U8 "n77A.Triple Point Five I am thinking, as I write this, that things have been going Much too well for us. We are equipped with new mecha suits, well-rested and fed, and now we even have a Psyker on our team, such as we have Never had before. Heading into the Triple Point, that undefined place, where three Empires annoy each other, but not irrevocably so. Not until this past month, at least, is what I am telling myself. Grimsley is riding on the top of the transporter lorry's cab, the English mouse strapped into the anti-aircraft gunner's seat, legs dangling through what looks like a sunroof into the driver's cab below. His ears twitch as he looks around - for all the advanced detection systems, there are few things so hard to fool as the Mark One Biological Eyeball - and even in the back of the kevlar-tarpaulined truck, the rest of us are keeping our own anxiously watching the skies. "Stuff our luck," Natya growls, the big centaur mare flexing the glove of her mechsuit, the servos hissing slightly. "Here we go, into the Point ..... up against we don't know what. Bad enough, two trips ago ..... when we bumped into the Russian 101st Guards, out in force. Them lot, we knew were in the field before we started." I nod, but there is nothing else to do. At least, before now, we had a good idea of what we MIGHT be up against ..... and luckily, last time we only ran into the lead element of Ivan's forces. I look down automatically, checking the fabric Stealth-sheaths are securely tied over the long-barreled 35 mm cannon at my flanks - then, our "victory" had been to put twenty rounds into the front tank's suspension and run for it, all getting out unhurt. Things never looked entirely rosy at the time .... but thinking back, those were golden days........ I am interrupted as Hanna Ritter, the doe centaur Intelligence Officer, raises her helmet and looks round at us. She has been deep in one of her strange Trances, communing with the other Psykers in the neighbourhood, and with whatever chain of command she talks to. For her world is not ours: we know, without it exactly disturbing us, that in some ways she is as far above us as we are above Torm and Eric, the Half-wolf centaurs who are snapping playfully at each other over a half-eaten haunch of something or someone. Hanna looks worried, and such things are infectious. "We should be at the Front in half an hour or so," she blinks, her great liquid brown eyes surveying the prestressed chipboard of the lorry's interior. "Here's the plan. We're going in with the City of Cholm's 11th Infantry, who'll be taking up a position ten K inside the Point. They'll be staying there as long as they can .... providing logistic and fighting support if we need it, and hopefully drawing .... Attention away from us. Mundane attention, you might say." I nod, and look around. Grimsley on the roof, Natya, Vaclav, Torm and Eric ..... it is so small a force to send in there. But whatever Force we are trying to find in the Triple Point, has ignored larger groups ..... we are to be bait, and whether we draw the attention we are looking for or not, it is not likely to be a Healthy trip for us. "But, here's something you might want to know," Hanna's sensitive ears twitch inside her helmet. "Although we've not been able to detect any particular ..... focus for the Disturbances inside there, the general level IS rising. It's like ........" she hesitates, trying to find words, for that which she could transmit to another psyker directly "it's like looking at the skyglow of a city at night, far over the horizon. You can't see just what's there, but you know it's bright. And after each .... incident, it's getting brighter. Every time something is .... Done to a unit, the power levels increase a notch. We're keeping an eye on it from as far away as Valduz." "The Imperial Capital ?" Vaclav's own tail twitches: he is still in his undersuit, reluctant to fully put the mecha on till we have to - it might be weeks now before we take it off. Hanna nods, looking at the buck speculatively. "Oh, believe it. Just because we're sending in teams of half a dozen, doesn't mean that's how much we're worried. There's fifteen other teams going in today, and twenty more standing by to follow .... every one with a psyker. Some, better than me. If we thought we'd do better with a full Regiment, you would Get a full Regiment." I wince. Had she said each team was a full Company strong, it would be far less significant. Our Gross Liechtenstein Reich is unique in the world - it values genetic prowess above material riches. I have heard of renegade psykers being recruited from around the world, even one or two with catalogues of hideous crimes behind them .... THAT is how much we value psionic potential. And to expose so many of them to danger .... my heart sinks under the gravity of what I am hearing. They are our pride and our strength: but I remember a folk tale of having to melt the family silver into bullets against werewolves. If you have to do it, you get it done. But unlike us, bullets do not worry about being launched on a one-way trip. The transporter lurches and rocks slightly on the snowdrifted road. There is a time like this that we have learned to .... appreciate, if hardly to enjoy. It is the last hours or minutes .... the dice are cast, the orders given and we are moving towards the Point, with nothing immediate to worry us. Right now we are all alive and well .... I notice Vaclav looking around our little team searchingly, and catchy his eye. We both nod. Last time we were doing this, the canine centaurs Emilia and Joachim were with us ... neither of whom made it out. "Eva !" is what I hear Natya shouting out as we get into one of the earth-banked pens where the road ends "It's Eva - she's alive!" I stick my head out of the window next to the mare, though there is hardly room even for my narrow fox muzzle. "The one by the sledge ? You could be right..." Our transporter shudders to a halt, the slight hiss of steam loud as the driver depressurises the boiler and combustion chamber. Natya hits the quick-release on the back ramp and is out in the snow, in seconds embracing another horse centaur, who seems to be wearing big skiing goggles. I recognise her, though it was last Spring when she was attached to us - and we ran into the most serious fighting of the year. Grimsley slides down into the snow, looking at the two mares exchanging breaths in equine mode. The mouse's ears twitch. "Friend o' hers ?" he looks round at me, tail swishing quizzically. But it is Vaclav who answers him. "She was with us at second Starovna Creek, ten months ago ....." his voice trails away slightly. "We had to leave her with the medics .... she was in a bad way." His own tail twitches, rattling as the compressed-air emergency supply powers his movements, the engines still cold. "Her suit had taken a lot of damage, the visor was cracked so badly it was letting the snow in ... but she was the only one with any rockets left. Two T-28s came over the ridge at us, she knew what'd happen.... but she fired anyway, saved the lot of us. The rockets went right past her head, and the backwash...... " he shakes his head slowly. "Her face .... I didn't see how she could have survived, the way it looked...." He falls silent, as the two mares trot over to meet under the VolksDeutsch sign declaring this is where the City Of Cholm's Regiment gets its rations and munitions - Natya looking happier than I recall her for quite awhile. "Eva, this is Grimsley .... " she waves at our only biped in the team, and whispers something in Eva's ear .... or rather, at a metal mesh dome where ears would be. Eva laughs, a pleasant sound I remember ... and from inside her "ski-goggles" I hear the slight whirring of servos, like an automatic camera focussing. Our medics can do much these days. "They let me out a month ago," Eva looks at us all in turn, with that hidden sighting mechanism clicking. "I volunteered to come back to the Point .... spare someone else from having to learn the hard way." Her tail twitches resignedly: that is intact and unarmoured, and a fine sight. "Until they can spare a dedicated cybersight, I'm stuck with these four-hundred pixel eyes .... still. Could be worse. I can shift crates as well as anyone, just so long as I don't have to read any fine print on them...." Behind us, Hanna Ritter is shifting restlessly, the deer centaur's hooves stamping neat small holes in the snow-crust. Unlike the rest of us, she is a formally enlisted soldier .... and has worries about timetables being kept. But then - what we are facing on this mission is not a military operation..... Suddenly there comes that slow trickling sensation in my head, and Hanna cocks an ear at me. "You're probably right," she says seriously. "It IS rather like one of those century-old films ... the mob storming the castle, to put an end to the threat from Outside." She shivers, and glances round, taking in the 35 mm cannon on my flanks, and the Mecklen subgun on my forearm armour. "And yes ... maybe we might as well be armed with torches, rakes and pitchforks. The Scandians have been hit six times by what's in there, and they've got the finest weapons around .... but not one survivor to tell us why it didn't make any difference." The sun seems to turn chill for a second, as she scans me again. In the rest of the world, there are severe Laws against invasion of privacy .... but not here. Fortunately, our Talents all keep an eye on each other ... Hanna has her own superiors, who she will have to justify herself to. Still, last time Natya and Grimsley took a stroll in the woods, our Psyker seemed to be tuned into Something enjoyable to judge by her expression, so maybe the job has a few perks to balance its responsibilities.... I give a cough, and nod towards the crates. "Well, now we're here - time to get packing ?" It is six hours after we leave the transporter, when we step around the last snowhole - two bears wave at us glumly, the last friendly faces we can expect to see for some time. Now the woods close up .... snow hanging undisturbed, every branch a silent witness to our passing. Grimsley looks around, frowning, from the position on Natya's back. The mouse is cradling his Mecklen gun, its white snow-sheath exposing only the barrel and trigger group. We were relieved when he turned out to be a fair shot after a few hours practice - but then, I remind myself, he is a pilot, with excellent eyesight and good coordination, that can put smaller things than an aircraft on target. "Ey, we're making a trail," he comments, as we skirt the edge of a clearing. The low Spring sun picks out the deep slot; even in single file, there is no way we can move through this undetected. "If the Neighbours have got their long-eyes open, like, we'll be on maps o'theirs in no time." He looks up into the naked blue sky, knowing a Russian or Scandian drone could be whispering over the treetops almost silently towards us. Grimsley has been looking depressed all day, and keeping busy seems to be doing him good. I recall the news Vaclav passed on to us from WorldNet - in Grimsley's home country, the head of the Government has died - I remember the ancient statesman myself, Lord Such, who has ruled their Parliament since the EC was cast out. It seems only last month that I was a cub, marvelling over a picture of him aged eighty, leading his political League Of Dangerous Sports over Niagara falls in their grand pianos...... Hanna Ritter smiles sweetly, and looks at her watch. "We can hope so ..... I hope they've got their very finest drones heading out right now ..... did you see those large cannon array , pulled up just behind the front line ?" The English mouse nods doubtfully. "Tha's not going to aim them at drones ? Must be two hundred mill calibre and more .... ancient things too, I reckoned. Might shoot at a Stealth drone, but tha'd not reckon to hit 'im." "In their first life .... they were Russian naval pieces, long obsolete before the GLR even set up ... we found a few hundred lying in store in the Crimea," the mobile deer ears twitch mischievously, and she turns around to the rest of us. "Unplug the electrics, folks .... and stand by to make a fast sprint, say three kilometres, to point Mambo Nine on the map. We've got a little .... Distraction lined up for us - all the other groups are stepping in right now, after we Ping the area." "Ping ? " Grimsley's ears twitch, looking around blinking. But then, from our own lines comes a rippling bark of thunder - and even in daylight I see the lights on all my helmet displays flash bright, though the power jacks are out. And then we reconnect, helmet lights coming back to regular patterns - and Hanna nods towards me, decisively. I raise my fist and punch skyward three times, setting my right rear leg in the kickstart stirrup. "Zentauren - Los!" I kick hard, the pull-cord spinning the rotary engine, the rounded triangular "piston" turning, and with a heartfelt yelp of triumph I hear the answering bark as the starboard engine lights first time. Brand new suits, freshly serviced - this, is as good as it gets. To my port and starboard Torm and Eric fan out, the half-wolves still with their helmets open, a gleeful light in their eyes. Keen eyes are scanning the forest, noses twitching as they trot out upwind of their diesel exhaust, the semi-sentient Little Brothers scarcely needing full intelligence to do their duty by their Pack. For these suits are easy in some ways, easier than a car or even a bicycle ... you wear them like clothing, and as long as the engine runs, the reed switches will shunt pneumatic power to whatever action you make inside it. Snow sprays like the wake of a speedboat! We surge forwards, feeling the armour respond and drive us through the metre-deep Spring slush ... both engines are spinning happily, and I switch to half an atmosphere of boost. This, we are using for the first time, and after growing up with plain engines, it feels good that we have superchargers at last. In may be one more thing to go wrong, but for now I revel in the extra power as we break into a leaping gallop, no longer worried about clever electronic spies peering down on us. For the only sensors left alive around here are the standard Mark One Biological Eyeball. ""Pinging"" Natya explains, as we pull up to our first checkpoint three thousand snowy metres into the Zone ," They got the name from submarine sonar - you're normally as quiet as you can be, but sometimes .... a blast of sonar can show everything that's there, and half deafen the other side's folk.... with a few thousand times more noise than they expected. This is the radio version." Grimsley's whiskers twitch. "I thought tha' weren't into that sort'o' Tech hereabouts ?" His mount shrugs. "Simple enough in theory - take any old cannon, line the breech with Type NJ SuperPietzo crystal. That's dear, but it doesn't wear out, and the Japanese are growing it in orbit by the tonne .... and same with the superconductors you need. Fire off the blank shell with rock salt, use the plasma running down the barrel as a poor-man's MHD generator, there's a few thousand amps you can shunt into Radio Frequencies .... every unshielded piece of electronics downrange of it is Toast." She grins, patting her pneumatic mecha, and the breech of her big underslung cannon. "Some folk are too clever for their own good .... if this was the Scandians, it'd have half a dozen electronic systems looking after the targeting, the ammunition feed and probably the colour scheme - we haven't got any electronics we can't do without." Just at that moment, I catch sight of Hanna's face, her visor not yet down .... she looks like someone is trampling on her grave. Ears are twitching, and her tail is flagging up in alarm, instinctive signals passed from her quad ancestors of two generations ago . She holds up a hand, and we fan out, facing out to cover all quarters while visors click down all around. "I just had a ..... sending," the doe's voice comes to us all, our whisper-mode radios picking up the signal through the cold iron of the suits, no other aerial being needed..... "A sending from Group Miroslav, at point ......", she reels off a string of coordinates that a few glances at my chest-mount map board show me is twenty kilometres North-West of us, "They ..... made contact." Grimsley looks at her. "Tha's sure of it ?" He demands "Nowt else it could be ? I'd not heard, like, things were that precise, wi' psykers. Thought it were mainly just feelings, less'n that's reet in tune." She gives him a hollow stare that only I am in position to see, and it is not an expression to forget in a hurry. "Generally true. But believe me - we can feel it, with everything we've got - when another psyker dies." Visors are shut now, and the laughter has stopped, as we fan out, advancing with cautious speed through the Spring forest. The only noise is the slight whine of the Wankel rotary engines, purring on each side of our flanks like ferrous extra hearts. I am on Point: my slight fox frame is a slightly smaller target, certainly half the frontal area of Natya in her armour - and that can make all the difference. Speed is our protection, rather than stealth - certainly there are hovertanks and big running Mechs that are faster, but we will hear those before they see us. We have such forces of our own, ready for the day this whole thing spills over and pours like molten metal over the maps of the Baltic, setting the place ablaze - but unlike hovertanks, we can dodge, and hide, and take our casualties home. What happens in the Triple Point, happens outside the eyes of the world - but what we are running into, only the dead have seen. "Group Miroslav," I point my snout and the helmet's directional link towards Hanna, as we pull to a halt to look cautiously over a snowy ridge onto a deserted, ice-covered lake, "I don't know them. Who are .....", and even now, I feel my tail droop as I think of them, crossed off our Order Of Battle at Minsk HQ, "Who Were they ?" Hanna is still looking as if someone had kicked her in a tender spot with a sharp hoof. "Ten bovine 'taurs, all from the same hers, testing the latest armour ..... Japanese issue, the best we've ever field-trialled ..... all built to our spec by exiled engineers, Genemeld folk or friends." I nod, first carefully disengaging the helmet sensors to avoid them misinterpreting the input. It is something that we find hard to understand, being born in the Gross Liechtenstein Reich. Centaurs are an extreme application of Genemeld - and Genemeld is illegal in the rest of the world, excepting in Thailand and, by default, the Greenland Anarchist Non-State. But in Japan, it is more than illegal to USE Genemeld, the viral-related vector that transfers genetic code across the species lines - it is illegal on pain of death to BE a Genemeld construct. On Japanese territory, every citizen has a duty to exterminate us on sight - but I grimly smile, patting my flank cannon. They would find their law costly to enforce. "Latest issue kit..... " I think out loud, blinking. "And a Psyker with them ..... And they are the first of ours to run foul of what's come to our Woods. Coincidence ? Coincidences, I don't trust." Hanna's tail bobs under its flexible kevlar coat, unlike the hardshell wrought iron we others are wearing - apart from Grimsley, indeed. "In my Department," she says simply, "We don't trust, totally, ANYTHING." Now we are running fast and silent, in a skirmishing line through the light pinewoods, all of us with both engines lit and ready to flick to full power. The separate whining tone of the supercharger stuck on the frying-pan sized flank engine is a thing I am trying to get used to: ears are twitching and every instinct honed to sort out our engine noise from what else ought to be there. I see Vaclav swinging his left arm stiffly as he runs, the suit taking the strain as he scans the wavelengths for anything in our neighbourhood - and from the glazed look on Hanna's face, she is using her psionics to do the same. But other folk have been here with eyes, receivers and even a psyker fully expecting trouble, and trouble has jumped them regardless. Breath is coming faster now, fogging the inside of my raised visor - I clip it down, letting the bleed air from the suit's compressors clear it, knowing the half-wolves on the flanks will hear anything before I do. There is that feeling again, washing over me ..... I am knowing I might not be getting out of this alive, but worries are trailing behind me like the diesel-trail of my exhaust in the snow. I am young and strong, dressed in armour proof against most weapons a biped infantryman can lug this far into the Point - my suit assures me that whatever enemy I face, I can splash 35 mm cannon shells over with the reflex of an eyeblink. And Natya is at my side, the great artillery-piece low-slung and angled up like the ram of a galley of old, carving the deep drifts like sea-foam - at my order or our need, her low-velocity 110 mm howitzer can throw two hundred kilograms a minute of squash-head drums of liquid explosive. Even the most formidable of the Scandian mechsuits, whose sensors alone cost more than our whole team's kit, hate it when that happens. "Slow....." it is Vaclav gesturing, his hand circling as his whisper-mode radio sounds in our earpieces. "Picking up ... a transponder signal ahead. Just the one, and it's weak......" We step down the engines, and begin to pick our way forward in rushes, one covering another's run to the nearest cover. The trees are denser here - and then Vaclav points up at one of the trees. Natya nods, and presses her helmet to her dimunitive rider's, not wanting to risk even even our whisper-radio here, so close ... For I can see the treetop too, and know what it is she is telling him - branches broken off, sharp and splintered, without the lacing of even one morning's frost on them. Although a stray round can travel kilometres even in this cold dense air, we know this is a sign - the only fighting the sensors strewn across the Zone have heard today, is that which we are coming to investigate. And Grimsley nods, pulling back the straight-through bolt of his Mecklen, wrapping the kevlar scarf around beneath his mech-rider's helmet, as we disperse further, ears straining for any sound that is not our own. Three minutes, and Vaclav points down towards a shallow valley - we have passed a few splashed craters in the snow where rounds have overshot, and now there is a stillness in the air, as if the forest was holding its breath. I look round .. we are going in four and three, myself and Vaclav with the halfwolves flanking, then Hanna and Grimsley with Natya, the mare's big, mech-killing cannon easily capable of lobbing its shells over our heads. It is a moment of stillness. Then I raise my arm and point into the valley, circling my gloved arm for a slow advance. I see Grimsley looking behind us; he is the only one not walking on his own feet, and so is our rearguard - his face looks rigid with fear as he surveys the white cleanness of the familiar forest behind us, and we descend into what is waiting for us. But now there is no more time to reflect on all the places we would rather be, for we are heading downhill and our every sense is wide open. The forest closes around our passing like footprints in quicksand, and to the world we vanish in the dawn mist and tree-shadow. It is Vaclav again who is the first to spot something. He freezes, and gestures ahead and to the left, to the valley bottom where the pines rise steeply. He nods, and mimes putting his hands over his ears .... switching his engines off, the deer centaur feeds a starting cartridge into the priming ports, ready for a stealthy advance and a hasty retreat at need. I nod, and pop my helmet open, advancing to his side. Out here, our outer garment is a deliberately ragged suit of white recycled fabrics, snow sticking easily to its coarse mesh and folds. Between us, we pack fresh snow around him, especially around the engine ports, hopefully dimming a heat-detector's view of him. He gives a nod, and hands me the end of a thread-fine reel of biodegradable optical fibre, which I clip into my data feed. And then he is off, his white snowball-suit merging seamlessly into the Spring drifts and laden branches. For a few minutes I hear nothing, see nothing out of the ordinary, except the loud heartbeat magnified by my Helmet sensors. Then Vaclav gives a sharp snort, and I know there is something there. "It's an autonomous Skippy..... Scandian make, but with our markings on it .... " his voice is clear down the landline. "Still carrying its load .... that's what I'm getting the signal from...." "Trace where it came from .... we're advancing to your point," I tell him, as I wave the rest of us forward. The "Skippy" is a small tracked vehicle, the Scandians build and use to follow their mecha into battle - a rugged little beast, that normally follows whoever has a transponder on the armour. If nobody's transponder is left working .... it waits a few hours, then starts wandering across the landscape, its onboard systems bleating for rescue. We tend to pick them up, reprogram them and use them ourselves - they are tough and handy little beasts, stupidly brave and far too expensive for us to build our own. There is a few seconds' pause, and Vaclav comes on again. "You won't like this ... it's one of ours. It's carrying our calibres of ammo and our ration packs ..... I've got it trailing me now. We may need it. Now I'm going back along its trail ... the woods open out here and .... OH GODDESS !!!" There is a muffled tearing sound, and the fibre connection breaks. I signal the advance, but we are not fifty metres forward when Vaclav comes tearing into view, his eyes wide. His helmet is wide open, his eyes staring .... and as Natya tackles him, pulling him into the snowdrift he was sprinting at in blind panic, I catch the sour scent of vomit. "Vaclav ! What's up there ?" My voice sounds thin and hollow, as I glance ahead .... there is a rustling in the trees, and I open my jaw switch, releasing the interlocks on the cannon .... twin 35 mm cannon ready to rock, forty solid shot rounds per magazine, each one capable of punching through five centimetres of face-hardened tungsten steel. Natya and Hanna stand over Vaclav, while I focus the aiming dots on the trees ahead .... "Ahh,,,,,,, " I sigh. Something breaks cover, but it is the Skippy, the fearless little robotic pack-mule churning aling after Vaclav, the only one who "befriended" it out here. And he is right - under the flapping tarpaulin, I can see the recognisable pinewood ration and ammunition boxes that we alone use out here. The two-by-one metre craft swings back and forth, as if scenting us ... and only now do I recognise that it is carrying a reconnaissance pod, lashed to its centreline with duct tape. This is definitely one of ours. Hanna cleans Vaclav's face with snow, and kneels down beside him. She shudders, first looking into his vacantly staring eyes, then closing her own, shaking her head as if in denial. Vaclav gives a gasp, and starts to look around himself ....... but Hanna stays there in the melting snow, her own ears down, trembling. She looks round at the rest of us. "We can report we've found the missing team, and request support - pass it onto someone else," she says unsteadily. "Or we can go and investigate it ourselves. But prepare yourselves ..... it's bad down there. It's worse than you've ever seen." I look around - Natya nods, and Grimsley gives a quick dip of his head. "They're our people," I tell her. "We're going in." What Vaclav has seen is down there, in the clearing, not two hundred metres through the kindly, sheltering trees. Definitely, there are the remains of ten - or possibly eight or twelve, it is hard to be sure - mecha troops of the Greater Liechtenstein Reich, we can tell that by the pain scheme on what armour fragments survive. And I'm not going to try and describe in what .... condition the remains are in, for we know as plainly as anything, that organic flesh and bone cannot be distorted like that, as if it had been transformed into modelling clay and squeezed playfully. None of us are feeling at all well - even Torm and Eric, the halfwolves, are whining and looking at the trail back beseechingly, and they normally feast at such scenes as this. "Look ! " Hanna is off to one side of the clearing .... her ears are pressed flat, and her tail trembles like a leaf. "Here .... this kit isn't ours, is it ?" She holds up the twisted barrel of what I recognise as a Russian "Plamya 15" grenade launcher .... in a mecha fitting, still attached. Then she gives a squeal, as something reddish falls out of the armour socket - I catch a brief glimpse, and nod, for hands are quite distinctive. Natya wades over through the white snow .... and looks past Hanna, over into the next clearing. The big Ukrainian mare snorts - and quietly leads Hanna back to us, before returning to press helmets to mine, conduction passing sound more privately than our radio. "There's a Russian platoon over there, done in same as ours," she whispers. "T'ain't nice. Same timing, the big pieces aren't frozen stiff yet." I nod. There are things they don't teach you in basic training, that would depress recruits too much. "Same timing ? And they didn't fight our lot ?" Natya looks down at one of the ... distorted figures in the snow. "No weapon did that. The Plamya and all their stuff had been fired ... so had our lot's weapons - but not at them. And the Skippy's still loaded up .... nobody had time to call it forward and reload off it ...." Just then, when I am wondering if things can get worse, they do. Vaclav struggles to his feet, and I see him forcing panic back down like a man trying not to vomit in his helmet. "Radio bands ....," he gasps, waving the receivers in his left arm around, scanning the empty woodlands, "I'm picking up engine emissions ... Russian heavy hovertanks, closing fast, from 020 and 340 degrees ... Pincer movement .... " There is hardly time to get us all into cover, leaving trails in the deep snow that we cannot wholly disguise, before we hear the turbine whine. Six T-AVX 32's, missile armed and mounting what my old instructor described as "A F***-Off Big Railgun" slide up over the ridge from North-north-West, their carbon-fibre fabric hover skirts flaring and throwing up great billows of snow as they bank like speedboats, circling to a halt. From the thin shelter of the forest, I wince. For these hovertanks are carrying white-clad biped infantry hanging off the outer frames, wolverines and ermines from Siberia. They dive off into the snowdrifts before the spray settles, and start to worm their way outwards, invisible as burrowing moles and as lethal as any troops on the planet. The lead hovertank still floats with its engine running - I see big, coffin-sized boxes on the back of the turret, and for an instant wonder what they are ... till the sound hits me, and then I am knowing. It is a thumping, rhythmic beat, that echoes across the clearing .... calling its hearers to battle, as pipes and drums did centuries before. Even now, I shiver at the sound that through a quirk of history we have come to associate with cold, hard-grinning Death - the Sound of Siberia. When the land was under Communist rule, all aspects of life from work to play were supervised by the State - but some echoes from the world outside could not be wholly silenced. What the Party could not wholly ban, it assimilated - and so for many decades after the outer world abandoned it, Disco Music was spread by the Social Commissars throughout the wastelands of Siberia. I shiver, as harsh chanting cries echo up from the snowdrifts as the Siberians crawl towards us, the only live scents around here. Our diesel they can smell, as like as not, for they are as close to the Wild as any of us, even the Half-wolves. So hard and cruel is their homeland, that they take generations of cautious trial to latch onto any new idea - but once tested, they stick with it. We are facing a Disco Shaman here, manning the T-AVX with the engine-driven speaker system, and the Russians are no happier to risk them on the battlefield than we are our precious Psykers. Behind me I hear a sharp hiss of panic - I turn, and see Hanna standing up, clearly visible. The Siberians must have seen her already .... but she is not looking at them. She is looking PAST them, to something on the far side of the clearing. Her eyes are very wide, as we hear a panicked cry from the lead hovertank, that is nothing to do with spotting us. I turn ....... and see where she is looking. There is nothing there .... so my eyes are telling me. But there is a.... a cold, hard keening sound that is blowing soundlessly .... something is echoing in my skull that my eyes and ears did not transmit ....... as if a tower of some invisible polluting vapour was rising invisibly there, its touch sickening to the spirit. There is a silence, as if a great glass lid had been dropped around us all - the killing-jar of an insect collector, or the lid of a cooking pot. And Hanna nods, very quietly, looking at us one by one. "It's back," she says, her voice very flat. "WE didn't find it - IT found us." ##### End Chapter 5 ######### 8  i ?CEl !(#(#%''()*Z,X.>/0 23799 ;f;>'@AB_CaCGG\HIZL$MMMMP!UU$W~YYD[]6_]a"bbYefgikklnannnqOsYttuvVwCxy |~p 588 (#Gk8