The Temporal Void Read Online Free
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
perimeter.’
‘Don’t complicate things. I’d suggest you simply fly straight down into the docks.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Not at all. Get the smartcore to display the ship’s stealth function to you. I don’t believe that Living Dream has anything on Viotia which can detect you at night in the rain.’
‘Oh, crap. All right.’
The link ended, and he turned to his shipmates to explain.
‘I can insert some software that will help cover our approach,’ Liatris McPeierl said. ‘Their network is already growing out from the docks, I’m monitoring its development through the unisphere, but I can crack the junction nodes. That’ll let me into their sensors and command links.’
‘The docks will be a good position,’ Tomansio said. ‘It puts us in right at the heart of their operation. I don’t care how dense their network is, or how powerful their smartcores are, it will be chaotic down there to start with. That provides us with a golden opportunity.’
‘All right,’ Oscar said, ‘you guys are the experts. Tell me what approach route you want.’
Forty minutes later Elvin’s Payback emerged into real space a thousand kilometres above Colwyn City. It was already fully stealthed, capable of avoiding the most advanced military-grade sensors. A huge case of overkill. Viotia’s civil space detectors could barely locate a starship out at geosynchronous orbit when its beacon was signalling. As yet, the Ellezelin forces pouring into the docks hadn’t established any kind of sensor coverage above the atmosphere. They were concentrating on tracking capsule traffic in the city, and apprehending anyone who tried to leave. Nobody was looking for craft coming into the area. The commercial starships which had arrived after the annexation began were staying in orbit, awaiting developments and clear orders from their owners.
Following Tomansio’s directions, Oscar brought the starship straight down above the estuary a couple of miles outside the city. It was still raining, the swollen river covered by rolling cloud. With a high intensity optical distortion shimmering round its fuselage, the ovoid starship looked like a particularly dense patch of drizzle in the few wisps of sombre starlight that defused through the cloud. Electronic sensors simply lost focus, mass scanners were unable to find anything heavier than air in the space it occupied. Even Higher field functions, had there been any operating, would have been hard pressed to find anything. If it had been broad daylight on a clear morning, then maybe someone might have spotted something. But not this dreary shadowed night.
Oscar took them down to three metres above the muddy water, and steered upriver using passive sensors alone. Several of the large Ellezelin forces’ support capsules streaked across the sky above them, on their way to intercept fleeing citizens. Elvin’s Payback remained invisible, though that didn’t stop Oscar holding his breath and foolishly staring up at the cabin ceiling as the capsules passed overhead. He remembered the war films he used to watch in his first life, already ancient then, which depicted silent running in submarines. The principles here were comparable. He was even tempted to take the starship underwater to make their approach, completing the similarity. Tomansio had talked him out of it, pointing out that the noise and displacement they’d make breaking surface would probably give them away.
So they drifted in over the deserted quays like a ghost through mist. According to the information Liatris had hacked from the invaders’ network, several paramilitary squads had been deployed round the perimeter of the docks, supported by ten armed capsules, to secure their immediate footprint. Nobody was watching the dock’s long river frontage.
Beckia McKratz had infiltrated the dock’s original commercial network, skilfully manipulating the nodes with software that opened up channels without the
‘Don’t complicate things. I’d suggest you simply fly straight down into the docks.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Not at all. Get the smartcore to display the ship’s stealth function to you. I don’t believe that Living Dream has anything on Viotia which can detect you at night in the rain.’
‘Oh, crap. All right.’
The link ended, and he turned to his shipmates to explain.
‘I can insert some software that will help cover our approach,’ Liatris McPeierl said. ‘Their network is already growing out from the docks, I’m monitoring its development through the unisphere, but I can crack the junction nodes. That’ll let me into their sensors and command links.’
‘The docks will be a good position,’ Tomansio said. ‘It puts us in right at the heart of their operation. I don’t care how dense their network is, or how powerful their smartcores are, it will be chaotic down there to start with. That provides us with a golden opportunity.’
‘All right,’ Oscar said, ‘you guys are the experts. Tell me what approach route you want.’
Forty minutes later Elvin’s Payback emerged into real space a thousand kilometres above Colwyn City. It was already fully stealthed, capable of avoiding the most advanced military-grade sensors. A huge case of overkill. Viotia’s civil space detectors could barely locate a starship out at geosynchronous orbit when its beacon was signalling. As yet, the Ellezelin forces pouring into the docks hadn’t established any kind of sensor coverage above the atmosphere. They were concentrating on tracking capsule traffic in the city, and apprehending anyone who tried to leave. Nobody was looking for craft coming into the area. The commercial starships which had arrived after the annexation began were staying in orbit, awaiting developments and clear orders from their owners.
Following Tomansio’s directions, Oscar brought the starship straight down above the estuary a couple of miles outside the city. It was still raining, the swollen river covered by rolling cloud. With a high intensity optical distortion shimmering round its fuselage, the ovoid starship looked like a particularly dense patch of drizzle in the few wisps of sombre starlight that defused through the cloud. Electronic sensors simply lost focus, mass scanners were unable to find anything heavier than air in the space it occupied. Even Higher field functions, had there been any operating, would have been hard pressed to find anything. If it had been broad daylight on a clear morning, then maybe someone might have spotted something. But not this dreary shadowed night.
Oscar took them down to three metres above the muddy water, and steered upriver using passive sensors alone. Several of the large Ellezelin forces’ support capsules streaked across the sky above them, on their way to intercept fleeing citizens. Elvin’s Payback remained invisible, though that didn’t stop Oscar holding his breath and foolishly staring up at the cabin ceiling as the capsules passed overhead. He remembered the war films he used to watch in his first life, already ancient then, which depicted silent running in submarines. The principles here were comparable. He was even tempted to take the starship underwater to make their approach, completing the similarity. Tomansio had talked him out of it, pointing out that the noise and displacement they’d make breaking surface would probably give them away.
So they drifted in over the deserted quays like a ghost through mist. According to the information Liatris had hacked from the invaders’ network, several paramilitary squads had been deployed round the perimeter of the docks, supported by ten armed capsules, to secure their immediate footprint. Nobody was watching the dock’s long river frontage.
Beckia McKratz had infiltrated the dock’s original commercial network, skilfully manipulating the nodes with software that opened up channels without the
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