, as it went back inside the hubcraft, it knew it was time to convey it all to the prime Construct. Within, the darkness was speckled with infrared ports, the meagre glow of ready lights flickering from within banks of datawebs, the glimmer of holoplanes providing update bursts. The P-Construct found its multiflow recess and eased back into it. Sensors autotracked its cognitive core and a few minutes later a snapshot of its mindmap-state had been taken, compressed and encoded. As the P-Construct dispatched it via the transfer link, it wondered briefly what the Ixak felt when they went to sleep for years on end, whether they ever considered that they might not wake up.
    *
     
    The Construct had just begun briefing one of its humanoid semiorganics when a new update arrived and merged with its cognitive state, causing a slight pause in its walk across the room.
    ‘Another report from the front?’ said the chalky-white semiorganic. Its body template had yet to be aged, sculpted and adorned with character so its features and posture lacked all expression.
    Giving the merest nod, the Construct sent some excerpts from the update’s vid file to the wallscreen, confined to a frame alongside the frozen image of Robert Horst.
    ‘Thus far encounters with these adversaries have played out very much as predicted,’ the Construct said. ‘That is to say, not entirely to our advantage. However, our deployments of the Aggression have slowed or delayed their advance and in a couple of instances inflicted serious defeats.’
    On the screen, against the filtered aura of a blue sun, Aggression barb-cruisers closed on a Shyntanil cryptship. One of its four weapon spires had been reduced to a melted stump and it left a gaseous trail as it tried to escape. The debris of a thousand ships lay spread out in vast glittering clouds amongst which a few lesser craft fought on against the relentless victors. The pursuing barb-cruisers launched missiles but before they reached their target, the cryptship blew apart in a series of violent explosions.
    ‘This has happened