“They’re right ahead of us now,” Moyo said. He’d opened the front of his oilskin jacket in an attempt to cool himself. The drizzle was seeping through his energistic barrier, combining with sweat to soak his shirt.
“Two of them. And they’re not happy with us.”
Stephanie glanced up, trying to distinguish the source of the animus thoughts. The slight rise carrying the road was seventy yards in front.
Badly mangled grass and a few straggly bushes gleaming dully in the grizzly skin of rainwater. Dozens of ferrangs were pelting about excitedly, running together in packs of six or seven. Their cohesive motion reminded her of fish schools, every movement enacted in unison.
“I can’t see anyone,” McPhee grunted. “Hey, shitheads,” he shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Oh groovy,” Cochrane said. “Way to go, dude. That’ll make them real friendly. I mean it’s not like we’re in cosmically deep shit at this point and need help, or anything.”
Tina let out a miserable gasp as she slipped. “I hate this fucking mud!”
“You tell it as it is, babe.” Franklin helped her up, and the two of them leant against each other as they forced their way onwards. Stephanie glanced back down the length of Catmos Vale, and sucked in a fast breath.
The jeeps were barely half a mile away. Fifty yards to solid ground.
“We’re not going to make it.”
“What?” Moyo asked.
“We’re not going to make it.” She was panting heavily now. Not bothering with clothes, appearance, any energistic frippery—even the satellites would be able to see her now. She didn’t care. All that mattered was maintaining the integrity of her boots and shoving near-useless legs one in front of the other. Muscle spasms were shaking her calves and thighs.
Rana stumbled, falling to her knees. Mud squelched obscenely as it closed over her legs. She blew heavily, her face radiant, glistening with sweat.
Cochrane sloshed over and put his arm under her shoulders, dragging her up. The glutinous mud was reluctant to let go. “Hey, man, give me a hand here,” he yelled at the land ahead. “Come on, you guys, quit fooling around. This is like bigtime serious.”
The ferrang packs dodged round each other as they wheeled about aimlessly. Whoever the people were up ahead, they chose not to reveal themselves. A slight single-tone mechanical whine was becoming audible.
The jeep engines.
“Get me to her,” Moyo hissed.
He and Stephanie staggered over to the faltering couple. McPhee had come to a halt twenty yards from the land, staring back at them. “Keep going,” Stephanie yelled at him. “Go on. Somebody’s got to get out of this.”
With her help, Moyo took some of Rana’s weight from Cochrane. They slung her between them, and kicked their way forward again. “My legs,” Rana groaned miserably. “I can’t keep them going. They’re like fire. God damn it, this shouldn’t happen, I can move mountains with my mind.”
“No matter,” Cochrane said through gritted teeth. “We got you now, sister.” The three of them stumbled forwards. McPhee had reached the land, standing just above the mud to urge them on. Tina and Franklin were almost there. The pair of them were plainly exhausted. Only the big Scot seemed to have any stamina left.
Stephanie brought up the rear. The jeeps were seven hundred yards away now, on a stretch of dry road. Picking up speed. “Shit,” she whispered.
“Oh shit oh shit.” Even if McPhee started sprinting right now, he’d never make it to Ketton; they’d overhaul him easily. Perhaps if the rest of them started flinging white fire at the serjeants … What a ridiculous thought, she told herself. And I don’t have any to spare. I must focus on channelling my energistic power.
Ten yards to go.
I won’t put up a fight. It wouldn’t be the slightest good, and it might damage the body. I owe her that much.
At the heart of her mind she could feel the captive host stirring in anticipation. All four of them staggered up out of the mud, and simply collapsed on the soggy ground next to Tina and Franklin. And she still couldn’t see the owners of the two minds impinging so strongly on her perception.
“Stephanie Ash,” a woman’s voice said from the empty air. “I see your timing is as fucking atrocious as always.”
“Any second now,” an unseen man announced.
Both of their minds were hot with eagerness. Somewhere nearby, the slow-motion wheeze of bagpipes started up, swirling to a level piercing tone. Stephanie raised her head. Halfway between her and the jeeps, a lone Scottish piper stood facing the vehicles. Dressed in a kilt of Douglas tartan, black leather boots shining, he seemed totally oblivious of the mortal foe riding towards him. His fingers moved sedately as he played “Amazing Grace.” One of the serjeants in the front vehicle was standing up to get a clear look in over the mud-caked windscreen.
“I like it,” McPhee hooted.
“Our call to arms,” the concealed man replied. “It has a certain je ne sais quoi, no?”
Stephanie glanced round urgently, trying to pin down the voice. “Call to arms?”
An explosion sounded in the distance, rumbling fast over the quagmires and stagnant pools smothering Catmos Vale. A mine had detonated under the leading jeep, punching the front of the chassis into the air. It crashed down, spilling serjeants across the road. Blue white smoke billowed out from the crater in the concrete. Lumps of debris rained down. The other jeeps braked sharply. Serjeants froze all along the front line, crouching down.
The piper finished, and bowed solemnly at his enemies. There was a dull, potent thock, loud enough to quiver Stephanie’s gullet. Then another. A whole barrage started up, the individual thumps merging into a single soundwave. Tina squealed in fright.
“Ho shit,” Cochrane growled. “Those are mortars.”
“Well done,” said the woman. “Now keep down.”
It was, the Liberation’s coordinating AI acknowledged, a classic ambush, and executed perfectly. The jeeps were confined to one of the narrowest strips of land in the valley, unable to veer away. A sleet of mortar shells fell upon them, ranged precisely. High explosives detonated in a near constant bombardment, pulverizing the stalled vehicles, and shredding the serjeants riding them. Smoke, flame, and spumes of superfine mud belched out, obliterating the carnage from view.
The AI could do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Radar pulses from the SD sensor satellites swept the length of the valley, but they required several seconds to acquire lock on. The first bombardment lasted for ninety seconds, then the mortar operators switched to airburst shells, and changed elevation. Dense black clouds burst open above the line of serjeants as they toiled desperately through the quagmire. Broad circles of mud erupted into cyclones of beige foam as the shrapnel slashed down, obliterating the struggling figures.
Only then did the SD radars finish backtracking the mortar trajectories.
The AI launched its counterstrike. Incandescent scarlet beams stabbed down in retaliation, vaporising the possessed and their weapons in micro-seconds. Over a dozen patches of dry land were targeted. Supersonic torrents of steam flared out from the base of each impact. When they gusted away, the mortar sites had been reduced to shallow craters of hardbaked clay, their centres still radiant. They chittered softly as the drizzle fell, prizing open millions of tiny heat stress fractures.
The empty silence returned. Swirls of smoke drifted over the valley floor, dissipating slowly to reveal the burning wrecks of the jeeps.
Spread out across the quagmire, the ruptured bodies of the serjeants were gradually claimed by the mud’s tireless embrace. Within an hour, there would be little left to hint at the conflict.
Stephanie found herself clawing into the soft soil, every muscle locked solid to resist the laser pulse. It never came. She let out a wretched sob, surrendering to the severe shaking that claimed her limbs. Two of the ferrang packs crept towards Stephanie and her friends. They dissolved into a pair of human figures dressed in dark gr
ey and green combat fatigues. Annette Ekelund and Soi Hon looked down at them with anger and contempt.
“You idiots could have got us blown back into the beyond by blundering about like that,” Annette said. “What if dear Ralph considered you to be part of this operation? They would have zeroed this patch of ground for sure.”
Cochrane lifted his head, mud dribbling down his face to saturate his wild beard. His dead reefer was squashed against his lips. He spat it out. “Well like fuck me gently with a chainsaw, sister. I’m real sorry to cause you any inconvenience.”
Not even Lalonde’s oppressive climate prepared Ralph for the awesome humidity when he stepped out of the Royal Marine hypersonic transport plane. It prickled his skin at the same time as it siphoned away vital body energies. Just breathing it in was exhausting.
With the last strands of cloud at last gusting out to sea, the tropical sun could finally exert its full strength against poor malaised Mortonridge. Thousands of square kilometres of mud began to effervesce, thickening the air with hot cloying vapour. Looking round from the top of the airstair, Ralph could see long ribbons of tenuous white cloud flowing with oily tenacity around the hummocks and foothills of the broad valley.
More mist was percolating up from the highlands on either side, with long snow-white streamers spilling out through clefts in the valley walls to slither down the slope like slow-motion waterfalls.
He sniffed at the air. Threaded through the blanket of clean moisture were the traces of corruption. The peninsula’s dead biomass was starting to rot and ferment. In another few days the stench would be formidable, and no doubt extremely unhealthy. One more factor to consider. Though it was a long way down on the priority list.
Ralph hurried down the aluminium stairs, with Brigadier Palmer and Cathal just behind him. For once there was no Marine detail waiting to guard him. They’d landed outside the staging camp established in the mouth of Catmos Vale. Hundreds of programmable silicon igloos had sprung up in rows like giant powder-blue mushrooms, a miniature recreation of Fort Forward. The only people here were serjeants, occupation troops, and medical case de-possessed. Plus a handful of rover reporters; all officially authorized Liberation correspondents, with a pair of Royal Marine information officers shepherding them.
When he looked up the valley, the loose smears of mist blurred into a single featureless white sheet carpeting the floor. His enhanced retinas zoomed in on the only visible feature, the slim greyish spire of Ketton’s church rising out of the mist. Just by looking at it, Ralph could sense the possessed mustering in the town, a replay of the gentle mental pressure they’d all known in the days of the red cloud.
“She’s here,” he murmured. “The Ekelund woman. She’s in Ketton.”
“Are you sure?” Cathal asked.
“I can feel her, just like before. In any case, she’s one of their leaders, and this bunch are well organized.” Cathal gave the distant spire a dubious glance.
The camp’s commander, Colonel Anton Longhurst, was waiting at the bottom of the airstairs. He saluted Ralph. “Welcome to Catmos Vale, sir.”
“Thank you, Colonel. Looks like you’ve got yourself an interesting command here.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll show you round. That’s after …” he indicated the reporters.
“Ah yes.” Ralph kept his ire under control. They’d probably all be using audio discrimination programs, the bastards never missed a trick.
The information officers signalled the all clear, and the rover reporters closed in. “General Hiltch, Hugh Rosler with DataAxis; can you please tell us why the front line has stalled?”
Ralph gave a wan, knowing smile to the plain-looking man in a check shirt and sleeveless jacket who’d asked the question. An in-your-face transmission of the cordial public persona he’d developed and deployed for the last few weeks. “Oh come on, guys. We’re consolidating the ground we’ve already recovered. There’s a lot more to the Liberation than just rushing forward at breakneck pace. We have to be sure, and I mean absolutely sure, that none of the possessed has managed to sneak through. Don’t forget, it was just one possessed who got into Mortonridge that was responsible for this in the first place. You don’t want a repeat of that, do you?”
“General, Tim Beard, Collins; is it true the serjeants simply can’t hack it anymore now that the possessed have started to put up real resistance?”
“No, it is categorically not true. And if you show me the person who said that, I’ll give them a personal and private demonstration of my contempt for such a remark. I flew in here today, and you people drove in from the coast.” He waved a hand back at the mud-covered land. “They walked the whole way from the beaches, engaged in tens of thousands of separate combat incidents. And on the way they’ve rescued nearly three hundred thousand people from possession. Now does that really sound as though they can’t hack it to you, because it doesn’t to me.”
“So why isn’t the front line continuing its advance?”
“Because we’ve reached a new stage of the campaign. Forgive me for not broadcasting our gameplan before, but this kind of reinforcement manoeuvre was inevitable. As you can see, we’ve reached Ketton, which has a large number of well organized and hostile possessed in residence—and this is just one of several such assemblies around Mortonridge. The army is simply redeploying accordingly. When we have sufficient resources assembled, then the serjeants will take the town. But I have no intention of committing them until I’m convinced such an operation can be achieved with the minimum of loss on both sides. Thank you.” He started to walk forwards.
“General, Elizabeth Mitchell, Time Warner; one final question, please.” Her voice was authoritative and insistent, impossible to ignore. “Have you got any comment about the defeat in the valley?”
Trust the owner of that voice to ask something he’d really rather avoid, Ralph thought. “Yes, I have. In hindsight advancing down Catmos Vale so fast was a tactical error, a very bad one; and I take full responsibility for that. Although we knew the possessed are equipped with hunting rifles we weren’t expecting them to have artillery. Mortars are about the crudest kind of artillery it’s possible to build; but even so, very effective given certain situations. This was one of them. Now we know what the possessed are capable of, it won’t happen again. Every time they use a new weapon or tactic against us, we can analyse it and guard against it in future. And there are only a very limited number of these moves they can play.” He moved on again, more determined this time. A fast datavise to the two information officers, and there were no more shouted questions.
“Sorry about them,” Colonel Longhurst said.
“Not a problem for me,” Ralph replied.
“You shouldn’t play up to scenes like that,” Cathal said in annoyance as they made their way to the camp’s headquarters. “It’s undignified. At least you could hold a proper press conference with vetted questions.”
“This is as much propaganda as it is physical war, Cathal,” Ralph said.
“Besides, you’re still thinking like an ESA officer: tell nobody, and tell them nothing. The public wants to see authority in action on this campaign. We have to provide that.”
Convoys of supply trucks were still arriving at the camp, Colonel Longford explained as he took them on an inspection tour. The Royal Marine engineering squads had little trouble securing the programmable silicon igloos; this section of land was several metres above the mud of the valley floor. But there were logistics problems with supplying the troops.
“It’s taking the trucks fifteen hours to get here from the coast,” he said. “The engineers have virtually had to rebuild the damn road as they went along. Even now there are some sections that are just lines of marker beacons in the mud.”
“I can’t do anything about the mud,” Ralph said. “Believe me, we’ve tried. Solidifying chemicals, SD lasers to bake it; they’re no good on the kind of scale we’re dealing with here.”
“What we really need is air support. Y
ou flew out here.”
“This was the first inland flight,” Janne Palmer said. “And your landing field could barely accommodate the hypersonic. You’ll never be able to handle cargo planes.”
“There’s plenty of clear high ground nearby, we can build a link road.”
“I’ll look into authorizing it,” Ralph said. “We should certainly consider flying in the serjeants ready for the assault on the town.”
“Appreciate that,” the colonel said. “Things out here are a little different than the AI says they should be.”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here, to see how you’re coping.”
“We are now. It was bedlam the first day. Could certainly have done with the planes to evac the injured and the depossessed out. That ride back to the coast isn’t doing them any good.”
They came to the big oval hall where Elana Duncan and her team had set up shop. The massive boosted mercenary greeted Ralph with a casual salute of her arm, clicking her claws together. “Not much ceremony in here, General,” she said. “We’re rather too crowded for that right now. Go see whatever you want, but don’t bother my people, please, they’re kind of busy right now.”
Ten zero-tau pods were lined up down the centre of the hall, all of them active. The big machines with their thick power cables and compact mosaic of components looked strangely out of place. Or it could be out of era, Ralph acknowledged. The rest of the hall was given over to cots for the serjeants, a field hospital whose primitiveness dismayed him. Elana’s mercenaries were carrying large plastic bottles and rolls of disposable paper towels, doing their rounds along the dark bitek constructs. There was a strong chemical smell in the air which Ralph couldn’t place. He had some distant memory of it, but certainly not one indexed by his neural nanonics, nor a didactic memory—although they were notoriously inaccurate when it came to imparting smells.
Ralph went over to the first serjeant. The construct was sucking quietly at the tube of a clear polythene bag containing its nutrient syrup, a liquid like thin honey. “Did you get hit by the mortars?”