Chaos Cipher Read Online Free Page A

Nexus interface. The pilots were aware of multiple
visuals; they felt blunt emotional discipline seeping from the
stronger and less empathic killers to overpower compunction in the
more empathic pilots, who vacillated over the killing of unarmed
targets. In the Nexus Ripley felt like a huge entity, able to see
everything at once, he felt like a creature beyond human, like the
panoptical Argus.
     
    Suddenly,
Ripley heard screaming.
     
    ‘ Wh-what’s that
noise ?’ someone reported across the
Nexus.
    ‘ Receiving...audio
phenomenon I think... ’
    ‘ That’s a
negative, there’s no audio phenomenon, no radio signal in my
vessel, and I’m getting no transmission detection
what-so-ever. ’
    ‘ It’s not an
issue with the neuro-ligature’ another said, ‘or the Nexus
interface either. I’m running communications through laser
transmission, no interference detected. Shit...I can hear too! Oh
god it’s in my head!’
    ‘ Keep the mission
together ,’ the commander austerely
directed from the interface, ‘ target those
pods and destroy them. ’
    ‘ Can’t you
hear that?’ said another voice, this time coming through the audio
network. ‘What the…what is that?’
    ‘ Ma’am,’ said
another pilot through the audio coms, ‘I shut down my
neuro-ligature for manual piloting. I pulled out of the Nexus
interface but the noise...it’s in my head!’

    Ripley tried
to blink away the obstreperous cries lancing through his mind. At
high speeds, a mere blink could cost a striker-pilot their lives,
which was why neurophasing with the strike-ship was vital. The
visual field of the neurosphere revealed to Ripley the heat
signatures, the burning ring system, the filigree spins of vector
lines with omnidirectional projected vectors and calculations and
radiation waves and random debris all interpreted by his flight
computer in the four dimensional space of his mind. He was able to
see in every location in real-time. He shut his eyes tight, a
reaction to the pain that didn’t disturb his cortically enhanced
visuals. But the screaming went on and he focussed intently on the
formulating ordered patterns of spatial chaos. But nothing he did
eased the pain; impossible to focus. It was like a thousand drawing
pins had found their way into his skull and learned how to
swim.
    ‘ They will
trick you’ said the commander, ‘they have ways of breaking our
morale. Stay focussed. Purge them all!’
     
    Ripley
continued to target the pods, blasting them into bubbles of amber
and gold as he hunted down and raced after The Cereno .
    ‘ I’ve got a
lock! ’ He reported.
    ‘ Me too,
ma’am ,’ said another
pilot.
    ‘ Lock
confirmed .’
    ‘ Warheads
authorisation confirmed. Your warheads are now
armed ,’ said the Commander,
‘ engage the target! ’
     
    Seven
tactical warheads knifed through space at tremendous speed
behind The Cereno , an inescapable approach without a saltus-carrousel. The
first three hadn’t managed to make it through the falling debris.
Multiple explosions burst in Amora’s atmosphere, static cracks of
super-lightning jumping between charged points in the upper
mesosphere. The forth warhead was sent hurtling off-course, its
propulsion drives extinguished, spinning it aimlessly into the
stars. Rynal launched the stern chasers. Hundreds of thermal flares
scattered out to distract the warheads behind the fleeing Cereno,
while broadside beam cannons lashed into space, garish stabs of
light zipping along the flight paths of the missiles, unable to
lock their erratic twists and sidewinding turns. Rynal was forced
to make a dangerous manoeuvre. The
Cereno dove, rolling into a lower
altitude. Intense friction of air particles blasted over the nose
of The Cereno in
white hot streams of fire as her velocity pushed way over safe
re-entry protocols. He exerted the engines, parting the thickening
atmosphere like a red hot knife in a fog, competing against the
heated attrition with the approaching