One of the larger terraces that remained intact stretched half a kilometer out from the wall, so covered in debris from above that its original function was impossible to guess. Shapes of people limped and staggered and fell amid the rubble. Yajain could not tear her gaze away.
Ogidar glanced at her but said nothing. He knew they would do this. He fought for them before.
The bombardment thundered and hissed and screamed on. Eruptions of dust and flame leapt into the air. The tumbler descended into the mouth of a tunnel leading toward the core. A numb feeling passed through Yajain as she unstrapped herself and took the ramp down to the street.
The inner wall of the pillar shook with impacts, dislodging dust to curtain the street below like gray fog. Ogidar set a hand on Yajain’s shoulder.
“Doctor, we must go.”
“Yeah,” Yajain murmured.
She stared up at the high expanse of wall that shielded the interior of the settlement Ditari weapons, for now. Appearing as projected phantoms on the wall she imagined the staggering forms of the people she had seen on the terrace above. Her jaw clenched and her hands became fists. She unfolded her fingers and tried to steady her nerves. She touched the vare blade on her belt and turned to the rest of the team.
Sogun and Boskem were conferring with each other in voices inaudible over the sound of the bombardment. The tumbler lifted back into the air and swung around to fly toward the exit. Sogun raised her voice.
“People, we are moving up to the next level. Stay alert, there may be local troops around.”
Sonetta cringed as another impact shook the cavern wall. Rocks fell from chipped sections of the pillar and crashed onto the rooftops and walkways in the settlement below. Banedd put his arm around Sonetta’s shoulders and whispered something in her ear.
Yajain craned her neck to look up at the settlement. Like many population centers, the core was visible at the center, glimmering between gaps in smooth-walled buildings that hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor. Those buildings remained intact for now, but once the wall was breached they would not last long under such bombardment.
She checked the medkit between the blade and the pistol holster on her belt. It was fully prepped. Yajain turned to Sonetta and Banedd. “Alright, let’s get up there. We have lives to save.”
The team swam on arc lifts up through the settlement, to the sound of the fleet’s bombardment. Why aren’t the governor’s forces fighting back? Maybe the tyrants don’t see a reason to protect these people. As they reached the central level of the settlement Yajain glimpsed the first people she’d seen on the inside of the pillar.
Smoke clogged the air where energy weapons had started fires on a central walkway leading from the docks. Civilians choked the path, no sign of any defense forces to organize them. Flames covered a building across the street from where Yajain and the rest of the team touched down. Screams filled the air.
People burned and fell in agony along the walkway by the doors of a flaming building that looked like it could have been a marketplace. One woman dragged an unconscious man, holding onto his arm, her own skin covered in blisters from wrist to shoulder. Sogun wiped one hand across her streaming eyes and turned to Boskem.
“Finder, help the cablers set up a perimeter. We need to take stock of this situation.”
“Right away, ma’am,” Boskem waved Banedd and Ogidar into positions, so they formed a triangular perimeter around Sonetta and Yajain and the Tei Officer.
Sogun turned to Yajain.
“I’m going to meet up with Ruane’s Blade on the far end of this bridge. When I return with their team we’ll need to get people to safety. Can you start treating the wounded here?”
Yajain glanced at the crowd of fleeing people as they flowed around the perimeter.
“We’ll need a lot of help to get these people to safety. There’s only so much we can do where we are.”
“Captain Ettasil is bringing Solnakite toward this opening.” Sogun pointed at the terrace people were fleeing from. “Once there’s a break in the bombardment we’ll start getting people out on both ends. Go to work people.” Sogun kicked off into the air and swam toward the exit.
Yajain turned to Ogidar in his heavy armor.
“DiSayul. Ogidar, can you start moving people away from that fire.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Good. I’m heading over there too.” She shielded her eyes from the blaze, feeling the heat even on the far side of the walkway, and gazed at the dozen or so fallen people along that side of the street. Burn marks and debris scattered the pavement. Yajain pulled down the face mask of her hood and started through the crowd outside of the perimeter formed by the cablers and Boskem.
She fell into a crouch beside a burned body and checked for a pulse. Nothing. Yajain’s eyes ran from the heat. She checked another body and another before finding someone alive.
The woman had fallen by what looked like the main doors of the building, legs seared black and clothing burned along the back and right side to the shoulder. Yajain dragged her into the middle of the street, out of reach of dancing flames.
The woman groaned and tried to roll onto her back. Yajain put a hand on her shoulder and kept her from moving to prevent further damage. Those legs looked like they might not hang on, the burns went so deep.
“It’s alright, don’t move,” she said. “I’m a doctor.”
“Doctor.” The woman pressed her forehead against the pavement. “Thank the gods.”
Yajain opened her medical kit and sprayed morpeal gel onto the woman’s legs. She moved to the right arm where scraps of burnt skin shuddered like paper in a wind. Yajain sprayed the gel there but doubted it would hold. The fire may not have been as hot as a coil bomb like the one Mosam had used in the armory at Kaga all those years ago, but it could prove just as deadly. Yajain looked up from the woman who was now crying from the pain of gel’s application and saw Ogidar with one unconscious form over each shoulder. He made his way toward her.
“I think this is all the survivors,” he said.
Yajain grunted as smoke began to pour from a window above her and Ogidar.
“We have to start gathering as many other people as possible. This bridge isn’t going to last if the wall is breached.”
Ogidar crouched beside Yajain.
“Sogun is on that. What do we do for now?”
Yajain’s forehead creased.
“Crowd control. Get people away from the fire, and away from the gate to the terrace.”
With a grunt of his own, Ogidar rose, metallic armor stained with soot. Yajain touched the uninjured shoulder of the woman she’d been treating.
“We’re leaving,” she said. “I’m going to pull you again.”
The woman turned her head slowly and looked up at Yajain sideways. Her eyes widened.
“Ditari!” she screamed. “We’ve lost the battle.”
Yajain recoiled, but then seized the woman’s unburnt arm and started dragging her. Her screams continued but Yajain pulled anyway, shoulders forward, back bent. She stared straight ahead across the walkway to where Sonetta, Banedd, and Boskem were rounding up a crowd of civilians. Ogidar outpaced Yajain quickly and didn’t look back.
He deposited the two badly burned people on the walkway beside the growing crowd. Boskem raised a small, black amplifier horn to his lips and spoke into it.
“Everyone, remain calm. My name is Finder Boskem, of the Dilinian Intelligence Service. My team and I are going to lead you out of here. Stick together, and we’ll have you evacuated as soon as possible.”
Yajain reached the group and let down the woman she’d been pulling. She breathed greedily, grateful for the clear air. She checked the man and the woman Ogidar had carried to safety. Both had burns, but neither as severe as the woman Yajain had been dragging.
She looked at the opening in the wall that led to the terrace. Chunks of rubble kicked into the air with each beam i
mpact and shell burst. No one moved out there for the entire hundred-meter length of the terrace out to the shattered docks hanging like torn threads in the air.
The people on the walkway had mostly gathered around Boskem, drawn to his voice and continued words of assurance. Who would have thought the trigger happy finder would have any quality of bedside manner? Yajain finished first aid treatment on the three burn victims, then turned as a low hum reverberated through the settlement cavern.
A pair of arc fliers with vibrating lifts rose over the side of the walkway. Yajain stared at security force vehicles and the weapons tracking under them. A voice louder than Boskem’s amplified tones boomed from one of the fliers.
“Invasion force personnel, surrender your weapons and release your hostages.”
Ogidar glanced at Yajain.
“Hostages?”
“The people we’re helping. They must have been told—”
A loud crack of a ballistic rifle shot cut Yajain off. One of the fliers pitched sideways and exploded just under the walkway, shaking the bridge and sending people falling to the ground. Yajain kept her footing and looked up at the wall, searching for breaches but there were none. Another shot slammed into the remaining flier. Lethal flames shot through the entire craft and it sank slowly past the bridge. The shots came from inside the pillar.
A sharp click of tiles echoed in the silence left by a pause in the bombardment. Yajain whirled and her eyes met those of Adya Setartha, as the yellow-haired Doctor of Harvest dropped onto the far side of the walkway from a small flier. A long ballistic rifle hung across her back. She wore only a black stealth suit that hugged her frame.
Ogidar spun to face her. The pistol in Adya’s hand stopped him. She looked past the big cabler to Yajain.
“Call him off, Doctor Aksari. We’re on the same side.”
Yajain glared at Adya, hand on the holster of her coil pistol though she would never be able to hit Adya before being shot herself.
“What do you want?”
“Snippy.” Adya’s brow darkened. “I want to save this settlement and I need your help.”
Yajain stared at the woman pointing a gun at her. Adya held the weapon steady. Ogidar’s coil rifle stayed trained on Adya’s chest. The little arc vessel she had ridden down to the walkway drifted over the platform beside Adya. Slowly, she lowered her pistol.
I can’t trust her. But Mosam trusts her.
Yajain’s hand pushed the barrel of Ogidar’s rifle down.
“Explain. Slowly,” she said.
Adya crossed the bridge, eyes flicking this way and that, scanning the air behind Yajain.
“Fast or nothing. We don’t have much time.”
“The wall could come down any time,” Yajain said.
“That isn’t what I meant. The tyrants have a plan to destroy the Ditari fleet.”
“How?” Yajain frowned. “We haven’t even seen any defending ships.”
Ogidar started to raise his rifle again.
“Why is that, you think?” Adya glared at Ogidar as she holstered her pistol. She turned to Yajain. “This place is a trap for the Redoca.”
The wall overhead splintered and chunks of stone fell into the street. The whine of airborne munitions cut the air. A series of explosions tore into the walkway close to the center of the city. Adya and Yajain glanced toward the place where now the bridge began to crumble.
People screamed all through the crowd around Boskem. Without the bridge people too wounded to use their arc lifts would be difficult to get across the city. But more importantly, people panicked again.
Yajain and Adya locked eyes again. Yajain grimaced.
“How are they going to do it?”
“The core,” Adya said. “They’re going to stymie the power flow, then overcharge it to force the solna toward the fleet.”
“Is that possible?” Ogidar glared at Adya. “Never heard of it before.”
“Me neither,” Yajain said.
“Humans have never done it. Tyrants on the other hand…”
Boskem pushed his way through the crowd toward Adya, Yajain, and Ogidar, followed by Sonetta and Banedd. Adya turned toward the three as they approached.
“Finder,” she said, “I suggest you delay trying to arrest me until after we’ve stopped the tyrants’ plan.”
He pulled his pistol from his belt and waved it before Adya’s face.
“I heard what you were saying. Even if I believed you, what would we do?”
“There’s a team of tyrants setting up a device to start the overcharge in the core chamber below this one.” Adya looked down at the pistol Boskem held. “I’d think saving every ship out there would be somewhere among your priorities.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Boskem growled. Red-faced, he lowered his weapon.
Yajain glanced from Boskem and the others to Adya.
“Give us some proof. How can we trust you?”
“Not sure if I can, but you know what the tyrants are. They’ve been living on pillars since the beginning, long before humans left the reef.”
All those memories of Mosam telling her and Lin the doctrines of Harvest came back to Lin. A moment of internal cursing later, Yajain sifted the memories to her early schooling. Reef Theory suggests humankind has barely scratched the surface of arc and core technology, even today. The teacher’s words from fifteen cycles ago hit Yajain, a whole freighter’s load of steel crashing down on her mind.
“Finder, it might be possible.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Adya rolled her eyes.
“I’ll lead the way. You won’t have to trust me that much.”
Boskem grunted.
“Fine.” He turned to Sonetta and Banedd. “You two, stay here and guide the civilians to the ships.”
“Yes, sir.” Banedd saluted with his rifle. Sonetta nodded.
Boskem motioned to Adya.
“Lead.”
Ogidar, Yajain, and Boskem followed Adya to the opposite edge of the walkway.
“We’re going down,” Adya said.
She leapt onto the barrier by the side of the walkway and then activated her arc lifts. Adya swam over the empty space leading down into the city’s depths. Boskem’s lifts activated his lifts and kicked into the air beside her, followed by Ogidar. Yajain looked back at the people on the walkway.
She hoped they’d be alright, and with that thought came a stab of guilt that she was abandoning them. To save them, she told herself. To save everyone.
Arc lifts activated. Over the rail and downward past towering structures she dove. The lights, shadows, and stone of the city passed her and the others as they darted after Adya. Their uniformed shapes flickered in the lamplight. Flames from the burning arc fliers Adya shot down, cast their shadows on the walls they descended past with no visible sign of their crews, dead or alive. The thuds and screams of weapons still echoed overhead, but for those minutes of descent, Yajain felt somehow peaceful.
Rocks fell from high above. Yajain called a warning and Boskem angled out of the rubble’s path. As they descended into the lower streets of the city, lit by the brightening core of the pillar the shapes of people in the streets staring up became visible. There hadn’t been anyone out when Yajain and her team had flown up to the walkway.
The shelters. Did something hit their emergency shelters? Yajain glanced at Ogidar, but his attention was on Adya and flight, his rifle slung over his shoulder. They glided to street level in a cluster of shorter buildings. Adya touched down with a grimace up at the others.
“The tyrants are a few hundred meters further down from here,” she said.
Rubble began to fall from the walkway and the ceiling. Yajain, Ogidar, and Boskem landed. She turned to Adya.
“How do we get down there?”
“A cave network. Entrance is in a building near here.” Adya craned her neck and looked past Yajain down the street. She pointed at a squa
t building with blackened pockmarks in its roof from falling debris. “That’s the one.”
Boskem spoke into his headset.
“Tell the captains. Tei Officer, this could be vital.” Yajain didn’t catch the rest. He turned to her and Ogidar, eyes fierce. “Lifts,” he said. “We’re not wasting another second.”
They flew over the heads of the scattering citizens. Yajain dropped onto the ramp that led to the door of the squat building. Men and women in local security force uniforms hemmed in the crowd, bellowing with amplified voices. Boskem, Ogidar, and Adya landed around her. Yajain reached for the door handle but withdrew her hand at the heat of it. She looked down at her burnt, painful fingers.
“There’s a fire on the other side.”
“The tyrants know we’re coming,” Adya said. She glanced at Ogidar. “Get that rifle ready, big guy.”
Ogidar grunted. The black beard on his chin bristled.
“Got it.”
Adya stepped back from the door, hunched her sleek frame and reached down to her shoe. She straightened herself, holding a thick disk that looked like a section from a core-based computer processor. Yajain glanced at her, burned fingers twitching.
“What is that?”
“A lock pick.”
Yajain’s eyebrows bent inward.
“Is it anything like one of Mosam’s?”
“A bit more subtle. But we should still step back.”
Adya held the disk to the door, just over the handle. She deftly tapped the center of the disk. Darkness blossomed from the disk and encompassed the whole door handle in seconds. Adya dodged backward, pulling Yajain’s arm and pushing Ogidar back. Flames flashed toward Yajain’s face from the doorway, making her turn away quickly.
Boskem flinched. Flames guttered and went out in the doorway.
“How did you know that would work?” Yajain asked Adya.
“Tyrants don’t like heat. They weaponize it even more than humans.”
“Let’s go,” Boskem growled, waving Adya forward with his pistol, his nose wrinkled and his face reddened by the dispersed blaze.
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