The Line of Polity (43 page)

"Carl, that was quick — or do you have a problem?" she asked, observing the pattern of dots spread across a map showing the inhabited area of the continent.

"All somewhat quicker than expected," Carl replied. "They put their aerofans and carriers up straight away, and we took them down with the pulse-cannon. They're now coming after us with a few ground-cars and infantry."

"Our losses?"

"None. I think we caught them well untrousered — but that won't last."

Lellan studied closely the dots on the maps, the constant readouts and battle stats. One tank had been blown at Cyprian compound, and a further two north of the spaceport. They were doing better than expected but, as expected, were now encountering real resistance from the old fortifications around the city. Lellan swore and stood up.

She turned to Polas. "Take over here, Polas, and keep relaying through to my console on the carrier." Then, before Polas could voice any objections, "What's the minimum time we have before their landers start coming in?"

Polas glanced at his screens. "If the fleet left now, which it shows no sign of doing just yet, then they'd be landing on the day after tomorrow. I'd still reckon on that, as I don't think they'll delay much longer."

Molat hauled himself up out of sticky mud as slowly as he could, wondering if he dared reach round and touch the back of his head — scared he would find broken bone and touch living brain with his filthy fingertips. Even this deliberate slowness was too fast, and the ringing in his ears rolled back down his spine, stamping on every nerve on the way. He vomited into his crumpled mask, choked as he tore it away from his face, and fumbled for another from the container on the side of his oxygen bottle. With the second mask finally in place, he carefully eased himself to his knees then attempted to stand. What had happened meanwhile? Was the battle over? Surrounded by tall flute grass and with the continued ringing in his ears drowning out any other sound, he had no way of telling for sure. Looking at his watch he saw that he'd been unconscious for maybe twenty minutes, and turning in what he hoped was the right direction, he began to trudge for home. The tank which loomed suddenly ahead of him, flattening flute grass, he had no time to identify as friend or enemy before it knocked him backwards, and its foamed titanium tread crushed Molat into the ground. Maybe he screamed — he never got time to hear.

A fine grey mist filtered down from the spraying machine, until the circular airtight door closed behind it. Behind the door, Thorn could hear the machine moving towards the surface, with the thumping of its compacters and the roar of its plascrete sprayers as it consolidated the tunnels — initially opened by the tanks, but prone to collapse — into a more permanent structure. The plascrete smell remained acrid as the chemical reactions took place in the settling mist on his side of the door. If he had not kept his breather mask up, Thorn knew he would be coughing and choking by now, his lungs nicely lined with grey epoxy — perfectly preserved but utterly unable to function.

Stomping back out of the tunnel entrance, he observed the infantry now seated separately in their various squads, ready to head for the surface. Lacking in heavy armour and large transports, the conveyances these troops used were crude antigravity sleds with impeller fans mounted on the back — and not many of those either. He suspected these jury-rigged vehicles were mainly for the rapid transit of troops and equipment to reach a target, whereupon the rest of the battle would entail a footslog.

No one was checking weapons now, he noticed — that had been done enough times already — and most had their visors down whilst they read the updates on the battles that were taking place above. As the troops finally began to stand up and shoulder their packs and weapons, Thorn checked his helmet screen and realized that Lellan had given the order to move out. Shouldering his own weapon, he rejoined Fethan and Eldene at the ATV.

"Let's get moving, shall we?" he suggested.

The girl, he noticed, was still white-knuckling her pulse-rifle, watching the infantry depart with a kind of unfocused determination. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

"You ever driven one of these?" he asked.

She stared at him. "No."

"Then it's time for you to learn." He gestured on ahead of him.

Fethan gave Thorn a nod of acknowledgement before following her inside the ATV. After glancing at the gathered infantry, Thorn followed him on board. She could, he was well aware, have served as mere fodder for the infantry war that was sure to ensue once the imbalance of missiles to flying machines was levelled out and everyone was grounded, since it hardly required much in the way of an education to pull a trigger, whether that trigger was electric or mechanical. But for some reason the cyborg had formed an attachment to this young girl. It was one that Thorn felt he could understand; he'd seen the mess a rail-gun slug made of a human body, and that mess was never proportional to the victim's innocence.

The inside of the ATV was designed without flourish with the same stark utility as its exterior. The raised hump in the middle of the single cabin formed the cowling for the large H and O engine, and it was flat on top to serve as a table, a work-bench, or a surgeon's slab. The front screen consisted of three panes of tough plastic imbedded with a grid of wires, above a simple navigational console, a steering column, and pedals for hydrostatic drive and brakes. There was one seat only in front of this, the seat and targeting visor for the two gun turrets located at the back of the vehicle being set midway down the cabin. Along the other walls were drop-down seats and stowage lockers. It seemed that no space was wasted, and that the interior of this vehicle was designed primarily as a field surgery — the autodoc stowed in a perspex case at the back offering sure proof of this. Thorn felt guilty about Fethan commandeering this vehicle, but felt sure that if it had been truly indispensable Lellan would not have allowed him to have it. He suspected that this particular wheeled vehicle had been superseded by more modern AG transports, built around the grav-motors which the likes of Stanton and Jarvellis had been smuggling in, and also that this vehicle — designed for travelling underground — was now considered too slow.

Demonstrating the use of the controls to Eldene, Thorn noted that they had not been quick enough in heading for the tunnel entrance, as already it was blocked by the infantry on the move in that direction. They advanced in neat lines at a steady jog, towing the grav-sleds along by handles mounted on their sides. No doubt these troops would climb on only when they reached the surface, and only then start up the fans. Glancing back, he observed Fethan checking out the gun turret's control and visor. Soon, after only a couple of lurches to begin with, Eldene had the ATV rolling in behind the departing infantry. It was perhaps twenty minutes later that she actually drove into the tunnel entrance.

With the hydrostatic drive in operation there were no awkward gear changes to make for handling the slope — the vehicle did that automatically — and shortly they were approaching the now open door, which had earlier been closed while the spraycrete machine did its work. This door had been placed across at the dividing line formed by the chalk layer between limestone and soil. Once they were through it, Thorn watched, on the rear-view screen, the three sections of the door irising closed. Two minutes later, they rolled out onto churned mud, green with unearthed nematodes and crushed vegetation, all scattered with torn-up mats of rhizomes. The abandoned spraying and compacting machine lay to one side, its tank empty and its spraying arms locked in an upright position like the forelimbs of a threatened tarantula. All around them, infantry were clambering onto the fan-driven sleds, which were starting up in a concert of roars that filled the air with a haze of grass fragments and a mist of slurry.

"Take us south and get the display map up on that side screen, like I showed you. Polas has already transferred both sets of co-ordinates across, so they should show," said Thorn.

Eldene turned on the side screen and, using a ball control to move the cursor, selected
Maps
from the menu displayed. While she pulled back on the initial map, to bring up the co-ordinates of the area where Dragon and the escape craft had fallen, Thorn gazed through the front windscreen at distant flashes and plumes of dust and smoke. Even here, in this airtight vehicle, he could hear the sounds of distant explosions and feel vibration through the ground. Soon Eldene had the ATV heading in the direction they wanted — into battle, unfortunately, but from the lights everywhere in the sky it seemed there was no direction that took them away from it.

For a second time Molat hauled himself out of sticky mud, and again changed his mask. He turned to watch the tank continue on its way and, with a kind of lunatic logic, was completely unsurprised that this second dunking had somehow restored his hearing. To either side of him there were other vehicles growling through the grasses, and he realized that these were Lurn's force going in pursuit of the enemy's tanks. He considered trudging after them, then decided that two near-death experiences in one day had been quite enough for him, so turned to head back towards Agatha compound. Anyway, he was religious police — leave warmongering to the soldiers.

Trudging through churned mud and broken rhizomes, he observed dead soldiers and splashes of blood across the flute grass. He felt no sympathy with the men who had died — they not being proctors but military — and anyway he found it difficult to sympathize with anyone else at the best of times. But now, with his entire body one great ache, his aerofan destroyed, and his uniform muddy, burnt and ripped, what he needed was to get back to base, get himself washed and changed, and back onto ... gunfire ahead.

Advancing with more awareness of his surroundings now, Molat reached the embankment and the barrier fence — now flattened by both the enemy tanks and Lurn's forces — and climbed it cautiously to take in the view.

Infantry — quite obviously belonging to the Underground — were attacking the now poorly defended compound. The fighting around the ponds and grape trees was fierce and without quarter, bodies were strewn everywhere like some new and grizzly harvest, and the fire of rail-guns and pulse-rifles was rapidly turning sheds, trees, fences, agricultural vehicles, and people into an evenly mixed morass of wood splinters, metal and plastic fragments, raw earth and shreds of flesh. Lowering himself back out of sight, Molat looked back the way he had come. In his aug he searched for the direct address of Lurn's aug, and sent:

"
Lurn, ground forces are taking the compound.
"

By the tone of Lurn's reply, it became evident the man had other concerns:

"
Well, that's real surprising fucking news.
"

Molat went on:

"
Surely the compound is more important than a few tanks.
"

Lurn relented a little:

"
Same problem at Cyprian compound, only they're closer to us now. I'm going to join up with Colas, who has also been out chasing tanks, and together we're going to hit the infantry that's attacking there.
"

"
Agatha compound?
" Molat asked.

"
May be considered a write-off until new forces come down from
Charity.
My advice to you is for you to get as many of your people out of there as you can, and head over here.
"

Molat did not bother taking another look over the bank, but quickly turned back into the flute grass. A few hundred metres in, he came upon three corpses — one of whom he vaguely recognized — wearing army fatigues, and from these obtained a working rail-gun and a knapsack of magazines, a rations pack, and a jacket not too filthy with mud and blood. He was morbidly probing from his aug through to theirs and finding only ghostly networks that were breaking apart as the biotech augs died on their hosts, when someone came crashing through the grass towards him. He turned and fired in that direction.

"No! No! I'm unarmed! I give up!" someone shouted.

"
Come forward, Toris,
" Molat sent.

There was a long silence, then Proctor Toris stumped out into the open, aware that because of the aug connection he could not deny his presence. Molat studied the man: he was short and fat and always seemed to be sweating, even now in a temperature that was not many degrees above zero. Molat gestured to the three corpses.

"Take whatever you need. We're walking to Cyprian compound," he said.

Toris had found himself a working hand laser, and was studying it speculatively, when a huge explosion bucked the ground beneath their feet. Gazing in the direction of Cyprian compound, Molat observed a column of smoke belching into the air and immediately felt a horrible wrenching through his aug — a sudden distancing and almost painful loneliness, as if he had been in a room full of friends and suddenly been instantly dragged many kilometres away.

"May God have mercy on them," he murmured.

Molat knew that you could hardly feel one death through the aug network, unless it was that of a close friend, but he had just felt thousands die. He turned to Toris.

"Best collect their oxygen bottles. I think we may have to walk a bit further."

"Amen," concluded Toris aloud, though Molat was not sure to what.

"The plan is for us to head for the city now — we're needed to hit the old defences," said Uris.

"Yeah," replied Carl, staring out at the mayhem the mines had wrought upon the Theocracy forces from both the Cyprian and Agatha compounds. It seemed not one square metre of the churned ground did not have human body parts randomly commingled. "We won't be able to go into the city itself, though, unless she wants us to abandon the tanks first."

Uris replied, "About half the infantry will be going in to take the city after we've knocked out its defences — the rest of them will stay out here to secure the compounds and organize the distribution of ajectant amongst the workers."

Carl engaged the drive of the tank and took it around a blackened APC, out of which he had earlier seen two soldiers stagger, their clothing on fire until the lack of oxygen outside their vehicle extinguished the flames. The two had by then suffocated.