Blue Remembered Hills (ch18)

And finally (after I'd edited it, and the computer crashed, and edited it again, and discovered I hadn't installed the HTML mode when I upgraded my text editor...)

I still remember the sense of achievement when I succeeded in finishing this chapter after breaking off to write To Ease Your Troubled Mind in an unprecedented (and since unequalled!) rush of inspiration — oops, that was back in March 2014! https://igenlode.dreamwidth.org/35318.html

This of course was the chapter where I could finally use that eerily apt line from Housman's original poem.

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Chapter 18: Into my Heart on Air that Kills

Dar’s men were dying.

Cris watched disaster unfold with dry eyes and an aching heart.

Erik was beyond her pleas entirely now, voice and mind lost behind the mocking, raging mask of the Ghost. He’d routed Dar’s communications back through the control tower at the dockyard and flung them wide open to Federation monitors; every move, every desperate attempt to regroup was betrayed before it could even begin, and long-planned routes of retreat were compromised at the very outset. The Operation on Newparis was falling apart in the vengeful hands of its creator like the toy of an angry child, and the Ghost’s electronic laughter reigned over all.

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