She fell asleep.
Wind woke her, grabbing her shirt and trying to pull it over her head. She gasped, but the air was too thin to fill her lungs. Then the wind came back, slapping her on the head.
People were getting up and talking. Alys waited to see if the wind would come again. Then she stood up and looked toward Paulberg.
A mushroom cloud stood over the former city. The evil icon that had meant doom for millennia. Here.
The factory was a streak of debris for hundreds of yards east and west of where it had stood. Mr. Join had placed them clear of the damage. The workers’ tents lay flat, except for a few spots where overturned bunk beds lay in the grass and the tent was gone. The air was full of people’s babble, a few thankful they’d been spared, some trying to decide what to do, others screaming in panic.
“The childcare!” yelled one of the women workers. The government had instituted full time childcare when they went to war hours.
The mothers seized the factory’s flatbed truck. When they called for more to help them Alys climbed on board. As they drove off she realized she hadn’t wanted to volunteer. She’d just reached the point where when there was some work to do she had to do it.
The driver took them straight to the childcare. Probably one of the ones who’d given up some sleep once a week to peek at her kids. She was driving too fast for the dirt road, even with eight wheels. Alys had to grab one of the men to keep him from going off the edge of the flatbed.
The childcare was another war building, built in days. Complying with building and safety codes was for peacetime. It was crumpled and smoking. Some of the children were evacuated. The older ones were helping the childcare ladies pick at the rubble. Alys hopped off with the rest.
The smoke smelled bad. It wasn’t wood burning but plastics and other things not meant for fuel. There was more smoke coming, the sky toward downtown was solid grey.
Hysterical screaming was cut short as people were shaken and put to work. Twenty workers could lift up a chunk of roof and carry it to an empty spot to start a pile. Then they spread out to look for survivors.
Alys carried rubble. Her hands were too weak to dig, but she could drag some sheet metal or carry a beam away from the wreckage.
When she found a child it was by accident. She pulled out a piece of sheet metal. It was covered in blood. A boy lay under it, a quarter of his head sliced away.
Alys picked him up. “What do I do?” she called. “He’s still breathing.”
A matronly factory worker came over. “Won’t be for long, poor thing.”
She took the boy over to the line of still bodies.
Alys went back to hauling rubble.
Children with only minor injuries were sent to join the ones who’d been evacuated before the building fell. Those needing a doctor were put on the flatbed. Alys found herself drafted to keep burned toddlers from jumping off the edge of the truck.
It was crowded by the time all the non-burning rubble had been searched. Several people wanting a lift had been rebuffed but the old man with two broken legs was allowed on. A new driver volunteered for the drive to the hospital
This drive was worse. Alys sat on the edge, one arm holding on to keep from falling off, the other trying to hug a toddler without touching his burns. She tried to shut out the crying. Whenever one of the little ones screeched her hands clenched involuntarily. She nearly lost her grip when the truck braked hard.
“Go away. The hospital is full,” said a loudspeaker.
Alys leaned out to look. A police floater was grounded in an intersection, lights flashing.
The driver appealed, describing the children. The cop repeated his message.
“Where can I go?” wailed the driver. Another repeat from the cop.
“Back to the factory,” shouted Alys. “There’s a veterinary clinic in that village.”
The truck took the left turn. That gave Alys a good view of the hospital.
“Full of politicians and their families,” muttered the man next to her.
She nodded.
The village was six businesses and a few homes around an intersection. Pre-war buildings, they were intact except for spikey holes that used to be windows.
A middle-aged man was in the parking lot of the veterinary clinic, sewing on the arm of a woman on the hood of a four wheeler.
The flatbed truck pulled into the lot. “Can you help them?” said the driver.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” said the vet, looking at the children on the flatbed. “They need a hospital!”
“They turned us away. Will you help?”
“Yes, of course I will.” The vet turned back to the arm he was stitching.
Alys handed children down to the men who’d hopped off the truck. Then she climbed down to help corral them.
The driver asked, “If we bring more wounded will you help?”
“I’ll try,” said the vet. “I don’t know how much I can.”
He turned to Alys. “You. Go to Sonya’s Café. Tell her I need all her clean tablecloths. And to boil the dirty ones, I’ll need lots of bandages.”
Alys trotted off. At least she had work to do.
***
The cruiser’s officers oversaw repairs. The captain oversaw the officers. Colonel Palmer oversaw the captain. Marcus eavesdropped, ready to report any suspicious action.
Which, given that the Censorials were too shocked by this unprecedented defeat to even think of resisting, was boring as hell.
A Marine messenger burst through the bridge hatch. The cruiser’s structure absorbed radio waves too well to transmit more than a few compartments. Hand carried messages were the only way to communicate without Censorial help.
“Sir! Message from Gunny Kim. Censorate bombed eleven cities. Millions dead. Here’s the full message, sir.” He held out a tablet.
“Goddamn.” Palmer read through the message. “Goddamn. Anybody else heard this beside Kim?”
“Yessir. It was broadcast so every Marine on the hull heard it and, um, they’re spreading the word.”
“Goddamn. Okay, huddle up.” Palmer held the tablet so Marcus and his security detail could read it. There wasn’t much more to it than the names of the cities.
“Suk, stay with me. The rest of you spread out. Tell everyone, all Marines with family in those cities are to go out on the hull. We will obey the standing orders for treating prisoners. Go.”
Marcus headed for the forward airlock. He needed directions from Censorial spacers twice. As he approached the suit locker outside the airlock he heard yelling and crying.
When he came through the hatch he saw a Marine private punching a spacer with his armored fist. “You murdering bastards, fucking murderers, fuck you!”
The spacer was bleeding. His jaw hung to the left, the nose to the right.
“Hey! He knows stuff we need to know,” said Marcus.
The Marine punched the side of the spacer’s head, mangling the ear.
That was the wrong way to talk to a Marine, Marcus realized. “Marine! Your orders are to treat prisoners properly!”
The fist hung in the air. “But they—”
“You will obey your orders! You are ordered to report to Gunny Kim on the hull!”
The Marine stepped back, his left hand letting go of the spacer, who fell to the deck. His eyes went to the SRN rank insignia painted on the shoulders of Marcus’ pressure suit. “Sir.”
“On the hull now, Marine.”
“Yes, sir.”
A sergeant came through the other hatch. “I’ll take charge of him, sir.”
“Very good, sergeant.” Marcus verified he knew Palmer’s new orders and charged the other Marines to pass them on.
Once the bloody-fisted Marine was out the airlock another private said, “Sir? Riva’s parents were in Paulberg, sir.”
“I understand. But that doesn’t change our orders,” said Marcus.
“Yessir.”
Marcus wrote ‘TAKE US TO T
HE DOCTOR’ on his tablet and showed it to another Censorial. The spacer uncoiled from his cringe and helped him haul the battered one to his feet.
The spacer seemed to know where he was going. It was just a long way to the sickbay. Possibly it was at the aft end of the ship.
At first Marcus thought the lights were getting brighter. As they stopped for the spacer to open a hatch he braced his helmet against the bulkhead and rubbed his eyes. It took two tries to pick it up again, the first time his fingers slipped on the tape over the crack in it.
Pain was rising in his head. He didn’t want to complain. His headache was nothing compared to what the poor bastard they were helping was dealing with. He staggered along, one hand supporting the injured spacer, the other clutching his helmet.
Then the pain was so bad he couldn’t remember where they were going. He tried not to trip over the wounded men lying on the deck.
He did trip going through a hatch but caught himself before he let the man he was helping fall.
“What the hell happened to him?” said someone in the Censorate dialect.
“Barbarian beat him up,” answered the Censy who’d been walking with Marcus.
“Right. Help me get him on the table. What’s with the other one?”
“I don’t know. He looked fine when he told me to come here.”
“Huh. I’d better check on him. Wouldn’t want to piss our captors off by letting him die on us.”
Then someone was touching Marcus’ head, shining a light in his eyes, and rubbing a buzzing thing over his scalp.
“Concussion,” said the first voice. “On a normal day I’d do surgery to insert some regrowth filaments. Today I’d give him a pain pill and send him to his quarters. But I’m out of pills and he doesn’t have quarters here so I’m burnt if I know what to do with him.”
Pain pill. The pain pill he took after the missile knocked him out must have worn off. He reached into his helmet. Pressed the pain pill release. Nothing happened.
Oh. The helmet ran off the suit battery. He’d have to put it on to get a pill. He lifted it over his head. Placed it on the neck ring. Turned it. Turned it more. Faced it forward. Wiggled it back and forth. Wondered if he could suffocate in the helmet if the airflow didn’t start.
More wiggling latched it into place. Air flowed, smelling of sweat and soap, better than the burnt plastic and ozone of the Censorial cruiser. His chin pressed the pain pill release. One leapt into his open mouth.
There was even some water left to wash it down. Why the hell did he ever take his helmet off?
The doctor was performing surgery on the battered spacer. Not opening the chest surgery, but doing some cutting and twisting to make the face symmetrical, or at least balanced, again.
Joy hit him. There was no pain. The war was won. All was well.
Marcus took off his helmet. “Is he going to be okay, doctor?”
“He’ll breathe and he’ll chew. I can’t promise he’ll ever be kissed again.”
“Thanks.”
“You have a Corwynti accent.”
Oh, shit. “Thank you. Please don’t tell anyone I speak your dialect.”
“Ah, a spy. That explains the different suit. You sound much better than when I examined you.”
“I have pain pills in my helmet.”
“You do. How many?”
That required turning the helmet to shine light directly on the label. “Eight. Six left.”
“You’ll need two more to get to your own doctor. For four of your extraordinarily effective pills I will keep your secret.”
Blackmail. But he was a doctor, and one of the pills would probably go to the spacer he was operating on once he woke up. “Do you have a screwdriver?”
The doctor wiped a scalpel off on his apron and offered it handle first.
Some fiddling produced the bribe.
Then Marcus headed for the bridge so he could confess his security breach to the colonel.
***
Bundoran’s sublevels were crammed with the plumbing needed to keep the city alive. On the second sublevel a pipe ran vertically floor to ceiling. Two thirds of the way up another pipe crossed it horizontally, emerging from the wall, turning parallel to the wall for more than an armspan, and plunging back into the wall.
The followers of the Sacrificed God painted the pipes brown. Black marks were added to give the look of tree bark. Worship services were held before it. Each Christian secret society had their own schedule and preachers.
Membership was not strictly enforced. Someone trusted to not be a Censorial agent was welcome. Wynny’s marriage to an enemy of the Censorate made her a desired guest. People would whisper times of services to her at the oddest moments. Shopping in the market or the waiting room of her midwife.
Wynny hadn’t decided if she believed in God yet, intellectually. She just needed to have Someone she could appeal to in the dark moments when she wondered if she was the only Fieran still alive.
She knew that wasn’t true yet. The message she’d received from Mr. Anonymous that morning ran through her mind:
‘Heavily damaged destroyer just arrived. Reports carriers wrecked in ambush. Fleet preparing to attack planet.’
The planet had been alive when that report was sent. Which was a week of hyperspace travel and however long the information took to wend from the Governor’s palace to whatever secret society Mr. Anonymous belonged to. The attack could be over now.
Even if the planet had been alive a week ago there was no guarantee Marcus had been. Because the stupid son of a bitch was too damn brave to find a nice, safe job that would let him meet his child.
Wynny laid a hand on her belly. The baby was wiggling, bored with how long she’d been holding still. The midwife said the baby was a boy. She wouldn’t believe it until it was born.
Her legs were aching from holding the position so long. The small rug she’d brought to the service saved her knees from the concrete. It didn’t help the muscles.
The post-service conversations had faded away. They’d moved down the corridor from the pipe cross to give her some quiet. Now the last of the chattering biddies were gone.
Soft footsteps approached. Preacher Dafydd squatted beside her. “Mrs. Landry. May I say a prayer with you?”
Wynny nodded. She liked Dafydd. When the name issue came to Bundoran, he’d dealt with it by sometimes saying “Harold” and sometimes “hallowed” without bothering anyone who said the other. Now worshippers tolerated those who spoke differently.
Dafydd knelt. He held out his hand between them. She took it.
“Lord Jesus. We ask your protection and mercy for those in danger. Hold your hand over our families, our friends, and all innocents in harm’s way. In your name we pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” echoed Wynny.
The preacher patted her on the shoulder. He walked away, leaving her before the cross.
***
Bridge Yeager sat in his private office as Immensity led the fleet through the Rift. He began to type.
“To His Censorial Wisdom
“From Bridge Yeager, Governor of His Wisdom’s Corwynt province,
“I humbly apologize for my failures in my duties to His Wisdom.
“My first failure was to allow a ship from outside the Censorate to land on Corwynt without full inspection.
“My second failure . . .”
***
“I have the beacon,” said Roger. “Descending now.”
Lane Landry barked, “Hold altitude! People on the field!”
The helmsman cursed and stopped the ship. “Holding at two hundred feet.”
Lane cycled through the cameras mounted on the ship. “They’re moving out. Stand by.”
Roger stared out the bridge windows. Plumes of smoke were still rising from Xian City a week after the attack.
“Okay, we’re clear. Take her down.”
Roger made the landing gentle. It was made gentler by the landing gear touching down with a squi
sh instead of a thump.
“Keep the internal anti-gravity on,” said Captain Landry. “We don’t want to get stuck.”
Once the normal routine was dealt with, Lane stood up. “If you’re not on watch, come with me to handle cargo.”
The watchstanders were Captain Landry, to handle any requests from Emergency Management, Welly, to handle communications, and Soon, because until her foot was regrown, she wasn’t going to be useful in the cargo hold. All of the crew had been wounded in the battle, but that was the only crippling injury.
The hold was packed with crates. Scars on the deck and hatch coaming showed where their weaponry had been hastily removed to make the ship a freighter again.
Betty climbed the ladder to the crane operator’s seat.
Lane called up to her, “Open the hatch slowly. There might be people running up.”
The slow opening gave Lane time to get to the forklift. She’d picked up a pair of crates by the time the hatch formed a ramp.
A grey-haired woman with a clipboard stood at the corner of the ramp. “What’cha got?”
“Tents,” said Lane as she pulled up to her.
“Take ‘em to the right. Clothes and bedding middle. Food to left.” The clipboard pointed to each pile of crates. The food was ringed by men and women with rifles.
Lane turned right. The grass was smooth enough to let the forklift pass, but thick enough to slow it. It wasn’t a manicured park. The field had been cattle pasture or wilderness before it became a refugee camp.
Looking past the piles of crates, Lane saw thousands of people sitting or laying on the ground. Many seemed to have no possessions at all. Burns were common.
The tent drop-off was a pile of empty crates. As soon as Lane set hers down, a group of refugees pried them open and began carrying the tents away. Lane hoped they were supposed to be distributing them. Not her problem.
She only had time for two more forklift trips before she had to hand it to Roger and take over organizing the cargo. Clipboard woman wanted tents first, food last, and medicine, “Not until that damn doctor and his guards show up to claim it.”
Welly’s voice came over the public address system. “All hands. The Planetary Liaison is making a global announcement.”
Between Home and Ruin (Fall of the Censor Book 2) Page 23