Before any in the room could utter even a single word of concern, the unwished-for crackling of the Finches’ cannon was joined in song by the familiar rising howl of the settlement alarm, which for the second time in as many days issued forth its call to arms.
It was at this very moment that Ernest soared up the stairs into the second floor meeting room, dispensing with the use of bipedal locomotion altogether in his great rush to convey the news of what was transpiring outside.
“Ladies. Gentlemen. There is urgency. We are under renewed and significant assault. We are outmatched by a force that is nearly upon us. All who are able must retreat to shelter in the woods, immediately.”
This dire warning was underlaid by the distant overhead droning of rotorcraft; it was clear that we had, despite our efforts and fervent desires to the contrary, not yet seen the fullness of the Caddiganite capabilities. Every soul in the room quickly heeded Ernest’s warning, and as one we made haste with him out of the building, with the intention of effectuating our escape.
As I exited the building, all was hubbub and noise and shouting, as the anarchists put up a great hue and cry that all should beat the hastiest of retreats. Those who were not bearing arms were carrying children, or were upon their sturdy backs carrying bags and packs seemingly laden for that very intent and purpose.
I caught a glimpse of the shadowy form of the Finch high above, engaged in a desperate struggle with four or five assault rotorcraft of an unfamiliar design; the detonations of dozens of projectiles sparked across the surface of its hull, and though battered, it did not fall. Yet neither did it smite them from the sky, as one might have expected, and the grim reason for this impotence soon became evident; I could see that the forecastle turret had been damaged, the potent but delicate weapon that was the Finches’ primary advantage no longer appeared capable of engaging the enemy, having been shattered by an ill-placed rocket. It was now as a talon-clipped hawk worried by crows, for though it was likely beyond harm itself, yet it could not prevent itself from being driven back and away from their swooping and peckings.
“We need to take our leave post haste, dear Becca,” shouted Stewart over the din, as he strode briskly ahead of me. “Gerald informs me that they must with the deepest of regrets fall back, for despite their best efforts, they are now sorely overmatched. The Admiralty has been notified, and our plan has been by necessity aborted. The fastest ships of the fleet have been diverted to our aid, but they shan’t arrive in time to stave off this assault. Caddigan moves with an unprecedented rapidity and aggression; they are too many, and we are here too few, and help is not near enough at hand to interpose itself on our behalf. We must away!”
A hand brushed my arm, and I turned, where saw the careworn but welcome face of Suzanna; she had, as I had previously mentioned, spent many of the last hours in weeping and lament; her eyes were darkened and the usual bright and healthy shine of her countenance had been supplanted by the grey veil of woe. “Joao informs me that they likely intend to strike at us with bombs from the air. There is no subterranean shelter from such an attack here, and it maddens me desperately that this…this…retreat” (here she choked back a sob that seemed to be both sorrow and a frustrated rage intermingled) ”is our only recourse.”
“Oh, dear Suzanna,” I said, “it is and we must, and leave both mourning and the sweet taste of vengeance for another day.” I did not say, although I thought it, that neither of those necessities would be accomplished should we be expunged from this mortal coil in a shower of heavy munitions. As the dour wisdom of Scripture teaches, a live dog is greater than a dead lion, and it was with our collective tails between our legs that we now sought the possibilities that a more felicitous hour might bring.
Mere survival was to be our most immediate concern, for as Suzanna had declared and Ernest was now broadcasting at maximum volume for the information of all, the preponderance of the Caddiganite airborne assault was soon coming high and from the south, approaching us as a swarm of plump hornets, giant quadrotor transports bearing within their bellies the rude implements of our potential destruction. They were yet at a great altitude and an equivalently great distance, and not yet visible, but their arrival was as certain as a coming storm.
All eyes were turned upwards as we walked briskly towards the compound exit amidst the rushing throng of other settlement dwellers, all of us enthralled by the imminent advent of this new horror.
With my sister by my side, and flanked by staunch Joao and stalwart Ernest, each bearing with them supplies quickly gathered to sustain our persons during our flight, we raced to the gate of the inner compound; there we turned rightward, separating from the larger crowd, our intention being to exit on foot through the great breach that remained as an unhealed wound in the southernmost wall of the outer compound. Our pace quickened, stirred on by shouting and the roaring engines of anarchist trucks taking flight towards the main gate, each one overbrimming with refugees and their scant necessaries. In but a momentary glance, I caught sight of Diego lifting a woman and her infant child into the rear of a transport, then turning to assist in the loading of another. His eyes met mine, and there was an instant of mutual acknowledgment before he was lost to sight, to his people, and to his duty.
At the high southern horizon, the first of the wave of Caddiganite rotorcraft could now be seen above the lowest clouds, moving with a slow, terrible and inexorable deliberacy towards us as the hum of their props rose menacingly in our ears. Our pace quickened yet again, my flight now headlong and as swift as my hiked skirts permitted, for the clearing in which the settlement compound rested was a stark target amidst the surrounding forest canopy, as neatly distinct as a painted bullseye for the cruel bombardiers above us. Whilst that attack neared, I felt a rising relief, for we were the lot of us now halfway to the wall, our pace now more than sufficient to remove us from the area of greatest concern. A group of a dozen anarchists had chosen to flee the settlement on the same path, and were but seventy paces ahead of us, at the very verge of the ruined wall, when they suddenly stopped, as their leader issued forth a shout of alarm.
Yet again, our intentions were to be thwarted.
At that precise moment from behind us came, all at once, a great crackle of small arms fire; before any of our small party could turn our heads to see the cause, our attentions were transfixed by what suddenly lay before us.
Stepping from without into the wide breach of the compound wall came a great shadow, a hulking figure of misshapen and displeasing proportion. It was, though in generally bipedal form, at least thrice the height of an average human being, with arms, legs, and torso all of a greater thickness and formed out of a dun metallic alloy. The head was featureless but for an array of lenses and sensors cast spider-like around a single thick reflective visor slit, through which a soldier within surely peered at us from the security of his armoured anonymity. Its arms were both ended not with hands or other utilitarian appendages, but with heavy, long and rifled barrels for varying sorts of projectile ordnance.
Never before had the Hammer evidenced such a device, and it was clearly derived from the stolen fruits of Her Majesty’s technological store, perhaps reverse engineered from the remains of the servant who had been torn from the sky prior to the assault on my person, yet at this moment not a whit of that larcenous industrial plagiarism was of consequence; our worries were rather more immediate. Another of the great armoured forms, then another, and then yet another appeared, gathering together as an bristling and impassible impediment to our flight; a similar obstruction was clearly occurring at the main gate.
The leader of the anarchists ahead of us, finding the escape of herself and her comrades blocked, gave a mighty scream of inchoate fury, and levelling her rifle discharged it in a stuttering defiance. The effect was precisely nothing at all, other than to stir one of them to fire a single perfectly targeted round that cast her to the ground as a shattered and lifeless ruin.
Another of the goliaths then levelled its beweaponed right arm towards all of us, at which Stewart cried for all to get down, to take shelter. We did so, with Joao and Ernest moving to interpose themselves between Suzanna, myself, and our potential demise. Yet the beastly device did not a single thing, and merely remained in a posture of silent menace.
It did not need to commence firing, for from above us came a rapidly rising whistling; our pause had been enough that the rotorcraft had passed overhead and discharged their contents, death would not come from before us, but would rain upon us as fire from the heavens. This was, quite obviously now, their intent; we were trapped as surely as animals penned for the slaughter.
I closed my eyes against the fire and the shattering of my flesh, once again commending myself to our Maker with what was coming to be a rather unwelcome familiarity.
Yet the first impact came not with a roar, but with a peculiarly muffled crumping, a soft and vaporous variance from my expectation. That first incongruously gentle sound was joined by a dozen others from all about us, followed by a great stifled hiss that seemed to rise from a hundred serpents shushing.
I was, all at once, aware of a sickly saccharine sweetness that pervaded both scent and taste, and a great rushing elation began to overcome me; yet though the feeling was not without pleasure, it was a pleasure unbidden and undesired, clouding my thoughts, dizzying my mind. It was gas, some sort of soporific gas they were using, I thought, as invisible as the air around me, and my false elation became a great wave of fatigue.
I sank to the ground, my arms weakening, and was dimly aware of both Ernest and Joao flinging themselves bodily at the mechanised monsters that penned us in; the sound of heavy automatic gunfire fire filled my ears, but it seemed to come from somewhere in the very far distance, and faded beneath a high pitched tinnital hissing.
I must warn Stewart and Suzanna that it is gas, it is gas, my mind whispered, but I could not rise, nor could I find in myself the vitality to speak or move even my lips. This was the very last thing that passed through my consciousness before my vision tunnelled to darkness, and then there was not even a moment to feel lament or fear before I thought no more.
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