Gneiss paused again, gazing at something out of view. Harald wished the man was in reach for he felt an overpowering urge to prod him.
"Finally, Admiral Harald, your supporters believe you aim to restore Fleet ascendancy within the Sudorian system by slapping down us usurpers in Orbital Combine." Gneiss returned his gaze directly to the screen. "All your actions apparently indicate this but, as I said before, I know your sister. And I have researched your other siblings. I know their history, and I know their antecedents. I know your antecedents, Harald, for of course I knew your mother." Gneiss paused yet again, but this time some intense but unidentifiable emotion twisted his features. "Your goal is apparently one thing, but in reality it is something else. I think, somewhere inside, you realise that your will is not your own. Perhaps, if you can recognise that truth, we can halt this now. I look forward to hearing from you soon, Harald Strone."
Harald felt a sudden surge of anger. Stupid games. Gneiss understood nothing and Harald should concede him nothing, and perhaps, in his last moments as Combine turned to wreckage around him, Gneiss would understand the futility of his petty attempts at manipulation. Then, abruptly as it had come, Harald's anger disappeared and he considered the situation with calm rationality. After a minute of contemplation, he nodded as he came to a decision.
"Wildfire tacom."
"I hear you."
"Send a message to our groundside base commanders. I am ordering them to stand down and surrender themselves to GDS."
"You're what?"
"I don't intend to repeat myself. Them dying down there will make little difference to my plans, and would be a foolish waste of future resources."
"Understood—am sending message now."
Corisanthe Main was the primary target, and once it was his to control…Harald suddenly found himself mentally groping in a blank spot and felt a moment's panic. He drew back. That station was the target because, with the Worm aboard, it was Combine's power base. He must focus solely on that objective. The ground bases were irrelevant: everything ended at Corisanthe Main.
But why hit Combine anyway?
There had been so much going on that he had little time to consider anything beyond immediate objectives—just making cursory preparations as in his dealings with Lambrack and any other rebellious Captains. He felt with all his heart he was doing the best thing possible for Fleet. Fleet needed to be strong to face internal threats and now external ones. Sudorian defence could not continue being divided between it and Combine…Harald closed his eyes on an unaccustomed confusion. He realised that this did not entirely account for his own hatred of Combine, and his ultimate aim to board Corisanthe Main and take complete control there.
Doubts, now?
Something seemed to shift inside his head, and suddenly he realised such introspection was foolish. Combine must be brought down, Fleet must be the ultimate power, and Corisanthe Main must be his. That was all he needed to think about now.
Yishna
Ensconced in a study unit overlooking Centre Cross Chamber, Yishna inspected station schematics and cladograms showing energy output from the various reactors. She pulled across her microphone, turned it on and selected, on a touch-screen, the OCT she wanted to contact.
"Dalepan, you'll need to install a heavy-duty cable from junction Oz56v through to Oz78v—I'm transmitting to you that section of the schematics now."
"And where will I obtain the cable?" Dalepan asked.
Yishna called up another display showing a manifest of recent supplies brought aboard. "Stock Room Eight, and if you don't find it there you'll find it still awaiting collection on Dock Eight."
She heard Dalepan issuing instructions and returned her screens to disaster planning. Now supposing a hit on a particular section of Quadrant Two, she checked the resultant protocol the computer threw up: these doors would close; power would be cut to these doors so would have to be rerouted; potential loss of life, fifty souls; potential Ozark containment breach. In this instance refer to Emergency Ozark Protocols—permissions through Station Director.
There it was again, and Yishna felt a chill sweat break out on her body. If, or rather when, the station came under attack, her earlier interference with those protocols would almost certainly be revealed. Yet, knowing what she had done and being in a position to now easily correct matters, she found she could not. There seemed some block in her. Every time she went to access the Director's 'eyes only' files the task suddenly seemed insurmountably difficult, and the harder she pushed herself the more frightened she became. Shadows loomed and nightmares threatened, and something seemed to shift titanically within her psyche.
"I can't find any heavy-duty cable," said Dalepan, interrupting her thoughts.
And there was always something else to do.
"Let me put a tracker on the manifest," she sighed.
The tracker quickly found the cable at neither location, so logically it must be in transit between them.
"Someone must be moving it right now," she told Dalepan.
"Well, I figured—what the hell is that?"
Just as he spoke, an infernal light glared in through upper ports in the roof of Centre Cross Chamber.
"Attention all personnel!" Director Gneiss's face appeared on one of her touch-screens, his voice issuing from the screen speaker and also over the public address system. "Our telescope arrays have been monitoring Fleet manoeuvres between here and Carmel, and twenty-five minutes ago Fleet hilldiggers fired approximately a thousand inert relativistic projectiles at Combine stations. Expected time of impact is thirty-eight minutes from now. This is an act of war and in response we are neutralising all Fleet satellites in orbit that could pose a danger to us militarily or be used for intelligence gathering. It is fortunate Fleet evacuated those satellites first. All personnel are to don suit helmets and check suit integrity before moving to their stations." Gneiss paused for a moment, and Yishna thought he looked almost bored. "Okay, most of you know what to do now—those of you who don't, check with your superiors. Further updates and announcements will be made on Media Channel One. That's all."
Yishna immediately began searching for exterior views of activity from Main and from other stations. While she did this a rumbling noise dragged her attention up to where armoured shutters were closing across all the Centre Cross ports.
It's really happening. My brother…
On her screens she soon observed ships launching from Corisanthe stations II and III. They were big, well armed, but nothing like the scale of the hilldiggers. Defence buoys were also going up: robotic spheres containing a honeycomb of hard ceramocarbide steel whose sum purpose was to detect incoming projectiles and put themselves in their way, the honeycomb being specially designed to break those projectiles apart. Once all these had departed, the energy screens would also go up, and rail-guns and beam weapons would be made ready. Soon a lot of fast-moving metal would be flying about out there.