“I really hope you will. We have copies of the master program, so we will eventually figure it out ourselves. Refuse, or even stall on this, and I promise you that not only will you be cut from Flux, your outsides will make me seem like the prettiest person around!”
A bullet pinged off the projector near Suzl, fired by a far-off sniper. She ignored it, but off a ways the sounds of many more guns could be heard.
“Beth!”
“Here, Suzl!”
“I think it’s poetic justice that you and your sisters be in charge of this operation.”
“Thank you. That will give us a great deal of pleasure. What do you want done with the New Eden prisoners?”
“I’d like to run their own damned program on them and send them home, but we can use trained soldiers even if they are a surrendering lot. Give them the modified Fluxgirl bodies we used on our troops. That’ll take the resistance out of them. Make sure you also stamp their fannies, so we know who’s ours and who came from where. Then get them interrogated and settled down. Once you run that Fluxgirl program, they’re not going to run home.”
“Got it!”
“Anybody seen Matson?”
“Got a real gash in her leg that’s being tended, but otherwise O.K. Didn’t even know she had it until she got down off her horse.”
“Figures. Well, run a healing spell and get the old bastard back up to the headquarters tent. I also want Gabaye and Tokiabi up there—say, in an hour. We’ve won a bunch of battles, but we haven’t won the war yet.”
Between the mop-up, the re-establishment of defensive perimeters, and organizing and recreating the ground units, Matson hadn’t had much time to rest. The body was now Sondra’s once again; a command presence was again needed rather than a commoner-with-the-troops type, but that was the length of concessions.
Reconnaissance showed the truth of Matson’s original geographical and demographic analysis. New Eden had now deployed close to half a million men dug in and fortified along a great stretch of the border and was hastily preparing barbed wire, minefields, and other obstructions on the Anchor apron. The strongest areas were around Logh, of course. Along the stretches past the area, where it was all open country, guard posts within sight of each other had been established behind wire barricades but there was little in the way of troop depth. New Eden was, in effect, inviting the invaders in at that point, knowing that they would be drawn inland across broad stretches of very little, with long supply lines, and they could then be cut off from Flux and caught in a vise. Matson, of course, had no intention of invading there or anywhere else if it could be helped.
Gabaye had been understandably unwilling to part with the long-range-projectile programs, but she was more than willing to deliver the real thing by her own and Ming Tokiabi’s efforts. Both Suzl and Matson expected this, of course, but were willing to live with it. These things launched to Flux targets were no more threatening than any other kind of weapon. If you knew they existed you could build an automatic shield against them and nab them before they got close enough to cause trouble. No, these were Anchor weapons, for use against Anchor, and New Eden was the biggest Anchor target of them all.
The things certainly didn’t look like anything anyone had envisioned. Matson and others were used to the basic rocket, which was a long tube with a cone-shaped top that was then packed with gunpowder and could be used as they had used them or to launch fireworks in Anchor. They all understood how a rocket big enough and packed with enough explosive force might even be able to escape gravity, but nobody expected an oval-shaped vehicle with a flat bottom and eight utilitarian-looking seats inside.
“We don’t know how it works, darlings, just how to work it. Isn’t that the way things are these days?” Chua Gabaye told them. “Still, when you put the stock program module in that little bitty slot there, it takes off like a shot and winds up way out there, presumably where you told it to go. We don’t know what makes it go, but it isn’t Flux power. The engine—or whatever it is—is like nothing ever seen here, and everybody who sees it says it can’t possibly do what it does—but it does. We’ve sent one all the way out in space and back again, but the landings still aren’t what they should be.”
“I don’t care if it crashes front first,” Matson responded. “This thing is a potential massive bomb. The only thing I’m worried about is one of them not blowing to bits, giving them that motor.”
“Not much danger of that right now, I fear, darling,” Gabaye responded. “I mean, that’s why we haven’t sent anyone real up yet. As I said, our landings leave a lot to be desired. When that thing hits, it hits with a bang and blows into millions and millions of teensy weensy pieces.”
Since the things were created from Flux, they could afford to expend a few in tests. Chua Gabaye was certainly right about the bang. Empty, one would easily destroy two or three square blocks of downtown New Canaan, and they intended to pack it with explosives.
The next problem was how to guide it to a specific target. The thing was clearly designed as a space bus, perhaps for getting workers or experts to and from things in space to place or repair them—there was once a ring of monitoring satellites all over, as they knew from the military programs—and not for point-to-point travel. It was Morgaine who suggested they reprogram just the directional and guidance part of the program pack with the grid they used on the projectors. Extending the grid through all of New Eden was nothing more than pencil and paper work, and the onboard computer would count the squares even though it couldn’t really sense or see them through the Anchor.
They experimented with one in Flux, and it worked very nicely. Matson was convinced that, using the grid system and a current New Eden map, targets could be pinpointed precisely. Because of the power of the blast, civilian losses were inevitable, but they were all determined to keep those to a minimum while spotlighting primarily what made New Eden really work. Power stations. Rail yards. Factory districts.
With the aid of the escaped spies and the former New Eden troops, they were able to pinpoint fourteen key strike locations that would effectively put New Eden out of business for quite a while. Of them all, only the huge factory district south of New Canaan and the old industrial region in Nantzee really would involve a high risk to innocent lives. There remained only to find a way to communicate with the judges in New Canaan, both before and after the “demonstrations.”
“The only way is to use the stringers,” Matson told them. “We have to find a train heading into Logh Center or Nantzee Center, where there are stringer offices, and get them to set up some sort of communications network between New Canaan and us. Our ultimatum can be delivered by hand, but after that we’ll need a quicker way than stringer to secure line to stringer office and courier.”
At Gabaye’s insistence, they forbade Matson to have any contact with the stringers. At this stage they would be best hired as messengers; Matson might involve them more directly. Now the observation of strict neutrality with stringers and their trains paid off, though. The string boss going into Nantzee that they contacted was more than willing to deliver the message and the requests as part of his duty. The offices already’communicated with each other in New Eden using a proprietary wireless code system, and as a precaution it had its own power supply.
The ultimatum was easily done as well, although Suzl insisted on writing it herself. She seemed excited, almost driven, and quite changed now. Totally confident, totally in charge. When she was done she read it over the radio and to the staff, and made sure everyone eventually heard or read its messages.
“To the Judges and People of New Eden, from a former citizen,” it began. “The Flux association of New Harmony, which includes many of your former citizens, has defeated your army at your northern border and is in fact your new neighbor to the north. We have power, and your projectors, and we know how to use them, as you know. We realize the futility of invading your land as you now must be convinced of the futility of invading ours. We abhor your system as an abomination against God and humanity, but we also recognize the futility of changing it from without. Until it collapses of its own internal weaknesses, we must be content to let you keep it, but you must not export it.
“This is our first and final offer. You will control and rule your vast Anchor and run it as you see fit. We, however, will form a shield around it, a shield of Fluxland that we will control, as vast and complex as New Eden itself. We will be the gate locked against your expansionist ambitions. All trade, all personnel, all contact between New Eden and World in either direction, must go through us. Both missionary and mercenary work will cease, although normal trade and commerce will be allowed if it is of a non-military nature. You may fortify your borders to protect yourself, but you may not cross them. Any use of Flux power against us by yourself, your allies, or machines will be stopped and you will pay a horrible price for it.
“You have forty-eight hours to agree to these terms. If we do not hear from you at that time, or if you reject the offer, or if any military move is made against any of us, you will be immediately reduced to a pre-industriat society. Every hour, and I mean every hour, after that deadline another component of your industrial and technological base will be destroyed until you accept. Our terms will get stiffer, and your price will be more horrible, the longer you delay. Delay too long, and there will be so little left of New Eden that we will not have to invade. Do not take this lightly. We do not, I assure you, take you lightly at all.”
The stringers assured them that the message had been hand-delivered to the Chief Clerk of the High Court of New Eden, and they started their clock and began picking their targets and assembling and programming the first six flying bombs.
Reconnaissance showed no undue activity along the border-front on the New Eden side of the line, but the troops there were clearly on first-stage alert. Longer range scans also showed no major movements south along at least six hundred kilometers of border on either side of the front, so New Eden was standing pat. As expected, the deadline passed without a reply of any sort.
Matson chose the targets carefully. He first wanted a demonstration that all the judges could see, and that meant the massive industrial complex south of New Canaan between the Sea and the Gate. It would take more than one flying bomb to completely wipe it out, but the first one would be effective and fair warning. They sent it off exactly on the forty-ninth hour, praying and crossing their fingers, the troops and wizards along the front also at a high state of readiness in case New Eden, in spite of its drubbing, would be forced to come out and try and stop the launches.
The things launched with a tremendous and nearly-ear-splitting hum and whine, and Matson realized that it was the landings, not the takeoffs, that the Guild had monitored.
The thing rose and then shot forward and upwards as it got its grid bearings, and made a tremendous explosive noise when it entered Anchor. It was so loud that it penetrated for many kilometers back into the normally sound-dampened void and caused many to worry that the shock of changing from the closed static system of Flux to the dynamic and far denser bubble of Anchor had caused it to explode on contact. If so, they were in deep trouble.
They would have to rely on the stringers to find out if the thing had gotten through at all, let alone hit what it was aimed at. Everyone knew that their victory in Flux was due to New Eden’s relative inexperience in that element and its inability to fully test out the projectors; they had the same disadvantage with the flying bombs.
For almost forty minutes after the first launch, Chua Gabaye and others waited in Flux where the stringers knew they were. They should have heard something by then, and they were getting nervous. Finally, a stringer arrived with a stern expression on her face. “There was a single massive explosion south of New Canaan about thirty-eight minutes ago,” they were told. “It created a massive fireball and touched off countless subsidiary explosions. The blast was felt far to the north and south of the city and broke many windows, toppled lines, and destabilized many other buildings. As of now, the fires are completely out of control.”
A projector monitoring the conversation reported it to the New Harmony leadership, and the cheers from all over were almost an earth-shaking explosion in and of themselves.
“Any message from the leadership?” Jodi asked the stringer.
“None. We have someone standing by but nothing has come in.”
Jodi didn’t really feel disappointed. She wanted New Eden crippled and she wanted it to burn. “All right. Return and stand by. Pretty soon you may be the only communications New Eden has left.”
The stringer stared at her. “What kind of weapon have you got there, anyway?”
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe the end of the world.”
The second one went off right on time, this one to the center of the rail yards that were the main switching terminal for the entire northern part of the nation. Located along the Sea half the distance north from New Canaan to the border and exactly equidistant to Logh Center and Nantzee Center, its destruction would effectively halt all train traffic to and from all three points to any other. This time one of the wizards had gone in as a great falcon, but it would be hours before she would be back with an effective report.
They next hit the great power station connecting New Canaan with direct Flux at the Gate. Stringers reported massive power outages, some building collapses, and where the power station was there was reported now to be only a crater almost a kilometer wide and perhaps forty meters deep.
Nine hours, and only nine bombs, later, New Eden had effectively ceased to be a modern industrial power. Electricity, communications, and rail had been severed; virtually all the industrial districts—there were only three of any consequence—had ceased to exist. New Harmony observers in Flux off Nantzee Center, seventy-six kilometers away from the industrial section and in the void as well, felt the ground shake beneath their feet and felt a blast of New Eden air as it actually pushed through the Anchor bubble.
Except for the stringers, who maintained a very shaky and intermittent contact, New Canaan, capital and largest city in New Eden, was completely cut off from the outside, without power, lights, water, or even any transportation beyond horses.
New Eden had quickly become a vast land of farms, empty spaces, and a few large cities in which the bulk of the population lived. With the development of the vast rail network and the rediscovery of large-scale refrigeration, all but basic truck-farmed food like eggs and milk came from long distances away. New Canaan had a population of over four million alone, and this time of year it dipped below freezing at night. These people now shivered in the darkness, had to find alternate water sources, and deal with backed-up sewage and refuse. A run on greengrocers, butchers, and other food stores had turned into a series of near-riots.
The same was happening in Nantzee District, another area of huge population. The others—Logh, Ozkah, and far-off Mareh to the south—had not yet been touched, although they certainly had reports about the ultimatum, the first explosion in New Canaan, and knew they were now cut off.
Matson, not alone, was becoming disturbed. “We’re starting to slaughter now. We’ve already sent them back fifty years technologically, and guaranteed at least a decade, maybe more, before they could fully restore things. We’ve got one more rail center, Ozkah-Mareh, and the big southern hydroelectric complex on the River Nur, and then we get to Logh, Ozkah, and Mareh Centers. Logh’s already a mess. They evacuated half the population to a tent city well south and east of the city before the big battle and they’re still there, so it’s a legitimate military target and I don’t feel totally upset about it, but I’d hate to bomb the other two without giving them some warning and time to evacuate.”