Resolution (70 page)

‘Sir.’

Alvix’s image winked out.

The other five forces were located at varying distances from the target areas. Coordination was going to be the greatest problem. Tom sent schematic images to Major Elksin, whose band of experienced mercenaries was closest to the target.

‘Can your people deploy quickly?’

‘Five minutes’ notice, and we’re moving, Warlord.’

‘Thank you, Major. Out.’

Tom addressed the remaining four commanders: ‘The key issue is transportation. We want to get as many of Duke Karalvin’s people away from the pincer-trap as we can. But—’

‘Question, Warlord.’

‘Yes, Lady Liranda.’

‘How critical is the timeframe? We can mobilize more lev-platforms if we—’

‘Absolutely critical, I’m afraid. The Enemy will be able to concentrate huge forces in the area if we let the schedule slip.’

‘Then we go with what we have.’

Tom nodded. ‘Other questions, my friends?’

There were none.

‘Then Fate be with us all.’

In the command centre, no-one quite dared to ask how the Warlord Primus knew things that strategists and SatScan logs and intelligence analysts had no knowledge of. They stared at him when the briefing was over, then found things to do, busying themselves at their displays, talking in low-toned voices over comms-links: all the myriad tasks that kept a war machine functioning.

Eemur floated on her lev-tray, spherical eyes trained upon the tactical holos.

Speaking as a non-expert
...Aren’t you cutting this rather fine?

Tom looked up at her.

You know I am.

Her lev-tray bobbed once in acknowledgement.

It was a rout.

Liranda’s group made better time than expected, and laid down covering fire throughout the Giraltae Cavernae. Karalvin’s beleaguered forces, finding unexpected reinforcements, acted sensibly: instead of switching to the attack, they executed a sequence of sweeping moves that cut along the periphery of the Enemy positions, falling back and regrouping in a series of fast manoeuvres that caused command staff in Axolon Array to gasp at their audacity and timing.

A worthwhile ally.

One-armed Alvix attacked Enemy ambushers from the rear, taking down most of them before they knew an attack was under way. But the fighting after that was fierce, and a third of Alvix’s troopers were wounded or killed by the time he reached Duke Karalvin’s positions.

Then Major Elksin’s tough-disciplined soldiers discovered that even the fiercest black-bronze metallic creature will die when twenty graser beams are trained upon it at the same time.

Amid clouds of choking stone dust and the cries of wounded men and women, lev-platforms bore Karalvin’s forces away, beating a hard-fought retreat before the main mass of Anomaly-controlled forces could enter the region and envelop them.

Hundreds were left behind, broken or dead.

It was a rout, but it was not a disaster. Ten thousand fighters escaped, and spread the tale of Duke Karalvin’s Retreat that became a victory in the face of an Enemy that had seemed unbeatable.

In Axolon Array, as planners totted up the figures, the engagement’s true worth became known. Within hours of the first reports, their comms-webs received tentative queries from scattered groups of freedom fighters that had not dared to affiliate themselves with anyone, preferring to hit and run from hiding.

To the Anomaly, Tom suspected, the setback was no greater than a servitor missing a spot when he scrubbed out a dirty processor block. But to free human beings throughout the world, Karalvin’s Retreat became a symbol of defiance, a hint that the all-powerful Enemy was not the irresistible juggernaut it appeared.

By the day’s end, thirteen new groups had sworn allegiance to the Free Alliance, as people had begun to call the growing resistance movement. They pledged fealty to the Warlord Primus. Duke Karalvin was the most prominent warrior to proclaim his devotion to the cause, as he knelt before Tom in person and accepted Tom’s leadership.

The next day, twenty-three more resistance groups, including a full battalion of Drusigan Dragoons, signed up.

Strike and fade.

That became the unofficial motto of the Free Alliance over the next tenday, as Tom directed a series of daring attacks against Enemy-controlled targets. One of the missions was a disaster that ended when the Dark Fire simply enlarged and swallowed half of the attacking force, and the others were forced to flee beneath a barrage of superior fire from Absorbed humans who had once been elite troops of the Brildakov Brigade.

But other raids were successful, with few losses as they swooped in from directions the Enemy had not foreseen and took out strategic targets.

By the end of the tenday, three hundred and twenty-two separate outfits from throughout the world had joined the Free Alliance, their liaison officers reporting aboard one or other of the four hundred terraformer spheres that were now home to the resistance forces.

‘Now,’ Tom told Elva, ‘it’s getting critical.’

‘If the Anomaly starts attacking the terraformers—’

‘Then we won’t have much time left.’

‘Which means you need the Collegium techs right now, Tom.’

‘But Avernon ... We need him, too.’

Elva turned away, not answering.

She agrees. But you put too much faith in one man.

Eemur’s Head floated outside the command centre.

‘Avernon,’ said Tom, ‘is a bifurcatin’ genius.’

That was the moment that Lady Renata came bustling into the chamber, holding up a crystal. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And we know exactly where he is.’

‘Where, for Chaos’ sake?’

‘As you might expect ... In Strehling Suhltone. We have Pathfinder observers on the ground.’

‘Around the Collegium?’

‘Right.’

Elva swore quietly. Then: ‘They could have told us. We’ve beamed messages to the Collegiate defence squads, in Strehling Suhltone and in Rigay Larn, and got
nothing
in reply.’

‘That’s because,’ Renata said, ‘they don’t trust anyone. You could be Absorbed for all they know.’

‘We ... Right.’

Tom looked at them, then dug inside his waistband, pulled out a violet crystal.

‘The Crystal Lady,’ he said, ‘gave me this. I can call on the Grey Shadows for help. The question is, should I? And is now the time?’

Elva, whose contact with the Grey Shadows was long lost, said: ‘Most of their people are probably already with us, in Free Alliance groups. I don’t see it making much difference. It can’t hurt, but I don’t see it changing anything.’

Renata was thoughtful.

‘You’re wondering what the Crystal Lady herself can do, is that it, Warlord?’

‘There may be forces other than human that she can command. You’re the expert on native lifeforms. What can
they
do?’

‘I don’t know. I mean ... They live in the magma. Perhaps they can control it. But I don’t
know
at all.’

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Elva.

‘Yes, but ... I want to hold something in reserve, my love. Maybe they’re it, or part of... What is it, Elva?’

She was staring into space, in a way Tom knew well: searching through minutiae in her memory - a memory that could never stop recording what she saw and heard and felt.

‘The
bastard.’
Then Elva looked at Tom. ‘I’ve been trying to figure out what he’s up to, because he’s been moving fast, all over the place. He’s sent indirect reports, but other groups have observed his whereabouts ... Some of them have been Grey Shadows-trained: I recognized the protocols.’

‘Who are we talking about?’

‘Your old friend Viscount Trevalkin. If he’s not already in the Collegium, then I’ll eat your socks. And believe me’ - Elva turned to Renata - ‘I’ve no intention of eating
those
alien lifeforms.’