Chapters (50)
- Cover
- MARAUDER
- HISTORICAL ARCHIVES SUBSECTION C/5 category ALPHA
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- EPILOGUE
- TIME LINE
- SHOAL TRILOGY
- EVENTS FOLLOWING EMPIRE OF LIGHT AND PRECEDING MARAUDER
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Gary Gibson
Karl whirled towards her, grasping her by the jaw. Now, you listen to me, he hissed, leaning in close, things are going to be very, very different from now on. What I say, you do. Is that clear?
She hated herself for nodding wordlessly, but she had never been so frightened, not even back on board the Grand Barge while waiting for the right moment to kill a roomful of people.
Karl gestured with his chin towards the waiting crewman. Briggs here is going to put you in a medical unit for a while. Until we get to where were going, Gabrielle, youre going to keep your mouth shut and do whatever the hell youre told.
THIRTEEN
Gabrielle
Briggs led her to a tiny medbay, where he left her to strip off her coveralls before she climbed into the warm embrace of a medbox.
She remembered using such machines in her youth, when she had first received her machine-head implants. Cilia-like feelers attached themselves to her skin as she lay back inside it, punching barbiturates through her skin even before the lid had fully closed over her. In the moments before consciousness slipped away, she felt the craft shudder as it lifted up.
The next thing Gabrielle was aware of was the sound of the medbox unsealing itself with a soft hiss. She had a sense that some hours had passed. She now sat up slowly, blinking in the harsh glare of the overhead lights.
She experienced a falling sensation, but everything around her looked still and silent. We must be in orbit.
She had never been off-world before and yet, despite being unfamiliar with the sensation of weightlessness, she discovered it was not unpleasant. She recalled learning, long ago, that the DNA of the earliest human colonists had been tweaked in order to optimize their chances of surviving the rigours of space travel. That meant she would never feel space-sick.
Climbing out of the medbox, she found the same oversized coveralls she had been wearing when she first boarded the dropship. Once she had tugged them back on, she realized that her boots were gone, replaced by a pair of slippers with soft, rubberized soles better suited for onboard life.
She wondered who was piloting this craft, and if they were a machine-head like her. There was something intoxicating about the idea of controlling an entire vessel through ones mind, but when she reached out and tried to interface with the control systems, she quickly found they were inaccessible to her.
Damn Karl and his inhibitor.
Moving with the extreme caution of the inexperienced, Gabrielle pulled on the slippers, then gently pushed herself towards the medbay exit. Being in motion felt like flying. She then carefully made her way along a claustrophobically narrow corridor that followed the curve of the crafts hull, until she came to an open hatch wedged between banks of instruments and bracketed conduits, and heard voices on the other side.