“Dead?” The man’s gaze shifted back to the painting. Odd, Drake thought, he sounded genuinely saddened, unlike most who simply paid lip service to the news and went on about their drinking.
“Yes. A suicide.”
Paledan’s head snapped around. “That woman,” he said, sounding disbelieving, “killed herself?”
Interesting, Drake thought. “Leaving four children behind to fend for themselves.”
The man’s gaze narrowed. And for a moment, Drake had the feeling Paledan knew exactly who she was. If so, the man truly did his studying, to know this so soon after his arrival.
“And the artist?”
It was all Drake could do to keep his expression even. No one ever asked that question. That this man had was a many-faceted warning.
“Some local student at the time, I believe,” he said carefully, keeping his hands busy with glassware.
“No mere student produced that.”
“A very gifted one?” he suggested.
“A prodigy, nothing less, if that is true.”
That, I cannot argue with. And he wondered what this new Coalition commander would say if he knew that prodigy, that brilliant artist who should be famous across the sector, who should be painting beautiful portraits and glorious landscapes, was instead running with that notorious brigand. And was behind those mysterious, evocative, and spirit-lifting images of the Raider that had appeared all over the city and countryside on longnight.
Worse, he wondered what this new commander would do if he knew. Because it was already very clear Major Caze Paledan was a much different breed than old Parthon Frall.
“DID I SAY I WAS always glad to see new blood in a game?”
Brander’s words were sour as he stared across the table at the man who sat opposite him.
“Problem?” the man said mildly.
“Just my run of abysmal luck.” Brander hoped he sounded suitably irritated, but not really angry. He was neither, because things were proceeding according to plan.
Well, except for the fact that he very begrudgingly liked the guy. Or the way he played, at least. It had taken three games for him to even begin to get the man’s measure, and that was unusual enough to pique his interest above and beyond the task at hand.
As for the man himself, every warning bell in Brander’s gut had gone off at his first sight of the new commander of the Legion Post. No strutting, puffing bird, this one. Tall, broad, Coalition Major Caze Paledan had the stride, the grace, the demeanor, and the steady gaze of a fighter. And those eyes, a bright shade of green, gave away nothing yet seemed to see everything.
No, this was no payback appointment, or family partiality. And yet, no real fighter would want to be posted here, with little chance to use his skills. Was the speculation he had been wounded true, and was he here only until he was healed enough to return to full-strength Coalition conquering? There was no sign of an injury, but Brander guessed he was also the type who would conceal such a thing if possible. No sign of weakness to make him vulnerable would be allowed, if he was reading the man right.
“It must be your luck,” Paledan agreed, his voice still bland. “Your skills seem well enough.”
“Do they?”
A smile flitted around the corners of his mouth. “I’ve heard you’re the best player in Zelos.”
He’d been here less than three days and he’d heard this? Brander checked off three more things on his mental list; the man clued-up quickly, did his study, and perhaps most important, had not gone searching for easier prey.
“People who lose,” Brander said, “often look for reasons that may or may not be there.”
Paledan laughed. The full, hearty laugh of one genuinely amused.
And one utterly confident in his abilities.
Frall had been a fool, a graceless bumbler with little intelligence and less nerve. It had been almost easy to get things past him, or convince him that no one in Zelos would dare join the Raider.
Paledan was no kind of fool. And Brander knew instinctively he would be the worst kind of enemy.
He grimaced inwardly. He glanced over at the bar, where Drake was cleaning up, preparing to close. He looked, as he often had lately, exhausted.
He looked back across the table to see Paledan watching him intently.
“Problem?”
Brander resisted the urge to look away; of all opponents across a game table, this one must never think he had anything to hide except a good hand.
“Near closing time,” he said blandly.
“Perhaps another time we can continue,” Paledan said just as blandly.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
He watched the man go with the certainty that life in Zelos, and probably all of Ziem, would completely change once more. Caze Paledan was the kind of man who had that effect.
He gathered up the dice. The Raider would adapt, he knew. But he wondered if their days had just become numbered. Because Caze Paledan was also the kind of man who got things done. Coalition things. And Brander knew ending the Raider had to be very high on that list.
Chapter 17
THE RAIDER CROUCHED in the shadow of the wall, watching the vehicle approach. He signaled the others with a sharp gesture, and both of them spread out and took their own cover. He’d told them all of the goal; he didn’t want these men to unknowingly die for a load of communicators that they couldn’t use for fear of the Coalition overhearing. Destroying them to keep the Coalition from having them was a valid objective, and if they were successful, that would be well and good and he’d leave the card to claim the victory. If not, they would simply melt into the mist and leave them wondering.
The ponderous cargo mover was slow, slow enough that waiting was a chore. He had tasked the other two Sentinels with keeping any citizens who might be in the area safely clear, although it was unlikely many would be out for a stroll here, at the back of the Coalition compound. But it was more likely here than at the well-guarded front gate, so he issued the order.
He allowed himself a brief smile at the large patch of scraped paint on the side of the big transport. He’d seen many of them today, and knew the scrapes were where they had tried to eradicate any sign of Kye’s stenciled silhouettes.
As he watched the huge vehicle, the Raider found himself thinking of the sheer massiveness of the Coalition and the smile faded. It was something he didn’t allow himself to contemplate often. He could not afford to care about the size of them overall; he only cared about eradicating them from Ziem. And he knew he walked a line finer than the hair of a hedgebeast between keeping the occupying force too busy to focus on murdering more Ziemites, and annoying them so much they decided they would find a way to do without the miners and rained their full wrath upon them all.
They had been so isolated here on Ziem that they had known little of the behemoth that had taken over the far side of the galaxy in the past half-century. But once the Coalition had learned of their immense reserves of planium, they had suddenly moved to the top of the list for Coalition attention.
We were not even ill-prepared for it. We were completely unprepared. Unprepared, unsuspecting, untrained, and unqualified to resist.
The Coalition must have laughed at how easy it had been. They had a near-unlimited supply of something they needed tons of, and had gained it with barely a token resistance. Torstan Davorin had seen it coming from the beginning, but by the time people had begun to listen, it had already been too late. His father had managed to keep the resistance going for two full years, but in the end, it had claimed his life and many others.
He diverted his thoughts with the ease of long practice. He noticed that the mist had, as he’d hoped, begun to settle as the sun began to drop behind the Sentinel. A few more minutes, and the top of the compound wall would be obscured to anyone without the
vision. Surprise hinged on that happening before the cargo mover arrived at this gate.
It was, perhaps, a reckless stunt. As Kye had told him with no small amount of energy.
“Let someone else do it; the danger is too great.”
“The very reason I will not.”
“It is what you would tell me”
“Yes. But not what the Raider must do.”
“You need to stay safe.”
“Staying safe is not how you build a legend.”
“And you wish to be a legend?”
“It’s not what I wish. I never wanted this, deciding for others. But it’s what Ziem needs.”
What Ziem needs. And to hades with what he needed, which was a dark-haired, turquoise-eyed woman with the eye of an artist—or a sharpshooter—and an unconquerable spirit.
A woman he could not have.
He gave a short shake of his head to clear it of all thought except what came next. The mist had settled enough. It would happen.
In the moment the lumbering vehicle reached the turn in the road that led toward the gate, the moment when the trees would obscure the line of sight from there to here, he leapt. He caught the top of the wall with his fingers and levered his way up to where he could swing one foot up to catch the top as well. He visualized the thin red line Brander’s spray had revealed. The perimeter sensor stretched between the upright columns of the wall. He knew it would be a close thing to slide under it without triggering the warning signal, especially wearing the two weapons he carried.
He flattened himself atop the wall. Inched to the other side, holding his breath, fearing even the rise of his chest would break the beam and set off the warning claxon. For an instant, he thought he had, but the silence remained unbroken except for the sound of the approaching transport.
The Coalition penchant for thick, solid walls was going to hurt them here, he thought, for it would give him room to stand without breaking the beam once he was atop the barrier. He was hidden in the mist, but he could hear the cargo transport as it neared the gate.
He saw the front of the vehicle gradually take shape through the gray. Then the top of the cargo compartment. It came closer. The gates slid open, he guessed triggered by a control within the vehicle since there were no guards at this delivery gate that received only routine shipments.
The cab of the vehicle passed through the gate. The body was so wide it barely cleared the side posts of the gate. It inched forward carefully. A quarter through. Now a half.
He stood. Unslung the first weapon, his long gun. Put it to his shoulder. Aimed at the roof of the cargo compartment. Fired. Immediately slung the long gun back over his shoulder. At this range, the cartridge, trailing a line of green glowmist with its heat, put a foot-round hole in the roof. As he’d hoped, the driver either heard the sound, or perhaps felt the hit.
The vehicle stopped. A stationary target. He grabbed the much heavier, blockier, second weapon. He would have only one chance at this. But he trusted his eye, his skill, and his knowledge of the refractive ways of Ziem mist. He fired.
The shell went through the hole without even touching the edge.
He threw himself flat on the top of the wall. Setting off the alarm meant nothing now. The claxon blared, and the lights along the top of the wall came on in a flare of brilliant light.
The shell exploded. Brander had packed it well, and it destroyed the cargo compartment completely. It sent up a swirling, furious cloud of flame and smoke that brightened the sky even more than the lights. To them, the roiling cloud of glowmist was as bright as a beacon. He felt the heat from here, grimaced as it got a bit too hot for comfort. The driver staggered out of the transport. He heard shouts from across the compound as the Coalition troops scrambled to head for the breach.
The instant the flames receded enough he stood. Aware he was silhouetted by the flames and the lights, he gauged how long he had before they would be within range to take him. He bent and fastened a placard to the column that was blackened now.
Without warning indeed.
He straightened. Timing was of the essence now. He looked over his shoulder, saw that Galeth was already at the road, urging a man out of the way.
When he knew he could wait no longer, he threw up an arm in signal. His coat swirled, accentuating the movement. In the instant the air rover came into view, a shot whistled past his ear, and he knew it would be only a second, maybe two, before they had him sighted in. Galeth pushed the rover to a speed that was reckless given he was headed straight for the smoking pyre of the transport. The nimble little flyer shot through the smoke and was there, slowing but not stopping below his position.
He jumped.
By dint of long practice, he landed perfectly in the cockpit. Galeth hit the controls and the rover leapt to full speed. Shots were coming in a constant barrage now, but most flew uselessly over their heads thanks to the smoke. A couple struck the rover, but not for nothing had Brander been working on its armor; they barely dented it. And in between the reports he heard a peal of raucous, joyous laughter as the man Galeth had ushered away watched.
“The Raider!” the man shouted in glee.
He looked back, saw the troopers trapped behind the ruined hulk, unable to pursue until they got to their own rovers. And even then, they would never catch them; Brander had worked some of his magic on this one, and added a nice bit to the top speed and to its altitude capability.
Still, they took the pre-planned evasive route, leading any possible followers far away from their eventual destination. Only when they were certain there was no one anywhere close did they return the rover to its hide and make their way to the ruin on foot.
Brander was already there, waiting. And his own squad of Sentinels were lively enough that the Raider guessed even before his second spoke.
“Mission accomplished,” he said. “We got it.”
He turned and threw a heavy cover off a large weapon, clearly encased in planium, with a distinctive base and complicated-looking mechanics.
A Coalition rail gun.
Brander was grinning. The men around him were grinning.
“Nice diversion, sir!” one of them called out.
He let them celebrate; it was an occasion worthy of it. And when the word came in the morning that news of the Raider’s daring act had spread everywhere among the people, he even allowed himself a smile.
The legend, the hope Ziem needed was building.
Chapter 18
“A RAIL GUN?”
The incredulous query made the man sitting across from Major Caze Paledan shift uneasily on the hard wooden chair, for at least the third time in as many minutes. It seemed Ordam was even more nervous than the last time he’d been here. Perhaps the mere discussion of the Raider struck fear into him. He seemed the type.
“Who is this raider?” he demanded.
“It was not him,” Ordam said hastily. “He was in town—”
“Blowing up a cargo transport,” Paledan snapped.
“Er . . . yes.”
“A diversion, you fool. Who is he?”
“Some say,” Ordam began hesitantly, “it is the ghost of Torstan Davorin.”
Paledan barely managed not to snort his disgust of such theories. “And you believe this?”
“Of course not. I only say that is what some believe. That, or that it’s Davorin himself, that he somehow is not dead.”
“I have seen the recordings of the day he died,” Paledan said dryly. There was absolutely no doubt that, save his head, the man had been reduced to fragments of bone and tissue no bigger than his own thumb. He’d seen firsthand what a rail gun did to a human body, and the survival rate was zero.
“And I saw his head,” Ordam said.
“Then we have dispensed with that irrationality,” Paledan
said. “So who is this raider in fact?”
“No one knows.”
He lifted a brow at the man. “No one?”
“It is . . . common knowledge,” Ordam added hastily.
“So it is common knowledge that no one knows?”
If the man saw the absurdity, it didn’t show. Paledan didn’t bother himself about it; men who never looked beyond the surface failed on their own, one way or another.
“Yes,” Ordam said. “But it wouldn’t matter if they did. They would protect him,” he added with clear disgust. “And they condemn me. Fools.”
For hating the man who handed them over to an invader?
Paledan had few illusions about the Coalition. He knew too much, had seen too much. For that matter, he had done too much to hold on to any illusions, acknowledging it was necessary for the long-term goal of keeping the machinery oiled and moving. He had achieved his own position because he was not subject to emotions; he was harshly efficient, excellent at reading people and predicting their actions, and unmoved by the plight of those foolish enough to believe anything the size of the Coalition could be benevolent.
And he had little sympathy for those who buckled so easily, who wouldn’t fight for themselves or their world. In the case of Ziem, he suspected they had naively assumed their distant location and damp, misty climate would protect them. Not that the blasted mist wasn’t an obstacle, but when weighed against the lure of a huge supply of planium, it was a mere irritation. And, as usual, there had been some people willing to trade their world’s sovereignty for individual reward, who welcomed the coming of the dominant—soon to be only—power in the galaxy, as long as they benefitted from it. In that, people were sadly consistent.
“And where does he strike from?”
“The mountains.”
Given that Zelos was surrounded by mountains, that was almost as helpful as saying “Ziem.”
“Just how hard have you tried to discover who this man is?”
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