Part 43 (1/2)

'So we have to get through them,' she said. 'If we want to take the palace, and not simply destroy it.'

'There's a civilian population.' Vincenzi nodded. 'Twenty thousand. A lot of skilled people. Any serious damage to the dome, and they're all dead.'

'So there's no way around it,' said the colonel. 'We have to fight our way up there.'

'And without the benefit of covering mortar fire,' said Vincenzi. 'One badly aimed sh.e.l.l, and we'll puncture the dome.'

Colonel Forrester sat back in her seat, thinking. 'Our advantage is going to be numbers,' she said.

'Yes, ma'am,' said Vincenzi. 'They can't kill all of us.'

297.

'I don't want you or anyone else thinking of this as a suicide mission,' she said firmly. 'It's a particularly difficult job that needs doing.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said Vincenzi, and he meant it.

'Sokolovsky,' said the colonel. 'Report.'

The captain looked over to them. 'Trouble,' he said. 'Walid's panicking, I think. He's pulled the T'ai Tsung T'ai Tsung out of the action at Phobos, and they're heading back to Callisto.' out of the action at Phobos, and they're heading back to Callisto.'

'That's crazy,' said Vincenzi. 'He doesn't need two s.h.i.+ps to defend that little moon.'

Sokolovsky shook his head. 'He's panicking,' he said again.

'He's abandoned Mars altogether.'

'This is it, then,' said Forrester. The last objective.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said Vincenzi.

She blew out a breath. 'Nearly missed the d.a.m.n war,' she said.

Mimas The Nexus flared. The light filled the room for a moment, leaving a searing afterimage on Chris's eyeb.a.l.l.s..

'Look,' he told the Doctor.

Something was trying to get out of the Nexus. The s.h.i.+mmering light stretched and grew as whatever it was fought to get loose.

As one, the Grandmaster turned to look at it.

The Doctor pulled loose from Chris and ran forward, through them.

A hand reached out of the tear in the air. Another hand appeared, battling loose of the light.

The Doctor reached out and caught them and pulled pulled. It was him him, emerging head and shoulders from the Nexus. The Doctor on the outside roared and pulled the other one free.

The Nexus burst open like an overripe melon.

Callisto Two of the Drops.h.i.+ps died on the way to Callisto's surface.

Roz could still see the afterimage of the explosions as she climbed out of the vehicle, safely wrapped in her lightweight combat suit.

298.

She'd wondered why the others were all staring at the floor, instead of out of the windows. She'd a.s.sumed it was to avoid nausea, though it wasn't bothering her. It wasn't until she'd seen one of the other s.h.i.+ps burst apart in a hail of fire that she'd got the idea.

'Get clear of the vehicles!' Vincenzi was shouting. 'Well clear, well clear! Do not a.s.semble!'

They'd rehea.r.s.ed this, but he wasn't giving anyone the chance to screw up. She ran, following him, taking long, loping strides in the low gravity, trying hard not to stumble. The Ogrons were having a hard time, clumsy, but determined. The long-legged soldier making graceful, easy leaps must be a Lacaillan.

The surface was rough, pockmarked with thousands of craters, huge and small. Even without the dome, Valhalla Crater would have been unmissable, the only feature from horizon to horizon.

They'd run a klick across the flat, rough plain when the first of the Drops.h.i.+ps exploded. 'Hit the deck!' screamed Vincenzi. His voice echoed inside her helmet and right through her skull. She was hugging rock with everyone else before she had time to think about it.

She rolled over on the dark ice, looked up at the sky. The Victoria Victoria and the and the T'ai Tsung T'ai Tsung looked as big as her hand. She could see the fire they were exchanging, cutters buzzing back and forth like fireflies, flaring and dying. The looked as big as her hand. She could see the fire they were exchanging, cutters buzzing back and forth like fireflies, flaring and dying. The Ojibwa Ojibwa was even lower in the sky, ignoring the was even lower in the sky, ignoring the Victoria Victoria. It was much more interested in them.

Shrapnel spun over head in lazy patterns. Vincenzi waited for the big pieces to settle and yelled, 'Move on! Move on!'

They leapt up and ran like h.e.l.l. There was an hour's worth of running to do before they got to the rim. Sixty minutes, any of them could see you dead. The dome was like Paradise beyond it, you could see the blue sky and the greenery inside it.

The first strafing run came twenty minutes later. 'Eat dirt!' she screamed as the proximity detector on her back came on, even before Vincenzi could yell out the order.

A cutter flew in low, its targets tiny specks among the rocks. It waved X-ray lasers over them in random patterns. Roz heard 299 screams as the beam crossed legs and arms, unprotected outside the laser-reflective tunics and helmets.

She tongued a radio control and shouted at Vincenzi, 'Shouldn't we run?'

'Its computer targets movement,' he hissed back. 'We'd all be dead if we were moving. Hold on.'

There was a sudden pressure and heat on her back. She rolled into the shadow of a tilted rock, instinctively, her arms coming up to protect her face.

The cutter was gone, pieces of the s.h.i.+p raining down maybe a klick ahead of them. She saw one of their s.h.i.+ps pulling into a steep climb.

'Up! Up!' Vincenzi was screaming. 'Leave the wounded the cutter will come back and pick them up. Who've we lost?'

'Me, sir,' came the voices, weak. One just screamed and screamed.

'That's six,' Vincenzi told Roz, as they kept running.

'Is that bad?'

'We were lucky,' he said. 'If our cutters can stay in position, we won't have to worry about any more of theirs. All we'll have to worry about are the Rim defences.'

'Oh great,' said Roz.

Mimas In a human life, there are an enormous number of possibilities that didn't happen, paths not taken. Theoretically, that number is infinite. Practically, the number is finite, though enormous. Some possibilities, such as spontaneously turning into a fish, are so unlikely as to have a negligible probability.

Take that number, and multiply it by seven lives and an uncountable number of times and places.

Chris didn't bother to try to protect himself. He let the lives strike him, slide over him, fly away.