Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  Jarin turned to Maryel. “I do think your actions were dangerously close to the line.” The cold set of her features told him this discussion would be continued in private. “Yes, Segkel must be pressured and pushed, but it is a delicate matter to prod him in the right way. Segkel, handled well and properly stoked, is a brilliant fire. Improperly pushed, he will react unpredictably.”

  “Is he so fragile? Is he unable to meet criticism?” Maryel asked. “Is he still a child?”

  “No. He is a genius. Children have more growth potential.”

  “A compromise, if it pleases everyone,” Shyl said. “We have shown Eraranat the harsh hand, we should also offer him the shield. One of us should step forward to counsel him.”

  Ansin looked to her. “Jarin’s function.”

  Now Jarin laughed. “No. Our relationship is entirely too thorny for me to suddenly become his, ah … his friend.”

  “Then Shyl.” Ansin gestured toward her.

  “Essentially what I had in mind,” Shyl said.

  “Be wary of manipulating him,” Jarin said.

  Shyl tilted her head. “You must be joking. You give that advice?”

  “Life is irony, I’ve found.”

  Seg stopped at the curb and stared at the caj standing by the door to his residence, as the trans behind him whirred quietly. Even in the dark, he could see the man was dressed in a simple utility uniform, tailored to fit his sparse frame, and he clutched a digipad in his left hand. A quick glance, followed by averted eyes, indicated that he was waiting for Seg to approach. With a deep shuddering breath, Seg relaxed his hands from the fists they had been locked in during the ride back from the Question Chamber, then stepped forward.

  The caj lowered into an elaborate bow, arms extended, head curved to the side to expose his neck.

  “Stand up,” Seg said, his voice ragged from the strain of the day.

  Protocol broken, the caj flinched, then rose. Head lowered, he held out the digipad. After a moment’s hesitation, Seg pressed his thumb to the indicated square and accepted the offering. The caj jerked a quick bow at him and darted away.

  As the words materialized on the screen—an extended summary, followed by endless lengths of legal text—Seg scanned quickly, taking in the key phrases: Arbitration, “Battle at the Alisir Temple”, monetary reparations to the families of deceased due to professional negligence.

  He wanted to throw the pad to the ground and stomp on it. Instead, he clutched it until his fingers whitened.

  “Theorist?” Manatu asked.

  Seg ignored him and stepped across the threshold into his home. His quarters seemed overcrowded now, as if the residence had shrunk in the hours he had been away.

  The table in the common area had been left up, obstructing the available open space. He reached for the latch to collapse the table back into the floor when a scrap of woven paper caught his eye.

  In the background, he could feel the others. Manatu had followed him in, but stood by the door. Lissil turned from the food preparatory. Ama was exiting the sleeping quarters. Too many people.

  He lifted the note and read, first silently, then aloud. “The striver accepts not acclaim, but further challenges. This is the reward to those who seek to make true difference.”

  Jarin. Jarin who had known exactly what was coming. He had hinted at it, of course, in his usual obtuse fashion, but had never warned him outright that this Question was going to be a ruthless inquisition.

  “Karg you.” He crushed the paper and threw it across the room.

  No sooner was the offensive item out of his hands than Lissil pounced upon him, cloying and eager, the ever-present cup of greshk at the ready.

  “Theorist, may I ease your—”

  “GO AWAY!”

  He grabbed the cup from her hands and hurled it at the wall.

  Lissil squealed in fright, dashed to the far end of the food preparatory and dropped into the retyel.

  He spun around, kicked the release for the table, and pulled his foot back just in time to save it from being crushed.

  As the table reached the bottom point of its travel, the place where it always stuck slightly, he stomped down with his boot. The table slammed home with an ominous squeal and the sound of relenting metal.

  “What’s going on?” Ama’s voice—half question, half accusation.

  “Betrayal.” He barged past her.

  Inside the sleeping quarters, Seg looked everywhere and nowhere while a dull pain glowed behind his eyes. He was only aware that he had sat on the bed as he felt his fist pound into his thigh. Even Ama’s entry seemed to be happening in some far away place.

  “You scared her half to death, you know,” he heard her say.

  “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

  “So you can talk. Good, you can explain why you’re shouting and throwing things.”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Ama.”

  He was thankful for the ensuing silence, though he could feel her watching him, studying his shaking hands and glazed eyes.

  “No,” she said, at last, “you don’t have to explain yourself.” She sat on the bed, leaving a wide gap between the two of them. When she spoke again, her voice had softened. “And I don’t have to go to some stupid victory party and walk around with my head bowed all night … but I will. I chose to be with you; that means I chose all the bad parts as well as the good ones. We knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

  At Ama’s words, at her concession, the scope of his anger widened on her behalf. “They should bow to you, not the other way around. You shouldn’t have come here. This world is broken, these people are too stupid and mired in procedure. They’ll never change. They might as well lie down and die.”

  “What happened today?” She sidled closer, cupping a hand over one of his fists to steady it. A small action, but one that swung open a door in his chest.

  “It was an ambush,” he said, exhaling. “Instead of looking at how the raid worked, they went straight for the procedural quibbles.” His fist trembled under her hand, but he did not pull it away. “I should have known. Win the greatest victory in generations for the Guild and they immediately have to discredit it.”

  “You’ve faced worse. Remember, you defeated ten thousand Welf with only the sound of your voice.”

  He didn’t return her smile; there was no humor left inside him. “Even if that were true it wouldn’t be good enough. They want to turn my raid, my success, into an aberration. They want to destroy me in order to retain their beloved protocol. And when I return to the sanctuary of my home,” he held up the digipad still locked in his grip, “I am handed notification that the survivors of the deceased raiders at the temple have joined in arbitration against me for those deaths. Professional Incompetence because I failed to determine the Shasir had a hidden black powder storage there.”

  “No one could have known that.”

  “It doesn’t matter. News of my raid’s success is everywhere. I should have anticipated there would be facilitators scheming ways to steal their share of the profits.”

  “You can fight them, though? These facilitators? The Questioners?”

  “Oh, I will. I’ll show them. If they want to make an enemy of me, I’ll break them, too.” He tossed the digipad to the floor.

  “These are your own people,” she said.

  “They’re cowards.”

  Ama was silent again. Outside the door, faint murmurs and bumps could be heard—Lissil and Manatu, cleaning up his mess.

  “You need some rest,” she said.

  He turned to look at her; he felt old, his skin heavy, his body as weary as it had been that long night at the temple. “I have work to do.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  He could see she would fight him if he resis
ted. This time he was relieved.

  “Tomorrow,” he repeated, then sluffed off his coat and boots.

  After setting a wake-up chime, he sagged back onto the bed. He would rise early, dose up on stims, then tackle these problems with a clear head.

  Ama curled into him on the small bed, an arm wrapped around his waist. His body, deep in the trenches of stim withdrawal, shook and fought off the sleep it so desperately needed. Another battle. Would they ever end?

  A long overdue smile pulled up the corners of Efectuary Akbas’s face. She wanted to bite, to feel something solid snap between her teeth.

  Her work day had ended hours earlier but the monitor in her office was once more aglow with images. On the left, the vis feed collected by her men in the Old Town of Cathind. Eraranat’s army of Outers wandered the street, gawked at the shield (probably believing it a god), then two of the prims prepared to fight (perhaps over the right to mate with Eraranat’s caj, the lone female among them). Free, armed Outers, running loose in the streets. Hostile Outers. Her notes on this discovery would be thorough.

  After this feed completed, there would be another—Eraranat and two of his followers paying the Outers a visit. Equally important, that one.

  On the right side of the screen was the face of raider Fismar Korth, formally Captain Fismar Korth. Below his image, his history. A spotless record, including selection for unspecified test programs and a promising military career until the disastrous Sikkora Raid. She had reviewed the details of the raid down to the smallest trooper’s report. It appeared highly unlikely that Korth, with his years of successful field duty, the very model of MRRC training, could have been responsible for such an obviously flawed operation. More likely, House Master Parth had been the architect of his own tragedy.

  But House Masters outranked Captains, and how difficult was it to toss a subordinate to the jaws of the machine? Not difficult at all. Efectuary Akbas had covered her own mistakes that way more than once.

  She had also studied the profiles of Eraranat’s other conspirators.

  Raider Manatu Dibeld was nothing more than the standard piece of expendable meat trained to protect Theorists on recon missions. Eraranat had either bribed or brainwashed him into taking that job description a bit further, but there was nothing to indicate the man had any influence.

  Likewise for Rider Pilot Second Class Shan Welkin. That one didn’t even come with a sterling service record. She had failed the Aggressor Flight Test not once but three times, and had finally been shuffled off to one of the lowest rental services available, as a co-pilot. Her short history was replete with failures, insubordination, and now an extrans crash that had resulted in the deaths of twenty-seven raiders, not to mention a possible mutiny.

  Medical Elarn Fataleh was the latest addition to Eraranat’s band. Six years of extrans work, putting raiders back together on the line, had apparently cracked him. His attempt to reintegrate with his fellow citizens and pursue a legitimate career had failed miserably, ending with a near fatal operation on a House member. From there, his record all but disappeared and from what Akbas could gather he was now one of those butcher-for-hire medicals that polluted the Raider’s Quarter.

  It seemed Eraranat had a soft spot for misfits, failures, and freaks. Perfect. Those types were easily bought or threatened. For now, however, she would not waste her time on the peripherals. What mattered was getting rid of those fifty Outers and for that she would have to first get rid of the man who was in charge of them.

  She tapped the nail of her index finger on Fismar Korth’s onscreen forehead.

  “You’re not a failure, are you? You are a victim of circumstance. Let’s see how you feel about changing those circumstances.”

  She brought up the MRRC listings and scrolled through them until she found the contact she needed.

  “Comm active,” she ordered the monitor, then: “Connect.”

  “Field Active Pegno,” a gruff voice responded.

  “FA Pegno, this is Efectuary Akbas of the Political Interactions Section, CWA. We have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

  “This comm’s secure, Efectuary. What can I do for you?”

  “Not for me, FA.” The smile returned; her teeth felt sharp now, ready to tear something apart. “This is about what you can do for the World.”

  On a catwalk high above the warehouse floor, Fismar stood with Seg and observed the troops as they ran drills. He had done what he could with the scant materials at hand. A maze of crates functioned as a rudimentary simulation of the sort of close-quarters combat they could expect at the Keep, and the men navigated the passages with their fake guns, covering each other as they moved forward. Not as precise or polished as real raiders but Fismar knew Seg would see a vast improvement over the disorganized mob that had come across only three weeks ago.

  A hot wind drifted through the warehouse, blown in from the wastelands outside Old Town. Normally the regulated atmosphere interchange at the shield prevented winds from blowing so heavily, but the shield here was an older, quirkier piece of work. The residents were simply happy that it compressed and hardened against the Storm. Lately, it had been taxed hard as the Storm raged against Cathind and Old Town. A window had opened long enough to allow Seg a crossing, though the capricious, shifting nature of the Storm might close that window at any time.

  “They’re getting it.” Fismar nodded to the men below. “I mean, the basics. Got ’em thinking more like troops and less like glory hounds out to honor their ancestors or whatever karging death and glory nonsense they brought with ’em.”

  “You’ve done well, better than I anticipated, honestly,” Seg said.

  “Long way to go,” Fismar said. “Didn’t bring Kalder with you? Thought she’d be anxious to see her people by now.”

  “I was at the main Guild compound when the Storm cleared; there was no time to collect her. I could barely spare this time away as it is.”

  “Working you over at the Question?”

  Seg grunted his reply; a clear indication that the topic was best avoided. Fismar directed his attention back to the men down below.

  “The chatterer tune-up’s working fine with their dialect, so there’s no more secret language going on here. Had the med tune it all up for me.”

  “He tunes chatterers?”

  “Elarn’s a talented guy.”

  “Long-term, do you think I should retain his services?” Seg asked.

  Below, a scrum had broken out between a pair of troopers. Others rushed in to separate them, and their squad leaders barked out reprimands.

  Fismar shrugged and indicated the fight. “That’s just good spirit there. Fighters are going to fight.”

  “The med?”

  “Let me work with him some, get him onboard with the program, then sure. These boys need their own chatterers. My guess is Elarn will not only know how to put them in but where to find them on the recycled market, too. ’Course, if we don’t get some guns and fresher food in here soon, there’s not much point to all this. Respectfully. And, about Welkin, she left me a message last night. She’s still in the hole over everything, stuck flying Stormwatch, and she wants out as soon as possible,” Fismar said.

  “I’m working on the financial issues. There have been complications with the disbursement. The CWA is dragging out payment for the raid.”

  Fismar cocked his head. “The CWA? Why?”

  “Simply their way.”

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with that little argument I heard you guys had during the raid planning sessions, would it?” Fismar spread his hands at Seg’s look. “Hey, raider rumor pipeline never stops flowing.”

  “I doubt the CWA would delay the payments for every party involved in the raid simply as a means of getting at me.”

  “Wellies are pretty nasty when somebody steps on their
turf. And there’s that whole Digi-Wellie feud, goes back way before,” Fismar said.

  “Nevertheless, we will have the funds soon.”

  “Good, because I’ve picked out the gear we’ll need. Some of this is going to be pricey, but if the Etiphars are still running on the tech base their House had back when they took Julewa Keep, we can dance on these ground slugs.” Fismar pulled a digifilm from his pocket. “Show you what I’m talking about. Got the pricing too.”

  Seg’s comm chimed a distinctive tone. “Hold that.”

  Fismar let out a disgruntled hmph. “Storm alarm. You’d best be going. Don’t forget this.” He shoved a mini-film into Seg’s hand, the key to the comm code he had established. “At least we can talk over the comms about business now, if we need to.”

  “Good work.”

  “I’ll keep things running here, boss,” Fismar said.

  “And I’ll have your supplies as soon as possible.” Seg then trotted down the stairs as Fismar watched.

  “If you say so,” Fismar said, after he was out of earshot. He looked back down at the troops, and then at the locked office where he stored the rapidly diminishing stock of rations. “Better be quick.”

  Viren and his nine squad mates sprawled against their packs on the floor, making the most of their moment of relaxation. As they chewed on flavorless ration bars, they watched two other squads running one of Lieutenant “Dismal” Korth’s exercises.

  One of Lieutenant Dismal’s favorite drills was moving the warehouse’s supply of tall, heavy crates around into elaborate mazes and then running the squads through in battle drills. He had ordered Squad Leader Tirnich and his men to guard a bucket in the center of the maze, and then set Wyan’s squad against them. Viren had carefully chosen a spot where he could see both squads and offer running commentary on the action to his own men.

  As Viren watched, Wyan and four of his squad members rushed silently past in the leapfrogging pattern Lieutenant Korth had drilled into them. “Behold the gallant Squad Leader Wyan!” Viren said to his squad, his voice low but animated. “How silent and sure the movements of his fearless troops. Woe to young Squad Leader Tirnich and his band.”