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.’He squinted at the foot of the screen.‘That’s odd…’‘What is?’‘How very peculiar…’‘Grief, just tell me, would you?’He turned to face her.‘Under the heading of additional information, the TARDIS suggests that we consult the works of Gustaf Urnst.’‘I know the name,’ Bernice said, searching her human sized memory.‘Urnst… Yes, he was a writer.Some sort of occultist, wasn’t he? About thirty years ago – sorry, early twenty fifth century – there was some sort of fuss or something, wasn’t there?’‘There was indeed,’ said the Doctor solemnly.‘He disappeared.’* * *4:UrnstOnly seven of the tanks in the First and Third Divisions had been damaged beyond combat worthy standards.One of them had been Jinkwa’s own, and a space had now been cleared for him aboard the General’s command vehicle.It was a substantially larger craft, and allowed both officers the luxury of padded harness straps.Half of Jinkwa’s left eye was fixed on the large forward screen and its display of their movement through the featureless green rock that was so much a part of this planet’s landscape.The other half scanned a smaller screen, where, on Fakrid’s orders – ‘it’ll get their blood up, and by Mif we need it’ – one of the many video presentations prepared by the Ministry for Expansion was playing.Scenes of triumphant victories on over a dozen infested worlds were intercut with shots of eggs hatching, mothers cooing over their young, and vast harvests of verdant green stretching out over the cleansed soil.All this was set to a heart swellingly martial rhythm.Jinkwa’s right eye monitored the effect of all this on the command vehicle’s two gunners.True to form, they had begun to slaver at the prospect of the forthcoming battle.‘Not very much further now, Kwintas, Obzelid,’ Fakrid croaked reassuringly from his now restored harness.‘You shall soon have your vengeance on the scuttling clypes who have dared to challenge the might of Chelonia!’‘Sir, we are now entering the area where the energy surge was registered,’ the Environments Officer reported from his position at the rear of the vehicle.‘Excellent,’ the General snapped.Jinkwa was pleased to see that his commanding officer’s customary resolution, if not his good temper, had returned.‘First Pilot,’ he ordered.‘Clear all tertiary vision linkage for my pep.’Jinkwa toed the relevant control on the panel before him.The propaganda video was replaced immediately by the image of Fakrid, as it would have been in every other tank.‘Warriors!’ he began fiercely.‘You are hereby authorized to release seventy quintols of adrenal‐amyl into your bloodstreams.’Every Chelonian in the assault force obeyed, and felt a rush of heightened awareness that enhanced their righteous anger.‘The time is now!’ barked Fakrid.‘Make ready your disintegrators! Forward!’Breathing heavily, Kwintas pumped up the command vehicle’s motive power unit.It rumbled forward into what the screen showed to be a wide, flat area between surrounding sides of tall rocky outcrop.Jinkwa was struck by a feeling of familiarity.An attack on a parasite force trapped in a wide valley such as this was one of their own most established strategies.This strange concept buzzed around his brain, looking for something in his past experience to make a logical connection with.It failed.The combat grid cobwebbed automatically over the forward screen.For the moment, however, there appeared to be nothing to combat.The Environments Officer spoke up again.‘Sir, sensornet registers the residual of an enormous clean radiation release in this area.At gridmark four by nine.’‘Magnify,’ ordered the General.‘Prepare disintegrators.’Four of the small areas covered by the grid zoomed up to fill the screen.‘There!’ Jinkwa shouted eagerly.The gunners’ front feet hovered centimetres above the firing buttons of their weapons.‘Hold!’ Fakrid cried.‘That is –’He was unable to complete the sentence.When Jinkwa realized exactly what the screen was showing them he could understand why.There were literally no words to describe it and no equivalent concepts in his mind to frame it.What had been the Second Division was now a scattered pile of metal fragments.The absorption armour plating had not protected the tanks from the weaponry of the eight twelves.Jagged edged chunks of it formed smoking, pitted peaks that jutted up through the ever swirling mists.Jinkwa found that the spectacle provoked in him an emotional reaction so strong he was all but overwhelmed by it.He had once seen a tank topple hundreds of feet from the edge of a crumbling cliff, only to bounce comfortably off the rocks below thanks to the wonder of bumper buffers.The supremacy of Chelonian technology was unquestioned on all the worlds, but it had not saved his brave brothers of the Second Division.He was not alone in these thoughts.Kwintas and Obzelid stared fixedly at the screen, only barely aware of their task in guiding the command vehicle further forward.Their nostrils flared, first with shock, then indignation.But it was Fakrid who reacted most noticeably.‘Fire,’ he whispered.The command was met with silence.‘Fire,’ he repeated.Kwintas and Obzelid stared at each other and then at Jinkwa in bewilderment.‘There is no target registered on the grid, sir,’ said Jinkwa.The General shook with a spasm of rage.‘Fire!’ he bawled.He opened up a voice channel to the entire assault force.‘Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, FIRE!’Kwintas, stirred into an ungovernable frenzy by all of this, was the first to obey.He sent a volley of bright pink points off into nowhere in particular.He was soon joined by the majority of the gunners in the other tanks.The green valley was zigzagged by sparkling pink explosions that bounced pointlessly off the rock walls.The dinning volume of the barrage caused Jinkwa to reset the parameters of his tympanic membranes.Therefore, he didn’t quite catch the urgent warning of the Environments Officer.A bubbling black globule hissed its way across the forward screen.A sharp report came from outside the area covered by the combat grid.‘Vehicle lost, vehicle lost!’ cried the Environments Officer.‘Screen!’ screamed Fakrid.‘Screen!’The screen zoomed out as the scanner turret spun around.It displayed the blasted remains of one of the tanks and the confusion of its neighbours.A second later, another fizzing blob shot over from the rockface to the left, hovered, sizzled ominously, then descended to hang just above another of the nearer tanks.It settled slowly, slicing through the plating.Then it ignited, blasting the machine and those within to pieces in a blaze of colour.‘Fire!’ Fakrid fumed once more.‘Sir, there is no –’‘Oh, give me that, you cack footed moron!’Fakrid swung himself across the command vehicle and into Obzelid.He knocked the young gunner from his position.The left of his front feet hammered on the firing button while his right angled the disintegrator in a wide arc up at the rock face.This succeeded only in dislodging large areas of rock, which came tumbling down onto them.At least four more globules shot over into the valley, fizzed, then whizzed over to their targets and ignited.‘Scum!’ the General snorted.Once again, he opened up his all stations address channel.‘Hear me!’ he screamed.‘This is a strategic movement order! Regroup at gridmark,’ he glanced at the screen, ‘fourteen by three, where we will recommence our attack on the eight twelves.’Kwintas just stared at the General [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]