by Chris Reher
He smiled, recalling Ciela’s brief but fierce skirmish on Tayako. No pampered navigator on Phar’s ship. He’d seen to it that they received proper training and dealt with hardship when necessary. Had he perhaps foreseen a day when they would have to fend for themselves? Or was it just Ciela who seemed born for more interesting things than lounging on the pilot’s bench? He imagined her life within the safe, privileged shelter of Delphian society and could not quite reconcile it with what he knew of her so far. He suspected that her kinsmen would have no easy undertaking in reintegrating her into the fold. He had to admit that she’d make a far better rebel than a Delphian.
Ciela crawled out of her bunk a few hours later. He heard her hum to herself as she experimented with some of his equipment in the galley.
“You want some of this… baze… uh, bazz’che… whatever-it-is rice pasty stuff?” she called.
“No,” he replied. “Make sure you put something sweet on that. You won’t like it otherwise.”
“Are we there yet?” she said when she joined him in the cockpit with her bowl. She had nearly drowned the nutritious but bitter grain mash in syrup.
“Yes. Got a couple of Union ships in the vicinity.” He took his feet off the co-pilot bench and turned toward the console.
She dropped into the seat. “Air Command?”
“One of them. Looks like there may be another on the surface, judging by the traffic.”
She grimaced into her breakfast and stirred it in some futile attempt to make it taste better. “Think they’ll bother us?”
“They might take a look. Maybe say hello in their usual tactful way. They don’t have any jurisdiction here.”
“Yet.”
“Don’t start.”
She ate silently but he felt her watching him over the rim of her bowl.
“What?” he said finally.
“Are you purely Centauri?”
“Huh? Of course I am. Why?”
“You don’t feel like a Centauri.”
He gripped his forearm and gave it a squeeze. “How’s a Centauri supposed to feel?”
“I don’t mean that. Something was different when we made the jump.”
“Different how?”
She made a vague gesture with her spoon. “We were both in the processors when we jumped. Usually I can tell the pilot is there, but that’s all. Just another presence in the system. But you were different.” She put the bowl aside and touched both of her neural implants. “I don’t really know how to describe it, but you were part of the jump in a way that I haven’t felt before. Like you were already out there. A part of it.”
He shifted in his bench, fascinated. “It? What it?”
“Subspace. Or what we call subspace. Of course it’s not really space at all.”
He nodded. “I know.”
She cocked her head. “You told me you’re interested in subspace. What draws you there?”
Seth pondered her question. After a moment he smiled. “I guess the part you saw there. I’ve had some… experiences. Let’s leave it there.”
“Because I’m Arawaj and you don’t trust me with your secrets.”
“That’s about it.” He turned back to his console in preparation for entry into Tadonna’s atmosphere. “We’re about to land. No nonsense down there. If I see even one weapons signature I take off again and leave you with Air Command.”
She seemed unwilling to let the subject of subspace drop but then just shrugged. “I just want to make sure they’re all right. Hariah probably got the girls out, but I have friends there who won’t get along well with your people.”
He approached the northern hemisphere using Ciela’s coordinates. A sprawling harbor town occupied a broad delta basin and he followed the river up into a system of canyons that seemed barely negotiable on the ground.
“You grew up here?” He studied the terrain on real-vid and charts, seeing the rugged beauty of the planet’s surface but no roads, towns or signs of agriculture. Soon there was only bare, red rock towering over the river, relieved only occasionally by scattered growth clinging to the scree. A few other aircraft shared the space above the canyons but there was no indication of regulated air lanes. But most importantly, Tadonna had water, the air was rich and crisp, and the gravity within suitable range for species like theirs. All of this made it a prime candidate for colonization and of great interest to the Commonwealth, no matter how remote the location.
“Yes, you’ll see. It’s quite pretty on the other side of these mountains. I lived here when we were children. We still rest here between runs. Some of those take years. But we always return.”
Seth watched her smile, for probably the first time with pure joy. It lit her eyes and it was not hard to see a very striking Delphian woman behind the artificial coloring. Perhaps Delphians, he thought, ought to smile more in general.
“What?” She had caught him staring.
He returned his eyes to his screens. “Nothing. You love this place.”
“It’s home. It’s got space. I like to walk. Sometime we ride in the hills. It’s so utterly wonderful after being cooped up on the Othani for months at a time.” She bit her lip. “I guess I won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“You don’t have to stop being a navigator. It’s a gift and yours seems to be better than most. No one is taking that away.”
“As long as I use it for your side.”
“Obviously.” He let the Dutchman swoop down into some foothills. Terraces of cultivated fields clung to the slopes, sharing a clever system of irrigation. He zoomed the cameras a little closer. It seemed that the same streams that fed the terraces also served to transport produce in round tubs into the valley. He saw a young boy use a pole to push a wayward vessel back into the stream out of which it had bounced.
She pointed at a crest up ahead. “There! Behind there is my home. The next valley.”
“I see you also navigate by sight.” Her coordinates matched precisely. “Lot of traffic over there. Or something.”
“Really? It’s pretty quiet here usually.”
“Getting a lot of buzz, anyway.” He looked up when an alarm chirped overhead. “Talk to me,” he said aloud to the Dutchman but it was his neural interface that swapped the display settings.
“What is it?”
He frowned, puzzled. “Radiation.”
“What? What kind of radiation?”
“The bad kind.” He switched the ship’s shield configuration. “Thick, too. Looks like what you see after a razer drop.”
“That’s not possible. There isn’t any—” She gasped when they cleared the last of the peaks and the valley opened before them. It, too, had slopes covered by terraces but the small settlement at the bottom was a landscape of charred outlines of what might have been buildings once. “No!” she cried. “What happened? Gods, no!”
He ignored her panic and scanned for weapons, vehicles, people moving among the ruins. His sensors balked at sifting through the conflicting emissions but a visual check didn’t show any aircraft in the area. “What kind of power source do you use down there?”
“Hydro,” she said. “Wind. We don’t have anything that can do this!”
He came about and carefully settled the Dutchman on a plateau of bare rock ringed by landing beacons. No other craft parked here today and no one was about. “Stay where you are,” he snapped when she leaped from her bench.
“I have to see what happened!”
He gripped her arm. “You’re going to take a deep breath before you do anything else.”
She glared at him but then sank back again, shaking off his hand. He returned his attention to the sensors. “There are some life signs but it’s hard to tell how many, or if they’re injured.” He let the cameras create a panoramic view of the ship’s surroundings. Smoke still rose from the ruins. The buildings, many made of stone blocks, lay in crumpled heaps although some, roofless, remained standing near the north end of the little town. He saw barns an
d a pond and even a few windmills in the distance. This didn’t look like the rebel stronghold he had expected. Just another far-flung settlement of no consequence to anyone. A perfect place to raise a gaggle of stolen children. “I’m getting readings from those hills there. No power signatures. Maybe your people are hiding. Maybe they got away.” He checked his data sleeve against the ship’s systems and then turned to her. “Can you do this?”
She nodded, seeming a little less frantic now. “I have to see.”
He rose and waved her along into the main cabin. There he pulled two sets of weather gear from a bin; sturdy coveralls designed to withstand most planetary conditions and even short exposures to space. He made sure she geared up properly and that the gauges inside her hood displayed correctly. With only a brief moment’s hesitation, he handed her a projectile weapon. “Don’t try this at long range,” he said, recalling her questionable marksmanship. “But it’s solid at less than that.”
She took it without comment.
“Stay with me, don’t wander off, do not lose sight of the Dutchman, whatever you do. Not until we have a better idea about what’s going on.”
“Can we take that?” She pointed at a pack of medical supplies.
He hung its strap over her shoulder. “Drop it and run if you see anything odd.”
“What? Odder than that?” She gestured at the still-active screens at the front of the ship. “I’m your Arawaj prisoner, not your baby.” She turned away only to halt again by the door to the cargo hold. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I’ll be careful. But I can look after myself.”
They passed through the sealed area of the ship and cautiously stepped outside, scanners held before them. Seth pointed to her left and they went that way, down into the settlement. Ciela walked slightly in front of him as they passed ruined buildings and charred vegetation. He was startled by a massive four-legged animal rounding a crumbled wall but Ciela just slapped it lightly to send it on its way.
“Scanners aren’t helping much,” he grumbled. “Didn’t even see that coming.”
“Something over there, though,” she said. “Life signs.”
“Probably more livestock. This happened just hours ago. If anyone was still here they would have come out to the ship.”
“Not if they’re scared. Or hurt.” She switched on her suit’s external speakers. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Seth examined some scorch marks on a wall. “Lasers,” he said. “They didn’t just drop ordnance on these people from above.” He crouched to pick up a twisted piece of metal and rubbed some soot away to show markings. The camera on his sleeve sent it to the Dutchman for identification. “Union issue.”
Her lips formed a thin line. “Your people did this?”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“You can’t? How about the other three spanners? Why else would anyone come all the way out here if not for them?”
He peered through her visor to see her angry face. “You really believe that Air Command would do this? Destroy a whole town to get at three rebel spanners?”
“Yes! That’s what you do.”
He raised a gloved finger. “One, I am not Air Command. Two, this is not what they do. I know you’ve heard all sorts of terrible stories, but there is not a single reason why Air Command would take out a bunch of civilians, even if they are affiliated with rebels. Not if there is another way of getting what they want.” He continued to walk, kicking a broken drainpipe out of the way. “You don’t need a damn razer for this sort of thing, even if your people were armed to the teeth. This was done out of spite, or as a show of power.”
“And Air Command doesn’t show their muscle to keep the locals in line?”
“Not by scorching the earth they stand on. That doesn’t make one bit of sense.” He turned when a scrabbling noise from one of the buildings caught their attention.
“Hello? Is there someone there?” Ciela peered through a broken window. Light fell through tumbled ceiling beams to illuminate a young boy holding a gun levelled at the window.
Both Seth and Ciela ducked aside when a bullet whined along the sill. Then the small figure darted out of the open door and sprinted along the narrow street.
“Wait!” Ciela hurried after him.
“Stop,” Seth called but she heard nothing. He set after her and skidded to a halt when only moments later they reached an open square.
“No!” Ciela cried.
“Cazun!”
A light standard in the center of the open space, possibly a market square or some sort of gathering place, listed to one side under the weight of two people. They had been strung up by their feet but no life remained in the blackened, bloody faces.
“Gods, Seth, get them down.” Ciela moved toward the macabre display when a bullet hit the dusty ground by her feet.
“Back!” Seth grasped her arm and they dodged more projectiles as they dashed into the cover of the alley. He looked back to see two men in an opposite alley carrying hunting rifles.
“Those are ours,” Ciela said.
Seth grabbed her arm to stop her from running back, but she had made no move. “They don’t recognize you in this suit.”
She ducked when another bullet whined past them from another direction. They turned and fled back the way they had come, staying close to buildings that could well conceal more snipers.
An alarm sounded at Seth’s wrist when the Dutchman alerted him to incoming traffic. He consulted the screen and cursed. “Plane coming. Fast. Let’s get back to the ship.”
But even as they neared his ship, well-placed laser fire stabbed to the ground, made visible by brightly colored tracers, obviously as warning. Seth shoved Ciela behind a ruin and dropped his visor to look up at the sky. The information displayed before his eyes now showed a small Trident class cruiser used by rebels of both factions. He hoped their scanners were no more effective than his own in trying to cut through the interference from the ground.
The ship dropped sharply and landed between the edge of the village and the Dutchman. The gunshots from behind ceased as everyone seemed to wait to see who had arrived this time. Seth wondered if the shooters thought themselves outgunned now and had retreated. He hoped so; perhaps they had no idea that their home had been contaminated.
Two men, also wearing protective gear, exited the cruiser and walked to Seth’s ship. One of them tried the key plate and then shook his head. Others emerged now, also heavily armed, and headed toward their hiding place.
“Back,” Seth pointed to the next likely hiding place along what used to be an alley between the farm homes, now strewn with broken masonry. “Watch for snipers.”
“They’re coming this way.”
“It’s these suits. Linked to the Dutchman and broadcasting like crazy.”
Something impacted the stone wall and then ricocheted into the ground, flinging up a spray of dirt and gravel. Seth returned the fire and watched the rebels scatter for cover, as unorganized as he’d expected. “Not Air Command, if you were still wondering,” he said. The rapport of automatic projectile weapons rattled over their heads.
“Why aren’t you hitting them?”
He tapped the front of her hood. “Drop your visor and look over the wall by that gap. See if you recognize any of them.”
“Are you trying to get me shot?” she hissed but squeezed between him and the wall to follow his instructions. The visor picked up some of the people scurrying between buildings looking for a better position. “Wait…” She squinted, hampered by the clear protective faceplate of her hood. “Yes, I know that one. That woman with the—” She yelped when Seth grabbed her collar and threw her to the ground. The wall above them disintegrated and showered debris onto them.
“Ruthala!” Ciela shouted. Seth, still bent over her, winced and pulled back when her voice transmitted over their sound system. “It’s me, Ciela. Stop shooting!”
“Are these your people?” he said.
“If you mean Arawa
j, yes. If you mean bloody traitors, then no.” Ciela edged to the corner again. “Ruthala! It’s me!”
They heard footfalls crunching on the loose debris but still saw nothing of the rebels. “Which toe are you missing?” a woman called out, her voice muffled by her hood but likely Human.
Seth raised an eyebrow. “You’re missing a toe?”
“The left little one,” Ciela returned to the woman.
He slouched back against the wall and reached into the thigh pocked of his coveralls for a reload for his gun. “Your Arawaj security measures are stellar.” He looked up when several of the armed rebels surrounded them, weapons aimed.
“He’s with me,” Ciela said quickly. “Put those away.”
The Human woman gestured to the others. “Ciela is—” she started to say something and then caught herself. “Ciela lives here. You’ve been away a while, Sweetie. Not the homecoming you wanted. We just now got their message about this and came as soon as we could get a plane in the air.” She looked down along the destroyed street. “Not soon enough.”
Seth came to his feet. “There are survivors over there. Shooting at anything that moves.” Some of the others hurried away at once. “We found some bodies. Hung.”
They heard voices shouting in a local dialect to reassure the people that help had arrived. Gradually, a few survivors emerged from the buildings, their suspicion clear on their faces. A Feydan woman was the first to join them. Her clothes were torn and dirty but once of good quality. Like most of her people, she had embellished her skin with elaborate tattoos describing the history of her ancestors. Her careworn face, too, showed small scripts that even Seth found difficult to interpret without his translator.
“What happened?” the woman named Ruthala said.
The Feydan shrugged, staring out over the devastation all around them. “Two cruisers landed. They wanted the girls. When we tried to hide them they punished all of us. Hariah is dead.”