Gridlinked

The armoured personnel carrier stood out from the other vehicles, like a vulture amongst canaries. The private AGCs were of all colours, and small; some of them were open and more like flying sedan chairs, some of them were reproductions of the petrol-driven cars of old Earth, but few of mem were ugly. The carrier was battleship grey. In appearance and size it was a railway carriage minus wheels, and with all hard and uncompromising angles. At the back of it there were tail-mounted turbines, and along its length a number of stabilizing fins. There were turrets for automatic projectile guns and beam weapons. It was a formidable machine. As they approached, Cormac glanced from it to the red Cortina replica parked next to it.

'Hardly covert,' he said.

Arn was a sergeant in the ES regulars, but just as obviously a native of Viridian. He was a short stocky man with cap-cut, light blue hair, a bushy moustache of the same colour - and it seemed to be natural coloration - and dark pupil-less eyes deep-set in a craggy face. He studied them for a moment, then saluted smartly and opened the door to the carrier.

'Sergeant, you have weapons for us?' said Thorn.

'So too.' He saluted again.

'No need for all that,' said Cormac. 'Just show us the weapons and take us to Motford. I'll give a briefing there.'

Arn pointed out some crates strapped in the back of the carrier, then went to take his position at the controls. Cento joined him - looking hopeful, Cormac thought. Shortly the carrier was airborne and, when they were clear of the AGC park, the ion boosters roared. The carrier accelerated smoothly; it would have been quite possible to walk about inside while it was travelling.

'How much do you intend to tell them?' Aiden asked.

Cormac looked up in surprise from the crate he was opening. He had expected Thorn to be the one to ask that, as the Golem Thirties were decidedly taciturn.

'I see no reason to hold back on anything this side of the runcible. Only we ourselves will use the energy weapons, though. They're just extra muscle for when friend Pelter puts in an appearance.'

Aiden looked pointedly at the two innocuous boxes at the end of the case. Cormac lifted one out and pressed his thumb against the lock. It was keyed only to him. The box opened to reveal a gleaming cylinder, twenty centimetres long by five wide, with the letters CTD in a garish red pictogram, purpled by the light. On the end of each cylinder was a black cap with a miniconsole on it - remote or timer, the result was always the same. Cormac smiled.

'Perhaps we'll leave off telling them about these,' he said, and closed the box. It had 'JMCC: Enropower. I Kilowatt Hour" etched into the lid. The cylinders, though, were not powerpacks: they delivered a great deal more energy than one kilowatt, and in substantially less time than an hour. CTD stood for contra-terrene device. Thorn by then had opened another case, and was holding a weapon that had the appearance of a stubby carbine made of glass and old wood. Under the glass, salamanders writhed, waiting to be released.

When Cormac had finished his briefing, ten regulars dispersed to their sky-bikes, which were parked haphazardly on soggy lichen-covered ground. They were to fly escort, and all other vehicles were to be warned off. Arn lifted the carrier into the sky with a smooth acceleration. Cormac took one of the four seats at the control console, along with the sergeant and Aiden.

'These ruins, Sergeant, describe them to me,' he said.

'So too. They're what's left of an old ES ground installation, sir. There's just a few fragments of a shield dome surrounding a couple of underground missile silos. Surrounding that is a radial scattering of old storage buildings, nothing very large. There are supposed to be bunkers under the ground around the silos, but no one goes in there. Still hot.'

'Would it be possible to land next to the underground silos?'

'Not so. No clear ground, and the roofs of the buildings would never take the weight of this carrier.'

'What's the scale?'

'Whole site's about two kilometres across. Silos were for Hunter Tens, about fifty metres deep and ten in diameter, three of them. Don't know anything about the bunkers… sir.'

Cormac nodded.

'The description you've given is sufficient, Sergeant. Most concise. Put us down on the perimeter, wherever you deem suitable.'

The sergeant allowed himself a tight little smile.

'Sarge, we got someone on the edge of detector range. Looks like they're following.'

'You know the drill, Corporal. Warn them off.'

'They don't respond. Shall I send back Cheng and Goff?'

Cormac leant forward. 'Cormac here.'

'Colonel, sir!'

'What's your name, soldier?'

'Tarm, sir.'

'Very well, Tarm, I want you and this Cheng and Goff to go back personally. Warn them off. Turn them if you can. If they fire on you, take them out. Otherwise I want them driven back a fair way, but not so far they won't be able to pick up on us again. Do you understand?'

'I think so, sir.'

'Don't be thick, Tarm,' interjected the sergeant.

'Oh… Oh, I see. On our way, sir.'

Cormac glanced out the window of the carrier and saw three of the sky-bikes peel away and accelerate on pencils of fire. He turned to the sergeant.

'We'll be at the ruins by nightfall, I take it?'

'So too.'

'Put us down as close to the storage buildings as you can. What will the light be like?'

'Moon's up, but the light's deceptive.'

'Good. When we get there, have your men leave their bikes, set up their tents and disperse into the buildings. Do anything else you can think of to make the camp appear occupied.'

'A trap, sir?' Arn smiled his tight little smile.

'Oh yes,' said Cormac. 'But I want at least one of them alive. You have stun weapons?'

'We've got an armoury, sir.'

'Good, you'll have opportunity to use it.'

'He's ECS and he'll be running a team to shut down the local syndicates,' said Corlackis.

The woman nodded, her comunit earrings glittering in the green light. Stanton knew the type: she wore a skin-tight shiny plastic from neck to feet and her thick brown hair spread in dreadlocks, plaits and artistic tangles across her shoulders and down her back. He could just make out a small aug in the shape of a star behind her right ear. At her hip was holstered a long-barrelled pulse-gun of the kind that fired ionized gas. Real fancy, but no range. She was obviously fascinated by the silent, glaring presence of Pelter, and by Crane who was crouching behind him. Stanton lowered the police-issue intensifier, its lenses whirring as it tried to compensate for this movement, and then he upped the gain on the directional microphone. That none of them had thought to use the damper showed Pelter's arrogance had to be catching. That the local muscle chose to have this meeting on the veranda of this cafe bespoke another arrogance. They wished to demonstrate to the great Separatist leader that this was an area they controlled.

The three men and the other woman were much like their boss: the kind that Stanton had hired on many occasions. He judged them to be supporters of the Cause only in that it gave them an excuse for racketeering, like so many would-be freedom fighters, they had probably found the attraction of easy money harder to resist than a few hazy ideals. They affected dress similar to that of Mennecken and Corlackis, but Stanton knew that the two mercenaries could go through them in a second. That of course was not their intention. These people were fodder. Stanton knew exactly what Pelter intended.

It had taken Stanton a day to find out where to look. It was the area of the city of Motford that had the highest crime rate, where weapons were worn openly, and where dubious characters loitered on the streets. After then asking a few questions in bars, he had found out who was running things in the area. Following the woman had been easy. Nothing about her was covert. She swanned about in an expensive Aston Martin replica as she and her heavies went on their collection rounds. Patient watching had finally produced this meeting.