The defenders normal mode of living, massively insulated from the great storms which racked the planet's surface, had caused them to develop living conditions incidentally well suited to withstand all but the most dedicated space bombardment. Their extensive use of tunnels deep beneath the mountains rendered most of their installations proof against even nuclear attacks. Furthermore, the rising generations had grown to accept the violence of the planetary atmosphere as part of their natural environment; whereas units of the Terran occupation force had no such background, and viewed the dark and turbulent wastes of the surface as a region akin to Hell. A further factor working in favour of the defenders of Lightning was the fact that, owing to her relative isolation even from the Hub communities, very little was known either about the size of her population or its distribution. Although a military government had been installed, the deposed planetary administration had so successfully sabotaged the record systems that whole townships, especially some of the submarine food-farm complexes and subterranean mining colonies, had remained effectively unknown to the new rulers.
