Bombardment projectiles were sent through, aimed at the smaller habitation zones and the perimeter of larger ones. It found other targets—the human quantum sensors, communications webs, satellites, power grids—and guided its projectiles at them. MorningLightMountain’s intention was to eliminate the humans themselves while keeping their industrial centers relatively intact. Those that survived, it wanted to drive out of their buildings and disperse ineffectually across the unused land.
Force fields came on over the cities. MorningLightMountain hadn’t expected that; the Bose memories had no knowledge of such things. It couldn’t open its wormholes inside them; over the immense distance it was operating positioning them within two thousand kilometers of a planet was as close as it could get. For precise exits, it needed gateways to anchor the wormholes.
Small flying machines,aerobots, rose up around the cities, shooting projectiles. MorningLightMountain had no choice, it increased the number of projectiles it was sending through, guiding them to create the maximum damage.
When it opened the wormholes above the major world Wessex, it encountered even stronger resistance. It could see down onto the megacity that was two-thirds industrial facilities. The scale surpassed most of its own planet-based settlements, while the efficiency of the human systems with their electronic controllers went beyond anything it had achieved.
A human starship flew above Anshun, knocking out dozens of bombardment projectiles. MorningLightMountain’s response was standard, it sent through more projectiles. When the human starship began to fall in and out of its own wormhole MorningLightMountain diverted more immotile groupings to concentrate on its own wormhole generator mechanisms, shifting the energy composition to act as an inhibitor. Tens of thousands of additional immotiles focused on the problem, taking its control ability to the absolute limit. With the starship restricted to real space, it fired an overwhelming salvo of projectiles.
Something happened to one of its wormholes above Wessex. Energy surged along the disintegrating fabric of the distortion, overloading the generator mechanism that was built on one of the four giant asteroids that orbited the interstellar wormhole at the staging post. The resulting explosion knocked out the tower storing the bombardment projectiles, and even reached out to the squadron of ships waiting above it.
MorningLightMountain urgently searched through its memory of the event. As it did, another two wormholes collapsed, their energy flashbacks wrecking the generators. MorningLightMountain realized they were actually being overloaded by an external force. It switched more immotile group clusters to the problem, increasing the power to the remaining generators to counter a further five attempts at destabilization.
The struggle evolved into a contest of power capacity. MorningLightMountain was powering its wormholes from magflux extractor disks dropped into the staging post star’s corona, transferring the induced power to the asteroids via a small wormhole. Even with those providing maximum output, there was a limit to how much the wormhole generators themselves could handle. And the humans were changing their methods of attack with a speed it could not match, modifying interference patterns and resonance amplification in nanoseconds. They, too, seemed to have unlimited power to draw on.
A further twenty-seven wormhole generators either exploded or twisted into molten ruin. MorningLightMountain ended its attempted capture of Wessex, diverting the remaining wormholes to planets where there was no interference. On most of them the results of the bombardment projectiles were disappointing. But the human defenses were slowly being beaten back by the sheer quantity of projectiles it was firing through. It halted the projectiles, and flew the first ships through into the Commonwealth.
Altogether, it had gathered a fleet of forty-eight thousand for its preliminary expansion stage.
It was getting crowded at the center of Wilson’s tactical display. The ghostly image of Elaine Doi herself had joined him, along with Nigel Sheldon, their spectral presence giving his orders supreme executive authority. To advise on tactics and technology he had the shades of Dimitri Leopoldovich and Tunde Sutton floating in attendance behind him.
Right now he would have welcomed a genuine spook, a psychic who could tell him what was coming next, or at least take a good guess. They were watching the last of the Prime projectiles rushing down over twenty-one besieged planets—he considered that ominous while everyone else was overjoyed. Wessex had successfully banished the alien wormholes, but Olivenza and Balya had dropped out of the unisphere when their station force fields were breached. The CST planetary station on Anshun had switched off their connecting gateways.
“Can’t you overload the remaining alien wormholes?” Doi asked Nigel. She was keen for further victories.
“I burned out eighteen of our wormhole generators taking out thirty of theirs,” Nigel said. “Do the math. That’s not a good ratio. Without wormholes we don’t have a Commonwealth. In any case, I doubt we have enough power reserves right now.”
Wilson said nothing. He’d watched helplessly as Sheldon sucked more and more power out of the Commonwealth power grid. All of the Big15 worlds had switched to niling d-sink reserves as their nuclear generators were called on. Earth had suffered an unprecedented complete civil power loss as Sheldon diverted the entire lunar output to support his space-warping battle above Wessex; while every other world in phase one and two space had experienced blackouts and brownouts as their domestic generators were put on front-line duty. For a while it had been touch and go: several city force fields had flickered alarmingly from the power loss. Right now everyone was busy recharging their storage facilities.
It had been a desperate exercise, although Wilson had to admit there had been no alternative. But if the Primes had chosen that moment to launch a further wave of attacks, the results would have been catastrophic. Wilson had been reduced to praying.
“You mean they’re here to stay?” Doi asked.
“For the moment, yes,” Wilson said.
“For the love of God, the money we gave you…”
“Enough to commission three warships,” Wilson snapped back. “I’m not even sure three hundred would have been enough today.”
“The aerobots and force fields have done a damn good job,” Rafael said. “Without them the damage would have been considerably greater.”
“But the casualties,” the President said. “Good God, man, we’ve lost two million people.”
“More than that,” Anna said soberly. “A lot more.”
“And it’s going to rise,” Wilson said, deliberately harsh. “Dimitri, can you give us some options on their next move?”
“They have softened us up,” the Russian academic said. “Occupation is the logical follow-up. You must be prepared for a full-scale invasion.”
“Tunde, what’s the ecological damage level on the assaulted worlds?”
“In a word, bad. Anshun took the worst pounding. The storms are just beginning there, at the very least they’ll spread the radioactive fallout right over the planet. The Primes don’t use particularly clean fusion bombs. Decontamination would cost a fortune, even if it was practical—which I doubt. Cheaper to evacuate and ship everyone to a new phase three planet. The other worlds are in varying stages of climate breakdown and nuclear pollution. Given our general population’s attitude to nuclear and environmental issues, I’d say nobody will want to stay on anyway.”
“I agree,” Wilson said. “I want to begin evacuation today.”
“On all of them?” Doi asked. “I can’t consent to that. Where the hell would they all go?”
“Friends, relatives, hotels, government camps. Who cares. That’s not my problem. We need to get everyone left alive on those planets under the force fields, then get them out. I want our military reserve shipped out there to help; every paramilitary officer, every police tactical assault squad; all the aerobots we can spare. Between them the planetary governments have enough combat personnel to put together a reasonable sized army. Madam President, I’ll n
eed you to sign an executive order putting them under Admiral Columbia’s command.”
“I… I’m not sure.”
“I’ll back you up,” Nigel said. “And so will the Intersolar Dynasties. Wilson’s right, we need to get this moving.”
“Can you get wormholes opened in the other cities on those planets?” Wilson asked. “We’ll never be able to transport everyone to the capitals.”
“Narrabri station’s gateways aren’t in great shape right now,” Nigel said. “But we’ll cope, the whole goddamn train network is shut down anyway. We can divert the gateways we have left on Wessex, but it won’t be for trains. People will have to get through on foot, or buses.”
“What about Olivenza and Balya?”
“We can use the Anshun exploratory division’s wormhole to reestablish contact, see if there’s anyone left alive.”
“The Prime wormholes have stopped moving around,” Rafael said. “Oh, Christ on a crutch, here they come.”
Radar and visual sensors showed Prime ships flying out of the wormholes above each of the besieged worlds.
“If they start landing you can forget trying to evacuate anybody,” Dimitri said. “There’s no time. We have to knock out their center of operations, hit their wormholes on the other side, where they’re vulnerable.”
“How long until the starships reach Anshun?” Wilson asked.
“Two are already at the rendezvous point,” Anna said. “Another eight hours until the final one gets there.”
“Son of a bitch! Rafael, start the evacuation of everyone in the capitals right away. We’ll get them clear at least.”
“I’ll get wormholes opened to the other protected cities,” Nigel said.
“What about the people left outside?” Doi said. “In God’s name we have to do something for them.”
“We will see what we can do to assist,” the SI said.
It took Mark forty minutes, but he eventually got the Ables pickup working again. A whole load of circuitry had burned out, stuff he managed to jury-rig or bypass. Liz and Carys spent the time packing, bringing out a couple of cases of clothes and all of the family’s camping gear.
“I think the cybersphere is coming back,” Liz said as she dumped the last bag in the back of the pickup. “The house array is bringing up a basic communications menu.”
“The house array is working?” he asked in surprise. There had been a lot more than simple electronic damage. Most of the windows had blown in, even the triple-glazed ones, covering every room with shards of broken glass. Seeing what the blast had done to their home was almost as big a shock as witnessing the explosion, and infinitely more upsetting. It was as if each room had been deliberately, maliciously vandalized.
Even so, Mark reckoned they must have got off lighter than most. At least their drycoral house was all domes, allowing the worst of the blastwave pressure to slip smoothly over it; flat vertical walls would have taken a bad pounding. He couldn’t bear looking out over the vineyards; almost every row had been knocked flat. It was the same all the way down the Ulon Valley as far as he could see.
“I can’t interface with it,” Liz said. “But the backup monitor screen in the utility room survived, so I could type in a few commands. Ninety percent of the system has crashed, and I can’t get the reload and repair program to run. The network operation protocol is about the only thing that is there; it’s definitely hooked into the valley node. The cable is fiber-optic, it can survive a lot worse than this.”
“Did you try calling anyone?”
“Sure. I went for the Dunbavands and the Conants first. Nothing. Then I tried the Town Hall; I even tried the Black House. Nobody’s home.”
“Or they don’t realize the system’s rebuilding itself; it’ll take time even with genetic algorithms restructuring around the damage.”
“They probably never will find out if their inserts are screwed like ours. Who knows how to work a keyboard these days.”
“I do,” Barry said.
Mark put his arms around his son. The boy still had dirt and tears smeared over his face. He seemed to be recovering from the shock, though. “That’s because you’re brilliant,” Mark told him.
“Clouds coming,” Carys said. She was looking to the north, where long streamers of white vapor were sliding low and fast over the Dau’sings. They were like fluffy spears heading toward the smog-clotted remains of the Regents.
Liz eyed them wearily. “Going to rain before long. Heavy rain.” She turned to Mark. “So which way are we heading?”
“It’s a long way to the gateway,” he said.
“If it’s still there,” Carys said. “They used a nuke to take out a remote detector station, God knows what they hit the CST station with. And that highway is one very long, very exposed route. Then we have to cross an ocean.”
“There’s no other way out,” he said.
“You know we have to check on the others,” Liz said. “I want to get the children to safety, more than anything, but we have to know where safe is. And right now I’m not convinced it’s the other side of the Dau’sings.”
Mark glanced up at the sky, suddenly fearful of the sight. He’d never realized before how open it was. “Suppose… they come?”
“Here?” Carys was scathing. “Sorry, you guys, but come on. Randtown isn’t exactly the strategic center of the universe. Without the detector station this is nothing.”
“You’re probably right,” Mark said. “Okay, we’ll head for town, and check in with a few neighbors on the way.”
“Good enough plan,” Liz said. “We need to know what’s happening on the rest of Elan, and the Commonwealth. If the government makes any attempt to contact us, it’ll be at the town.”
“If there is a government,” Carys said.
Liz gave her a sharp glance. “There will be.”
“Into the pickup,” Mark told the kids. They clambered into the backseat without a word. An equally subdued Panda quickly jumped up with them. He almost ordered the dog out, then relented. They needed every bit of comfort they could get right now. All of them.
“I’ll follow you,” Carys said.
“Okay. Keep your handheld array on.” They’d dug out three old models from the house that had been switched off when the emp washed over the valley. It had been simple enough for Mark to alter their programs so they could be used as basic communicators, giving them a five-mile range.
Carys gave a backward wave of reassurance as she made her way over to the MG. To Mark’s complete surprise and grudging respect, the sports car’s systems had survived the emp almost intact.
“You’d better take this,” Liz said. She handed him his hunting rifle, a high-power laser with a low-light focus lock sight. “I checked it, it still works.”
“God, Liz.” He snatched a hurried, guilty glance at the kids. “What for?”
“People can behave badly in times of stress. And I’m not convinced the way Carys is about the Primes leaving us alone.” She opened her jacket to show an ion pistol in a shoulder holster.
“Holy shit. Where did that come from?”
“A friend. Mark, we live kilometers from anywhere, and you were away from home during the day.”
“But… a gun!”
“I’m just being practical, baby, a girl should know how to look after herself.”
“Right,” he said dumbly. Today it didn’t seem important, somehow. In fact, he was rather glad she’d got it. He climbed up into the front of the pickup, and drove it off down the long track to the main valley road.
Randtown was still standing. Sort of. The Regents had deflected the worst of the blast upward, but the terrible distorted pressure waves that had rushed out from the mountains had easily reached the town.
Composite and metal paneling had been twisted and torn off every building. The crumpled rectangles were strewn everywhere: on the pavements, embedded in other buildings, the lighter ones floating in the Trine’ba. Thick insulation blankets were flapping free
ly off the naked structural girders. Roofs were skeletal outlines, almost completely devoid of their solar panels. Strangest of all was the sparkle. The whole town glittered under a coating of prismatic rainbows. Each and every window in Randtown had shattered, flinging out splinters and granules in long plumes that fell across the pavements and streets, as if sacks of diamonds had been spilled out.
Mark stopped the pickup on Low West Street, barely a couple of hundred meters off the highway. “My God, I didn’t know there was this much glass on the whole planet, let alone here.”
“Can the tires take that?” Liz asked. She was looking along the street, trying to see if anyone was around. Several pillars of smoke were rising over the broken roofs, closer to the center of town.
“Should do. They’re gelfoam.”
“Okay then.” Liz brought the handheld array up to her mouth. “Carys, we’re going in. Can the MG handle this?”
“MG will be having a nasty talk with my lawyers if it doesn’t.”
Mark leaned out of the side window. David and Lydia Dunbavand were riding in the back, sitting on the bags of camping gear; while all three of the Dunbavand kids were squashed into the MG with Carys. Behind that, the Conants’ four-by-four was acting as rear guard; Yuri had fixed it when they arrived at their homestead.
“Going in,” he called back to them.
David brought his maser wand up. “Okeydokey, we’ll keep sharp.”
Mark shook his head as he toed the accelerator. What was it with disasters and people with guns? The pickup moved forward slowly, its big tires making a constant crunching sound on the road’s crystalline coating.
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