They were approaching the five-klick-high rim of Herschel.

'People have speculated for centuries how a giant s...o...b..ll could have survived so large an impact,' said the Doctor softly.

'So the whole thing is fake?'

'The whole crater,' said the Doctor. 'Possibly the whole moon.'

'Holy cow,' said Chris. And then, 'Christ!'

He fell back in his seat, hands jerking away from the controls.

His heart went into overdrive, his whole body jumping with the force of his pulse.

The Doctor was slumped in the co-pilot's seat, head lolling to one side. Chris tried to reach out to him, but the pounding in his head got louder and louder until he decided it would be a very good idea to faint.

Kibero 278.

Leabie's war room had been a ballroom two days ago. Now it was packed with computers and people. Everyone wore a comm headset. Huge screens had been hung from the ceiling, covered in messages and 3D schematics. Soft lighting, big shadows on the grey walls.

Leabie stood with her advisers on a balcony that ran around the room. When Roz came in she wasn't talking: she was just looking out over the room, her hands gripping the railing. Deep in thought. Roz decided not to bother her. Leabie didn't seem to notice her as she walked through the crowd below.

There was a small communications room off the war room.

Roz waited until the woman inside was done, racing back out with a printout in her hand. She went in and shut the door.

It was very dark in here. There was just a desk, a chair, a laptop. Roz sat down at the computer and started up the comm link.

It was going to take the communications software a few minutes to track down the person she wanted to speak to. In the meantime, she put her feet up on the desk and closed her eyes.

The room had been soundproofed, she realized. You could even imagine that none of it was happening, that the room outside was empty and Leabie was upstairs somewhere chattering with a champagne gla.s.s in her hand instead of trying to take over the galaxy.

She wondered what the Doctor was doing. She wondered what the Doctor would do, in her shoes. She opened her eyes.

Whatever was necessary.

The console pinged. Roz looked into it. After a moment, the Acting Pontifex Saecularis appeared on the screen.

He was a skinny pale-skinned guy with big bags under his eyes. 'Having a bad time, Malinowski?' she asked.

'Pontifex Saecularis!' he said. 'Yes, I am, as a matter of fact.

How can I help you, ma'am?'

'I want you to keep the Order out of this. I don't want the Adjudicators to take sides.'

Malinowski said nothing, but she saw his shoulders sag with relief.

279.

'Turn everyone out, get those riots under control. Civilians on Mars are going to need some relief once the fighting's over. Get some people up there too. Stick to civil matters, Malinowski.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'One other thing,' she said. 'I'll be resigning my appointment, effective in exactly four days from now. When that order comes into effect, you're going to be in charge of the Order. Think you can keep 'em under control?'

'Yes, ma'am!' said Malinowski. 'After all, by that time, every Adjudicator will have their hands full.'

'Exactly,' said Roz. 'I hope to be in contact with you again before the end of my time as Pontifex Saecularis.'

'Thank you, ma'am,' said Malinowski, sincerely.

She switched off the comm link and went back out into the war room.

Everyone was looking up. Roz followed the upturned faces until she saw the message, tall green letters unscrolling across one of the hanging screens as they decoded.

MARS 27TH-AUG-2982 06:00 Lc1Tm 10TH MH DROP IN NOCTIS LABRYINTHUS.

(20 DrpShps) (4 interface support) (Local Time=IST+4) 2nd Wave 1st Wave -HOUR 3rd Wave H+2HRS.

10/A, 10/B,.

Flitter TnkPlt (4) 10/C (12).

a.s.sets 10/CS (6).

SP Battery (4) Resupply bHQ (2) Stores (3) Unopposed drop in advance of the main deployment of the 2nd Heavy Infantry Brigade. 1st wave unopposed, 2nd wave attacked by ImLand ICS (3rd Gwdr) in upper atmosphere. 1 DropShip carrying RHQ lost with all on board including the Colonel. Major Vincenzi detailed to a.s.sume battalion command while Lt Col Balotnikov takes over as Commander 10 mH.

280.

Serious nods, even a smile or two. Colonel Ncube's loss was a d.a.m.ned shame, they were thinking, but otherwise everything was going just according to plan.

Roz walked up the staircase to where Leabie was sitting at a huge tilted screen, her advisers crowded around the edge.

'Roslyn!' she said, without looking up. 'What do you want?'

'A rank,' said Roz.

That got her attention. Her advisers didn't take their eyes off the screen, talking in quiet voices. 'Roz, you're a police officer, not a soldier.'

'I've done everything I can do here,' she said. 'I've sorted the Adjudicators for you.'

'And I may need you to sort them again,' she said. 'I want you here when the tidying up starts.'

'Leabie,' said Roz, 'give me a rank. I can't just sit here. I can't say yes to a war and then let it go on without me.'

'It won't go on without you,' said Leabie. 'I'll give you a strategic post. You've got some remarkable experience we can use that.'

'My experience is all hands-on experience,' said Roz. 'Give me a rank.'

Leabie sighed. 'You never could just sit still,' she said. 'Do you want to talk about this privately?'

'No,' said Roz. 'There's isn't time. Listen, I won't be able to look the Doctor in the eye if I throw in my lot with your war and let someone else go out and die in my place.'

Leabie gave her an appalled look. ' Usisi Usisi,' she said, 'I need someone with brains and experience. I don't need a hero and I don't need a martyr.'

'I thought the point of war was to make the other son of a b.i.t.c.h die for his country,' said Roz.

'I see you've grasped the basics,' said Leabie. 'All right,' she sighed. 'If you've got to go into action, I'll make you a colonel.

You can replace Ncube. But I want you to follow SOP, stay on the ship while your soldiers make the drop. That way we get the advantage of your experience.'

Roz nodded. 'Colonel,' she said. 'That's pretty good.'

281.

'Pure nepotism, my dear,' said Leabie, turning back to the screen. The lights cast pale and worried shadows on her face.

Earth Simon really should have taken another stim, but he decided instead to let his head rest on the window of the intercontinental hopper.

Pushback had been delayed because of the rioting; the Adjudicators had beaten the crowd back beyond the fringe of the transport terminal now. Outside was dark, and deceptively quiet, the hypergla.s.s of the porthole shutting out the distant shouting and explosions.

He looked at himself in the gla.s.s. He looked as though he hadn't slept for three days, which was good, since he hadn't slept for four. His brown eyes were surrounded by bags dark enough to look like bruising. His hair hung loose, out of its usual queue.

There was a nasty cut on his cheek, still healing from two days ago in Overcity Five.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' announced the captain's voice, 'we're pleased to announce that we'll be under way in ten minutes.

We're grateful to you for bearing with us. Today's intercontinental flight will take twenty-five minutes. Light refreshments will be served once we're under way. Thank you.'

Simon punched up a newsfeed on the back of the seat in front of him. Riots in Overcity Six, riots in Overcity Five, demonstrations in Antarctica that looked as though they'd shortly turn into riots. A complete both-way boycott by the Earth Reptile Economic Confederation.

The elderly woman in the seat next to him clucked her tongue.

'It seems as though no matter where you go, things are a mess.'

'Yeah,' said Simon. 'I know what you mean.'

The hopper lifted gracefully from the terminal, and for a moment Simon had a view of the riot he'd helped start, flames and floodlights stabbing through the night in a seething pattern on the ground.

Overcity Eight, here I come, he thought, and reached for his stims.

282.

Mimas The rescue autopilot cut in point eight of a second after the ship's pilot lost consciousness. The Zero Discipline Zero Discipline was losing a little height, so it gently lifted it up, engaging the retros as it sailed over the edge of Herschel Crater. was losing a little height, so it gently lifted it up, engaging the retros as it sailed over the edge of Herschel Crater.

The autopilot checked the life-support and fuel reserves no problem and did a scan for the nearest signs of civilization. It knew where the major, minor and minuscule s.p.a.ceports were throughout the solar system, but it wanted to get its pa.s.sengers to proper medical attention as soon as possible.

There was a base up ahead in the crater, less than fifty kilometres away. It wasn't putting out a navigation index signal, but there were lights and some movement. The autopilot had been putting out a standard distress signal ever since it had kicked in; they would have heard it by now, be ready for the shuttle's arrival.

Softly it lifted, pointing its nose towards the white buildings, shapes like beads against the rocky ice, and carried its crew to help in silence.

Valles Marianas, Mars 'Minus fifty, Woodchuck. Fire for effect.'

Muller's voice was a comforting mumble in Vincenzi's ear.

While she and her tiny team of forward observers were still in operation, the slow eastward crawl could continue.

Achebe Rim was still another twenty klicks ahead of the tanks.

That was where the defenders would have their last chance to keep out the rebels. Once they were inside the Gorge, Vincenzi expected fierce but small-scale resistance.

They'd been caught in strafing fire in the Noctis Labyrinthus, the defenders' first response to the drop. The tank had stopped for repairs, a wheel almost torn loose in a clumsy DropShip landing.

The driver had caught a ricochet from the tank itself, its polycarbide armour throwing away a projectile in a lethal spray.

The mortars, set up in the first drop, had knocked three of the four aircraft down. There hadn't been another strafing run.

Vincenzi took the driver's position when they climbed back inside the tank. He liked to see where he was going.

283.

There was a ferocious exchange of fire whizzing overhead, as the ISN's Command Centre lobbed smart missiles at the mortars and the Rim mortars lobbed smart missiles at anything that got in the way of the tanks. Funny thing, thought Vincenzi who won depended not on how smart the commanders or the troops were, but on how smart the bombs were.

Muller's crew were on foot, moving at a steady twelve klicks an hour, reporting back everything they saw. The defenders were a small force, but hand-picked. They kept popping up out of nowhere, in three-person trike tanks or even on foot. Muller and the other forward observers would paint them with lasers for half a second, and then run like h.e.l.l, calling in their positions. Laser-reflective armour on the trike tanks and shootsuits only made targeting easier.

'Plus twenty, Woodchuck. Fire for effect.'

A handful of observers on foot would be virtually invisible to whatever sensors the defenders had left, blips that flickered on and off their screens, mimetic armour hopelessly confusing pattern recognition algorithms. Like ghosts, thought Vincenzi.

The C and C was really configured for big, clumsy attacks by big, clumsy aliens in orbit.

The tanks had only engaged the enemy once, a very short, very furious battle as they left the Noctis Labyrinthus. Fast-moving trike tanks, just big enough for a couple of lasers and a one-shot missile. They were no match for the real tanks.

Vincenzi figured they weren't getting enough information from their orbital lenses, probably because the battle upstairs had knocked out half of them. So they wanted a look for themselves.

Now they knew what they were in for when the rebels. .h.i.t Achebe Rim.

They'd probably been surprised to see that the attackers were human.

They'd be getting ready to close up the Command Centre, a plasticrete building nine-tenths buried under the plain in Achebe Gorge, just one conical storey showing above the ground. The solar system's hardest hardened target. You could drop a nuke or even a small asteroid on it without cracking it.

284.

Personally, Vincenzi would have preferred to drop a big asteroid on it, but there was the civilian population to consider.

Inside the centre, they'd be watching their screens. Astonished?

Horrified? Unsurprised? They couldn't expect any help from the 31st Corp HQ, who had their hands full with a commando raid on Olympus Mons which had started a distracting half-hour before the first drop. Or from the 202nd Orbital Artillery Brigade, who were bust defending Phobos.