“Thanks,” Stephanie grunted sarcastically.
“Listen, you cats. The black hats and their UFOs are like scoping the ground out with microscopes, right? So if we like cooperate
with each other and dig ourselves a nice cozy bunker out in the wilderness, we could sit tight down there until they’ve invaded
the town and moved off.”
Several surprised looks were passed round. “It could work,” Franklin said. “Hot damn!”
“Hey, am I like
the man
, or what?”
Tina sneered. “Definitely a what.”
______
“I keep expecting to be asked for my ident disk,” Rana said as the seven of them walked down Ketton’s main street.
They were the only people not wearing military fatigues. Ekelund’s army gave them suspicious glances as they passed by. Cochrane’s
tinkling bells and cheery, insulting waves didn’t contribute to making them inconspicuous. When they walked out of the house,
Stephanie considered junking her dress and adopting the same jungle combat gear style. Then she thought to hell with that.
I’m not hiding my true self anymore. Not after what I’ve been through. I have a right to be me.
Near the outskirts, the road led between two rows of houses. Nothing as elaborate as the Georgian town house, but comfortably
middle-class. The barrier between town and country was drawn by a deep vertical-walled ditch, with thick iron spikes driven
into the soil along the top. Some kind of sludge trickled along the bottom of the trench, stinking of petrol. The arrangement
wasn’t terribly practical, it was more a statement than a physical danger.
Annette Ekelund was waiting for them, lounging casually against one of the big spikes. Several dozen of her army were ranged
beside her. Stephanie was quite sure the hulking guns they had slung over their shoulders would be impossible to lift without
energistic power fortifying their muscles. Three-day stubble seemed compulsory for the men, and everyone wore ragged sweatbands.
“You know, I’m getting a bad case of dÉjÀ vu here,” Annette said with ersatz pleasantry. “Except this time you haven’t got
a good cause to tug my heartstrings. In fact, this is pretty close to treachery.”
“You’re not a government,” Stephanie said. “We don’t have loyalties.”
“Wrong. I am the authority here. And you do have obligations. I saved your pathetic little arse, and all these sad bunch of
losers you have trailing round with you. I took you in, protected you, and fed you. Now I think that entitles me to a little
loyalty, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to argue this with you. We don’t want to fight. We won’t fight. That gives you three choices, you either kill
us here on the spot, imprison us which will take up valuable manpower, or let us go free. That’s the only issue, here.”
“Well that’s actually only two choices then, isn’t it? Because I’m not diverting anybody from their assigned duty to watch
over ingrate shits like you.”
“Fine, then make your choice.”
Annette shook her head, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t get you, Stephanie, I really don’t. I mean, where the fuck do you think
you’re going to go? They do have us surrounded, you know. An hour walking down that road, and you’re straight into zero-tau.
Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And you will never ever get out of jail again for the rest of time.”
“We might be able to dodge them in open ground.”
“That’s it? That’s your whole game plan? Stephanie, that’s pitiful even for you.”
Stephanie pressed closer to Moyo, unnerved by the level of animosity running free in Annette’s thoughts. “So what’s your alternative?”
“We fight for our right to exist. It’s what people have been doing for a very long time. If you weren’t such a small-town
imbecile you’d see that nothing easy ever comes free; life is cash on delivery.”
“I’m sure it is, but you haven’t answered my question. You know you’re going to lose, what’s the point in fighting?”
“Let me explain,” Soi Hon said. Annette flashed him a look of pure anger, then nodded permission.
“The purpose of our action is to inflict unacceptable losses on the enemy,” Soi Hon said. “The serjeants are almost unstoppable
here on the ground, but the political structure behind them is susceptible to a great many forces. We might not win this battle,
but our cause will ultimately triumph. That triumph will come sooner once the Confederation leadership is forced to retreat
from ventures like this absurd Liberation. Their victory must be as costly as we can make it. I ask you to reconsider your
decision to leave us. With your help, the time we have to spend in the beyond will be reduced by a considerable margin. Just
think, the serjeant you exterminate today may well be the one that breaks the camel’s back.”
“You lived before Edenism matured, didn’t you?” Moyo asked.
“The habitat Eden was germinated while I was alive. I didn’t survive long after that.”
“Then I have to tell you, what you’re talking is total bullshit. The political ideologies you’re basing your justifications
on are centuries out of date—just like all of us. Edenism has a resolution which is frightening in its totality.”
“All human resolve can be broken in the end.”
Moyo turned his perfect, unseeing eyes to Stephanie, and twisted his lips in a humble grimace. “We’re doomed. You can’t reason
with a psychopath and a demented ideologue.”
“You should tell your boyfriend to watch his lip,” Annette said.
“Or what?” Moyo laughed. “You said it, psycho mamma, you told Ralph Hiltch all those weeks ago: the possessed don’t lose.
It doesn’t matter how many bodies of mine you blast away. I will always be back. Learn to live with me, because you can never
escape. For all of eternity you have to listen to me whining on and on and on and on… How do you like that, you dumb motherfucker?”
“Enough.” Stephanie patted his shoulder in warning. He couldn’t see Annette’s expression, but he’d be able to sense her darkening
thoughts. “Look, we’re just going to go, all right.”
Annette turned and spat into the trench. “You know what’s down there? Its something called napalm. Soi Hon told us about it,
and Milne made up the formula. There’s tons of the stuff; lying down there, in squirt bombs, loaded into flame throwers. So
when the serjeants come over, it’s going to be barbecue time. And that’s just this section. We’ve got a shitload of grief
rigged up for them around this town. Every street they walk down is going to cost them in bodies. Hell, we’re even running
a sweepstake, see how many we can take with us.”
“I hope you win.”
“The point is, Stephanie, if you leave now, you don’t come back. I mean that. If you desert us, your own kind, then you’re
our enemy just as much as the non-possessed are. You’re going to be trapped out there between the serjeants and me. They’ll
shove you into zero-tau, I’ll have you strung up on a crucifix and fried. So you see, it’s not me that makes the choices.
In the end, it’s down to you.”
Stephanie gave her a sad smile. “I choose to leave.”
“You stupid bitch.” For a moment, Stephanie thought the woman was going to launch a bolt of white fire straight at her. Annette
was fighting very hard to control her fury.
“Okay,” she snapped. “Get out. Now.”
Praying that Cochrane would keep his mouth shut, Stephanie tugged Moyo gently. “Use one of the spikes,” she murmured to McPhee
and Rana. They both began to concentrate. The nearest spike started to droop, lowering itself like a drawbridge across a moat.
When its tip touched the other side, the metal flattened out, producing a narrow walkway.
Tina was over first; shaking and subdued at the naked hostility radiating from Ekelund and imitated by her troops. Franklin
guided Moyo over. Stephanie waited until the other three were on the far side before using it herself. When she turned round,
Annette was already marching back down the road into Ketton. Soi Hon and a couple of others walked behind her, taking care
not to come too close. The remaining troops stared hard over the trench. Several of them primed the pump action mechanism
on their guns.
“Yo, nooo problem, dudes,” Cochrane crooned anxiously. “We’re outta here. Like yesterday.”
______
It was midday, the sun blazed down on them like a visible X-ray laser, and the mist had gone long ago. Three miles ahead,
the rumpled foothills of the valley wall rose up out of the sluggish quagmires. The serjeants were strung out across the slopes,
forming a solid line of dark blobs standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Larger groups were arranged at intervals behind the
front line, reserves ready to assist with any sign of resistance.
A couple of miles behind, the air shimmered silver, twisting lightbeams giddily around Ketton. Dry mud creaked and crumbled
under their feet as they tramped along the gently undulating road. They weren’t going particularly fast. It wasn’t just hunger
draining their bodies. Apathy was coming on strong.
“Oh hell,” Stephanie said abruptly. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“What for?” McPhee asked. There was bravado in his voice, but not his thoughts.
“Oh come on!” She stopped and flung her arms out, turning full circle on a heel. “I was wrong. Look at this place. We’re snowflakes
heading straight for hell.”
McPhee gave a grudging look around the flat, featureless valley floor. During the few days they’d rested in Ketton the mud
had claimed just about every fallen tree and bush. Even the long pools between the quagmires were evaporating away. “Not much
in the way of ground cover, granted.”
She gave the big Scot an admonitory stare. “You’re very sweet, and I’m really glad that you’re with me. But I goofed. There’s
no way we can avoid the serjeants out here. And I do think Ekelund was serious when she said we wouldn’t be allowed back in.”
“Yeah,” Cochrane said. “That’s the impression I got, too. You know, that bug is shoved so far up, it’s going to be flapping
its way out of her mouth any day now.”
“I don’t understand,” Tina said miserably. “Why don’t we just stick to Cochrane’s original idea, and dig in?”
“The satellites can see us, lass,” McPhee said. “Aye, they don’t know how many of us there are, exactly, or what we’re doing.
But they know where we are. If we stop moving and suddenly vanish, then the serjeants will come and investigate. They’ll realize
what we’ve done and excavate us.”
“We could split up,” Franklin said. “If we walk about at random and keep crossing each other’s tracks, then one or two of
us could vanish without them realizing. It’d be like a giant-sized version of the shell game.”
“But I don’t want us to split up,” Tina said.
“We’re not splitting up,” Stephanie told her. “We’ve been through too much together for that. I say we face them together
with dignity and pride. We have nothing to be ashamed of. They’re the ones who have failed. That huge, wonderful society with
all its resources, and all it can do is fall back on violence instead of trying to find an equitable solution for all of us.
They’ve lost, not us.”
Tina sniffed, and dabbed at her eyes with a small handkerchief. “You say the most beautiful things.”
“Certainly do, sister.”
“I’ll face the serjeants with you, Stephanie,” McPhee said. “But it might be a good idea to get off this road first. I’ll
give you good odds our friends behind have got it in their mortar sights.”
______
Ralph waited until there were twenty-three thousand serjeants deployed at Catmos Vale before giving the go ahead to take the
town. The AI estimated at least eight thousand possessed were trapped inside Ketton. He wasn’t going to be responsible for
unleashing a massacre. There would be enough serjeants to overcome whatever lay ahead.
As soon as the first mortar attack had finished, the AI had pulled the front line back. Then the flanks, up in the high ground
above the valley, had been directed forwards again. By the time the sun fell, Ketton was surrounded. To start with, the circle
was simply there to prevent individual possessed from trying to sneak out. Any large group that tried their luck would be
warned off with SD lasers in a repeat of the firebreak protocol across the neck of the peninsula.
Very few did attempt to run the gauntlet. Whatever method of discipline Ekelund was using to keep her people in check, it
was impressive. The perimeter was progressively reinforced as planes and trucks brought in fresh squads. Occupation forces
were also assembled and dispatched around the front line, ready to handle the captured possessed. Medical facilities were
organized to cope with the predicted influx of new, unhealthy bodies (though shortages of equipment and qualified personnel
were still acute). The AI had exhaustively analysed every possible weapon from history which the possessed could have constructed,
and computed appropriate counter-measures.
Ralph was quietly pleased to see that the simplest policy was amongst the oldest: the best defence is a good offence. He might
not be able to employ saturation bombardment against the town, or melt it down into the bedrock. But he could certainly rattle
the doors of Ekelund’s precious sanctum, a quite severe rattling, in fact. “Quake them,” he datavised.
Two thousand kilometres above Ombey, a lone voidhawk began its deployment swoop.
Ralph waited beside the rectangular headquarters building with Acacia and Janne Palmer standing beside him. They all stared
along Catmos Vale at the sliver of dense mangled air at the far end which marked the town. Maybe he should have been back
at the Fort Forward Ops Room, but after visiting the camp he realized how restricted and isolated he was sitting in his office.
Out here, at least he had the illusion of being involved.
______
It was one of the larger patches of land above the lagoons and mires that cluttered the valley floor. Plenty of aboriginal
grass poked up through the solidifying cloak of mud, as yet untrampled by animals. There were even some trees surviving near
the centre; they’d fallen down, their lower branches stabbing into the soft ground; but the trunks were held off the ground,
and their battered leaves were slowly twisting to face the sky.