Red

The Iron Mountain Command Centre

174th Summer – The First Year of the Regency

(Earth Date 22nd January 2017)

“Red Emu I presume. It is good to finally meet you,” the big man greeted me, he was huge, not just in stature either, his presence filled the room like a fresh breeze in a smoke-filled room. Suddenly the stories whispered in dark corners about his exploits suddenly became more believable. This was the Governor of Trafalgar. Our greatest enemy and I’d betrayed everyone and everything giving him access the beating heart of the Iron Mountain.

“It’s an honour to finally meet you Governor. I trust your journey here was uneventful.” I replied standing up and trying to keep my misgivings from showing. The man smiled and suddenly looked more human, tired, alert and still scary as hell, but human.

“I’ve never entered a hostile city with so little drama.” He said lightly as if wandering into hostile towns was a daily occurrence for him.

“We tried to think of everything, we couldn’t get the guard on the Iron Spike removed…”

“I decided to leave them be, They didn’t exactly sound like they were willing to defend the town to the death. And I have both their bullets.” The man held up two bullets, I stared at them for a second wondering how he’d managed to get hold of them as they were loaded into the guns before shift start in front of an Overseer

“I’m surprised they were even awake. The guards who get duty on the Spike are there because they aren’t trusted to guard the city. How did you deal with the bear?” The bear had given me nightmares when I’d found out about it.

“I impressed upon it the necessity of finding somewhere else to live. I think it’s still running.” The man said smugly, too smugly to be lying which meant he’d managed to scare off a hungry adult bear that had been trained to attack and kill humans.

“We couldn’t get you any information about the threat, we only found out what it was a couple of days ago…” I started to explain but the big man waved the excuse away as if there hadn’t been a problem.

“Don’t worry about it, you warned us the Gateway might be protected, we were expecting something.” There was a clatter from above and a man’s head appeared in the skylight.

“Yeah, but a heads up would have been nice, I almost crapped myself when it came through the Gateway.” The big man looked up frowning in annoyance.

“Tommy.”

“Yes boss?”

“This is fucking stealth mission. If you’re going to complain, come down here and do it quietly.” The owner of the voice dropped smoothly in through the skylight. He was a small, pale skinned, rat faced man dressed in darkly mottled grey/green clothing carrying an evil looking black gun.

“Sorry boss,” he said, not sounding at all sorry as he scanned the room in a professional manner.

“How many people are in the building?” he asked.

“Just us. There’s only ever one person in the command centre at night-time now,” and I explained that a couple of seasons ago there had been six of us watching each other as much as we watched the monitors, then the fleet had left for Trafalgar and never returned, leaving just two of us to watch the monitors day and night.

A woman with long, dark hair, wearing a highly inappropriate and immorally tight green dress that to my horror was slit down both sides all the way to the tops of her thighs, she dropped lightly into the Governor’s arms in a shockingly intimate way and I’m pretty sure she gave the Governor’s bottom a squeeze before he put her down. Then the third person dropped in. A familiar face. Ren.

“You’re alive,” I exclaimed in delight, totally forgetting my sense of decorum. Of all the people who had disappeared over the last couple of seasons I’d felt Ren’s absence the most, personally and professionally. Then, a far another familiar figure dropped down. Overseer Commander Juan stared at me in surprise, and I realised I only had moments before he gathered his wits and raised the alarm. I reached behind the monitors and drew the dust encrusted sword I’d hidden for just this eventuality and swung it at his head.

The sword stopped dead, millimetres from splitting his skull in half as the Governor grabbed my arm with one hand that felt like it was made of iron, and surprisingly gently took the sword away. Juan’s eyes were very wide, but that was the only sign I’d come within a hair’s breadth of decapitating him. Ren laid a hand on my shoulder as the Governor released me. I flinched at the touch as the enormity of what I’d almost done hit me.

“He’s on our side,” she said softly.

“He’s an Overseer.” I hissed back, unwilling to back down.

“I saw an opportunity to desert at the battle of Trafalgar and took it. I was no happier at the direction Bonner and his lackeys were taking us than you are.” Juan said, looking at me.

“He deserted with a whole steamship and its crew with him. We sailed up the River Draig and took over an old settlement.” Ren said, both of them were smiling. I stared in astonishment, two halves of my life standing next to each other and apparently friends, or at least not enemies.

“I thought we could build a settlement free of Imperial and Iron Mountain interference, alas it was not to be.” Juan sighed.

“I was not keen on having a potential enemy force hiding upriver from Trafalgar, so I persuaded Juan and his merry bunch of outlaws to become loyal citizens of the Empire.” The Governor said.

“He was very persuasive.” Juan said dryly.

“There wasn’t enough food to see us through winter.” Ren said flatly,

“How many of you…” I started to ask but couldn’t continue.

“About 300 of us…” Juan started to say.

“Including Lord Juan’s people, 386 survived the attack on Trafalgar and 215 Iron Mountain citizens survived the attack on Bergraz last Beltane.” The Governor said heavily as if he were responsible for every death. If the rumours were true, he was. I looked at the three of them in shock. Half the population of the Iron Mountain had died. I collapsed on my chair feeling numb.

“I never thought I’d return here, even for a brief visit.” Ren said, breaking the silence.

“You’re not staying?” I asked Ren in surprise.

“No one is, well except for Lord Juan and his team of engineers, everyone else is being relocated,” the Governor said. I stared at him in disbelief. This was not what I’d wanted. Even the fact Juan was now a Lord was pushed into the background by this revelation.

“Everyone?”

“Your main water supply has failed, it is unlikely your food will even last until winter, you have no medicines and even you did there is no-one to administer them… would you like me to continue?” the Governor said matter of factly as if our dire straits were common knowledge. I’d known things were bad, but this bad… I glanced at Ren and then Juan who both looked serious and were nodding in confirmation.

“What are you going to do with everyone?” Ren and Juan looked to the inappropriately dressed woman.

“The people of Midriver have gathered together and built homes for you. Every settlement has prepared to welcome the citizens from the Iron Mountain with open arms,” she said, and I noticed the slits in her dress seemed to have magically disappeared, and it was now merely too tight and showed too much cleavage. From anyone else her words would have sounded sarcastic, but from her they sounded genuine. It was at that point I realised who she was and fell to my knees.

“Your Holiness… I…” I started then stuttered to a stop as everyone looked at me. Juan held out his hand to help me up and I took it, his hand was cool and dry, despite myself I felt my heart beat faster.

“You don’t need to genuflect to her Holiness, any more than you would for any other Druid Healer. And don’t worry about where everyone’s going to live, we‘ve worked hard to make sure there is enough housing,” Juan said, his face unreadable. I looked to the Governor who was flicking through the pile of Day Books stacked on a desk.

“It’s the reasons why this invasion has taken so long to organise. Any idiot can raise an army but planning for the aftermath, that takes one hell of a lot of organising. A thousand housing units across ten settlements don’t just spring up overnight, and I don’t want to talk about the propaganda we had to pump out to get the support of the general populace,” the Governor said sweeping the meticulously organised pile day books onto the floor and opened his backpack to bring out a large, thin, flat, metallic rectangle which he placed on the table and opened it up. A screen on the inside of the device flickered into life.

“I don’t suppose there are any power sockets here?” the rat faced Tommy asked, holding up his own metal rectangle and a long black cable with a box on it.

Over the next few minutes my command centre was turned upside down. Seasons of unfiled paperwork stacked on the desks waiting to be audited and filed were untidily dumped in the file room. Four of the portable computers were set up. The Governor connected his to a device that projected an image on a sheet he hung over one of the windows showing a map of the river and canal to the Iron Mountain showing every defensive position and views from what I realised were cameras mounted to various vessels.

“We’ve the River Fort has fallen already. No casualties on either side. The Leviathan has taken up position at the confluence” Tommy reported. He was sat at a desk wearing a compact set of headphones with a mic attached, as was Juan who seemed to quite comfortable using the futuristic device.

Her Holiness was using another one of the machines and Ren was being handed down bags by two fit looking men on the roof.

Eight of us. At best we’d have to hold out for two days. That was if the Governor’s forces didn’t face any resistance, although it sounded like the River Fort, the best equipped, most alert, and most experienced of our defensive positions had fallen without a fight which didn’t bode well for any our other fortifications.

I scanned my own security monitors that looked obsolete and dusty compared with the sleek equipment the others were using. Nothing stirred in the darkness. I would have been surprised if anything had. We had until at least dawn before anyone in the town realised something was wrong.

I caught the Governor’s eye, he nodded towards the corridor, and we slipped out, I led him to the supervisor’s office feeling a sudden and unexpected thrill of excitement of being alone with a man. In the office I drew the blinds and turned the lights on. To my surprise the Governor ignored the raised chair behind the impressive desk, and instead sat down heavily on the couch that generations of tired Overseer’s had used to doze their night shift away.

“Sit,” he said tiredly when I leant up against the desk, I glanced at the supervisor’s chair behind the desk and looked back at the Governor.

“Go on, you know you want to.” He said, smiling. I sat down in the padded leather chair and laid my hands on the desk telling myself it was technically my office anyway. No one had said I wasn’t to use it.

“So Governor, what brings you here today.” I heard myself say in my ‘command’ voice as my nether regions squirmed in embarrassment. It was the chair, it must be the chair. The Governor to my surprise looked mildly impressed.

“I just thought I’d pop in to say hello, arrest what’s left of this settlement’s leadership and resettle the entire population… you know, the usual. Oh and I wanted to offer you a job too.” I stared at him in shock. I’d expected many things from the Governor but not a job offer.

“A job?”

“Yes, I need a new Seneschal for Trafalgar Castle, my previous one fell into good company.”

“You want me to be the Seneschal for Trafalgar Castle?” I asked. I hadn’t given what I’d do after the Iron Mountain fell any thought. I hadn’t really expected to survive.

“It has a fitting irony to it. And you have the talent for detail the job requires.”

“T…Thank you,”

The Governor, probably without even thinking, took out a water bottle and took a swig from it then looked at me strangely and I realised I’d been staring at the bottle. He handed it to me.

“I forget you’ve been on short rations, finish it.”

“Thank you, but we’re going to have to ration our supplies, if your fleet has only just taken River Fort, not even the fastest vessel on the river would make it here in less than two days.” I said, my mind half on the nearly full water bottle, I could smell the clean, clear water inside. I couldn’t remember when I’d last drunk anything but the not quite sufficient, murky daily water ration. I took a sip of possibly the best thing I’d ever tasted, then forced myself to place the bottle down on the desk.

“I have a handful of vessels that could get here in a day… Maybe. But what made you think all my forces were coming by water.”

“What?, You’re attempting a land attack?” I joked. The Governor nodded, he looked very smug.

“There are a couple of ancient roads leading here, one from Bergraz and one from the Holy City, I’ve sent a company up one of them. As long as they come across no nasty surprises in the next few hours they’re on schedule to be with us mid-morning,” the Governor said as if his forces were taking a quick saunter around the currently very empty marketplace, surely he knew about the lands around the Iron Mountain were notoriously deadly, but then again, he was from Earth. I took a deep breath and gave him the bad news

“We’ve sent scouting parties down both those roads and half the people sent never returned. It’s all nasty surprises out there, not even the Neanderthals venture into the bush around here.”

“I know, even the dragons warned us the country around here was dangerous. I had to come up with something pretty substantial to keep everyone safe.”

“You’ve made a mobile castle?” I guessed, given that this man didn’t seem to be capable of half measures.

“Pretty much. You’ll see it tomorrow. It’s very impressive,” The Governor yawned and, suddenly looked very tired. “As nothing is going to happen for a few hours I’ll get some sleep, mind if I borrow the sofa?” He asked as if I was going to deny him. I looked at the man and then back at the sofa, there was a definite size discrepancy.

“You could… or you could sleep in Bonner’s bed.” I said and rummaged in one of the draws for the keys to his apartment, astonished at how forward I was being.

“That sounds like it would be a bit more comfortable. Bonner liked his little luxuries.”

“He did, and he liked to keep an eye on us.” I replied leading the Governor down the stairs, unlocked an anonymous door and entered the Bonner’s apartment. I’d only been in there a couple of times before, and then it was only to his office to be shouted at. Only Bonner’s ‘companions’ had been allowed to enter his private quarters and I’d never had the looks or the mindset to be one of those poor souls.

The apartment smelt stale and unused. In the main reception room-cum-office it looked like someone had been searching for something, drawers and cupboards had been left open and the floor was strewn with paperwork and other debris. Entering the apartment proper I was surprised at how blandly decorated the place was, especially compared with the other homes of the Overseer Fathers. It was still extravagantly large for one person, taking up almost that entire floor of the Command Centre.

After checking no one was going to burst in through the main entrance the Governor seemed as keen to explore as I was. There was a living room the width of the building housing a couple of sofas large enough for even the Governor to stretch out, both facing the large square TV that dominated the room. Off this room were two doors, one of which opened into formal dining room, which in turn led to a small kitchen filled with Earth made appliances. The other door in the living room led to a corridor and off this was an elaborate bathroom, a dressing room that looked to have been ransacked, I suspected by Bonner himself. A big green box with a white cross lay open on the floor, its contents strewn everywhere. We left the room as it was and entered the bedroom.

A huge bed dominated the room, the place where Bonner had entertained his companions, and if the rumours were true, more than one of them had died here.

“He liked beige didn’t he,” The Governor said, pulling the rumpled covers off the bed and checking for… something. It was true, everything in the apartment, with the exception of the wooden floors was either cream or beige and I wondered if all houses on Earth were as carefully colourless as this.

The bed appeared to meet with the Governor’s satisfaction, and he fell back into it with a groan of ecstasy.

I looked at the man on the bed and wondered he expected me to join him. He had his eyes closed and was giving every impression that he was falling asleep in front of me, despite not even taking off his boots. That at least I could do for him. I undid the laces, he opened his eyes and looked at me in surprise.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking your boots off, you didn’t look like you were going to take them off yourself.”

“Well, probably not but you don’t have to do that sort of thing for me. But thank you.”

“Was there anything else.” I heard myself ask. After all there was a good chance I’d be dead in a few hours. He looked at me strangely, almost with pity.

“Tell Nat… Her Holiness where I am, she might want to join me,” he said gently and I was surprised at how disappointed I felt.

“You wish to be… intimate with her?” I asked.

“I need some sleep, if Nat wants to be intimate she can be intimate by herself until I wake up,” the Governor growled, then he propped himself up on his elbow and fixed me with his eyes. He looked angry. “I have a heard how things worked here. Those days have ended. Nat and the rest of the Druids take a very dim view of people using of their power to take advantage, especially sexual advantage of other people. You are not required to be intimate with anyone you don’t want to be.”

“I wasn’t… I mean… I haven’t… I was willing...” I stammered then fled back upstairs instantly running into the Goddess of the River who had just left the Command Room.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me, sounding genuinely concerned. I took a deep breath to calm myself.

“I have made a bit of an error of judgement with the Governor,” I admitted.

“Oh?” Her Holiness said, she sounded amused.

“I sort of offered to be intimate with him. I didn’t know you two were… lovers.” To my surprise the physical manifestation of the Goddess of the River giggled.

“Oh, how did Xav deal with that?” She asked sounding amused.

“He seemed angry…” Her Holiness patted my arm.

“Oh, it’s not you he’s angry with, it’s because you thought you had to offer yourself to him. That made him angry. It makes us angry,” she said, her hand tightened on my arm, together with the strange harmonics in her voice, like when Father Callis used to denounce the Overseer Fathers made me decided against explaining my offering myself to the Governor had been entirely voluntary.

“He said you might want to join him… in the apartment.” I said cautiously.

“Oh, yes, that would be nice. Is there a toilet in there?”

“Errr… yes.”

“Good, I’m dying for a piss. Wake us up if anything happens.”

***

The town, as always, stayed deathly quiet. There were no dogs left to disturb the silence and no-one bothered to break curfew anymore. I ate several of what Tommy called Rat Packs that definitely didn’t have any rat in them, drank several steaming mugs of Earth tea and was starting to feel better than I had done for a very long time.

On the screens we watched the surprisingly rapid advance of the fleet up the river and the rapid fall of two more forts, then about when everything was silent I wasn’t too surprised when Juan quietly asked to speak with me in private. Ren rolled their eyes as I left, taking him to the office and sat down behind the desk as if it were my rightful place while Juan perched on the desk looking awkward.

“You tried to kill me,” he said in a little voice after an awkward silence. I looked at him in surprise, his strong confidant attitude seemed to have evaporated, he was acting more like a supplicant than an Overseer and I found I liked it.

“I thought the Overseers were on to us. I couldn’t risk you raising the alarm.” I said coldly, my heart starting to beat faster.

“It wasn’t personal?” he asked. I frowned in confusion.

“Why would it be personal? You are the only Overseer who was ever nice to me for no reason.”

“I took advantage of you,” he said, his eyes downcast.

“When?” I replied, utterly baffled

“That evening, before I left for Trafalgar…” I looked up at Juan recalling that chaotic evening, he’d jokingly asked for a goodbye kiss. I’d obliged. It was a memory that had kept me warm on many a cold sleep shift.

“You kissed me and touched me in some very rude places but you didn’t take advantage of me. You did disappoint me.” I replied severely.

“Disappoint you? How?”

“You didn’t return to finish what you started.” I replied, getting up and kissing him over the desk, after a second he kissed me right back.

We returned to the Monitoring Room not long after, only Ren looked up to give me a quizzical look. I gave them a grin and they buried their head in their hands.

Ren managed to wait till I was settled at my screens before moving their chair next to mine.

“So, tell me the gossip.”

“That is my line and why do you think there is gossip anyway?”

“Because you spent nearly half an hour alone with a man you tried to kill and you both come out smiling. Did he kiss you?”

“No, I kissed him.”

“Just kiss?” Ren asked. I smiled and shook my head.

“I take it you enjoyed it.” I nodded.

“I’m a bit messy down there though.”

“You might want to talk to Her Holiness, she can give you something to stop you getting pregnant. You need to think of these things.”

“I’m not really expecting to live through this. There’s just eight of us… against all of them.”

“You don’t know the Governor, we’ll survive and become legends, but let’s talk about Juan, you know it’ll never work. He’s going to be here and you’re… not. The Governor has a job in mind for you.

“He told me, Seneschal of Trafalgar Castle.”

“Wow, you must have impressed him. Did he tell you what that means?”

“No, isn’t it doing the accounts?”

“That will be one of your duties, you will also be the Governor’s spymaster and advisor, you’ll probably get to visit Earth. His last seneschal was made a Lord.”

“Do you think I can do a job like that?”

“I can’t think of a better candidate, just remember me when you’re hobbing and nobbing with the Lords and Ladies of the Court.

***

The reminder of the night passed quietly. When dawn was tinting the night sky, the two guys on the roof, Blue and Mode pulled me up onto the roof.

On the ridge sat two large, futuristic looking guns on a tripods with a huge sights and I realised, given enough ammunition, these two men could probably keep the entire inner town pinned down indefinitely. One of the guns was pointing southwest into the wilderness, along the ancient road to the Holy City.

“Look through that scope,” Blue said, smiling. I looked, being very careful not to touch the gun and very aware of the two men watching me in a benign big brother sort of way. In the distance, against the slowly lightening sky was an oddly shaped box, taller than the tallest trees and surrounded by a dust cloud. I pulled back from the scope and looked with my naked eyes. Now that I knew what I was looking for I could just make out a sinister black shape and it didn’t look all that far away.

“Major Dan’s early, he must have found his running legs,” Mode said with satisfaction.

“Who’s going to wake the boss?” Blue asked, glancing at me.

“You need to be nice to Red, she’s going to be the one paying our wages.” Tommy said from below.

“Ahh, yes, didn’t Lady Jane dock your pay in perpetuity for being a disgrace to the human race?” Blue replied.

“Not in perpetuity, only until the damage is paid for.” Tommy said sniffily and the two men on the roof laughed.

“Ere, Ren, give Nat a call,” Mode called down through the skylight.

“Cowards,” Ren replied, good naturedly and pulled out one of the fancy handheld devices they all seemed to have and pressed the screen a few times then waited.

“Hello Natalie, the guys are too scared to wake up Xavier… yes… yes it’s getting light, Betty is in sight… are you okay?... Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to… Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.” Ren stabbed their device forcefully and glared around at all of us.

“Don’t anyone say a fucking word.”

“Two minutes? They’ll be that long?” Tommy said. There was the sound of a slap and a yelp from Tommy.

I got the guys to lower me back into the command room and I checked the screens, the house servants in the Outer town were stirring, soon they would be making their way to the Inner town to find the gates firmly locked as I’d overridden all the gate controls. At this point the gate guards would realise something was wrong and start to ask questions. Shortly after it would be shift change, my relief would arrive and they would find the doors had mysteriously locked themselves.

I knew from the power outages we’d had in the past that everyone tended to gather in front of the Command Centre and mill aimlessly around until the problem resolved itself or a riot started.

I decided having the entire population milling around in the open when whatever the thing heading towards us was arrived, it would not be conducive to an optimal takeover of the town. I needed to keep everyone indoors. I unlocked a cupboard revealing a mass of wires and switches and scanned them for what I wanted. Eventually I found the switch marked ‘clocks’ and turned it off.

I turned to find the others looking at me suspiciously.

“I’m trying to keep everyone indoors. I just turned off all the clocks.” I explained

Ren and Juan nodded and smiled; the others looked baffled.

“Every house has at least one centrally controlled clock in it connected to an alarm, so everyone knows when to get up. Today everyone is going to get a lie in.” Juan explained.

“Apart from the babies and children. And no one important pays attention to them,” Ren said.

“And us, we haven’t even had a rest.” Tommy complained.

“You slept for nearly the whole of the flight here. You only woke for food.” Ren scolded him.

“Do you think I should call the other members of the resistance?” I asked.

“And ask them to do what?” The Governor asked, entering the room filling the space with energy. The air almost crackled with it. Yesterday he’d looked tired and moved as if in pain… Today… I could almost believe he was the demigod some people claimed he was.

“Errr… Stay inside and wait for the word.”

“The word to do what?” He asked. I thought of the disparate force I had under my command. Between them they had an extremely varied skillset but fighting the Guard out in the open would have been a desperate last ploy.

“Well, whatever you want them to do. Hopefully nothing. You would be throwing their lives away if you made them fight.”

“The more people we keep inside the better. With a couple of exceptions.”

“Who are the exceptions?”

“Elder Fanter and Mother Lilth. Those two need to be terminated before any Druids or Knights arrive and start wittering on about fair trials.” The Governor growled. I nodded in surprised agreement wondering how many people in the town were actively betraying the Iron Brotherhood. Fanter was an easy person to hate, he commanded the Guard with an iron grip and took a malicious glee in making everyone’s lives as miserable as possible. Mother Lilth however was not a name I expected to hear from a man’s lips.

She was the one who decided if your pregnancy was allowed, and when your time came she decided whether your baby lived or died, then there were the more unsavoury rumours whispered by the women in dark corners that made me vow that if I ever found myself pregnant I’d take my chances in the bush.

“Fanter won’t be a problem, as soon as the Guards notice that thing on the horizon he’ll be strutting around the walls like a prize cock.”

“A relatively easy target for Blue and Mode. What about Mother Lilth?”

“She doesn’t come out. People are brough to her… We have planned…” I paused, unable to put into words what I wanted to say. Some of my fellow rebels had left rationality behind a long time ago, chiefly due to Mother Lilth’s ministrations. All it would take would be a few words from me and her life would be short and most likely, full of pain.

“I realise it won’t be pretty. Give the order.” The Governor said.

“I… I…” I stammered, unsure if I really wanted to go through with this. The Governor fixed me in his gaze.

“That was not a request, that was an order,” he said, quietly with an undertone of menace. I looked right back at him.

“I have not accepted your job yet. The responsibility for her murder will be mine. Not yours.” I replied, making my decision, picked up the radio microphone and tuned in to another frequency.

“Gold, this is Red, respond… Gold, this is Red, respond,” I said quietly. For a good ten seconds there was the roar of static then a female voice responded.

“Red?”

“This is Red. Your operation has been approved.”

“Approved… Oh… What? Now?”

“As planned. Route B. Do you have everything you need?” There was a pause.

“My overnight bag has been packed and ready for a long time. Goodbye Red.”

“Fare well Gold. I hope you find peace.” I replied, there was a burst of static then nothing. I wiped away a tear and hung up the mic. Ren put their hand on my shoulder and the Governor gave me a nod of respect. Then the sirens went off. I swore, cursing myself for not turning them off.

“It sounds like someone’s seen Betty,” Tommy said. I turned the lights in the command centre off and pulled up a blind. Through the grimy window the black shape was no longer a just dot in the distance and visible enough for even the most inattentive Guard on the wall to notice.

“So what happens now?” The Governor asked.

“What’s meant to happen is everyone makes their way to their allotted station or a shelter. What’s probably going to happen is that I’m going to get a load of calls from Overseers and their wives asking if this is a drill.” As if on cue the yellow dialed telephone started ringing.

“Command Centre, Duty Officer here.” I answered in my most bored voice

“What’s the meaning of playing that fucking noise at this time in the morning?”

“It’s the attack alarm.”

“Yes I know what it fucking is. Fucking turn it off.”

“I’m sorry I can’t do that.” I said in my calmest voice, trying not to smile.

“Why fucking not.”

“Because I didn’t set it off. You need to make your way to your allott…”

“I’m not asking you; I’m fucking telling you. Turn that fucking alarm off. Do you know who I am?”

“No.” I said and hung up the phone. I took several more very similar calls that I answered in a very similar vein until Fanter managed to get through.

“Why weren’t you answering you phone, bitch, I’ve been trying to call you for fucking ages.” Fanter roared down the phone at me.

“A pleasure to speak to you too on this fine morning Sir. I believe you are the twentieth caller this morning. I take it was you who called the drill.”

“This isn’t a drill you dozy fucking bitch. Look out your window.” I looked out the window. I could see Fanter on the tower over the main gate speaking on the emergency phone surrounded by his flunkies. He was easy to spot as he was the one in bright red pyjamas jumping up and down in fury.

“Everything looks calm… shouldn’t you be mustering the Guard in the square?” I asked innocently as I held the phone away from my ear as he screamed incoherently.

“Is that Fanter” Ren whispered. I nodded, pointing to the figure on the wall. Ren sniggered. “You are enjoying this way too much,” I nodded again noticing the Governor talking quietly to Blue and Mode on the roof.

“Are you blind? Can you not see that… thing approaching?”

“What thing?” I asked innocently. As I hoped Fanter pulled the phone to the full extension of its cord, leaving the protection of his men and pointing towards the huge machine.

“Oh, that? That’s just Betty.”

“What!!!!!!” Roared Fanter. Two shots rang out. At least one of them hit the man spinning him round in a pirouette before he hit the battlements and crumpled to the floor.

“He’s still alive,” Mode said from the roof. One of the flunkies was kneeling by the man, the others crouched behind the battlements, wrongly assuming the shot had come from Betty, even though it was still several kilometres away.

“At least I hit him.” Blue replied.

“Ohh… that’s nasty. Someone doesn’t like his boss.” Mode said. I rubbed some of the dirt from the inside of the window and then wished I hadn’t. The person I’d though was going to Fanter’s aid was repeatedly stabbing him in the belly. I could hear the screaming down the phone line. After what felt like ages two of the flunkies dragged the person away and the two most senior Overseers examined the body, as they still hadn’t hung up the phone I got to hear their entire conversation.

“He’s still alive.”

“Still? Fucking hell. Rosey couldn’t even do that right. Kick the fat fuck off the battlements.” I watched as one of the Overseers pushed Fanter’s body over the edge of the battlements with one foot where it landed headfirst in a crumpled heap.

“Well, he’s dead now...”

“What do we do now?”

“Man the guns, whatever that thing is should be in range soon.”

“We fight?”

“What other choice do we have?”

“Surrender?”

“Do you think they’ll let us live. We fight.” An Overseer lifted up the phone between thumb and forefinger as if they were carrying something disgusting.

“Aren’t you going to speak to Command?”

“You know what. I don’t think whoever’s in there is on our side.” There was a click as the line went dead. Seconds later the alarm went silent.

“Someone who knows what they are doing wants to make a fight of it.” The Governor said. “Do me a favour and kill them.”

Shots rang out from the roof as the two Overseers scrambled for cover. Only one of them made it, the other crumpled in a heap on the battlements.

“They know we’re here now.” I said, letting some of my irritation show as a hail of bullets left star shaped pattens across the bulletproof glass of the Command Centre and everyone ducked below the level of the windows. On the roof Blue and Mode returned fire.

“Guys get off the roof. You lot, pack up the computers. We’re making a strategic relocation.”

“We’re running away you mean.” Tommy said.

“Well, Tommy, you can stay here but one of those big guns on the towers is turning to point right at us.” The Governor commented, nodding towards the far tower as he calmly unplugged a laptop and put it in a bag.

It was at that point Her Holiness entered the room. She’d obviously taken full advantage of Bonner’s unrationed water supplies and she practically glowed. Despite the desperate situation everyone looked up, against the glow of the dirty screens and the tatty room she looked like she was from another world.

“What’s going on hun?” she asked the Governor.

“We’re about to be evicted with extreme prejudice.” He replied.

“What?”

“We killed the fucker in command, and it turns out his number two is a suspicious, intelligent, ruthless fucker. They are going to blow up this building in about thirty seconds.”

“Earth seconds or Amur seconds?” she asked unperturbed as the Governor thrust the laptop bag into her hands. Mode and Blue had descended from the skylight and were checking the stairs downwards.

“I don’t know. Lets get out of here. Red, is there a way onto a quiet, out of the way battlement with a decent view of the main gate?” I nodded, then a thought struck me and I pulled a large switch that had yellow and black stripes painted around it..

“What does that do?” Juan asked, his arms full of technology.

“It’s the override for the main gates. They will open and no-one will be able to close them unless they do it manually.”

“We don’t have time for this,” the Governor growled, grabbing me, and thrusting me down the stairs.

I ran downwards, the others following me with the Governor exhorting us to move faster. I thought he was panicking unnecessarily until there was a massive explosion from above followed by the rumble of falling masonry. The stairs shook, almost knocking me off my feet as dust filled the air.

We descended one more story then I stopped at a narrow grey painted door with red lettering warning of dire punishments if it was ever opened without permission. I fumbled with my keys, feeling like I was taking forever as the dust got thicker. Eventually the key turned and we stumbled into a damp, unlit corridor half taken up by massive cables. I slammed the door behind us, plunging us into total darkness. Behind us there was another explosion, the world shook and there was the sound of rubble hitting the door.

“It was Earth seconds.” Her Holiness’ calm voice said in the darkness. There were a few dark chuckles and a light came on, a bright white light scanning each of us in turn which took me a while to realised it was the Governor’s handheld device.

“Everyone okay? Good. Sort yourselves out then lets get out of here,” the Governor said, there was a flurry of activity as the people carrying stuff packed everything away.

I led them along the seemingly never-ending corridor, then up a flight of spiral stairs. At the top of the stairs was a door. The key wouldn’t budge and the Governor, getting impatient, kicked out the doorframe. We emerged into a barely used room in the tower at the rear of the town, the smell of burning strong in the back of our throats and climbed up onto the tower roof and looked down over the town.

This tower was the forgotten highest point, even higher than the Command Centre. I’d only ever been here a couple of times and I’d forgotten what a commanding view the tower had.

Looking down on the Command Centre I could see the roof had collapsed, a couple of windows were missing, and a snowstorm of unfiled paperwork had escaped and drifted across the town, but otherwise the Command Centre didn’t look that badly damaged.

Up against the inner wall a building was burning so unnaturally fiercely even the stone walls seemed to be burning. Gold had carried out her mission, Mother Lilth’s lair and presumably Mother Lith were no more. I cringed back at a couple of painfully loud bangs as the massive howitzers on the outer towers fired, for a second thinking they were firing at us, then the thuds of the shells impacting came to me and I looked out.across the bush.

The machine I’d seen in the distance was speeding towards the town, faster than a man could run. The thing was massive, bigger than the Command Centre, twice the hight of the outer walls and powered by four double sets of massive caterpillar tracks that I could hear squeaking and rumbling even from here. At the right at the top of the angled bow of the huge machine I could see tiny angled windows lit up by a red glow.

In the morning light I could see the thing wasn’t actually black but a dark greeny grey, the lower part stained a dusty brown. I stared in amazement my mind struggling to comprehend the impossible immensity of what I was seeing, then I jumped as a few bars of music played behind me.

“Hello Major… If it’s not too much trouble for you I would appreciate it if you would take out those howitzers on the towers.” The Governor said, and I realised he was talking to someone on his handheld device.

I watched the massive machine rumble closer as the Governor rather sarcastically reassured whoever was on the other line that everyone important was out of harms way. Without warning two plumes of smoke, like giant fireworks shot out the hulking machine’s roof towards the sky then arched down towards the towers. One of the howitzers took a direct hit, a massive explosion clearing the roof and sending shrapnel all the way across town to gouge chunks from the battlements of the tower we were standing in. The other missile seemed to misfire and disappeared through the reinforced roof of the tower.

A second later there was an explosion and I watched the second howitzer and its attendants shot into the air as if shot from a gun to land somewhere outside the walls. Then the sound hit, a massive pressure wave that made my still ringing ears ring even harder

“Two hits. I believe that is all the heavy artillery they can bring to bear,” the Governor said with a degree of satisfaction. The huge machine slowed as another, much smaller, tracked vehicle was discharged from its rear, this vehicle was painted the same dirty green as its parent and had a long gun sticking out a turret in its roof. It sped ahead of the behemoth towards the gates. Three of the Guard had managed to set up a machine gun on the gatehouse roof and I heard a rapid taktaktak as it opened fire. The tank fired back with its big gun, sending the defenders flying. Then it was through the gate and in the main square. There was the sound of gunfire as our view was blocked by the Command Centre.

Seconds later there was the screeching of metal on metal and a boneshaking thud as the behemoth collided with the walls. The angled bow fell forward to expose what looked like two giant grey tongues swell up and expand outwards making a slide to the floor

Seconds later soldiers were sliding down the tongues and running across the main square. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Red, if you could direct us to the main square, I would like to accept the surrender of the town in person.