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"Let's take down that gate," ordered Carl, speaking into his comlink. Missiles flashed from right and left, and the ancient grapewood gates disappeared in a cloud of fiery splinters, then the gate towers were soon collapsing into dusty piles of rubble. Carl drove his tank up onto one of these piles and, as the dust cleared, looked down into the city. Before them lay the sealed complexes and towers, the underground tu
"I wish we could just go straight in," said Beckle.
"We'd kill thousands," warned Targon, again acting as their collective conscience. "It ca
"I could have hit a few," said Beckle. "I'm not that inaccurate."
"Too much collateral damage," said Carl. "Anyway, Lellan's coming out with a couple of carriers, and we're go
Spi
Listening in to Lellan's battle cha
Stanton reached down and hauled the man up to the rail of the aerofan, then tipped him over so he fell with a splat onto the damp ground between wide spreads of native rhubarb leaves — his naked skin flecked over with spatters of black mud. Had the man been smaller or thi
There were no queries as Stanton took the aerofan in over the fences and rail-gun towers on this side of the port, nor when he brought it down by a large bedstead shuttle that was undergoing maintenance — though not one of the maintenance crew was now in sight. Picking up his rucksack Stanton stepped out of the aerofan and moved out across the acres of plascrete, viewing his surroundings with something approaching nostalgia.
Most Polity worlds had outgrown ports like this, what with the spread of the runcible network and the advent of efficient AG technology. This port, built two centuries ago to support the landing of ships without AG, was still in use as such — a vast platform of foamed plascrete slabs that floated on the muddy plain to support the huge ships when they came down, along with the tangled infrastructure of rolling support towers and cranes, refuelling tankers and cars, a whole world of what on many worlds was called 'heavy tech'. Like so much on this world, this port was an anachronism. The traders coming to buy the squerm essence produced by the refineries in the city did not actually need the infrastructure, but were confined to the port to prevent smuggling and other infractions of Theocracy law. That confinement had not prevented Stanton himself from stowing away as a child, and thus escaping this world. He noted that, like the rats that they were, all the traders were gone now.
"It's pretty nice to have a port like this," he said into his comlink. "But to be utterly dependent on it when there are alternatives is downright stupid."
"Convenient for us, though," Jarvellis replied to him from Lyric II.
Stanton grunted noncommittally as he removed an i
"One more, over nearer the centre, then I think it's time I went away," he said.
He trotted across slab after slab to reach the centre of the landing field — he felt that a casual stroll was not really suited to the occasion — and there he initiated another i
"That's it, all done now," he said.
"Tell me when you're on your way out, and I'll inform Lellan. She's swearing already about plausibility," Jarvellis replied.
"Tell her now: I can look after myself, and I don't like the idea of her sacrificing more of her armour," said Stanton.
"I'll only tell her that when you're on your way out," said Jarvellis stubbornly.
Stanton swore, and broke into a run for his abandoned aerofan. Half an hour later, Lellan's forces were driven back by the resolution and fighting spirit of the Theocracy forces. Tragically, Lellan had been unable to take the most essential installation on the planet — and Theocracy commanders even believed that to be her aim.
At first Eldene found huge satisfaction in dozering the ATV through tangled stands of flute grass now turning dark green; accelerating across areas of rhubarb, plantain, and multicoloured blister moss; carefully edging around areas where the fighting was most obvious, then bringing it back on course for the south. But she discovered that operating the simple controls was not exactly demanding and, after the initial novelty had worn off, her actions soon became almost automatic, and in a state of weary fugue she found her mind drifting back to the apartment in Pillartown One, and the conversation there between herself and Fethan: