When Ralph’s battleship emerged above Ombey he had seen nine Royal Navy Aquilae-class bulk transport starships in parking formation around a low-orbit port station along with their escort of fifteen front-line frigates. There were only twenty-five of the huge transporters left on active service; capable of carrying seventeen thousand tonnes of cargo they were the largest starships ever built, and hugely expensive to fly and maintain. Kulu was gradually phasing them out in favour of smaller models based on commercial designs.
They were being supported by big old delta-wing CK500-090 Thunderbird spaceplanes, the only atmospheric craft capable of handling the four-hundred-tonne cargo pods carried by the Aquilae transporters. Again, a fleet on the verge of retirement; they had been the first consignment ferried to Ombey by the transports. Most of the Thunderbirds had spent the last fifteen years in mothball status at the Royal Navy’s desert storage facility on Kulu. Now they were being reactivated as fast as the maintenance crews could fit new components from badly depleted war stocks.
Even more portentous than the buildup of navy ships were the voidhawks. Nearly eighty had arrived so far, with new ones swallowing in every hour, their lower hull cargo cradles full of pods (which could be handled by conventional civil flyers). Never before had so many of the bitek starships been seen orbiting a Kingdom world.
Ralph had experienced the same kind of uncomfortable awe he’d known at Azara as he observed them flitting around the docking stations. He was the one who had started this, creating a momentum which had engulfed entire star systems. It was unstoppable now. All he could do was ride it to a conclusion.
The ion field flyer landed at Colonel Palmer’s camp. The colonel herself was waiting for him at the base of the airstairs, Dean Folan and Will Danza prominent in the small reception committee behind her, both grinning broadly.
Colonel Palmer shook his hand, giving his new uniform a more than casual inspection. “Welcome back, Ralph, or should I say sir?”
He wasn’t completely used to the uniform himself yet, a smart dark blue tunic with three ruby pips glinting on his shoulder. “I don’t know, exactly. I’m a general in the official Liberation campaign army now, its very first officer. Apart from the King, of course. The formation was made official three days ago, announced in the court of the Apollo Palace. I’ve been appointed chief strategic coordination officer.”
“You mean you’re the Liberation’s numero uno?”
“Yeah,” he said with quiet surprise. “I guess I am at this end.”
“Rather you than me.” She gestured northwards. “Talk about coming back with reinforcements.”
“It’s going to get wonderfully worse. One million bitek serjeants are on their way, and God alone knows how many human troops to back them up. We’ve even had mercenaries volunteering.”
“You accepted them?”
“I’ve no idea. But I’ll use whatever I’m given.”
“All right, so what are your orders, sir?”
He laughed. “Just keep up the good work. Have any of them tried to break out?”
She turned her head to face the wall of angry cloud, her expression stern. “No. They stick to their side of the firebreak. There have been plenty of sightings. We think they’re keeping an eye on us. But it’s only my patrols who are visible to them.” A thumb jabbed back over her shoulder. “They don’t know anything about all this.”
“Good. We can’t keep it secret forever, of course; but the longer the better.”
“Some kids came out last week. It was the first interesting thing to happen since you left.”
“Kids?”
“A woman called Stephanie Ash bused seventy-three non-possessed children right up to the firebreak. Gave the roadblock guard a hell of a fright, I can tell you. Apparently she’d collected them from all over the peninsula. We evacuated them to a holding camp. I think your friend Jannike Dermot has got her experts debriefing them on conditions over there.”
“Now that’s a report I’d like to access.” He squinted at the red cloud. That elusive knot of shadow seemed to have returned. It was elliptical this time, hanging over the M6. It didn’t take much imagination to suspect it of staring at him. “I think I’ll take a closer look before I set up my command at Fort Forward,” he announced.
Will and Dean rode shotgun on the Marine Corps runabout which took him up to the orange roadblock. It was good to talk with them again. They’d been attached to Palmer’s brigade as combat liaison for the agency, supporting the various technical teams Roche Skark had dispatched to the firebreak. Both of them wanted to know every detail of his meetings with the King. They were annoyed he wouldn’t datavise his visual files of Prince Edward playing at the Apollo Palace, but they were confidential. And so grows the mystique, Ralph thought, amused that he should be contributing to it.
The marines at the roadblock saluted smartly as Ralph and the Colonel arrived. Ralph chatted to them as cordially as he could manage. They didn’t seem to mind the red cloud; he found it intimidating in the extreme. It loomed barely three hundred metres above him, vigorous thrashing streamers packed so close together there was no gap between them, layer upon layer stacked up to what seemed like the edge of space. The sonorous reverberations from its internal brawling was diabolically attuned to the harmonic of human bones. Millions of tonnes of contaminated water hanging suspended in the air by witchcraft, ready to crash down like the waterfall at the end of the world. He wondered how little effort on behalf of the possessed it would take to do just that. Could it be he really had underestimated their power? It wasn’t the scale of the cloud which perturbed him so much as the
“Sir,” one of the barrier guards shouted in alarm. “Visible hostile, on foot, three hundred metres.”
Dean and Will were abruptly standing in front of Ralph, their gaussguns pointing across the firebreak.
“I think this is enough front-line inspection for today,” Colonel Palmer said. “Let’s get you back to the runabout, please, Ralph.”
“Wait.” Ralph looked between the two G66 troopers to see a single figure walking up the M6. A woman dressed in a neatly cut leather uniform, her face stained warrior-scarlet by the nimbus of the seething clouds. He knew exactly who it was, in fact he would almost have been disappointed if she hadn’t appeared. “She’s not a threat. Not yet, anyway.”
He slipped between Will and Dean to stand full square in the middle of the road, facing her down.
Annette Ekelund stopped at the forwards barrier on her side of the firebreak. She took a slim mobile phone from her pocket, extended its ten-centimetre aerial, then tapped in a number.
Ralph’s communications block announced a channel opening. He switched it to audio function.
“Hello, Ralph. I thought you would come back, you’re the kind that does. And I see you’ve brought some friends with you.”
“That’s right.”
“Why don’t you bring them on over and join the party?”
“We’ll pick our own time.”
“I have to say I’m disappointed; that’s not quite what we agreed to back in Exnall, now is it? And with a Saldana Princess, too. Dear me, you can’t trust anyone these days.”
“A promise made under duress is not legally binding. I’m sure you’ll have enough lawyers on your side to confirm that.”
“I thought I explained all this to you, Ralph. We can’t lose, not against the living.”
“I don’t believe you. No matter what the cost, we must defeat you. The human race will end if you are allowed to win. I believe we deserve to keep on going.”
“You and your ideals, the original Mr Focused. No wonder you found a profession which allowed you to give loyal service. It suits you perfectly. Congratulations, Ralph, you have found yourself, not everyone can say that. In another universe, one that isn’t so warped as this, I’d envy you.”
“Thank you.”
“There was a nasty little phrase coined in my era, Ralph; but it’s still appropriate today, because it too came from a dogmatic soldier in a pointless war.
“Whatever I have to.”
“But we’ll still be here afterwards, Ralph, we’ll always be here. The finest minds in the galaxy have been working on this problem. Scientists and priests scurrying for hard answers and bland philosophies. Millions—
