“Sorry.” She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and watched him like he was going to eat her.
What was probably the sound of a mog falling whistled and crashed from the terrace; but it was far away and could have been something else. He noticed that, then looked back tellingly to the cellar door, thumping and thumping. When he checked her face again as if to ask what that was, she lightly shrugged, frowning. Unsatisfied, but moving on anyway, Ring struggled to a seated position, shifting his legs over to start to stand. He moved with the aches and favoring reflective of his wounds, grimacing harshly when he fell into a cough. Staring at his feet, he waited out the echoes of the cough, then stood ever so slowly, really not even straightening above a slight bow at that.
She held out the skillet, “How long were you gone?”
He poofed out his lower lip when he saw her weapon, then shuffled into Lennox’s bedroom rooting for something. She followed him at a distance, at last seeing it was a cane he sought. He brightened when he found it; and with it, he made for the door gingerly.
Facing the now open door and with her behind him, Ring made a ‘come-here’ gesture with his other hand and said, “Let’s go.”
“Where are you going?”
In the hallway now, quickening his step, “The Recorder. Can’t do this without him. He’ll figure it out pretty soon, once he’s not worried about whatever happened at Balcister anymore. We need to go.”
Protesting, pointing first at the terrace noises, then the cellar, “But-?”
Ring stopped, “Your old guy is in there too?”
Sylhauna’s panic returned, a guilt that seized her. She didn’t say anything. Having neither a need nor a patience for her answer, Ring only knocked soundly on the neighboring door, frowning. He banged and banged impatiently, till at last the door cracked inches open and a gray-browed eyeball slipped inside the crack to peer suspiciously at him. It spied Ring, then rolled to Sylhauna, showing the slightest hint of recognition because he or she did a doubletake at Sylhauna’s hint of a wave. Then Ring became an entirely different person, illuminating and inflating right before her with unbelievable vigor.
“Call the Watchmen. We’re all in big trouble! I mean it. Crazy lunatics crawled up from our cellar, right next to you here! I mean it. We heard weird noises; and some kind of chanting; and suddenly heads popped up. They’re crazy!”
The eye was huge now. It was a man’s eye, a little more obvious now that the other eye was shifting into view and a big rumpled round nose. He was getting it; but Ring spelled it out anyway. “We managed to lock them back up down there; but there’s scraping noises. I’m sure they’re digging to your cellar now – call the Watchmen!”
The fellow made a sort of surprised yelp, then slammed the door. That’s when Ring turned and shuffled down the hallway, his work done, scraping the cane in staccato bursts as he tried to hurry. Maybe fascinated, perhaps relieved, Sylhauna surrendered and started following him. That was how it was with Ring, one just followed him. He was quiet down the stairs and still grunting
“They tried to kill me. Both of them!”
He only nodded, “You get used to it.”
She scooted alongside him, still holding the skillet, “Cris is going to be furious at me. I was here a day; and look what happened to Lennox!”
“You did nothing except be incredibly brave. I need you. It may be a while before I can form long term memories again – and I’m a mess. We’ll probably have to steal something to move faster – can you steal things?”
Hurrying, surprised at his speed and leaving his question hanging, “The Recorder, what’s he going to figure out?”
Not looking back, “Five visitations, dear heart. And he’s the fifth.”
20 THE BATTLE OF ALSON
“Since when does Doniphan have enough guts to come in here after us?” Peri stood an arm’s reach from the screen alongside her statistics officer, the graphics alive and popping with the datastream – feeds from street cameras and sensors, text from battlefield correspondence parsed into trends, nanoparticle sensors belched into the skies…the whole of it analyzed real-time with living algorithms making optimized strategy of what in other times would be havoc. They were inside a command tank, rolling deep within Alson’s streets and surrounded on all sides by a mog and quicktank urban battlegroup. Full panoramic views were displayed about them, giving the feel of windows. Oddly, Stendahl sat cross-legged at their feet, a massive leather-bound book propped open in his lap over which he was leaned in closely as if expecting to see mysteries in its words.
Peri rubbed her chin, frowning up at the thundering mog battle high above them on the gray office buildings, “Amelin, my friend, we need to wrap this up fast. Spenecia - that’s where they’ll hit. This is all smokescreen. All of it.”
Amelin was following a textual analysis that draped suddenly across the streetmap before them, but stumbled against Stendahl’s left knee. He was utterly irritated and grimaced, “What is he doing in here?”
She barely glanced over, “Because half of you think he’s in charge. That’s how civil wars start.”
Patting her hand in the air as if smoothing a sand castle, “Don’t worry about him. You just figure out what happens if I encircle the Spooks to the northeast with…” She snapped her fingers and glanced over some reporting above and to the left of the street map, “…Blade Watch. All the way to the bridges. Run the scenario.”
As Amelin commenced swiping his hands across the tables of data, Peri folded her arms and frowned back up at the battle above them. Suddenly, she turned and touched her index and middle fingers to a moving icon which indicated one of her quicktanks on a street corner nearby – a viewbox appeared across the map swirling with the jumble and smoke of what the tank’s pilot saw.
She gritted her teeth, “Clain, you get in the soup now or I’ll have you drinking gold too! Get moving – they’re headed east and south now, possibly in the direction of Bethani. I need you.”
Peri touched another icon, then a third, watching the harried first hand views of those in mortal danger in turn as she proceeded. Amelin stepped back from his results, unimpressed with whatever he saw. When she glanced at the table of data, she agreed and frowned at him as if the probabilities were his fault.
“Am, what do I pay you for? Make something happen – you understand me?!”
Holding her hands out in desperation, “Why do I not have Black Fire support here? Morro, do you see what’s happening above me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The tinny voice sounded from nowhere.
“Then bring it in tighter.”
Her frown was deeper as Peri watched the fierce combat above them, dark plumes swelling and lilting in a carnival of devastation. She was trying to position quicktanks as an ambush from street level and drive the Doniphan attackers into the trap with mogs. Unfortunately, the battle was spreading too rapidly; and Black Fire was swelling out of control in pockets making routes unavailable.
Watching a massive ebony plume, “Why would they bring such an abomination into my city?”
Amelin nodded, “Because it works. Their distortion is set to…almost nothing. I mean…this is why it’s illegal.”
The two of them winced as the view above them blotted in multiple places, as if a pot of clotted ink had been kicked. A mog went off the building from inside one of the swells and into the open air, soaring down to the street.
“Ave, I want a crossfire on this guy and I want it now.” Peri pointed like Ave from his thundering tank could see her. “Bogey seventeen…the squirrely one that keeps popping around that walk! Break away now!”
Amelin looked at her, “He’s our protection.”
Ignoring that, Peri returned to her street map, “I want a hard line of battlesuits…” She drew a line with her finger across a major thoroughfare, where carnivals and masked fairs occurred in early summer. “…here. At Carnabie. I’m talking Choke Watch, First and Fifth Squadrons, and…something with big guns…”
> Amelin’s forehead crumpled, concerned with her orders. She hesitated, thinking; and her eyes widened when she thought of the guns she wanted, “…The Hag.” Peri pointed at Amelin as if it needed emphasis, “I want The Hag there.”
“That’s pretty concentrated. You sure that’s wise?”
She shouted, “A hard line at Bethani! Nothing gets through. Acknowledge!”
“Choke Watch, aye.”
“Fifth, aye.”
“First, aye. Ma’am.”
Peri’s eyes were angry, irritated at the loss of containment when Doniphan should never have gotten this far. They shouldn’t even have been able to get into the city. She was further annoyed when the final acknowledgement didn’t happen.
“Mallow, I told you to get to Bethani.” A pause, after which she touched her two fingers to the fat icon moving along to the south of her, opening up a view of smoke and explosions. The vessel was in a harsh engagement. “Mallow, break away now. You hear me?! Mallow!”
There was a long pause, an uncomfortable one, then, “Hag, aye.”
Peri’s eyes held fire in them, “You don’t let them past you, understand? Nothing gets past you!”
Another pause, “Ooh rah, ma’am.”
She hardly had time to fold her arms again before a massive black plume flared overhead; and two mog vehicles locked in combat fell off the wall and started falling directly above them. There was a vicious crash upon collision; and Peri and Amelin jumped back in reflex as if they’d been standing on the street itself. The two of them hesitated nervously, eyeing one another, gauging whether the Black Fire that came with the vessels would eat into their war engine. It was a horrible silence; and much of their view was choked out by the wreckage.
Peri glanced down to Stendahl, still reading his old book with his finger tracking down each line. He felt her watching, because he looked up at her, his deep green eyes flaring in the tanklight.
“The man with the horrible name stands alone, victim of his own reputation.”
Her eyes squinted, ever curious at this strange remnant of the Old Man and his family. Then quite suddenly, the dark wreckage was swept to the side, brightening the compartment somewhat.
“You’re all good, commander.” A voice sounded at the same time as the coarse and hardened face of a battlesuited soldier appeared in the ceiling above them, giving a quick salute with the suit’s wide arm. The image flickered spottily. She cast her eyes once again to Stendahl, who’d returned to his book as if he’d said nothing to her. Amelin had no patience for it and quickly called for her attention. His voice was almost squeaking in his urgency.
“You’re taking too much firepower out of the loop. They’re spiraling out in multiple directions – what good is this hard line of yours even if it holds?”
She gestured to the street map, “Look. They came with no supply line. No reinforcements. That line holds; and it gives me a plow. Then I start sweeping them like mice into the guns. We have to stop them somewhere. It happens at Bethani.”
Peri tapped her fingers harshly to another fat icon on the swirling map opening another window into fire and corpses and wreckage, “Tanker 77, where are you going?”
The bright green icon was drifting to the west in a jagged pattern, unresponsive. “Tanker 77! Respond or you will be disclaimed. Where are you going?”
When she saw there would be no response and the vehicle was to continue along its way out of battle and beyond those who needed it, Peri shouted, “Chaselord, Tanker 77 is disclaimed. Burn them down.”
The voice over the radio was business-like and calm, “Chaselord aye.”
Amelin raised his voice, “What are you doing? What if his comms are down?”
She only pointed at him, “Not now. You just plot the optimal space for my ambush.”
“How about a better scenario – like what’s happening south of us now that you’ve pulled out Blade Watch?”
Harshly, with no patience for him, “Stick to the numbers, geek. I’ve got this.”
Stendahl gently closed his book and stood, idly stuffing his hand into his pockets but saying nothing. She glanced at him, then back to the map dismissively. Amelin watched his face a moment, as if looking for him to join a side in the discussion, but received nothing. Peri was starting to pace, once again stopping to tap various icons to view the battle from the soldiers’ perspectives, calling now and again out to some with minor direction or encouragement.
It was said of Peri during the War of the Rupture as massive imperial cities collapsed in flames that she had sisters in her pocket. Flitting about the front lines of chaotic battles like a dragonfly, she would appear in places as if there were several of her; and it engendered a fierce loyalty and devotion few even senior commanders could match. Many one-eyed and limping soldiers for the times afterwards told stories around their own dinner tables of being left for dead and abandoned, ‘but not by the Lady Commander…no, aye, one of her was always in for a scrap’. It’s possible she’d have been more at ease driving one of the tanks or climbing a high rise; but here in the command tank at her map and analyses, the Marshal, now again the Lady Commander, was very much alive. She stepped to her left to more closely see Bethani, pulling her fingers apart on the screen to zoom in the streetmap. Most of the forces she’d marshaled for the area were arriving and forming up.
“All watches and squadrons, possible crypto breach. Radio silence till further notice. Radio silence till further notice.”
Amelin grimaced, “Why did you do that?”
She only grumbled and zoomed in closer. The Hag was arriving as well; and the forces had formed an arc in the crossroads there, a wide crossroad with brick streets and often decorated with sparkling banners and floating lantern decorations. It was a place of artists and observatories, with a wide canal lined with old trees beneath which teenagers would shade themselves on hot summer days.
Peri inhaled nervously, blowing her cheeks out as she exhaled. Standahl was entirely silent, only watching her and the map. “Did you get my ambush site yet?”
He nodded, “Yeah. Two stages. Vangeline, then Auberdon to the southeast.”
“Quantum crypto – text it to them.”
As Amelin leaned in and tapped his message, Stendahl casually watched as if trying to read a newspaper over the fellow’s shoulder. It was more of a pastime to him than fierce combat, it seemed. Peri was tense and lost in a hundred skirmishes at that moment, entirely ignoring the Talgo beside her.
“Mallow, don’t screw this up.” She wasn’t speaking to anyone, only herself and perhaps to the ghost of the Old Man who occasionally taught such strategies with salt and spice shakers on his feast table. An uncomfortable silence blanketed them after this, as her pieces were slipping into place and they awaited an outcome. If the line held, then it would be a turn of the battle and something for history.
“What if the line doesn’t hold? Are you willing to pull more guns out of the mix to try again?”
She ignored him and instead touched a finger to the Hag’s icon, seeing for herself what Mallow and his light crew saw on that carnival street with Doniphan mogs swarming ahead and gathering. Peri’s neck was tight; and her finger was just barely shaking.
Quite uncommonly known of Peri, while still very young in her career and a junior officer with but a handful of men in her division, the troop landing ship upon which she served, her first ship actually, was attacked. Every officer but herself was killed whether through smoke or fire; and the wide-eyed boys left behind held trust to her cold commands and quick battle decisions. They went through much together, losing no more men and returning safely; but it was the homecoming so many of them would keep secret afterwards. It was the homecoming as the pier came into view with its crowds of family and friends waving when the boys went to find their missing commander shaking and crying in the bathroom stall, staring at the deck. Many of the same boys served the rest of their careers under the Lady Commander and never told that story.
“
We can’t afford to move more, Peri. Mallow has to hold the line or else abandon this strategy.”
She glanced at Amelin, then back to the map and viewbox. It was silent again as the mogs approached, then Mallow’s voice returned.
“Commander! We have a-!”
With ferocity, Peri engaged the comms, “Mallow, repeat your last! Hag!”
The icon representing the gunship began to drift, not even in a stable direction. At the moment of collision as Doniphan attackers were arriving, the Hag was drifting out of position.
Tearing Down The Statues Page 26