At last, in a moment of calm, Carl paused while staring at the forward screen display, and tried to absorb the fact that a circumstance more unlikely than the most extreme he had trained for had now come about. This ground tank — like the other nineteen possessed by the Underground, part of an apocalyptic scheme thought up by Lellan's predecessor — had been retained only for use in the tunnels in the event of an underground attack. No one had even considered the possibility that it might be used on the surface, except perhaps that same predecessor. Carl remembered him as a strange little man who, after raising Lellan to the position she now occupied, had shuffled off to hang himself in Pillar-town Two. His scheme back then had apparently been a mass breakout to kidnap the Hierarch during one of his periodic visits, and he had only scrapped it because the said dignitary had ceased to visit the surface.
The tanks to either side of Carl — three in all, since the others had long since gone to other break-out caverns — were already belching steam from their exhausts as hydrogen turbines wound up to speed. On the surface these would cease to function in the oxygen-bereft atmosphere, but by then they would no longer need the huge torque output of the engines, and could go back onto battery drive.
Glancing back, Carl saw that the rest of his crew was ready: Beckle on the heavy pulse-cannon only recently installed; Targon on the medkit, replacement duty, and just about everything else; and Uris on logistics and navigation. After listening to the communication that came direct to his comlink, he announced to them, "Lellan says time to give them their wake-up call."
"I was hoping to put them to bed," said Beckle, fiddling with the adjustments inside his targeting visor.
Carl reached out and clicked over the switches that started the turbines and immediately they began to cycle their way up to speed — the tank vibrating and groaning like some waking monster. Ahead, the first tank turned towards their exit tunnel, its treads flaking up stone from the floor.
"We're still in tunnel seven?" he asked.
"Confirmed, tunnel seven," said Uris. "Gets us into the centre of the coming shit storm."
Gripping the control column, Carl engaged the turbine and eased the tank forwards, as he had earlier done during the infrequent practice sessions with this machine. It still seemed almost insane to him that they were heading for the surface. With the laser arrays functioning, there had always been small windows of opportunity they could use for a surface attack, outside of which their losses immediately soared above ninety per cent. Never, though, had there been a window large enough to drive a tank through, so to speak — it seemed almost unnatural.
"What's our target?" Beckle asked.
"Nothing from Lellan yet on that," Carl replied.
"It'll be either the Agatha or Cyprian compounds," said Uris. "They're the nearest ones with a military presence."
"Both have auto gun towers, and both have over three thousand troops in situ," said Beckle, probably wondering if the pulse-cannon was enough.
"Confirmed on Agatha compound," said Uris. "Full plan feeding across." He studied his readouts in silence for a moment before continuing with, "Four towers and, at last count, three thousand five hundred troops. We hit this tower at 0.33 from mark time."
Carl glanced at the map screen before him, as the coordinates came up. He then concentrated on where he was going — T-2, 3, and 4 ahead of him now motoring up into the darkness of tunnel seven.
Uris went on, "After we've taken down the tower, we're to hit anything that comes out by air until things get too hot, then head towards Cyprian to rendezvous with Group Two at second co-ordinates, and head north. Holman is even now mining the area underneath second co-ordinates, where it's projected the Theocracy ground troops from both bases will meet."
"How many should that net us?" Carl asked.
"Estimated thirty per cent casualty rate," Uris replied.
"That could mean two thousand dead people," said Targon, who often acted as their conscience as well.
Glancing across at him, Uris said, "More than that when we turn back and hit them again while they're still reeling. With any luck there won't be enough of them left to scrape up with a spade."
The tanks ahead, now going onto the straight upslope, were closing in their two wide treads, which had until then been necessarily apart for steering purposes. Carl operated the control to set his tank doing likewise, turned on the tank's side-lights, and watched as the lead tank hit the earthen wall at which the tunnel terminated. Now with its treads closed to form a continuous belt, that tank opened its tread dips and began to plough its way through. Once up on the surface, the treads opened out again for steering and fast manoeuvring, but Carl had to wonder if, even with their light foamed-metal construction, they would be able to proceed on that surface without sinking.
"What about the infantry? When do they go in?" asked Beckle.
"That old tunnelling machine with the compacter and plascrete spraying arms'll be following us directly, so the tunnel should be ready about an hour after we hit the towers. Infantry'll be coming up then, to take the bases," explained Uris.
"Then where for us?" inquired Beckle.
Uris did not reply — he just looked at Carl, who glanced round at him briefly before replying to the question they all wanted an answer to.
"You know how it is — it depends on exactly what they've got on the surface," he said. "We get proctors or army running around with smart hand-launchers, then we're back to foot-slogging. These bastard lumps of metal make easy targets." He slapped the control console before him, and did not add that Lellan would tell them to abandon only once losses in the tank section grew higher than the gains — and with only twenty tanks to lose, those were odds Carl did not care to study too closely.
Loman did not know whether to feel relief, anger or sadness. Yes, Behemoth had destroyed every one of the laser arrays, killing thousands of good men and breaking the Theocracy's steel grip on the population below, but Faith, Hope and Charity were still intact, and the creature had crashed itself into the surface of the planet. And, now it was gone, there was only the unnecessary chanting of the Septarchy Friars filling the upper channels, when those same channels could be so useful to him.
"All the traders pulled out as fast as they could. They knew what would happen: breakouts all the way across," said Aberil as, accompanied by a party of armed guards, they disembarked down a grav-plated gantry into the tower of Faith. "That godless bitch won't be able to field all her forces, but she should have enough."
"It is a time of change," said Loman, not greatly interested in what he was hearing. "We have been given this opportunity to write clean scripture." Noticing the cold assessing look he got from Aberil, he said no more, for he felt very deeply that the said new scripture would not be what any of the Theocracy, including his brother, would expect. Almost like probing the cavity in a tooth, he felt his mind drawn to the place Behemoth had attempted to occupy in the network of augs, but there he found only chanting — always the chanting of the Septarchy Friars. He drew back, and focused on his surroundings, as they finally arrived at the floor containing the previous Hierarch's luxurious apartments. With a thought, Loman instructed the guards to spread out and take position throughout the outer building before he sent the code that opened the grape-wood doors through his aug. Gesturing for Aberil to follow, he entered, instructing the doors to close behind them, then reluctantly returned his thoughts to the immediate and prosaic, as he faced his brother. "What of our forces on the surface?"