Paula turned to Bradley. “The good news is that if the Starflyer does close the wormhole behind it, we will be able to survive.”
“You might, my dear, but for me such failure will be worse than death.”
“I understand. I’d like to know now, what exactly are your plans. I might be able to help.”
“Plans,” Bradley murmured sadly. “I had grand plans, Investigator. Once. Today, things have become somewhat fluid. All we can do is hope that our friends on Far Away find some way of preventing the Starflyer from going through the wormhole until we arrive at Port Evergreen. That way we might still manage to corner it and kill it. Dreaming heavens, I cannot believe it has come to this.”
Paula glanced over at the Volvos lurking in the gloom around her, their tops nearly touching the roof of the cargo hold. “So what are they carrying? What have you been smuggling to Far Away all these years?”
“Don’t look at me.” Adam grunted. “I’m just the hired hand who arranges shipment.”
“Bradley?” Paula asked.
“I had devised a scheme to give the planet its revenge. It requires a great deal of sophisticated force field technology to implement.”
“How does force field technology kill the Starflyer? Do you trap it inside one?”
“Oh no, the planet’s revenge is designed to destroy the Marie Celeste. I intended to release it when we knew the Starflyer was on its way back. Without its ship, it will be truly marooned on Far Away. It can’t go home, and it can’t return to the Commonwealth. We can hunt it down and kill it.”
“So if it does get through the wormhole to Far Away ahead of us, will the Guardians be able to release this revenge scheme?”
“Possibly; though without the equipment we’ve brought it will be weaker than I would like. And of course the data you and Senator Burnelli retrieved from Kazimir is extremely important.”
“As far as we could determine, it was just meteorological information from Mars.”
“You determined right, my dear. We intend to channel Far Away’s weather at the Marie Celeste. As well as being extremely effective against that brute machine, it is fitting to give Far Away the chance for retribution. It was the flare bomb released by the Marie Celeste which came so close to totally annihilating the entire planetary biosphere.”
“Weather?” Paula frowned, even she couldn’t work out the variables in that puzzle. “You’re going to use the weather against a starship?”
“Yes. Did you know the Halgarth Dynasty commands the lion’s share of force field sales in the Commonwealth because of the systems given to them by the Starflyer in the guise of Institute research?”
“I know they’re the market leaders, yes.”
“It was inevitable, really. The Marie Celeste traveled through space at near relativistic velocity for hundreds of years. It had to have superb force fields to survive such a punishing environment. That makes it extremely difficult for us to attack. It would certainly be impervious to fusion bombs, even if we wanted to employ them on Far Away. The kind of modern, sophisticated weapons powerful enough to break the Marie Celeste’s force field are essentially impossible to obtain. They are simply not available on the black market. Their manufacture would be even more difficult. The Commonwealth has an effective monitoring network in place for dual use manufacturing systems, which even Adam would have trouble circumventing.”
“So how do you use weather when our best weapons are ineffective?”
“We generate a superstorm, and use force field–derived mechanisms to steer it. Far Away is blessed with a rather unique meteorological system, partly due to its size, partly its geography. A major storm evolves out over the Hondu Ocean every night, and blows in across the Grand Triad. That will become our powerhouse; we have evolved a mechanism to amplify that and direct it onto the Marie Celeste. In theory, I should add. Nobody has ever put such an idea into practice before.”
“Mars has storms,” Paula said abruptly. “Big storms.”
“Well done, Investigator. Mars is subject to planetary storms that last months, sometimes years. It also shares Far Away’s low gravity, which makes it the closest match in the Commonwealth. The data we collected there will be invaluable for our control routines.”
“Do you really think you can control the weather?”
“A better description would be to aggravate it and direct it. And yes, we believe it is possible; for a short while at least, and that is all we ask.”
“It will require a phenomenal amount of energy. Even I can see that.”
“Yes. That’s taken care of.”
Paula wanted to point out flaws, it seemed such a bizarre notion, not one you should depend on to bring a hundred-thirty-year-old crusade to its climax; but she didn’t know enough about the procedures Johansson had dreamed up. It just had to be taken on faith. “Assuming you can direct a superstorm, and I’m still skeptical about that, what use will that be against a starship whose force fields can protect it against nuclear weapons?”
“Its size is its downfall,” Bradley said intently. “We intend to initiate the planet’s revenge while the Marie Celeste remains on the ground, where it is most vulnerable. The superstorm will be powerful enough to pick it up and fling it to its destruction. And the beauty is, if its force fields are switched on, the surface area they will present to the storm is even larger, while the overall mass remains the same—which makes it even easier for the winds to pick it up and smash it.”
“I see the logic,” Paula said. “I’m just not convinced about the practicality.”
Johansson slumped down. “We’ll probably never know now.”
“I’ve been thinking about our arrival at Port Evergreen,” Paula said. “Do you have any more of those reconnaissance drones?”
“Two in each armored car,” Adam told her.
“We need to try to launch them when we get within their flight range of Port Evergreen.”
Adam gazed down the length of the cargo hold. “Should be fun.”
They were a hundred kilometers out from Port Evergreen when Wilson took the Carbon Goose down to a kilometer above the water.
“Are you ready?” he asked Adam, who was in the armored car closest to the rear loading ramp.
“Systems engaged. The drones are ready to fly.”
“Stand by: depressurizing.” Wilson’s lime-green virtual hands swept over control symbols.
“No effect on stability,” Oscar reported from the copilot’s chair.
“Anything on radar?” They’d switched their own radar off now they were close to their destination. If the two Carbon Goose planes the Starflyer had taken were still using their radar, the signals should be detectable.
“Nothing,” Oscar said. “I guess the Starflyer’s planes are down.”
“Damn, I almost want to make a sweep just to find out.”
“This is our only advantage,” Oscar said. “It doesn’t know we’re coming.”
“Not much of an advantage.”
“It’s the only one in town,” Anna pointed out.
“Okay, let’s stick with the plan,” Wilson said. His displays were showing him the lower cargo hold was now pressure-equalized. “Opening the hold doors now,” he told Adam.
They were all bracing themselves for the giant plane to judder. It never happened. The only way Wilson could even tell the doors were opening was through his virtual vision display.
“Launching,” Adam said. “One away. Wow, that’s a tumble. Looking good, the array is pulling it out of the dive. Leveling off. Okay, launching two.”
Wilson closed the doors, then took the Carbon Goose down to three hundred meters. It was as low as he dared go without any sort of radar to check how far they really were above the sea. The altitude should help them get closer to Port Evergreen before they were detected.
Everyone on board accessed the secure signal from the drones as they raced on ahead. Infrared showed a faint outline of the sheer rock island as they closed on Port E
vergreen. Brighter, salmon-pink patches glowed above the waterline, nestled in the broad dip in the cliff.
“They’re down,” Adam said.
“Plenty of activity there,” Morton said. “I can see movement.”
“Vehicles, I think,” Paula said. “The heat is coming from their engines.”
The picture resolution built rapidly as the drones closed in. Both the Carbon Goose planes were easy to distinguish, parked just above the sea, their turbines glowing like small suns. Some way back from the water, the six huts and long temporary accommodation building registered a few degrees above the ambient temperature; the lone hangar only showed up on the grainy light amplification scan. The curving generator building was an all-over ginger hue, with a shimmer of silver light oozing out through its pressure curtain. Eight large trucks were on the ground just in front of it, their combustion engines on. The drones could even pick up the carbon monoxide fumes squirting out of the exhaust pipes. Three of them had heated trailers, big oblong boxes protected by force fields.
“They haven’t gone through,” Adam said in astonishment. “What the hell are they waiting for? They’ve only got forty minutes left before the wormhole cycle ends.”
“Stig,” Bradley said. “It has to be. He’s stalled them somehow.”
The drones were close enough now to pick out individual humans on the ground. Five people in pressure suits were clustered right in front of the force field. There was a lot of encrypted signal traffic between them and the trucks.
“We’ve got a chance,” Adam said. “Wilson, circle us around. Everyone on the drop combat team, stand by.”
Wilson was sure he could hear cheering from the top deck as he altered the Carbon Goose’s flight path by a couple of degrees. He felt like joining in. Oscar was grinning sinfully beside him. Anna put her arms around his shoulders and delivered a happy kiss.
A camera in the lower cargo deck showed him ten armored figures making their way slowly back toward the rear door as it opened again. Cat’s Claws and the Paris team were all in the same kind of suit, while the four Guardians who’d joined them were in the best marque aggressor suit available on the black market.
“Rather them than me,” Oscar said. “Did you access Gore Burnelli’s little drop into Park Avenue? That assassin was in bad shape when he hit.”
“The navy suits are up to it,” Wilson said. “I remember the specs we drew up. And Adam wouldn’t let his people take part unless he was confident.”
“Here’s hoping.”
Wilson raised their altitude by another hundred fifty meters. The cliff that surrounded the vast island was over a hundred meters high in places. He’d navigated blind before—yeah right, three hundred fifty years ago—and the golden rule was always give yourself enough leeway in enemy territory. The Carbon Goose avionics had an excellent inertial navigation system, but it was hardly designed with this kind of stunt in mind.
He switched off all the internal lights, including the cockpit. “One minute till we reach the shoreline,” he told everyone.
Oscar removed the optical limiter from the windshield, and Wilson switched his retinal inserts to full light amplification. “I think I see the cliff.”
Red warning icons appeared in the plane’s navigation function section.
“It doesn’t like where we are,” Oscar growled. “That makes two of us.”
Wilson’s virtual hands moved to disengage the warnings. He’d eliminated three of them when the Carbon Goose’s radar switched on. “Shit!” Its return image swept across half of his virtual vision, splashing a green and purple portrait of the sea and the approaching cliff face. “Anna, kill the fucking radar. Shoot it if you have to.”
It took her several seconds to shut down the power, then load a series of restrictions into the ground collision safeguard programs that were monitoring the flight.
“Goddamnit,” Wilson spat as they swept in over the crumpled rock. “Adam, they know we’re here; the son of a bitch autopilot switched on the radar. I’m sorry. Do you want to abort?”
“Not an option,” Morton said. “Hold her steady, Wilson, we’re jumping.”
Wilson pressed his hands hard against the console, putting pressure on the i-spots as if that alone would keep the massive plane on course.
“They’ve gone,” Adam said. “Get us the hell out of here.”
Wilson banked the Carbon Goose sharply to starboard, curving them back around to head out to sea again. Behind them, ten armor suits plummeted through the freezing night air at terminal velocity.
***
The baby sneekbot slowly picking its way undetected along the parapet of Market Wall was designed to resemble a cockroach. It worked with five siblings who networked their respective sensor types and relayed the results back to a pack-governor disguised as a rat, which in turn transmitted the data to the operator a safe distance away. They were built by the McSobel clan, who wrapped a plyplastic body around a bioneural array supplied by the Barsoomians. Over eighty of them were scanning First Foot Fall Plaza for the Guardians, providing a reasonably comprehensive image of what the Institute was up to.
As the warm afternoon rolled on they watched the curved rank of parked Range Rover Cruisers in front of the gateway. There were no other vehicles in 3F Plaza. Several squads of Institute troops lounged around in the shade of the awnings set up along the base of the wall, helping themselves to the contents of the abandoned cafés. Just after two o’clock the gateway opened, its pearly force field turning funereal as it exposed the night of Half Way. A couple of people in pressure suits went through.
“Nobody else is moving around there,” Stig said as he reviewed the images. He and Olwen had set up a temporary command post in the Ballard Theater, three kilometers east of 3F Plaza. They’d chosen it because it had a glass-walled rooftop restaurant, which gave them an excellent vantage point out across the city. It also made Stig feel exposed. He switched between the sneekbots and simple eyeball observation, looking out at the blimpbots that were circling the city like fat impatient sharks.
On any normal day, someone would have noticed the twenty-two dark shapes keeping their distance as they went around and around in sedate procession at an unusually low altitude. So far no one had called the aerodrome to ask what was happening. People were too busy either staying at home, intimidated by the police patrols escorted by the Institute’s Range Rover Cruisers, or causing a lot of trouble for those same patrols. Several crowds had gathered on the larger streets, to fling bottles and stones every time they saw a police car.
The Institute didn’t seem to care much, unless anyone started protesting along their clear route out of the city to Highway One; then the troops cracked down hard without any pretense of involving the police. It made it difficult to get the Guardians’ snipers into position. Stig was still trying to infiltrate three teams to fix booby traps to the road. The route that the Institute had cleared used the Tangeat bridge over the Belvoir River. That was his main priority for the booby traps. It was clearly a high-rated concern with whoever was commanding the Institute troops; there were nine Range Rover Cruisers parked on the bridge, their sensors scanning the water below.
“It has to be this cycle,” Olwen said. “They wouldn’t expend this much effort otherwise.”
“Right.” Stig looked out across the rooftops again. Away to the south, another blimpbot was gliding smoothly over Highway One. The faint pink overlay graphic supplied by his virtual vision showed it was one of the six bomb carriers. “I’ve got to change that holding pattern. The Institute’s going to notice them if they keep flying over Highway One like that.”
“Okay,” Olwen said. She knew how pointless it was to argue when his nerves produced that much determination in his voice.
Stig sat at one of the tables and lit a cigarette. He pulled down some smoke, then started opening secure links to the blimpbots. Instead of chasing one big circle around Armstrong City, he split them into two groups, and circled one to the east, and o
ne to the west. North, of course, was the sea. If they all clustered out there, they’d certainly be noticed and queried.
It took nearly two hours and eleven cigarettes before he was satisfied they were all locked into their new holding patterns. The wind was starting to blow in from the North Sea, which gave the blimpbots’ fans extra work to hold them on course. Stig didn’t like the look of the clouds that were scudding in from the horizon; they were getting progressively darker. He knew Armstrong City’s weather well enough by now to recognize when it was going to rain.
An hour later, the first drops of water were hitting the restaurant’s green-tinted glass. They kept the lights off as the sky darkened outside.
“This could complicate things,” he said. “Water adds a lot of weight to the blimpbots. They shouldn’t fly low altitude in the rain.”
“Keely says there’s some big traffic movement along Mantana Avenue,” Olwen said.
Stig’s virtual hand pulled sneekbot images from the grid. They gave him a ground-level view of large wheels rolling past, kicking up a fine spray from the enzyme-bonded concrete. He pulled out an image relayed by a sneekbot that had climbed one of the old maple fur poplars. Two trucks roared past underneath, flanked by Range Rover Cruisers; they were followed by a big MANN truck, whose trailer carried a long buffed-aluminum capsule, with a clump of sophisticated air-conditioning units on one end. More Cruisers followed it, their mounted guns swiveling from side to side.
“Where did that come from?” Stig asked.
“We don’t know,” Keely said. “They must have parked it in a commercial estate somewhere close.”
“More to the point, what is it?” Olwen said. “A life-support cabin for the Starflyer?”
“Could well be,” Stig said. He was tracking the MANN truck with the sneekbot’s sensors. The curving metal walls of the capsule were reinforced by some kind of bonding field, making it virtually impregnable to any portable weapon the Guardians had. It didn’t have any windows. Wisps of steam were rising from the fins of the air-conditioning units as the rain pattered all over them.
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