The Dying Light by Sean Williams, Shane Dix Page A

options. To Kajic she added: “Uri, keep well out of their way until we know what they are and who sent them. We don’t want to intimidate them unnecessarily.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” Haid shot back dryly. “I won’t be making any moves until you can prove to me there isn’t a clone warrior on one of those ships.”
    Roche watched nervously as the view shifted on the main screen. Numerous tiny drones spread out in a circle away from the Ana Vereine, expanding their base line of observation and thereby improving the clarity and range of the picture. The third ship came into view, oddly distorted like the glowing object it had been hiding behind. It was hard to determine exactly what sort of ship it was, let alone where it hailed from; the image was of a warped white line, burning bright with reflected light.
    “Box,” she said, “can you figure out what’s jamming us?”
    “There is no deliberate interference of transmissions in this region,” said the Box.
    “No? Then—”
    “Our sensors are being swamped by emissions from the point-source. It is extremely radiant in both infrared electromagnetic and Perez radiations.”
    Roche blinked, surprised. Perez radiation was a side effect of a crudely tuned hyperspace jump, not what she would have expected of a seemingly stellar object.
    Before she could inquire further, the Box went on: “Try looking for transmissions on the Eckandi emergency band. It should be relatively unaffected.”
    Roche gestured for Haid to do as the Box suggested. Within seconds, a rapid pulse of sound from the speakers of the main screen indicated that the ship had detected a digital transmission. An instant later, text appeared on the main screen and the pulse became an audible voice:
    “—ONLY WARNING. REPEAT: YOU ARE IN CONTRAVENTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF EMPIRES SECURITY ACT, SECTIONS 45, 63, AND 72. THIS AREA HAS BEEN QUARANTINED. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY OR PREPARE TO BE FIRED UPON. THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY WARNING. MESSAGE ENDS.”
    The voice spoke with the clear, crisp tones of a machine, not a Human—but that hardly made its words any less appalling. Roche took only a second to absorb the implications of its message.
    An ambush.
    “Haid, Cane—move us away,” she said, thinking furiously. “Don’t do anything else unless I tell you. Box, signal that we wish to respond; see if you can initiate a dialogue—or even subvert the AI to let us go.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew it was unlikely the Box would be capable of doing this quickly enough. Nevertheless, she had to at least explore the possibility. “Uri, continue with repairs. Get that down shield back up as soon as you can. And Maii, find out what they’re doing here and who the hell sent them. I need to know whether or not we have a chance of convincing them to let us through.”
    From her seat on the far side of the bridge, the reave shook her head. she said.
    “What?” Roche swiveled to face her. “Why not?”
     The reave’s voice was strangely muffled, as though her thoughts were coming from a great distance rather than only from across the room.
    Roche frowned. Maii’s last comment was worryingly true, if perplexing. “Keep trying. I need to know how they found us and whether or not they knew we were coming. If De Bruyn sent them, we know we’ll have to fight, no matter what they say.”
    “But if they weren’t expecting us,” put in Haid, “how did they know where we’d be? I thought we couldn’t be traced through a slow-jump.”
    “They didn’t need to,” replied the Box.
    Roche was reminded of the point-source on the screen, twisted as though viewed through a giant lens. The spatial distortion the Box had been monitoring was obviously even more severe than she had imagined: