This was not to be the case here, though, as the spread of tiny craft which made up the swarm re-configured their lead section into something not dissimilar to a spike. Casualties at this point were to be anticipated, none of the leading members of this assault expected to survive this particular encounter. Indeed, their programming ensured that each element would keep driving forward until the moment of its own destruction.

  As the separate drones jockeyed for position, each one was keen to situate itself as close to the main vanguard as it could while at the same time complying with a powerful compunction to subjugate itself to the needs of the swarm as a whole. Each drone was secure in its homogeneity, lacking the drive to prove its perceived superiority over its brethren. This was at once, both their greatest strength and their keenest weakness. These ships were capable of learning from one another and had the advantage of near instantaneous access to all the information that had been acquired from the destruction of the communication satellites orbiting Piatra. The swarm had analysed everything about them, from the structures’ design strengths to the various alloys used in their construction.

  It gave them, in short, a very specific range of reference.

  And, while the individuals within the swarm might not survive long enough to see it for themselves, they went into battle assured that this attack would signal the start of a new and significant conflict. One in which they felt victory was assured.

  Like so many automated response platforms, the buoy operated on a simple defensive set-up. Utilising several communication cores, it was more than capable of charting the vast number of shipping vessels which passed by on a regular basis. Indeed, if it were to detect any anomalies it was capable of pinging any approaching traffic in an effort to update its already impressive data base. The newer ships were ahead of the game in this regard as they sent out their details immediately upon entering a new area of space, eager to prove their provenance. Both Yakutian vessels had quickly and efficiently completed this process within seconds of entering the system, providing the buoy with all the information it was likely to need.

  Confusion was more likely to arise with older vessels whose technology predated that of the buoy itself. This had been the case with the Mantis which had initially identified itself as two separate vessels: the original Mantis which had technically been destroyed during the Long War and this newer, re-conditioned version. The confusion had been slight, lasting no more than a few seconds but it had been there and, in an environment where defences could be activated in a fraction of that time, it should have been a concern for all involved.

  Tom Thumb had posed a threat as soon as it had appeared, though its profile and trajectory had had much in common with the endless supply of comets the buoy was primarily built to eradicate. The one thing which had differentiated this threat from the others had been its speed. All of the defensive fortifications surrounding Blackthorn were finely tuned to identify either stolen craft or friendly ships which had been repurposed as floating battering rams. The buoy had waited until Tom Thumb came within range before deciding – with no reply to its comms – that it needed to defend itself.

  Such was the buoy’s firepower that one shot was usually enough.

  Only this time, that didn’t prove to be the case.

  As the first of three shots were fired, something unexpected happened. The cloud of tiny ships pulsed and then separated, creating a hole in their ranks large enough for the super-heated laser fire to pass through without causing much damage. True, the heat from the first shot had been sufficient to scramble the navigating systems of a handful of vessels that mattered little when there were literally thousands of others capable of filling that void.

  The buoy adjusted its long-range optics in a bid to better understand this new opponent but what it saw only added to its confusion. The ships were small and wedge shaped, no more than a meter across but what set them apart was their maneuverability. They appeared capable of coordinating the most complex maneuvers whilst still operating at ridiculously fast speeds. They moved with all the febrile grace of a flock of birds, shifting and pulsing endlessly without necessitating a single collision.

  The buoy noticed with some consternation, that the cloud had shifted again and was now orientating itself in the direction of the buoy itself.

  This time it fired a volley of six shots, all aimed at different parts of the cloud, directed in such a way as to cause maximum disruption. But the cloud seemed to have learned from its first contact and quickly veered away, losing only a small number of craft in the process.

  The next time, the buoy sent off a volley of nine shots, targeting the densest part of the cloud in a bid to inflict maximum damage but the tiny spacecraft responded by transforming themselves into a perfect toroid shape, allowing the laser volley to pass harmlessly through the centre of their formation.

  When the ships reformed they did so effortlessly, re-arranging themselves into three elongated snakes, spinning on their axis as they raced towards their target.

  The buoy’s hazard warnings kicked in at this point. The first time this had ever happened. A human operator would have simply panicked but orbital buoys – even those operating the most sophisticated AI packages – lacked such a specialised range of emotions. And so, faced with its own destruction, it began the grim task of broadcasting everything that it had learned in the past few seconds in a sudden splurge of digital information.

  The three snakes swung wide at the last moment, anticipating a dying salvo which never came. They struck the buoy simultaneously from three intersecting angles and with such force that it disappeared in a bloom of pure white light.

  *

  Bertran studied the data that they’d just received from the defence buoy.

  “Am I reading this right?” he asked Yamada.

  “Unfortunately, sir, yes, you are.”

  Bertran took a step away from the console, trying to process what it was he’d just witnessed.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he announced solemnly.

  “No?” Yamada said. “Never seen nanobots operate inside the body? Same idea – they work out what the threat is: a virus, a bunch of cancerous cells, whatever. Then they target it, swarm all over it until it’s completely destroyed. Exact same principle, really.”

  “And by that logical conclusion that makes us, what? Some kind of disease?”

  Yamada shrugged, “If that’s how they see us, then, yes. I suppose we are.”

  The swarm shifted direction as the next laser battery attempted to engage it. It was difficult to see the drones clearly as they were rearranging themselves into another pattern in preparation for their next attack. All that the people on the bridge could do was try to follow the shimmer of the light reflecting off their hulls, though there was precious little of that.

  This battery seemed to have learnt from the first and fired off a volley of some thirty laser blasts, all in quick succession.

  “That’s interesting,” Yamada said. “Now they’re forming up into a – what is that? A hexagon?”

  “Looks like, sir,” Ensign Roberts said. “Isn’t that supposedly the most efficient use of space?”

  “Perhaps it is for bees,” Bertran said. “I’ve never seen it used as an attack formation before.”

  The laser battery had fallen back to firing in sequence to conserve energy and, although it had been successful in destroying certain sections of the swarm, its accuracy was now starting to diminish. Either that or the enemy craft were becoming more adept at avoiding being hit.

  The various shapes now seemed to fuse together for a brief moment as they approached the platform housing the battery, providing a solid target which it maintained for several seconds. Then, just as quickly, it split into various strands, flying off in all directions. But this was a simple bluff, designed, no doubt, to distract from the two strands which were approaching the platform from below. These destroyed a section of gantry completely, sending the three lasers mounted there spinning off into space. That left six lasers in total, two of which appeared to have stopped firing altogether. The remaining four had simply become disorientated, whirling about, firing wildly in all directions.

  Most of their shots vanished off into the depths of space but one struck an electrical generator, punching a large hole in its side.

  “Look at this guy,” someone said, bringing up the resolution on a secondary screen.

  A coal black cargo haulier had appeared from planet side and was slowly approaching Blackthorn. In the background, they could just make out the skittering shape of the swarm.

  “What’s he doing?” a young officer asked.

  “I don’t think he can have seen them,” Ensign Roberts offered. “That thing’s ancient and I imagine its comms are just as old.”

  Yamada turned to Faulkner. “Should we try and warn them?”

  Faulkner grimaced. He’d long since reconciled himself to the idea that he couldn’t save everyone.

  “What are they going to do?” he said. “Try and out run them? No, leave it. We’ll only panic them.”

  They watched as the drones, now in three solid formations, began to close on the cargo ship at an alarming rate.

  But then, just as everyone sensed that an attack was imminent, they accelerated away. They’d spotted a large communications satellite and now made short work of destroying it, hitting it repeatedly until large sections of its fuselage broke off.

  “Blackthorn needs to shut down their defences right now!”

  Faulkner was moving around pushing the comms officers back to their stations.

  Yamada turned as Faulkner started manhandling him. “I’m sorry, sir. What do you mean: shut them down?”

  “These things –whatever they are – appear only to be interested in military installations.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “That’s why they ignored that cargo ship,” Bertran pointed out. “They were conserving their energies.”

  “Just so. They’re trying to soften us up by taking out Blackthorn’s defences first. They are designed to draw our fire, then, once they’ve ascertained our strengths, they move in and destroy them. They’re paving the way for the second attack.”

  He pointed at Bertran. “Tactical, I want you to power down all our weapons systems. Everything. Comms, no active sensors unless I give the go ahead. Environment, I don’t want any emissions whatsoever and that includes gases. Nothing that might draw attention.”

  He might have ordered the engines be shut down as well, if they’d had any.

  “Blackthorn needs to power down their defensive batteries if they’re going to have anything left for the main assault. But we’re in no position to tell them that and I doubt they’ll listen anyway.”

  By this time, another much bigger installation had opened up on the swarm which was starting to look ragged in places. There were definite gaps appearing in the patterns they were trying to create. Though this mini armada was highly effective in taking out any and all threats, there was no doubt that this uncompromising, head-on attack was taking a real toll on their numbers. Faulkner guessed that, size wise, they had been diminished by something like fifty percent.

  In the background, he could hear the comms officers making desperate attempts to get through to Blackthorn. So far without any luck.

  There was a definite moment when the swarm changed its trajectory in order to better target the new installation. This was one of Blackthorn’s more formidable defensive assets, sporting sixteen lasers grouped in pods of four. And they appeared at first to be having some success. Instead of firing volleys of shots they were taking their time, placing their shots precisely in an attempt to anticipate what the drones might do next. And this more surgical approach in their tactics seemed to be having some success.

  “They’re a lot more ‘untidy’ now,” Bertran said. “Is that the right word?”

  Faulkner nodded. “I imagine that as they take more casualties it must effect their processing power in some way.”

  “Still,” Bertran said. “I wouldn’t want them coming in our direction.”

  Yamada turned towards them, his arms folded across his chest. He managed to look both relieved and horrified all at the same time because at the back of their minds, they were all thinking the same thing: if these things decide to target the Mantis, there’s precious little we can do to defend ourselves.

  Some of the ships were bound to get through eventually.

  “Sir,” one of the comms officers said. “I’m picking up activity around Blackthorn’s main docking area.”

  Faulkner groaned as he moved across to take a look. “They’re not sending out fighters, are they?”

  “No, sir, nothing like that.”

  Faulkner squinted at the man’s console but couldn’t make any sense of the sea of markers and serial numbers. The comms officer made an attempt to clear up a lot of the background detail but it didn’t help Faulkner any.

  “According to this, that’s The Merry Widow, sir,” the man said. “She’s about to set sail.”

  “The Merry Widow?” Yamada said as he approached. “That’s one of those mega-cruisers, isn’t it?”

  “Dear God, what are they playing at?” Faulkner said.

  In the meantime, someone had managed to get a shot of The Merry Widow up on the screen. It was enormous, effectively dwarfing every other ship in the vicinity. Also, there was something wrong about the way that it was maneuvering, especially considering that it was still attached by various service gantries on the station side. The pilot was making the most of his thrusters but nothing seemed to be happening.

  The image changed to a view from the dockside.

  “Look, she’s got caught up,” someone said.

  The scene was of utter devastation with large pieces of debris filling every corner of the screen. One of the support gantries had been snapped off completely and was threatening to float away. From the angle they were viewing The Merry Widow from, they could see that the front walkway, along with its main umbilical, had been torn away from its moorings and was twisting lazily in the weightless environment. But the ship was still attached to the walkway which met it amidships. The strain on these moorings must have been considerable but they had been designed for just such an occasion and were managing to maintain their integrity despite the strain inflicted by the megacruiser’s thrusters.

  “Good try,” Bertran said. “But this baby’s not going anywhere.”

  The way he said it brought a smile to everyone’s lips.

  Roberts said, “Not unless someone’s mad enough to go out there and separate them manually.”

  The chances of surviving something like that were slim at best. Operating in vacuum was perilous enough at the best of times and working with so many unknown variables would only increase the danger.

  “Captain Faulkner, I think you might want to look at this.”

  The comms officer angled his console so that Faulkner could get a better look. This time, there was no mistaking what he was looking at.

  “I can’t believe it!” Faulkner said. “He’s firing up his main engines.”

  The statement was followed by a stunned silence. The Dockside Exclusion Zone around a space station was an area that was renowned for being very aggressively policed. The idea that someone might be remiss enough in their duties to engage main engines in this area was bad enough – indeed, no end of pilots and inattentive helmsmen had ruined their careers by doing so – but intentionally starting main engines while still in dock was a criminal offence, punishable by a lengthy prison sentence.

  The flare of The Merry Widow’s engines was picked up by another camera, viewed from the rear. They could see the ship’s aft section yawing from side to side as the walkway remained stubbornly linked to the dockside. Though it was destined not to last for much longer due, in no small part, to the considerable forces being levelled against it. Already, the scaffold anchoring the forward umbilical had been torn loose and it was only a matter of time before the umbilical itself was shorn away.

  Remarkably, the walkway stayed attached to the gunwales – it was part of the dockside itself which finally gave way. As the ship’s engines began to assert themselves it was a matter of seconds before the aft umbilical was torn free.

  Once freed, the nose of the mega cruiser pulled hard to port, swinging the ship’s engines around to bring them flush against the main docking area. Everyone held their breaths as the engines kept on coming, melting large sections of the quayside before drifting across in the direction of one of their refuelling facilities. The fact that it didn’t explode immediately was testimony to Blackthorn’s policy of safety tolerances, with everyone on the bridge tensing for the inevitable.

  It was several seconds later before The Merry Widow’s helmsman was able to get control of the ship and swing the engines clear, thereby averting a disaster.

  The captain was clearly rattled by all this - he’d have to have been truly desperate to risk such a risky maneuver in the first place – ordering the power to the engines to be cut momentarily. He allowed the ship to drift then, controlling her solely with her thrusters, and it looked as if he might have come to his senses. But this was merely a precursor to their final bid for freedom. Despite the fact that they were still surrounded on all sides by ships of all shapes and sizes, the engines kicked in for a second time, pushing The Merry Widow away from its mooring as fast as possible.

  Though it might have looked reckless, with the ship heaving and rolling from side to side, Faulkner knew different. At slow speed and without the aid of space traffic control, it would have been very easy for such a large ship to get snagged on some of the extraneous superstructure. But, by applying full power and relying upon the ship’s superior tonnage the ship would be able to brush aside potential obstacles as it accelerated away into clear space.

  The maneuver made sense: if the captain was going to risk making a break for it, he wasn’t going to let a charge of criminal damage hamper him. As it was, apart from destroying a number of pylons, the only serious damage inflicted came when the heat of the engines drifted a little too close to a storage facility and completely melted its fascia, triggering a range of small explosions.