Hilldiggers

Preventing the first missile reaching the planet's surface was no problem, but what about the next one? He could introduce some massive fault into Ironfist's systems to prevent further firings, but then there were still five other such ships within a day's travel of Brumal, so what about them? If Fleet proved utterly relentless in its purpose, Tigger's continued actions would eventually reveal his presence, then the problems would really start.

Accelerating up through atmosphere, Tigger separated into his two parts—his tiger aspect dropping back down towards the planet's surface. Of course, even without McCrooger's instructions, Tigger would have intervened to prevent such wanton death and destruction, for he had seen the bitter results, close up, when he retrieved that disk for Orduval. Descending from the sky his tiger half landed on an icy canal path leading towards the ground-level cap of Vertical Vie

On the surface, the cat half of Tigger sca

Still listening to com cha

Sca

The missile launched and Tigger began vectoring in on it. Sca

Eight hundred miles from Ironfist the missile's drive shut down. Tigger closed in on it, extending four cell-form metal grabs to close around the armoured cyclindrical body. A rosy glow bloomed from the missile's nose cone as it entered thin atmosphere, and streaks of orange fire spat past the clinging drone. He extruded a chainglass drill and began cutting through metal. Then a sudden horrible and aberrant thought occurred to him and he put together some wildly disparate facts. There was that certain recent research undertaken on Corisanthe Main, which Fleet had access to despite its hostility towards Combine. And Harald, like his three siblings, was never to be underestimated.

"Oh shit."

A second sun ignited high in Brumal's stratosphere, rolling out nuclear fire that skated on lightnings around the curve of the globe. On the surface, a ru

Harald

Frowning, Harald studied the telemetry on his eye-screen.

"I don't understand, sir," said one of the officers at Firing Control. "The missile was set for impact detonation and was hardened against interference."

"I can only suppose, then," said Harald, "that the Brumallians have developed some way of getting through our shielding."

He stood upright, inspecting a view only he could see, then ran it again. Now the shadows looked right as well. The scene showed Admiral Carnasus interrogating Lieutenant Alun in Harald's presence. It showed Alun pulling out a gun and shooting Carnasus, then stepping over and pumping further shots into the Admiral's head. Harald needed to work on the interrogation next, altering stored footage of previous interviews with Alun to suit his purpose. Of course it still might be possible for an expert programmer to divine the falsity of these recordings. However, Harald intended events to move too swiftly now for anyone to get a chance to inspect them too closely.

Switching his headset to general address, he began, "I have an a

"Yes, sir…Erm, your sister, Yishna? She is now aboard the transport heading back towards Sudoria."

"With Chairman Abel Duras?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let her go. We certainly don't want to aggravate our parliamentary Chairman."

He cut the link to Security, then addressed those at Firing Control. "Maybe Combine technology was used to stop that missile, so I want one prepared for simple mechanical detonation as used during the fourth battle Arkan. Keep me informed."

Quickly departing the Bridge and reaching his cabin he seated himself on his divan and opened a secure cha

"Jeon, what do you have for me?" he asked.

"One part of it—whatever it was—tried to intercept the missile. The detonation destroyed it, however. I last detected the other part in the region of BC32 but have since lost that trace. Maybe destroying one half of it somehow damaged the other half?"

"Let us hope so. Inform me if you pick up on it again. If not we can always hope our next strike against BC32 will deal with it." He cut the link, quickly opening another. "Cheanil?" The woman looked very ill and Harald realised he should wait no longer. "First give me Combine visuals of Defence Platform One and Dravenik's ship, and then fire on my order."