The Iron Mountain Command Centre

174th SUMMER – the first year of the regency

(Earth Date 22nd JANUARY 2017)

The town 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 hot, sweet Earth tea, caught up with Ren who’d had some amazing adventures 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. I don’t know if it was our tenuous situation, the unaccustomed food, or my failed seduction of the Governor, but I was starting to feel, as Ren would put it, frisky, and it didn’t help matters that Juan kept glancing over at me.

It was nearly two when Juan finally asked to speak with me in private. Ren caught my eye as we left and made a kissy face. I stuck my tongue out and took Juan to the office, sitting behind the desk as if it were my rightful place, forcing Juan to perch awkwardly on the desk. I waited for him to speak.

“You tried to kill me,” he said in a little voice after an awkward silence. I looked at him in surprise, his strong confident manner seemed to have evaporated, he was acting more like a supplicant than an Overseer Commander. I rather 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.”

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

“When?” I replied, suddenly confused.

“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 during many a cold sleep shift.

“You kissed me and touched me in places the Overseer fathers wouldn’t have approved of. You didn’t take advantage of me… You disappointed me.” I replied severely.

“Disappointed you? How?”

“You didn’t return to finish what you started.” I replied as I got up, grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. After a second, he kissed me right back with a passion that matched my own.

“I have returned now,” he said hoarsely when we finally broke the kiss.

“You are going to have to do something really special if you ever want forgiveness.” I replied, realising my tunic had somehow come undone and his hand had slipped inside, I gave an involuntary gasp as his hand caressed a breast.

“I only wish you to think well of me,” he replied seriously, removing his hand. For a terrible second I thought he was going to leave me. Instead he swept the desk clear then pushed me backwards until I was lying on my back. He looked down on me as if I were a puzzle.

“Hmmm… how do I go about making things up to you?” He asked. I looked downwards to where the front of his trousers appeared to be under some serious strain.

“Free that thing before it damages your uniform and stick it in me.” I suggested, giving his tented trousers a poke with my foot. He smiled and instead pulled my blouse open, exposing my breasts, and gently kissed them. I groaned with pleasure to let him know his efforts were appreciated.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” he murmured, tracing my ribs with a finger.

“Mmmm,” I replied with my eyes shut, enjoying the sensations too much to engage my brain to answer. After a few moments I felt his hands undo my trousers, my shoes were removed, then in one smooth motion he pulled my trousers and underwear off.

He gave each of my breasts a sharp, not quite painful bite making me gasp, then kissed downwards, past my belly button, then lower and I was suddenly quite glad I’d used my bathing allocation of water only a day ago. Then he opened my legs and licked me right there. I gasped in shock and pleasure then he did it again. I’d never realised a man would do that to a woman. It was practically the definition of what the Overseer Fathers called immoral and unnatural behaviour. Nothing that felt that good could be legal.

I grabbed Juan’s hair with one hand as he slurped away, every movement of his tongue producing glorious sensations pulse through my body. I thought it couldn’t get any better until he pushed a finger into me and I exploded, my legs clamping onto his head as I came, my orgasm lasting what felt like forever.

“Are you alright?” Juan asked as he eventually managed to free himself.

“Yes, oh Goddess, oh yes.” I gasped, pulling him towards me and kissing him on the mouth, tasting myself.

“It’s my turn now,” he said, and I heard his trousers fall to the floor.

“Well go on then. Fuck me,” I growled.

“It will be a pleasure,” he replied and slid his cock into me making a squelching sound. I shut my eyes, wrapped my legs around him and enjoyed the ride. All too soon it was over, not that I’d expected him to last long.

Juan pulled away and I lay there oozing and exposed on the desk in a pleasant daze, not really wanting to re-join the real world.

“I hope I have gone some way to making up for my earlier disappointment, Milady,” he said.

“That will do for now,” I allowed.

I 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 usually 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 both of you came out smiling. Did he kiss you?”

“No, I kissed him.”

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

“I take it you had fun.” I nodded.

“I’m a little bit squelchy down there.”

“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’re going to 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.

“Seneschal of Trafalgar Castle.” I said, Ren whistled quietly.

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

“Isn’t it doing the accounts?”

“Actually, you will be supervising the people who do the accounts, you will also be the Governor’s spymaster and advisor, you’ll probably even get to visit Earth. His last seneschal was made a Lord.”

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

“I can’t think of a better candidate, just think of 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 tripods with 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 muscular 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. 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.

“Oh 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 sniffly 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, pulled out one of the fancy handheld devices they all seemed to have, pressed the screen a few times then waited.

“Hello Natalie, the guys are too scared to wake 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. Obviously I hadn’t been the only one feeling frisky.

“Don’t anyone say a fucking word.”

“Two minutes? That long?” Tommy asked. 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 to the Command Centre had also 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 arrived would not be advantageous to the 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 up to eat.” Ren scolded him.

“Do I need to 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.”

“That sounds ideal. 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 had 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 brought to her… We have planned…” I paused, unable to put into words what I wanted to say. Some of my fellow partisans 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. I 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 sleepy 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.”

“Farewell 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 earlier.

“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 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 that 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 dialled telephone started ringing.

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

“This is Overseer David, 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, Dave.” 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?”

“Yes. You’re an unimportant functionary who shouldn’t be ringing the Command Centre. Get your stinky, unimportant, ass to your allotted station,” 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 assume 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 where 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 had 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.

“Well at least I hit him.” Blue replied.

“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 thought was going to Fanter’s aid was instead 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 the phone was still gripped in Fanter’s hand 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 and the phone banged against the walkway of the battlements.

“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 really think they’ll let us live after what we’ve done? We fight.” One of the Overseers 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 shouted up to Mode and Blue. “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 really know we’re here now.” I said, letting some of my irritation show as a hail of bullets left star shaped patterns 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 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. A world where people didn’t stab one another in the belly.

“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 even more suspicious and ruthless than the previous 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. Let's 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.”

“Go, go, go,” the Governor yelled, 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 as 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. It took me a while to realise it was the Governor’s handheld device.

“Is everyone okay? Good. Sort yourselves out then let's get out of here,” the Governor said, there was a flurry of activity as everyone 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 room in the tower at the rear of the town, the smell of burning strong in the back of our throats.

I looked around; the room hadn’t been used for decades but it had once been used for pretty much the same purpose that the Command Centre had been used for. I’d only ever been here a couple of times and forgotten what a commanding view it had.

The Command Centre’s roof had collapsed, a couple of windows were missing, and a snowstorm of unfiled paperwork had escaped and was drifting across the town, but otherwise it didn’t look that badly damaged.

Across town, up against the inner wall, the source of the smoke was obvious, a building burning so unnaturally fiercely that even the stone walls seemed to be on fire. Gold had carried out her mission. Mother Lilth’s lair and presumably Mother Lilth were no more.

I ducked 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 I heard the thuds of the shells impacting outside the walls and I looked out.across the bush.

The machine was speeding towards the town, faster than a man could run. It was unbelievably huge, larger than the Command Centre, twice the height of the outer walls and I could now see it had four double sets of massive caterpillar tracks we could hear squeaking and rumbling even from here. At the top of the angled bow of the huge machine I could make out angled windows lit up by a red glow.

I jumped as a few bars of music played behind me.

“Hello Major… If it’s not too much trouble 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 harm’s 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 our tower, the sound making my ears ring a second later. The other missile seemed to misfire, disappearing through the reinforced roof of the tower, then a second later there was an explosion and I watched the second howitzer and its attendants shoot into the air as if shot from a gun to land somewhere outside the walls. The sound hitting a second later, 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 into his device. 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 tak-tak-tak as it opened fire. The tank fired back with its big gun, sending the defenders flying before disappearing through the open gate and reappearing in the main square. There was the sound of gunfire before it disappeared behind the Command Centre.

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 that swelled up and expanded outwards making a slide from the exposed opening to the floor. Seconds later soldiers were sliding down the tongues and running across the main square. I felt the Governor’s 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.”