Mere went through the lists of resources. They had no reinforce­ments. There was a squadron of rocket ships but their weaponry was deadly but indiscriminate.

‘How about Seventeenth Squadron?’ Bendikt asked.

Mere checked his lists. Seventeenth Squadron was on a bombing run against the batteries of the Lone Redoubt. ‘They’re supposed to knock out the defences there. They’re armed with colossus bombs,’ Mere stated.

Bendikt nodded. ‘Order them into Creed Beach. Is the void shield down?’

‘Not yet.’

Bendikt cursed. Ostanko was taking longer than he had expected. ‘Get onto the Navy.’

‘The shields aren’t down yet.’

‘We can’t wait.’

‘It’s dangerous for Marauders…’ Prassan started, but Bendikt gave him a withering look.

‘I don’t care about the Navy!’ he snapped. ‘Those are Cadians on the beaches!’

Prassan was suitably chastened as he relayed the orders to the vox-operators.

‘Two squadrons diverted from primary bombardment,’ Prassan reported. ‘Yes,’ he snapped, as tense as Bendikt. ‘Now!’

In the command centre the Cadians stood watching the squadron’s course. The bombers approached dreadfully slowly. Prassan didn’t know that it could get worse, but it sounded like the troops on Creed Beach were being massacred. He could feel their gathering desperation. After dreadfully long minutes the Marauder squadrons came down a thousand feet to make their attack runs.

Prassan listened to the vox-chatter of the bomber crews amongst themselves. They had a calm detachment that the Cadians did not, as gunners, bombardiers and pilots prepared for the bombing run. Disparate voices were speaking in tense, clipped tones.

Bomb doors open.

Bombs going in a minute.

Can you see him, rear gunner?

Flak coming at me.

Don’t shout all at once.

Turn onto zero-eight-one.

Then the shout, Bombs away.

Yedrin saw the black shapes of the colossus bombs as they fell in a ragged line, their tail fins emitting dull screams. Then the first of them hit, but it did not go off. As did the second, and the third.

‘What the hell is wrong with them?’ he hissed. He could not believe that they were being left to die out here, and that the Navy could drop so many duds. Then suddenly he leapt a foot from the earth. Or rather, the earth dropped away beneath him.

For the next twenty seconds it was all he could do to cling on.

At last the string of detonations came to an end. ‘Throne above!’ he hissed.

He’d never seen Blanchez looking so shaken. Her face was pale and she’d dropped her long-las.

‘Throne above!’ she echoed him as she scrambled to reclaim her gun.

The blasts had even knocked Commissar Knoll from his feet.

Where the bombs had hit pillboxes or trenchworks they had broken the defences into fragments. But most of them had fallen harmlessly into the sandy earth, leaving great craters in the soil.