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is time, the homecoming would be different. The Lady had fallen

short of the 1000-kill target that would have earned it a unit citation

but after subtracting the time wasted on supply runs, 729 was still a

respectable total. And there was always the chance they might nail

down the odd clutch of Mute escapees or raiders on the way back to

Nixon/Fort Worth.

Despite their poisonous presence, a number of Mutes from the decimated

southern clans were used in the overground work-camps. They were

supposed to be chained down at night but sometimes, through sloppy

security or outside help, they went over the wire.

Escapees were usually unarmed but it always made the home run

interesting and Hartmann sometimes sent his men out after 'phantom'

targets to keep them on their toes. Experience had taught him that it

was when you were rolling with the hatches battened down and your feet

up that the unexpected happened.

And it was a bit like that today. When decoded and screened, the

TAC-OPS signal from CINC-TRAIN in Grand Central put an end to

Hartmann's thoughts of celebrating New Year with his kinfolk in

Eisenhower/ San Antonio. The. Lady was ordered to change course

immediately and head east, towards navref Kansas City.

After crossing the Missouri, he was to take the wagon-train north

through Des Moines, Iowa then east along the old US Highway 80 to Cedar

Rapids. The Lady was to make the 1200-mile journey without the

customary night halts and he was to ignore any targets of opportunity

en route. On arrival at Cedar Rapids, he was to launch his Skyhawks on

a search and rescue mission across the Mississippi.

The order to head north so late in the year with snow already falling

on the lower slopes of the Rockies came as an unwelcome surprise.

Winter was the period set aside for rest and refit. Hartmann would not

normally have expected to be called topside until March for supply runs

and security sweeps inside the Federation. And when he got to the part

of the signal which told him who he was supposed to be looking for, he

got an even bigger surprise.

Hartmann keyed the signal into the Command Log the hard disk whose

memory could only be accessed by a combination of his own ID-card and

voiceprint - then screened himself through to the Duty RadCommTech and

told him to send the standard IMMEDIATE ACTION response to Fort

Worth.

Having received the signal, the radio operator knew its time and

reference coordinates, but at this point, no one, apart from Hartmann,

was aware of its contents.

Leaving his quarters, he roused his Navigation Exec and told him about

the course change they were to make at Trinidad instead of rolling down

to Santa Fe.

Hartmann also told him he planned to wait until they had covered the

ten miles to the turnoff point before breaking the news to the rest of

the crew.

Leaving the NavExec to draw up a new route and schedule based on a

three-shift roll, Hartmann returned to his own quarters. CINC-TRAIN'S

message had contained a third surprise that would be greeted with equal

dismay by The Lady's passengers - Colonel Marie Anderssen, commander of

the Pueblo way-station, and sixty-four officers and men from her

1000-strong assault pioneer battalion who, prior to CINC-TRAIN's

signal, had been expecting to be off-loaded at the Santa Fe

interface.

The steely-grey lady colonel, referred to by her subordinates as

Mary-Ann, had been summoned to Grand Central to attend a Forward

Planning Review Board. And travelling with her were a mixed bag of

officers and other ranks; soldiers, technicians and construction

workers heading south for their first stateside leave after two years

up the line.

For some of her party, the journey home would have ended with the

fifteen-hundred-foot ride down in the elevator to Level One-1 of

Roosevelt Field and its centrepiece, New Deal Plaza; the remainder,

whose kinfolk were quartered in other divisional bases, were due to

catch the shuttle at the subway station immediately below New Deal

Plaza. After trading a few credits for a hot meal or a session on one

of the range of video battle or proficiency quiz games in the Plaza's