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killing two. He and his six man squad were torn apart by a pack of smoke-blackened textile workers.
    Cargin voxed frantically for supplies and advice. By eight in the evening, new orders were being issued from House Command and the Legislature, designating refugee assembly areas, hastily arranged in the inner worker habs south of the Pylon and the Commercia. Asylum traffic from the Sondar Gate, Hass Gate and, to a lesser extent, the Croe Gate was now choking the southern sectors of the hive. Some of the House Legislature, meeting in extraordinary session in the Main Spine, argued that it was the hive’s duty to house the outer hab population. Others were simply afraid that with the main southern arterials choked, they would never be able to mobilise their armies. Six noble houses also volunteered aid, which began to be shipped by carriage route down to the Square of Marshals and the main city landing field where the refugees from Hass Gate were also congregating.
    It was a start, but not enough. Cargin began to wonder if the upper echelon of the hive really understood the scale of the problem. The Imperial mottoes, hive slogans and other messages of calming propaganda flashing up on the public-address plates did little to deaden the general panic. Cargin had angry, frightened citizens by the thousands, most stone-deaf from concussion shock, many burned naked by the blasts, many more dying and stretcher-bound. Short of closing the Gate itself, he had no way to stem the flow. His three thousand men were vastly outnumbered by the mass.
    Cargin was voxed to the north corner of the square. There he found a field station had been set up by medics from some inner hab infirmary. Hundreds of the injured had been laid out on the stone paving. Doctors and orderlies dressed in crimson gowns and masks tended to them.
    “Are you Cargin?”
    Cargin looked round. A gowned and masked figure was addressing him. She pulled off her mask to reveal an appealing, heart-shaped face. The eyes, though, were hard and bewildered.
    “Yes… doctor?”
    “Surgeon Ana Curth, Inner Hab Collective Medical Hall 67/mv. I’ve been given authority here. We are trying to set up a triage station under the carriage stands over there, but the flow is too great.”
    “I’m doing my best, surgeon,” he said flatly. He could see tractor units and trucks lining the barrack road, headlamps blazing and engines gunning, moving in to transport those in need of immediate surgery to the main infirmary facilities in the inner habs and Low Spine.
    “Likewise,” said Curth without humour. The air smelled of blood and burned flesh and was full of piteous shrieking. “The medical halls are already full of wounded from the inner city. There were huge casualties from the start of the raid, before the Shield was ignited.”
    “I don’t know what to say,” Cargin shrugged. “I’ve followed my orders and allowed the incoming to flow out of the square into adjacent areas. There seems to be no end to them. My observers on the wall-top say the queue outside is still three kilometres long.”
    The surgeon looked at the blood-spattered paving for a moment, her hands on her hips. “I…” she began, then paused. “Can you get me a vox link? I’ll try sending to my superiors. The Commercia has been evacuated and there is vast floorspace inside it. I doubt they’ll grant permission, but I’ll do what I can.”
    Cargin nodded. He called his vox-officer over and told him to attend the surgeon. “Whatever you can do is better than nothing,” he told her.
     
    The tank roared and bounced over the trampled grass hillocks, heading north at full throttle, its turret reversed to spit shells into the firefields behind it, into the invisible enemy at its heels.
    The night sky was ablaze. Scorching trails of rockets and shrieking shells tore overhead, heading for the hive.
    Commissar Kowle crouched in the turret of the running tank, shouting orders to fire to the gun-crew in the lit space below him. The vox-link