The light dimmed for a moment as a big capsule slipped out of the opening. Chris scurried away to one side. He could see the wormhole had lowered itself so the bottom quarter was now below ground level, giving the long line of armour-clad figures a broad flat path to march through from their world. Above them, capsules slid through nose to tail. Boots were hitting the wet concrete in a steady rhythm, echoing round the high walls of the dock buildings. It was an eerily brutal sound, Chris thought. Over a hundred of the soldiers were on the Viotia side already. Soldiers? But what else could he call them?
Finally, the impossibility he was witnessing started to register. His u-shadow was throwing out frantic emergency calls to his family, friends, work-colleagues, company offices, the police, the mayor, government… His mind let loose a powerful wail of shock into the gaiafield, which drew some instant reactions of surprise from local sharers, who immediately became curious indeed as his vision opened to them.
'You there! an amplified voice boomed from the first rank of the marching figures. There must have been thirty capsules in the air now, starting to accelerate out across the city, and still more were rushing through. From his angle, the wormhole provided Chris with a narrow window out across the vast field on the other side. Warm afternoon sunlight shone down cosily on row after row of armoured figures, thousands of them — tens of thousands. Most of them were in shadow from the armada of regrav capsules suspended in the air above.
Chris Turner turned and started to run.
'Halt, the harsh voice commanded. 'We are the legitimate police of Viotia, accredited by your Prime Minister. Halt now or face the consequences.
Chris kept on running. This couldn't be happening. This was the Commonwealth. It was safe and it was comfortable. People with guns didn't invade from other planets, not even in troubled times like these. Not happening!
'Last warning. Halt.
His family was starting to respond to his frantic calls. Those he shared himself with through the gaiafield were producing the same dismayed reaction as his own. Then the jangle pulse struck, and Chris was unconscious before he hit the wet concrete.
Elvin's Payback was only an hour out from Viotia when the shit hit the fan. Everyone on board went quiet at more or less the same time as their u-shadows reported the news that was breaking into the Unisphere. They accessed in astonishment as images of armoured paramilitary police and their support capsules poured out of the wormhole in Colwyn City's docks. In a carefully choreographed political sequence the Cleric Conservator's office on Ellezelin formally issued a public invitation to Viotia to join the Free Trade Zone. It was swiftly followed by Viotia's Prime Minister accepting on behalf of her planet. One minute later the wormhole had opened.
So Oscar Monroe wasn't the least surprised when Paula called him on a secure link a couple of minutes later. 'We knew they were planning annexation, Paula said. 'The trigger factor has to be the Second Dreamer.
'That figures, Oscar said. 'Everyone's scared crapless over the devourment phase. If we do manage to get hold of him, I'd like to shake some sense into the stupid bastard myself.
'I think the devourment has taken Living Dream by surprise as much as everyone else. The dream simply confirmed his location for them. They're acting on that.
Oscar reviewed some of the images relayed by reporters who'd gathered around the edge of the docks. 'So we can safely assume he's in Colwyn City.
'Yes, but they don't know exactly where. If they had an accurate fix, their embedded agents would have simply run a covert snatch operation. This is an indicator of Ethan's desperation. Our sources on the ground indicate they're shutting down all traffic in and out of the city, ground, air and space.
'Closing the noose.
'Exactly.
'That doesn't make our mission any easier. We'll have to infiltrate through the perimeter.
'Don't complicate things. I'd suggest you simply fly straight down into the docks.
'You're kidding me, right?
'Not at all. Get the smartcore to display the ship's stealth function to you. I don't believe that Living Dream has anything on Viotia which can detect you at night in the rain.
'Oh crap. All right.
The link ended, and he turned to his shipmates to explain.
'I can insert some software that will help cover our approach, Liatris McPeierl said. 'Their network is already growing out from the docks, I'm monitoring its development through the unisphere, but I can crack the junction nodes. That'll let me into their sensors and command links.
'The docks will be a good position, Tomansio said. 'It puts us in right at the heart of their operation. I don't care how dense their network is, or how powerful their smartcores, it will be chaotic down there to start with. That provides us with a golden opportunity.
'All right, Oscar said, 'you guys are the experts. Tell me what approach route you want.
Forty minutes later Elvin's Payback emerged into real space a thousand kilometres above Colwyn City. It was already fully stealthed, capable of avoiding the most advanced military-grade sensors. A huge case of overkill. Viotia's civil space detectors could barely locate a starship out at geosynchronous orbit when its beacon was signalling. As yet, the Ellezelin forces pouring into the docks hadn't established any kind of sensor coverage above the atmosphere. They were concentrating on tracking capsule traffic in the city, and apprehending anyone who tried to leave.
Nobody was looking for craft coming into the area. The commercial starships which had arrived after the annexation began were staying in orbit, awaiting developments and clear orders from their owners.
Following Tomansio's directions, Oscar brought the starship straight down above the estuary a couple of miles outside the city. It was still raining, the swollen river covered by rolling cloud. With a high intensity optical distortion shimmering round its fuselage, the ovoid starship looked like a particularly dense patch of drizzle in the few wisps of sombre starlight that defused through the cloud. Electronic sensors simply lost focus, mass scanners were unable to find anything heavier than air in the space it occupied. Even Higher field functions, had there been any operating, would have been hard pressed to find anything. If it had been broad daylight on a clear morning, then maybe someone might have spotted something. But not this dreary shadowed night.
Oscar took them down to three metres above the muddy water, and steered upriver using passive sensors alone. Several of the large Ellezelin forces' support capsules streaked across the sky above them, on their way to intercept fleeing citizens. Elvin's Payback remained invisible, though that didn't stop Oscar holding his breath and foolishly staring up at the cabin ceiling as the capsules passed overhead. He remembered the war films he used to watch in his first life, already ancient then, which depicted silent running in submarines. The principles here were comparable. He was even tempted to take the starship underwater to make their approach, completing the similarity. Tomansio had talked him out of it, pointing out that the noise and displacement they'd make breaking surface would probably give them away.
So they drifted in over the deserted quays like a ghost through mist. According to the information Liatris had hacked from the invaders' network, several paramilitary squads had been deployed round the perimeter of the docks, supported by ten armed capsules, to secure their immediate footprint. Nobody was watching the dock's long river frontage.