Raider

by Justine Davis

  And now they were out there, risking their lives. She should have insisted on going, underage or not. But it had been impossible to refuse Drake, not when such a very short time ago she had sat shivering in his quarters, waiting to hear the dreaded silence when his harsh, pained breathing finally stopped.

  “I have to know you and the twins are safe, or I will not be able to do what I must.”

  And so now, the people who mattered most to her in this world were out there, fighting a desperate battle to save something of the world her father had warned they were losing.

  That thought sent her mind scurrying to the astonishing reappearance of their mother. The revelation that she was alive was incredible enough, but that she was the mythical, powerful Spirit who lived above the Edge almost put the tale into the realm of impossible. And yet it was true. Eirlys could not doubt that. Had she not pulled Drake back from the very doorway of death? Had she not healed him so completely that barely two weeks later he was back to himself and strong enough to lead this battle?

  And even she is out there, fighting with him. While I am trapped here, uselessly.

  Only then did she realize she was pacing again. She glanced to the big hearth, where the twins were absorbed in their game. They were in the early stages, gauging their opponent’s strengths and searching out his weaknesses. Brander had indeed taught them well.

  And as she thought of him again, up on that mountain, alone, she could no longer stay in this room. Spacious though it was, the cellar walls seemed to be closing in on her. She headed for the ladder. She thought of warning the twins to stay put, but decided it was best not to plant the idea that they might not, and made her way up.

  Once above, she walked toward the lookout. It was Tuari at the moment, who, despite the calm at the moment, was alert and ready, and heard her coming long before she got to her.

  “All quiet,” she said.

  She nodded. “Mahko is fixing a meal. Slake will relieve you when he’s eaten.”

  “Brollet stew again?”

  “Yes. But he scrounged a bit of flour, so there’s a loaf as well.”

  The woman’s expression brightened.

  She looked toward the distinctive shape of Halfhead, then to the heights of the Brother beside it. Somewhere, up there, in the sunlight above the mist, Brander was awaiting the signal that the Coalition ship had lifted off. And up above the high valley, on Highridge, the Raider awaited that signal, plus the signal that Brander had succeeded, and the lookout signals as it passed.

  Waiting.

  It seemed as if all of Ziem was waiting.

  There were those who said they had deserved what had happened, for failing to be aware and ready. They had trusted their isolation too much, had shrugged off the rumors that the infamous Coalition was expanding into this sector, thinking themselves safe enough. And so they had been caught unprepared when reality had descended upon them.

  And there were those who had said fighting back was impossible; their population was small, mostly unarmed, and untrained for anything like the might of the Coalition. They were the first to surrender, to voluntarily put on the yoke of Coalition servitude, and they had sickened her.

  And she had thought Drake one of them. The things she’d said, the names she’d called him, and the worse ones she’d thought, still ate at her. Especially now. When she had wished he would do something, fight back, she hadn’t taken into account what it would mean if he did. Hadn’t realized how it would feel, to face the very real possibility of his death.

  But she had faced it now, it had been all too real in those last moments before the arrival of the Spirit . . . her mother.

  And that brought her back to Brander, who had pulled off this miracle by fetching her. She wished she could have talked to him more about that, and why he, the most practical, logical man she knew, ever given to reality, had taken such a chance. The one time she’d asked, he’d simply laughed and reminded her he was a gambler, was he not?

  Yes, he was that. And so much more, no matter that he tried to hide it. He—

  A fluttering sound of wings drew her attention. The darkest of her birds, by coincidence—or perhaps not—one of the few adept at night flying, flew past her and landed on the feeding platform Brander had built. She hurried over, and gave the bird a handful of feed as she hastily pulled the tiny curled message out of the capsule.

  Airlifter here, it said, and the time had arrived. She blinked, and double-checked her timer. The bird had made the trip in just over ten minutes, shaving nearly two minutes off the expected time.

  “Well done, little one,” she said, laying out another handful for the swift creature.

  She turned back to Tuari. “It’s begun,” she said. “The ship is here.”

  The woman looked at her own wrist, and Eirlys knew she was marking the time before the expected lift-off of the airlift, to make the short flight up to Highridge and the cannon emplacement. Drake had been timing this for months, until he had a decent average for the weekly operation. They knew that, after the ship’s arrival, the crew was allowed a short break for food and drink and to prepare the rigging for deployment. This ran anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour; she knew that since the commander was off world, Drake was guessing this would run closer to the longer limit.

  “Hope the kid doesn’t mess up,” the woman finally muttered.

  “He won’t. Did you see his face when Drake gave him the assignment?”

  Tuari smiled. “Yes. You’re right.” She gave her a rather long look. “Your brother is . . . well, it’s unbelievable, what he’s done.”

  “Yes.”

  “He took such abuse, for so long.”

  She winced. “Yes.”

  She took the spotters again, trained them on the mist above the low valley. If Brander’s special flare worked as expected—and she had full faith it would, for she knew his skill well—they wouldn’t even need the glasses to see it. But it was something to do, and she was desperate for that just now.

  Chapter 53

  DRAKE SHIFTED course just slightly, slipping the air rover behind the screen of the trees. He knew his path well; he had traversed it many times in the planning stages of this, the final battle. He had tried not to think of it that way, but he knew in his heart and his gut that it was. They had this one chance, and there would never be another like it. If they won, the fight would go on. If they failed, Ziem would be lost.

  And many, if not most, of them would be dead. He suppressed a shudder as he tried to shore up the mental walls against the enormity of what he’d done.

  He’d used them all, even the young ones who should still be in school, in this last raid that depended on precise timing among so many that they had slim chance of succeeding. But there was no future for Ziem if they didn’t take this chance.

  He’d sent countless of his people out to fight, against horrendous odds.

  He’d sent the woman he loved out to certain death if she had to carry out her mission.

  He felt a soft touch. His mother, placing her hand over his. He glanced, still not accustomed to her presence. And yet her touch calmed him, more than it had even as a child. Was the change in her? In him? In the insanity that had become his world, how could she have this effect? Was there more to this Spirit legend than she had yet told him?

  It didn’t matter, not right now. What mattered was that she had insisted on standing beside him for this.

  “I can never make up for how I left you, Drake, but I will be there. Whether you wish it or not.”

  He understood, at least in theory, why she’d done it. Even agreed that he would not be who he was, had she not left him to do what had to be done alone, to fight his way through it all. But he was not yet convinced it had all been worth it, not when he feared this final battle would be futile.

  “It is ri
ght, Drake,” she said softly. “You have done everything that could possibly be done.”

  He glanced at her. She was, unexpectedly, smiling.

  “I know your doubts,” she said, so quietly he knew the men behind them could not hear her. “They are needless.”

  “You have . . . seen this?”

  “I do not need to. I know you.”

  He turned back to the controls; he knew the course well, but well enough to know attention was required.

  “We will do this,” she said. “For your father. For Ziem.”

  He glanced at the woman beside him once more. And he saw a strange emotion in her face, her eyes. And for the first time, he felt a hint of what she’d been through, of how much it had cost her to stay away for so long. This had not been easy for her, either. But she, as had his father, had always seen the bigger picture, the far-reaching consequences. He had thought that the fact that she had survived her leap hadn’t changed anything, since she hadn’t intended to survive; she’d intended to die and leave them forever. But she was here, at his side, and he wasn’t sure how he felt. And figuring it out was a luxury he couldn’t afford right now.

  She had fallen silent, and in truth, there was nothing more to say. But she did not remove her hand. And, as if he drew the final bit of strength he needed from it, he finished that wall, the one that kept his emotions at bay. He felt the icy calm descend, felt the sense of command, of destiny overtake him. He thought now only of what must be done.

  He had worn the coat, the helmet, all the trappings of the Raider except for the scars. He had his own now, although she had assured him they would fade, in time. He did not want to risk the change now, not on this mission. The silver helmet and the dramatic silhouette Kye had turned into a symbol of all they stood for must be there still, reminding them he was still the man they’d followed into battle.

  And now they would follow him into hades, if that was where this led them.

  Drake would have pondered that. The Raider allowed it no time or energy.

  They settled into the position he’d chosen on Highridge.

  And waited.

  BRANDER HAD LOST track of the various scrapes and bruises he’d acquired. He’d known he would have to park the rover and scale the last, steepest five hundred feet on foot, but hadn’t worried overmuch about it. He’d done it before, after all, just months before the Coalition invaded.

  In sun-season.

  When he’d been fourteen.

  He scoffed inwardly at the thought that at twenty-six he might be less nimble. Even if he were, he was a lot stronger than his rather skinny fourteen-year-old self had been. Which, considering he was carrying three hand weapons plus the flare gun and his long gun, was a bedamned good thing.

  He kept going, pushing himself for more speed. He wasn’t behind schedule, but it was irritating him that it was such slow going. He had to be there and ready to move the moment the airlifter took off to head for the cannon. It was a mere three-minute flight for the big ship, so there was no time to spare. Everything hinged on this; nothing else would happen until he got this done.

  Maybe that was it. It just seemed like this was taking longer because of what it meant. When he’d climbed this peak at fourteen, the fate of his entire world hadn’t depended on it.

  Leaving his dark armor in the rover, trading it for the gray clothing Eirlys had found for him, clothing that would blend into the gray of the bare rock of the peak, hadn’t helped; several of the spots that were stinging would have been protected, but the tradeoff for the camouflage was worth a scratch here and there.

  And then he was above the mist, and sunlight poured down on him. It took a half-second for his eyes to adjust, and then the square shape of the installation leapt into focus. It was even bigger up close than he’d thought it would be. Four large, curved antennae on top faced each direction, along with a massive metal structure he knew was the transmitter that could send burst transmissions all the way to Legion Command.

  It was too big for the stolen obliterator he’d lugged along to take out, but they’d expected that. The rail gun would have been perfect, but they’d run out of ammunition for it and it was too big to handcarry up here anyway. He’d just have to get inside and find the most crucial part of the array and take that out. He’d studied what they had, the schematic from three years ago. Provided, he’d recalled with a start, by the Spirit. If they lived, he’d have to ask her how she’d managed that one. It was outdated, obviously, but it had at least given him an idea of what to look for.

  He found the door, set almost seamlessly in the side of the enclosure which was, he thought with an ironic grimace, made of planium.

  “Of course,” he muttered under his breath as he studied the closure.

  It was an intricate lock, like the ones they’d installed at the compound gates. But unlike those, this one required no eye or palm scan; they must have assumed no one would ever get up here except themselves, after they’d confiscated all small airships.

  Drake will hang you with your own assumptions, you skalworms.

  He thought for an instant of using the obliterator on the lock; it would be instant, but it had been taking a bit longer to recharge after Kye had used it to rescue Drake, and he feared it might only have one good, full-strength hit left in it, so he didn’t dare. Instead, he pulled out the laser pistol.

  He knew he would have to move fast, had to assume what he was about to do would send some kind of alarm to the Coalition in their compound. Speed would then be of the essence; he had to get inside and take down the communications so quickly that they would think it was all part of the same malfunction. They were gambling that once en route, the transport would not turn back, that moving the cannon took priority over everything, even a communications breakdown.

  But then Brander had always been a gambler.

  He flipped the lever on the pistol. Focused on the charging light as if it were the sun visible for the first time after a winter of Ziem mist. Again, time seemed to crawl before, at last, the light went green.

  He waited. Stared down toward the low valley. If that special flare he’d built didn’t work the way he’d planned, dragging the mist up with it so he could see it from up here, even in the sunlight, this was all going to fall apart. But it would. He knew it would. It had to. He’d wondered about giving Dek the responsibility, but Drake had seen something in him, and Brander had to trust that. Besides, the Coalition would pay less attention to a boy merely appearing to play in the bell tower.

  If this worked, the rest would go like clockwork. Drake had seen to that. There wasn’t a damned detail the man had missed—he’d thought of things that never would have occurred to Brander, and dealt with them. And then he’d planned for the unexpected, which made Brander respond that that was a contradiction, for Drake had expected them. He had a plan, a back-up plan, a back-up to the back-up, and another after that.

  He suppressed a shudder at the thought of what they had nearly lost. For all his talk of Brander taking over if he died, he knew with absolute certainty that he would never, ever be able to do what Drake did. He—

  A fountain of green boiled up out of the mist over Zelos. A single flare. The transport was lifting off.

  Now.

  He sucked in a breath as he lifted the laser pistol. “May the Spirit help—”

  He cut off the automatic, ingrained words with a laugh. He had neither the nature nor the desire to dwell on mystical things, but the truth of the Spirit had even him pondering the strange turns that story had taken.

  Get it done, Kalon.

  He pressed the trigger. The red beam shot out. He had to go slower to carve through the planium. Counted down in his head. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The cuts met. Swiftly, he reversed the weapon and hit the lock a sharp blow. It fell to the inside. He noted the connection that ha
d no doubt already sent the alarm, but only as he slammed the door open.

  Dark.

  He shoved the laser pistol into his belt and grabbed the cellight in the same motion. Thumbed it on. With his left hand, he flipped the lever on the obliterator, scanned, that countdown still ticking in his head. Thirty seconds. Bare wall. Thirty-five. There, console. Faint lights blinking. Get to it. Set the light down. Grab the obliterator. Forty. Find it, find it, the core. Yank the panel. Forty-five. Nexus of connections, or anything that looked like it. Nothing. Forty-five. Wait, there. There! Fire . . .

  The tangle of fiber, cables, and crystals vanished without a sound. Every light on what was left of the console went out. He darted outside. The antennae were motionless, dead atop their perch.

  Fifty-three seconds.

  Seven to spare.

  Brander grinned. He yanked out the flare gun, aimed it in an arc down into the fog, and fired. It went, stirring the mist into a roiling stream of glowmist that flowed down the mountain.

  “Over to you, my brother,” he said.

  Chapter 54

  FROM HIGHRIDGE where they were waiting, silently, tensely since the moment the flare had gone up from the landing zone, Drake saw the stream of eerie green light tumbling down the Brother like a river through the Ziem mist.

  Brander had done it.

  He reached for the comm link in the control board of the rover, and turned it on for the first time since they’d stolen them. An empty, vacant hum came out of the system. He counted down the agreed-upon minute, when Brander would turn his on as well and test that it was down for certain.

  The silence held. Not only were they without the concise, effective orders he had no doubt Major Paledan would have given were he here, they were without communications altogether. They couldn’t even call for help. A force would likely start for the Brother, to check on the communications, but the Sentinels would hold them back. And the miners, who had been greatly inspired by Samac Rahan’s sacrifice, would about now be circling the guards there, forcing them into the mine, preventing them from coming to the airlifter’s aid when it arrived.