Stephanie nodded quickly and sank down beside him. “It’ll be all right,” she promised Tina. The woman had lost an awful lot of blood, though.

They circled her, and laid on their hands. Power was exerted, transmuted by the wish to heal and cleanse. That was how Sinon’s squad found them, kneeling as if in prayer around one of their own. Tina was smiling up placidly, her pale hand gripping Rana, their fingers entwined.

Sinon and Choma approached cautiously through the jumbled trees, and levelled their machine guns at the devout-seeming group. “I want all of you to lie down flat, and put your hands behind your head, now,” Sinon said. “Do not attempt to move or apply your energistic power.”

Stephanie turned to face him. “Tina’s hurt, she can’t move.”

“I will accept that claim for the moment, providing you do not try to resist. Now, the rest of you lie down.”

Moving slowly, they backed away from Tina and lowered themselves onto the mushy loam.

You can come forward,sinon told the rest of the squad. They appear to be compliant.

Thirty serjeants emerged from the tangle of branches and twigs, making remarkably little sound. Their machine guns were all trained on the prone figures.

“You will now leave your captured bodies,” Sinon said.

“We can’t,” Stephanie said. She could feel the misery and fear in her friends, the same as that found in her own mind. It was turning her voice to a piteous croak. “You should know by now not to ask that of us.”

“Very well.” Sinon took his holding stick out.

“You don’t have to use those things, either,” Stephanie said. “We’ll go quietly.”

“Sorry, procedure.”

“Look, I’m Stephanie Ash. I’m the one that brought the children out. That must count for something. Check with Lieutenant Anver of the Royal Kulu marines, he’ll confirm who I am.”

Sinon paused, and used his processor block to query Fort Forward’s memory core. The image of the woman certainly appeared to match, and the man with flamboyant clothes and a mass of hair was unmistakable.

We can’t rely on what they look like,choma said. They can forge any appearance they want.

Providing they cooperate, there is no reason to use unnecessary force. So far they have obeyed, and they know they cannot escape.

You’re far too trusting.

“You will get up one at a time when instructed,” Sinon told them. “We will escort you back to our field camp where you will be placed in zero-tau. Three machine guns will be trained upon you at all times. If any order is refused, we use the holding sticks to neutralize your energistic ability. Do you understand?”

“That’s very clear,” Stephanie said. “Thank you.”

“Very well. You first.”

Stephanie climbed cautiously to her feet, making sure every motion was a slow one. Choma flicked the nozzle of his machine gun, indicating the small track through the collapsed trees. “Let’s go.” She started walking. Behind her, Sinon was telling Franklin to get up.

“Tina will need a stretcher,” Stephanie said. “And someone will have to guide Moyo, he’s damaged his eyes.”

“Don’t worry,” Choma said gruffly. “We’ll make sure you all get to the camp okay.”

They emerged from the trees. Stephanie looked at where Ketton had been. A dense cloud of dark-grey dust churned over the annihilated town. Small fires burned underneath it, muted orange coronas shining weakly. Twenty slender purple lines glowed faintly in the air above, linking the cloud with the top of the atmosphere. Streaks of lightning discharged along them intermittently.

“Bloody hell,” she murmured. Thousands of serjeants were walking along the valley floor towards the silent, murky ruins. The possessed cowering within knew they were coming. Raw fear was spilling out of the dust cloud like gaseous adrenaline. Stephanie’s heart started to beat faster. Cold shivers ran along her legs and up her chest. She faltered.

Choma nudged her with his machine gun. “Keep going.”

“Can’t you feel it? They’re frightened.”

“Good.”

“No, I mean really frightened. Look.”

Glimmers of burgundy light were escaping through gaps in the dust cloud. Billowing tendril-like wisps around the edges were flattening out, becoming smooth and controlled. The shield against the open sky was returning.

“I didn’t think you were stupid enough to try that again,” Choma said. “General Hiltch won’t permit you to hide.”

Even as he spoke an SD electron beam stabbed down through the clear air. A blue-white pillar two hundred metres wide that struck the apex of the seething roof of dust. It sprayed apart with a plangent boom, sending out broad lightning forks that roamed across the boiling surface to skewer into the mud. This time, the possessed resisted. Ten thousand minds concentrated within a couple of square miles, all striving for the same effect. To be free.

The random discharges of the SD beam were slowly tamed. Jagged forks compressing into garish rivers of electrons that formed a writhing cage above the dust. Carmine light brightened underneath. Fear turned to rapture, followed swiftly by determination. Stephanie stared across at the clamorous spectacle, her mouth open in astonishment, and pride. Their old unity was back. And with it came a formidable sense of purpose: to achieve the safety that so many other possessed had obtained. To be gone.

The red light in the cloud strengthened to a lambent glare, then began to stain the ground of the valley floor. A bright circular wave spreading out through the mud and sluggish water.

“Run,” Stephanie told the confounded serjeants. “Get clear. Please. Go!” She braced herself as the redness charged towards her. There was no physical sensation other than a near-psychosomatic tingle. Then her body was glowing along with the ground, the air, her friends, and the hulking bodies of the serjeants.

“All right!” Cochrane whooped. He punched the air. “Let’s go for it, you crazyass mothers.”

The earth trembled, dispatching all of them to their knees again. Sinon tried to keep his machine gun lined up on the nearest captive, but the ground shook again, more violently this time. He abandoned that procedure, and flattened himself. All the serjeants in the Ketton assault linked their minds through general affinity, clinging to each other mentally with a determination that matched their grip on the ground.

“What is happening?” he bellowed.

“We’re like outta here, man,” Cochrane shouted back. “You’re on the last bus out of this universe.”

Ralph watched the red light inflate out of the dust cloud. Datavises from SD sensors and local occupation forces spread around Catmos Vale relayed the image from multiple angles, granting him complete three hundred and sixty degree coverage. He knew what it looked like from the air, from the ground, even (briefly) as it engulfed marines who were following close behind the serjeants. But most of all, he just stared ahead as it poured out across the valley.

“Oh my God,” he breathed. It was going to be bad. He knew that. Very bad.

“Do you want a full SD strike?” Admiral Farquar asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like it’s slowing.”

“Confirmed. Roughly circular, twelve kilometres across. And they’ve got two thirds of the serjeants in there.”

“Are they still alive?” Ralph asked Acacia.

“Yes, General. Their electronics have collapsed completely, but they’re alive and able to use affinity.”

“Then what—” The ground shifted abruptly below his feet. He landed painfully on his side. The programmable silicon buildings of the camp were jittering about. Everywhere, people were on their knees or spread-eagled.

“Shit!” Acacia shouted.

A sheer cliff was rising up vertically right across the valley floor, corresponding to the edge of the red light. Huge cascades of mud and boulders were tumbling down its face. The red light followed them down, pervading the rock, and growing brighter.