A military issue boot, made by Hammond and Tew of New Merionedd, pounded heavily on the ceiling hatch three times; thump thump thump, accompanied by a muffled half-heard stream of abuse. Gunner Johnston M’bote thumbed at his radio channel selector. “…to Baby Bear, Daddy Bear to Baby Bear, what’n’hellyouplayingatdowntheredon’tyouknowthere’sawar—youdumbstupidsonofa… target bearing zero point four degrees declination, fifteen degrees.” Tongue protruding in unprecedented concentration, Gunner M’bote spun little brass wheels and verniers and aligned the big tachyon blaster on the unremarkable section of red cliff face.
“Baby Bear to Daddy Bear, I have the target all set; now what you want me should do?”
“Daddy Bear to Baby Bear, fire when ready. Holy God, how dumb…”
“Okay Daddy Bear.” Johnston M’bote gleefully pressed both thumbs to the much anticipated little red button.
“Zap!” he shouted. “Zap, you bastards!”
Sub-lieutenant Shannon Ysangani was withdrawing her combat group as per orders from Arnie Tenebrae from the perimeter positions (which smelled oppressively of urine and electricity) to the Blue Alley revetments, when the Parliamentarians vaporized the entire New Glasgow Brigade. She and her fifteen combat troops constituted the sole two percent that survived. Shannon Ysangani had been leading her section past the front of the jolly Presbyter Pilgrim Hostel, when an unusual brilliant light from an unusual angle threw an unusually black shadow against the adobe walls. She had just time to marvel at the shadow, and the way the red and blue neon jolly Presbyter suddenly lit up (a hitherto-undiscovered electromagnetic pulse side effect of the tachyon devices), when the blast picked up her body and soul and smashed her into the facade of the Pilgrim Hostel and, by means of a finale, brought walls, ceiling and fat neon Presbyter himself down on top of her.
But for her defence canopy Shannon Ysangani would have been smeared like potted meat. As it was, she was englobed within a black bubble of collapsed masonry. She explored the smooth perimeter of her prison with blind fingertips. The air smelled of energy and stale sweat. Two choices. She could remain under the jolly Presbyter until she was rescued or her air ran out. She could drop her defence canopy (possibly all that was keeping multitons of Jolly Presbyter from crushing her, like a boorish lover) and punch her way out with field-inducers on offensive. Those were the choices. She had fought enough battles to know that they were not as simple as they appeared. The ground shuddered as if one of the ineffable footsteps of the Panarch had fallen on Desolation Road; there was another, and another, and another. The fighting machines were moving.
She could not believe the ease with which the Parliamentarians had broken through the perimeter defences. She could not believe so much death and annihilation could have been contained in such a short flash of light. The earth shook to a sustained concussion. Another flare of light, another annihilation. She found she could not believe in this new death either. War was too much like the Sunday night thriller on the radio to be credible for what it was. Another blast. The Jolly Presbyter settled with a heavy grunt on top of Shannon Ysangani. Someone must carry the news of the destruction back to headquarters. A voice she barely recognised as duty nagged at her. Do your duty… do your duty… do your duty… Shock. Explosion, close by. Thud thud thud, the metal boots of a fighting machine close by, what if one comes down on top of me, will my defence canopy hold up? Duty, do your…
“All right! All right!” She knelt in the darkness beneath the smothering corpulence of the jolly Presbyter, checking her fire controls by touch. She wanted to be sure, sure, and sure again. She would get only the one shot. Shannon Ysangani sighed a short, resigned puff of a sigh and collapsed her defence canopy. The debris groaned and settled. Creaking, crashing… she brought the field-inducer up and punched a full power burst through to the sunlight.
It might have been a different world she stepped out into. The entire southeast end of Desolation Road lay in tumbled smoking ruins. Glowing glass craters, nine-rayed like St. Catherine’s starburst, gave testimony to the punishing effectiveness of the Parliamentarians’ new weapon. They had passed this way in force, their behemoth fighting machines, creatures of childhood iron nightmares, stood astride streets and buildings, hissing steam from their joints and trading ponderous artillery barrages with crannies of Whole Earth Army resistance entrenched along First Street. The Parliamentarians’ passage through the outer defences had flattened the town like a rice field before a whirlwind. Yet their advance had not gone totally unopposed. Like a dead spider beneath a boot, the command turret of a fighting machine lay smashed open in a tangle of metal legs. Shannon Ysangani flicked for her defence canopy, then paused. In this kind of war, perhaps invisibility would be a better tactic, operating on the principle of what can’t be seen can’t be shot at. She thumbed open her section’s radio channel and called the survivors to her. The few were fewer. Twelve out of fifteen, crawling from the chaos in the wake of the battle. Sub-lieutenant Ysangani then thumbed the command channel and made a brief report of losses to Commander Tenebrae.
Arnie Tenebrae sat amid her war staff, fingertips touched together in the attitude of meditative serenity. Ninety-eight percent casualties in the initial engagement and now the Parliamentarians were kicking at the skirting boards of Steeltown. Once ninety-eight percent casualties would have outraged her military sense and sent her shouting brilliant, inspiring orders to her troops. Now she merely sat, fingertips touched together, nodding.
“Orders are revised,” she said when the Sub-lieutenant had finished. “Under no circumstances are troops to use defence canopies. Employ lightscatter and high mobility. You are guerrillas. Be guerrillas.” She cut commu nications with the defenders and turned her whole self to the complex machine-thing humming on the tile floor. “How much longer?”
“Ten, twenty more minutes before we get the power hooked up,” said Dhavram Mantones. “And we’ll have to defend the power source.”
“Order it done.” Arnie Tenebrae suddenly stood up and went to her room. She regarded her painted face in the mirror on the wall. Foolish vanity, she was Deathbird no longer, she was Timebird, the Chronal Phoenix. As she wiped the foolish paint from her face she reflected on the ninety-eight percent casualties on the perimeter dugouts. Meaningless. Plastic soldiers. The defence of the time winder was paramount now, and for it she would gladly embrace hundred percent casualties. Universal death. The concept began to appeal to her.