“Tu Lee reported that the missiles required continual guidance updates,” Tunde Sutton said.
“Meaning what?” Rafael asked.
“Possibly, the Prime commanders don’t allow for a lot of independence on the battlefront.”
“Okay,” Wilson said. “Anna, have we got any electronic warfare systems we can deploy?”
“There are several EW aerobots on the central registry.”
“Good. Get them out there fast. Close down those links. Let’s see if that has any effect on them.”
Randtown had finally given in to panic. As soon as the alien ships had splashed down on the Trine’ba, the vehicles parked around the bus station began to move as families headed out for the perceived safety of the valleys behind the town. Horns blared in fury, their combined racket almost as loud as the ships’ exhaust. There were collisions all along the road as they made U-turns or accelerated out from the curb where they’d been waiting.
Mark kept glancing around at the chaos as he worked with Napo Langsal on the power supply of a bus. The two of them had almost rigged a bypass around the superconductor battery regulator.
“They’re losing it big time,” Mark grunted.
The queue for the bus had turned into a violent scrum around the open door, shoving had deteriorated into the first fists being thrown. He and Napo were being shouted at and threatened, anything to get the bus working.
A shotgun was fired in the center of the bus station. Everyone paused for a second. Mark had ducked immediately, now he cautiously lifted his head. It was Simon Rand who’d fired the antique pump action weapon straight into the air.
“Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” Simon said, his loud bass voice carrying right across the station as he turned a complete circle. Even people scrambling around the vehicles outside had paused to listen. “Nothing has changed our immediate situation, so you will stick to the plan we drew up.” He pumped the shotgun, the spent cartridge twirling away. “There are enough buses to carry everyone out, and they will leave shortly, so kindly stop harassing the engineers. Now, in order to guarantee that we can all reach the Highmarsh safely, I will require a volunteer team to stay here in town with me and act as a rear guard to allow the convoy to get a head start. Anyone with a weapon, please report to the passenger waiting lounge to receive your instructions.” He lowered the shotgun.
“Holy Christ,” Napo grunted.
Mark closed the cable box, and pressed the reset button. “How’s that?” he called up to the driver. The woman gave him a thumbs-up. “You get along to the next bus,” he told Napo.
Napo gave Mark’s hunting laser a dubious glance. “He can’t make you, you know.”
“I know.” Mark looked toward the two vast clouds of steam squatting over the Trine’ba, obscuring the ships. The surface was still reeling from their splashdown, with big waves rolling ashore, washing over the wall that ran alongside the promenade. “But he’s right. People need time to get clear.”
Dudley Bose gave Mellanie a panicked look as they approached the bus. The crowd was pressing in tight around them, carrying them forward.
“Do you think there’s room?” he asked. The bus already looked full, with people squashed into the seats, and more packing the aisle.
“If not this one, then the next,” she told him. “You’ll be fine.”
“I… ? What about you?”
“I’ll grab a later one.” She could barely see Dudley, her virtual vision was displaying so many symbols and icons. Very little of the dataflow made any sense. She’d glimpsed some standard information amid the mad rainbow swirls, which seemed to be some kind of sensor data. Her newly activated inserts were scanning the steam clouds on the Trine’ba, analyzing the ships hidden inside. She was trying to remain aloof from it all, being a true impartial reporter, but the adrenaline flushing through her blood was making her heart pound away and giving her the shakes. The SI kept telling her to relax. It was tough; this most certainly wasn’t what she’d expected when she made her deal with it.
“No!” Dudley cried. “No, you can’t leave me. Not now. Please, you promised.”
“Dudley.” She put her hands on either side of his head, holding him steady, then kissed him hard amid the jostling. Concentrating on calming him was subduing her own apprehension. “I’m not going to leave you. I promised that and I’ll keep that promise. But there are things I have to do here that no one else can. Now get on the bus, and I’ll follow the convoy.”
They’d reached the door. She let go of him, and smiled with winning reassurance. It was a truthful smile, because there was no way she was going to relinquish her hold over him for the moment; he was her ace now, making her a real player. Though given the scary abilities the SI’s inserts were providing she was beginning to wonder if she even needed Alessandra and the show anymore. She didn’t know if she could operate them independently, but just having them there was giving her a kind of courage she admitted she’d never had before. Before this, she would have been first on the bus, clawing children and little old ladies out of the way.
The crowd pushed Dudley up the stairs, and she wriggled free. He looked back frantically as he was shoved along the aisle. “I love you,” he bellowed.
Mellanie made herself smile at him, and blew a kiss.
Liz and Carys were waiting by the pickup. Mark smiled and waved at Barry and Sandy, who were in the backseat with Panda. “I’m going to help Rand,” he said. “Take Barry and Sandy up to the Highmarsh.”
“I’m staying with you,” Liz said.
“But—”
“Mark, I really hope you aren’t going to come out with any crap about this being a man’s job.”
“They need a mother.”
“And a father.”
“I can’t abandon Rand. This is our life they’re destroying. At the very least I owe the people this. Some of us have to get away, that’s the only way we can rebuild afterward.”
“Agreed. And I’m helping you.”
“Carys?” he appealed.
“Don’t even think about involving me in this argument. But if you two crazies are going to join up with Rand’s guerrilla army I’ll take the kids out of here in the MG.” She patted a heavy bulge in her jacket. “They’ll be safe with me, I promise. And we’ve got the arrays, we can stay in touch.”
Mark nearly questioned when his family had become gun-toting survivalists. Instead he gave Carys a quick kiss. “Thanks.” Then he and Liz had the really difficult job of coaxing the kids into the MG, promising them Mom and Dad would be following along right behind.
Dark specks zipped out of the cloud that squatted over half of the Trine’ba. They arrowed around to line up on Randtown, accelerating hard.
“They’re coming,” Liz called.
Mark was backing the pickup into the Ables Motors garage workshop where it would be hidden from view. David Dunbavand was standing behind the truck, helping to guide him in with shouts and frantic hand signals. Mark had never appreciated how difficult it was to drive without micro radar providing a proximity scan.
“That’s enough,” David said. “Let’s go.” He slipped the safety off his maser wand as they left the back of the garage. Like most buildings, it had taken a pounding in the Regents’ blast. The office along the front was missing all its windows, and the external walls were shredded, but the main framework was intact. It would be easy to rebuild, given a little time and money.
That was the kind of thinking—visualizing a future of complete normality—that allowed Mark to keep going. He squatted down next to Liz behind a thick stone wall that bordered the Libra Bar’s beer garden. The blast had hurled the garden’s wooden tables and chairs across the lawn, smashing them against the wall of the Zanue car rental franchise next door. Liz and he had come here on many summertime evenings for a meal and a drink, sitting out in the garden with friends where they could watch the boats come and go from the quays along the waterfront.
Now they had the same clear view of the waterfront through their weapon sights. The rain had subsided to a light drizzle laced with a few slim trails of gray smoke from the dying fires. Mark could see the alien flyers skimming toward him just a few meters above the wavelets.
“Stand by,” Simon’s voice said from the handheld array. “They look like they’re slowing. Could be plan A.”
There had been a lot of shouting about that when Simon assembled his ragtag band of two dozen guerrillas in the passenger waiting lounge. Plan A envisaged the aliens landing in the town, which would allow the guerrillas to snipe at them, slowing their advance. Plan B, the worst-case scenario, would have them flying over the town to attack the convoy directly, in which case they’d have to fire a fusillade of shots at the craft as they went overhead and hope to hit some vital component. Everyone knew that would be next to useless. As always, Simon had prevailed.
Mark looked over his shoulder. The last of the buses were visible on the highway at the base of Blackwater Crag, traveling far too fast for anything that didn’t have working arrays and safety systems. They only needed a few minutes more and they’d be turning into the Highmarsh.
Looking at the approaching alien flyers, Mark wasn’t convinced that the big valley was going to be the refuge Simon had claimed. In his private vision of the future, Mark had envisaged the aliens coming ashore in boats, taking days to reach the Highmarsh.
“Carys, where are you?” Liz asked.
“We turned onto the Highmarsh road a couple of minutes ago.”
“They’re in aircraft. Looks like they’re landing here, though.”
“Okay, let me know if any are coming our way. I’ll need to get off the road fast.”
“Will do.”
Mark glanced at the unit’s screen. Their signal was routing through the still-functional sections of the district’s network. Several nodes along the Highmarsh were operating, allowing them to extend their fragile contact around the mountains. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t last long once the aliens landed and started running sensor sweeps.
The first of the alien flyers arrived at the shoreline. It hovered just above the water, spindly metal legs unfolding from beneath its cylindrical fuselage. After a moment of hesitation it landed on the broad promenade next to the Celestial Tours quay, the aft section knocking into the wall and demolishing a five-meter length, breaking the long single line of poetry.
“Wait,” Simon’s voice urged them with soft confidence. “We need most of them down first, then we can begin our harassment campaign.”
Mark wondered where Simon had gained so much combat experience; he certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about. More likely it was all from TSI dramas. He glanced out at the lake again, startled by just how many flyers were now heading their way.
“Ho boy,” David muttered.
