Cracks in the Spires

42: Siege

An hour dragged by while Pico watched drone footage of the ten dots that were Laken and his team creep slowly through UpCit. Two of Laken's people had remained as lookouts but the Slideway remained silent and empty. Nothing moved in UpCit except the assassins. The drone wastracking them as they made their way cautiously towards the vators in the lower part of UpCit. After the creeping tension as they edged towards the guard the encounter when it came was swift and brutal.The stealthy movement became a blur of motion and eight guards lay dead on the ground. Pico heard Laken's voice calling up the vator and watched the assassins idea of tidying up. A minute later the vator arrived and they picked up the cannon and disappeared into it. Pico relayed the information to the lookouts and then it was a matter of waiting for the drone operators to fly the machines back. Once they were secured the lookouts came back and Pico shut the trapdoor.

Pico was not the only spectator of the night's events. Varlon wa smonitoring the drone footage on the large screen in Asken's temporary office. The events unfolding on screen had almost reached their climax when Jan and Kiri came into the office. He waved them to a seat but they came stood behind him as the last few minutes of the drama unfolded. When the assassination squad disappeared into the vators Jan grimaced

"It's really begun now hasn't it? That last touch is going to provoke a response. Let's hope we can deal with it."

"If we sit and wait they'll win. We can't cope with a prolonged siege and we can't let them bring in reinforcements and supplies at their leisure."

"Couldn't we just overwhelm them with numbers? After all there's only a couple of hundred of them and there are millions of us."

"You'd think so Kiri but you've got to get near enough to them and they can kill an awful lot of people while you're trying. History is full of examples where small groups conquered empires because they had superior weapons. Let's hope this isn't one of them. So, what are you two doing here? I thought you'd be catching up on sleep.""

Jan laughed "If we had anywhere to sleep we might be. We spent the day finding and retrieving Connor and Lewisa's parents and installing them in Kiri's shop which is now full to bursting. Pietr Vries was amazed and delighted to know you are still alive and wants to go drinking with you to celebrate."

Varlon burst into laughter "Now that would finish me off! I remember Pietr's celebratory drinks. Sessions to be avoided unless you had an iron constitution. So do you want somewhere to sleep?"

"We thought we'd ask the big boss if there was anything else we could do.Talking of which where is he?"

"He's gone down to level 50 along with the Head of Resources to meet the Agristates Manager and a few others. They're inspecting stocks of food and stores and no doubt wrestling with the problem of feeding the City and the question of when and how to introduce food rationing."

"Food rationing?"

"Yes. We've already started by commandeering food for distribution to UpCit refugees, the next step is rations for everyone to make the food last. Stravel is bringing in reinforcements and while we don't think he'll be able to force his way in to level 50 he can certainly stop us getting out to harvest food. It's his next logical move. He's got the hangers open and the main field operational. He'll be busy repairing his skimmers. They brought in their first lot of troops just as it was going dark. They'll bring more tomorrow. We're lucky they've only got two operational skimmers but if they get the others repaired they can bring men and supplies at a faster rate."

Kiri nodded "So long as the weather holds. Perhaps we should hope for storms."

"But we'll lose our skimmers, they're parked up without protection."