Whiphound

Whiphounds are multi-purpose personal sidearms and interrogation devices, carried in holsters by prefects, members of the Panoply law enfrocement organisation on Yellowstone and the Glitter Band.

Description

The following is an overview of a whiphound's capabilities, based on what particular mode it is set to by a prefect.

Whip Mode and arrest mode

Sparver's hand moved to his belt. He unclipped the handle of his whiphound and flicked it to deploy the filament. It cracked as it spun out to its maximum extension, lashing the floor.

(...)

Sparver released the whiphound. The handle remained at waist height, supported by the coiled extremity of its stiffened filament. It swayed from side to side with the questing motion of a snake. Then it curled around and aimed itself at the man.

A bright red dot appeared on his Adam's apple.

"I need you to answer a question for me," Sparver said. "How attached are you to your fingers?"

The man inhaled and held his breath.

"The whiphound has a mark on you now," Sparver continued. "If it detects hostile intent — and it's very, very good at detecting hostile intent — it'll be on you faster than a nerve impulse can travel down your arm. When it reaches you, it'll do something quite nasty with the sharp edge of that filament."

The man opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a dry croak. He spread both his hands, opening his fingers and thumbs as wide as they would go.

"Sensible," Sparver said. "Now hold that pose, but step away from the core." He nodded at Thalia, giving her the go-ahead to start securing the evidence. The whiphound stayed by his side, its blunt head tracking the man as he inched away from the central column.

(...)

Thalia glanced at the man Sparver's whiphound was still detaining. For the first time in his life, his implants would no longer be in constant communication with the informational matrix beyond House Perigal. It must have felt like the drop of a guillotine.

(...)

Sparver smiled at the technician again. "We're done. Can I trust you not to do anything silly if I pull the whiphound off you?"

The man swallowed painfully and twitched his head in a nod.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," Sparver said. He reached out his hand and beckoned the whiphound. With a flick of its tail, the weapon sprang its handle into Sparver's grip, the tail whisking back into the housing with a lashing sound.

- excerpts from Chapter 1 of Aurora Rising (a.k.a. The Prefect)

---

Sword Mode

"Three days later he was found dead in his quarters. He'd used a whiphound on himself, set to sword mode."

- excerpts from Chapter 9 of Aurora Rising (a.k.a. The Prefect)

Thalia thumbed one of the heavy-duty controls set into the whiphound's handle. Sword mode. The filament whisked out to a length of one metre, but stiffened to the rigidity of a laser beam. Gripping the thing in both hands, Thalia pushed the blade into the hedge. She sliced sideways, the whiphound automatically twisting the blade to bring the microscopic ablative mechanisms of the cutting edge into play. There was no detectable resistance. A downward swoop, a sweep across, a sweep up. She retracted the blade, then pushed against the cube of hedge she had cut free. It eased inwards, then flopped back onto the turf on the other side. With hindsight, she should have cut a wider hole.

(...)

Thalia thumbed the heavy control that invoked sword mode and hoped that there was still enough functionality left in the whiphound to spool out and stiffen its filament. The handle buzzed like a trapped wasp; nothing happened. She thumbed the control again, willing the whiphound to respond. The filament inched out, the buzzing intensifying. Ten centimetres, then fifteen. Twenty before it reached its limit. But it appeared to be rigid and straight.

- excerpts from Chapter 14 of Aurora Rising (a.k.a. The Prefect)

---

Grenade Mode

The servitor was still approaching.
Thalia slowed as a cold, clear thought shaped itself. The whiphound was damaged, useless as a weapon now except in one very terminal sense. Thalia stopped, spun on her heels and grabbed at the handle. There was a gash in the casing, exposing obscene layers of internal componentry, things she had never been meant to see. The handle was warm, and every time it buzzed she felt it tremor in her hands. The tail drooped in a plumb line. Thalia twisted the knurled dials at the end of the handle, bringing two tiny red dots into alignment. The dots lit up and started pulsing.
Grenade mode. Minimum yield. Five-second fuse on release.
The tail sped back into the housing. The black handle was still buzzing in her hand, but the training slammed home with the icy clarity of something that had been burnt into muscle memory by agonising repetition.
She flung the whiphound. It left her hand, following a smooth arc towards the still-approaching servitor. She had aimed it to land just ahead of the machine, directly in its path. Too close and the manipulators would have time to pick it up and fling it aside. Too early, and it wouldn't do enough damage. She'd have liked the luxury of requesting maximum yield, but while that would have taken care of the advancing machine, it wouldn't have done wonders for Thalia or her party.
One second.
"Get down!" she shouted, preparing to fling herself against the ground.

Appearances

• A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency novel series
  • Aurora Rising / The Prefect (2007)
  • Elysium Fire (2018)