10th December 2206
Loi was overseeing Strikeback’s warship portal deployment when the call from Eldlund came through. He sighed at his friend’s timing, but couldn’t help the short smile at what it meant.
‘We’re ready,’ Eldlund said. ‘The turtles have reached the end of the lakebed.’
‘I’m on my way.’ Loi cancelled his secure channel to the station’s G8Turing, which was controlling the deployment, and the immersive display encircling his chair slid away like wind-torn mist. He was sitting on one of three couch-chairs in a small hexagonal chamber, its only illumination coming from a display bubble in the middle, projecting a million-kilometre-wide globe of space, with Earth nestled at the centre. Tiny amber icons glided around the besieged planet like a cloud of fireflies – each one an Olyix ship, with the Salvation of Life a malign red blemish at L3, directly opposite the moon. The arkship had flown there after the invasion began, settling into a stable parking orbit where it received the transport ships bringing up the newly cocooned. Two hundred thousand kilometres further out, green icons were slowly drifting into position, as yet undetected by the Olyix.
When its primary base on the moon was destroyed by Olyix Deliverance ships, Alpha Defence had dispersed to a series of secondary locations. The secure station in the Puppis system was designated as the operations centre for the Strikeback operation’s forward positioning office. It was logical; Puppis was where a great many industrial systems were based, originally in expectation of the planet’s terraforming project. They’d all been taken over for the exodus habitat project – a major component of which were the new expansion portals that Connexion scientists had developed from the Olyix machines captured during an engagement in London. Unlike the old fixed-size portals that had to thread up, these could now enlarge themselves. There were limits, of course; a ten-centimetre-diameter portal couldn’t be expanded up to a hundred metres. But a fifty-metre portal could certainly increase to half a kilometre. The latest generation currently under development were designed to expand out to six kilometres – large enough for a habitat to pass through.
As the rebuilding phase of the Avenging Heretic project had wound down, Loi had moved on to the deployment team, who supervised the covert positioning of Strikeback’s expansion portals above Earth. This stage wasn’t dangerous or difficult, just overseeing the G8Turing that handled the flight vectors. And as an added benefit, it was what his mother assumed he’d be doing during the Strikeback itself. Having her in the Puppis system working on the exodus had proved both a blessing and a bit of a nightmare. She got to see him regularly, which helped put her mind at rest – and it played into the story that he was still working as Yuri’s assistant (which was partially true). Even though she was one of the leading figures in managing the exodus habitat manufacturing programme, and had frequent Strikeback briefings, the Avenging Heretic was classified way above her pay grade. Loi was thankful about that – because if she ever discovered what his actual mission was during Strikeback, there would be hell to pay.
He stepped through the portal into the Knockdown team’s ultra-secure office. Given it was the most critical aspect of Strikeback, only five people were allowed access. It was almost identical to the room he’d just left, except there was only Eldlund sitting in a chair in front of the display bubble. The projection here was bleak – a flat, desolate landscape smothered in grainy mist and illuminated from above by bright flickering light.
‘Looking good,’ Eldlund said, smiling brightly at Loi.
‘Uh, yes. Thank you. You, too,’ Loi replied. ‘Did you come here straight from a party?’ His friend was wearing a flowing dress of crushed purple velvet with an exceptionally long split up the side of hir skirt. He wondered briefly who the lucky date was.
Eldlund laughed. ‘You’re very sweet. So, ah, how’s Gwendoline?’
‘She’s okay. Busy. Like all of us.’
Eldlund’s interest in Loi’s mother was something Loi couldn’t quite get his head around. Sure, she was lovely, but she was his mother. He and Eldlund had become close over the last two years, which made what he assumed was a crush even harder to deal with.
‘Not quite like us,’ Eldlund teased. ‘Given where we’re heading . . .’
‘Yeah, but she’s not to know. She’d go into a massive panic, and I couldn’t take that.’
‘Absolutely. The stress is getting to me, too.’
‘Hey, we’ll be fine. Our suits are the best, and I’ve got your back. Always, okay?’
‘I know. Reciprocated, by the way.’ Hir face became sober. ‘Our intruders are out of Gilbert Bay.’
Loi scanned the bubble as his altme pulled data from the Knockdown network. At this stage of the mission, their task was to infiltrate portals into the area around Salt Lake City, where Olyix ships were landing in readiness for the city’s shield collapsing. It wasn’t easy to get physically close – not with the kind of sensor technology the Olyix boasted. The bioborgs Kandara had attempted to use as distractions on her failed mission to McDivitt habitat had shown they could detect fake creatures, so the Knockdown team had decided on a biological approach for their intruders.
With eight-letter DNA incorporated in the design, the Knockdown intruders resembled turtles. Measuring forty centimetres long, they’d been grown in vats over three months. But instead of the slow, stumpy legs that the genuine genus possessed, these had long, sinuous limbs that moved like snakes, making them relatively fast. The shell had a hide of chameleon cells, allowing them to blend into the landscape. Loi wasn’t entirely sure that was going to be needed given the environment they operated in, but the biologists had been on a roll, so it passed review unchallenged. Their internal organs were more or less standard, although they could handle climates with a much higher temperature than ordinary animals, and instead of a brain they had a complex network of bioneural circuitry. A five-centimetre expansion portal was held in a cavity just underneath the shell, providing secure communication.
‘Show me,’ Loi instructed the G8Turing. The bubble display switched to a simple map of Salt Lake City, centred around Gilbert Bay. Sensor imagery was patchy; the Olyix had eliminated all the low-orbit spysats, but plenty of Alpha Defence’s stealthed high-orbit systems were functional and provided a decent resolution. Visually, most of Utah was smothered under a Jovian-strength storm-swirl of cloud, with Salt Lake City a turgid violet glow fluorescing at the centre. Lightning forks snapped outwards constantly from the cirrocumulus peak, discharging into the clutter of secondary tornadoes that inundated the lakes and mountains around the city.
Eldlund flinched at the sight. ‘Damn, I’m glad we’re not down there.’
‘We will be soon enough,’ Loi reminded him. He flipped the display to features overlay and zoomed in on the shoreline of Gilbert Bay at the southern end of the Great Salt Lake. It didn’t exist any more. Even in ordinary times, the massive body of water suffered heavy evaporation every summer, shrinking it down. Now with four Deliverance ships bombarding the city shield with intense energy beams, the surrounding super-energized atmosphere had boiled it empty in the first seven months of the siege.
Twenty-five intruder creatures had travelled in from the north, slithering across the warm granules of the lakebed. Now the three leaders were making their way over the buckled ribbon of asphalt that used to be I-80, with the rest following. Loi activated a direct link and looked through an intruder’s eyes. The land was a jumble of fractured slabs of interstate and desiccated scrub. The image was so badly hazed that he thought the link was faulty before realizing the air was actually clotted with grains of dirt scoured from the land by hurricane-force winds. Low clouds scudded fast overhead, their darkness the shade of wounded flesh. He knew the Oquirrh mountains began to rise up on the other side of the I-80, with Kessler Peak in the distance. But even with the intruder’s enhanced senses, he couldn’t see more than twenty metres.
‘Let’s spread them out,’ Eldlund said, ‘then march them forwards. Those mountains are tough in ordinary conditions, never mind wind like this.’
‘Okay.’ In his mind, Loi could see them as chess pieces advancing across the board – not that the squares were visible, nor the opponent. Somewhere in the maelstrom ahead, the Olyix transport ships were perched along the top of the Oquirrh range, waiting to pounce as soon as the shield fell. Loi directed the intruder forwards, plotting a course to load into its inertial navigation routines. It began to move faster, sliding up onto jagged ridges of exposed rock that marked the start of the foothills. Intermittent streamers of mist streaked down from the slopes above, flowing around it as if it was being sprayed by water cannon, then vanishing as fast as they came. The local air temperature had risen over twenty degrees Celsius.
‘I hope our suits are going to be good enough,’ Loi muttered.
‘Lim has done a great job. We’re going to be pioneers; they were about the first things human-built initiators ever produced. How cool is that?’
‘Scalding, if you must know.’
‘You’re such a miserabilist. Concentrate on good news. There must be some.’
‘Right. Actually, we might have found a route in to Nikolaj.’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘Kohei has tracked down some lowlife criminal that they’re hoping to manipulate. If he’s played right, they’ll be able to shut down the Olyix sabotage operation in London without the Salvation’s onemind knowing we can read its thoughts. We need that. London’s shield is close to breaking.’
‘As close as Salt Lake City?’
‘I think London is worse – just a few hours left now. Mum’s really worried about it. Dad’s still there on the ground, doing his good-guy charity thing.’
‘I feel for her.’
Loi concentrated hard on the route up into the mountains.