I didn’t speak. My eyes were trained on the approaching domes of the Ministry.
CHAPTER 7
“the scariest smotion for a spy? Surprise. Surprisse can’t portend to anythng good.”
–JAKOB BRYCE
The squids gave one last push, and the boat surged forward. Tentacles disengaged and slithered away, disappearing over the bamboo rails while the boat glided the last few feet to the Ministry dock. The guards were off the boat first, one of them taking a kelpstalk rope and tying off. I followed sure-footedly. Couldn’t let them think I didn’t have my sea legs.
I let the guards lead me along the pier at a leisurely pace. Reaching a pair of weather-beaten stairs, I stepped up to the island proper. Constructed from slabs of granite, the ring-shaped island provided a broad walking surface. To my immediate right was a collapsed stretch, sunken stone tipped at awkward angles, green water flowing freely between the lagoon and the sea. To my left stood the five bulb-shaped Ministry domes. Evenly spaced, they sat directly on the atoll, like freshly pulled onions left on the ground.
Straight ahead, I laid eyes on the lagoon where the Empire’s contingent had been executed. Civil servants and administrators. People who were simply doing their jobs. Doing their best for this world and its people.
Murdered.
Dumped into the water to be ripped apart, bite by barbarous bite.
I skimmed the water with my eyes and saw no sign of the terror perpetrated here. No screaming souls or silver torpedoes of death.
Instead, the still, green water peacefully lapped at the stone.
We walked along the pool’s edge, my eyes transfixed by bountiful blossoms of bright coral and so many schools of little fish—colorful gemstones dancing and darting in a luscious kaleidoscope of amethysts, rubies, and sapphires.
I told my guards to wait, so my eyes could feast some more.
Below the surface, translucent amoebas the size of my hand floated about, the shapeless creatures forming improvised arms as they stretched for food, several with tiny undigested fish trapped like flies inside their gelatinous bodies. Lime-colored creatures resembling corkscrews spun their way to the surface, then slowly sank back down. Striped eels moved from one branch of coral to the next, coiling and uncoiling while vast clusters of purple and red anemone tentacles swayed to an unheard melody.
Much as I hated to admit this world had anything worthwhile, the lagoon was beguiling. Even the five Ministry domes couldn’t resist its bewitching trance, their reflections forever trapped in the pool’s emerald-tinted mirror.
I tore my gaze away and turned it on Dome 3, its outer shell covered with many thousands of teardrop-shaped silver tiles that fit together like the scales of a fish, the lowest ones dusted by sea salt and peppered with air barnacles.
Moving again, we headed for the entryway. Flanked by guards, the tall arch mimicked the dome’s onion shape. When I approached, the guards touched their fingers to their hearts while my detail peeled off to head back to the pier.
I marched past the guards and into the dome with purpose in my gait, as if I’d done it a thousand times before, heels clacking on polished granite, the sound echoing around the inside of the rotunda. The walls were painted cerulean from foot to shoulder, then whitewashed the rest of the way up, tapering to a point forty feet overhead.
The dome was vacant, except for a shrine dedicated to the Sire, His image in statue form. Raised on a column of rough-hewn stone, He was surrounded by four shorter columns topped by statues of adoring Kwuba and Jebyl kneeling and bowing.
The Sire Himself had been defaced, the royal robes around his crotch chiseled away. Castrated.
Passing the shrine, I found the stairs exactly where the blueprints I’d studied said I would, a small doorway cut into the dome’s back wall, the staircase angling down out of sight. The domes were just for show. The bulk of the Ministry was down those stairs.
At the bottom of the ocean.
I started down, my hand running along the dewy steel rail. The walls were alive with mossy growths sprouting from black trails of slimy seawater. I took the stairs slow, the thought of tunneling below the water weighing heavy on my mind.
A glance at the rust-eaten seams told me it just might. The air began to taste stale, and I swore at the architect who designed this death trap. I didn’t care what the reports said about an underwater construction being impervious to attack. In the end, it hadn’t proven so impervious, had it?
Ten steps down, I reached a landing and stepped through an open bulkhead where I faced another set of neck-breakingly steep stairs carved directly into the reef.
Deeper and deeper I went, more bulkheads with open hatches followed by more staircases. My ears felt the pressure of pumped air that reeked of mildew, and my skin turned tacky with the damp of deep ocean.
I reached the bottom, one hundred feet of impossibly heavy water pressing down from above. With fluorescent bulbs lighting the way, I headed down the steel-walled corridor, supports spaced every two feet. I avoided the puddles. Puddles where there should be no damn water.
I marched ahead despite the tug of fear pulling at my back. Arriving at a T, I knew the arched corridor to my right would lead to the main rotunda. My feet splashed into inch-deep seawater, and soon the splashing turned to sloshing as the chilly water rose past my ankles. Passing over a floor drain that was barely visible under the black water, I asked Pol if he was sure the water pumps were working.
The water was up to my knees now.
Not a comforting thought.
A soldier waded from the other direction, his face calm and collected. I hated him. I was tempted to scream at the levelheaded bastard.
A staircase lifted me up out of the water. At the top, the main rotunda opened before me, a broad space with tall video screens lining the far wall, some of them dipped in seawater, but amazingly still working. The screens’ moving images hazily reflected off the water. On my side of the rotunda sat many semicircular rows of desks and tables, all of them facing the front, auditorium style. Some were populated by soldiers, many by Kwuba in their formal silks.
A drop of water struck the top of my head, and I looked up at the leaky ceiling, great panes of reinforced glass and riveted steel standing high overhead. I tried to stop myself from picturing the glass giving way, a crush of seawater bringing a watery death.
“We’ve been waiting for you.” Admiral Dii Mnai stalked up to me, weighty in both size and gaze. “You’re late.” His hair was short as a two-day beard, his tone shorter still.
I swallowed
the clamshell in my throat. “Sorry.”
“Come. We must start our morning briefing.”
With water squishing in my boots, I followed his uniformed frame through a door and down a long hall. He walked large, shoulders held high, his rounded girth that of somebody who never denied himself.
I trailed him into a conference room. The floor was dry except for a rusty puddle fed by a streak of water seeping from under the window frame. The table appeared to have been made from Karthedran redwood. A crater of splintered wood sat where the Empire’s seal should be. A crime against the Empire. An even greater crime against a fine piece of wood on a world that had so little.
I surveyed the attendees. Based on the bars sewn on their chests, I counted a captain and two lieutenants seated at the table, their navy blue uniforms meshing nicely with the emerald flags wrapped around their necks.
I took a seat at the table, directly across from the admiral.
“Did you come to a deal?” he asked, his moon-shaped face watching me expectantly.
“What?”
“A deal. Last night.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
His face lit with a wide, gap-toothed smile. “Good. Most good.”
“The price?” asked the captain.
“I had to take his offer.”
“I thought you were going to bargain him down.”
I shrugged. “He wouldn’t budge. Tough bargainer.”
The disdain on the captain’s face was painted on thick. “I told you we couldn’t pay his price.”
I cringed on the inside.
Mnai laid a heavy hand on the table. “Captain Mmirehl has a point, Colonel. Our funds are limit-ed.”
I leaned forward in my chair, forced my voice straight as a firerod. “You wanted a good weapons system, and I got it for you.”
Mnai pinched his lips and moved his penetrating stare from person to person in order to gather silent opinions from the group. Captain Mmirehl gave him an eye roll. The two lieutenants shook their heads in disapproval.
Mnai turned his big head back on me. “You’re sure this is a good system?”
Wringing some confidence from Pol’s voice, I said, “The best.” For all I knew, it really was.
Mnai folded his arms and rested them on his ample stomach. “Do we have the funds, Captain?”
Mmirehl roasted me with a flaming glare. His face was narrow with hollows for cheeks and a beak for a nose. He spoke through his teeth. “We do, but—”
Mnai didn’t let him finish. “Buy it.”
“But—”
“We must pay it. Air defense is critical.”
“But one missile platform will hardly stop a fleet.”
“They won’t send a fleet.”
“You can’t be sure.”
My thoughts hustled to incorporate the new fact. I’d bought a surface-to-air missile platform.
Captain Mmirehl stabbed the tabletop with an insistent finger. “We kill-ed their contingent. They will seek retribution.”
The admiral brushed the captain’s argument away with one of his big mitts. “They won’t send a fleet. Explain it to him again, Colonel.”
I twisted in my seat, my mind scrambling for the right response. “That’s not necessary, is it?” I smiled at the captain. “You remember perfectly well, don’t you?”
He sneered at me, but answered the question, the words squeezing through his teeth like meat from a grinder. “I remember.”
Relief washed over me.
“No,” said the admiral. “Explain it to him.”
“But he just said he understands.”
Mnai lifted a fist over his head and slammed it down on the table. My heart jumped along with the water glasses, the sound echoing off the steel walls like he’d fired a cannon.
“I told you to explain it to him!” he shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth, a droplet clinging to his chin. “Explain it until the shit-for-brains understands.”
Captain Mmirehl’s jaw dropped in disbelief. I thought he was going to protest, but his mouth closed, and his face tensed up like he was prepping for a serious lashing.
I looked to the lieutenants, who both sat with their heads bowed, suddenly very interested in their laps.
I fought to keep my voice from cracking. “They won’t send a fleet. Maritinia is too far from the Empire’s Core. Many in the Empire believe the Secession Skirmishes were a precursor to something bigger. They believe war is coming. It could break out at any time, and if it does, they can’t afford to have warships sitting a year away from where the action is.”
“Yes,” said the admiral. “Go on.”
My fingers hurt from strangling the wad of pant leg in my fist. “The truth is this world isn’t strategically important. They’ll send a ship with a new governor and a new contingent, some extra soldiers. But no fleet.”
“You hear that, Captain? You understand now, or shall I have him go over it again?”
Captain Mmirehl gave a reluctant nod. “I understand.”
The admiral’s gap-toothed smile was back. “And how can they be sure to succeed in retaking this world with a single ship, Colonel?”
“Colonel?” repeated the admiral.
“The E3 will send their agents first,” I said, my fingernails digging into my thigh. “They’ll try to infiltrate this government and sabotage it.”
Mnai stared at me, a smile frozen on his face.
I met his stare, unable to escape the feeling he’d noticed something different about me, that he was trying to put his finger on exactly what it was. I could practically feel that thick finger of his probing and prodding me, trying to find what was real and what wasn’t.
He lifted his hand, stuck his index finger in the air. “One ship,” he said to Captain Mmirehl. “Just one ship, and when it comes, I shall shoot it out of the sky.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Let it out slow through my nose.
“Yes, Admiral,” responded the captain. “As you say.”
Apparently deciding the captain was sufficiently humbled, he turned to one of the lieutenants. “Tell me of the Jebyl.”
“We have reports of two demonstrations yesterday, a thousand people in Mmangu, three hundred in Selaita. There were no overt displays of dissension in the capital, but we heard several reports of unrest. Gangs of Jebyl delinquents have begun vandalizing Kwuba-owned stores, spilling salt and knocking over shelves. Anything they can do to make themselves a nuisance. Among other things, they keep griping about being exclude-ed from the new government.”
Mnai hmmphed. “Tell me, what other things do these ingrates whine about?”
“I’m afraid you won’t like it, sir.”
“Proceed, Lieutenant.”
“They claim the Kwuba are hoarding all the wine and tea.”
“Nonsense. Haven’t they heard of the Empire’s embargo? The price of all imports is up. I can’t control who can afford to buy wine and who can’t.”
“The Jebyl are ridiculous,” Mmirehl scoffed. “What do they expect? Are we suppose-ed to buy their wine now? How about the lazy freeloaders learn to work for it?”
“Anything else, Lieutenant?” asked the admiral.
“They say people who speak up disappear.”
Admiral Mnai rolled his
eyes. “And what do you think about these claims?”
The lieutenant fidgeted in his seat. “What do I care about the claims of traitors?”
The admiral took a few seconds to measure the response before finding it worthy and turning to the other lieutenant. “What have we heard from the Falali Mother?”
“Nothing yet. I expect-ed a response by carrier already, but the easterly currents are strong this season. The messenger mantas have to fight them all the way back from Selaita.”
Mnai nodded. Turning to me, he asked, “You ready for your departure.”
“Departure?”
“Must I ask everything twice?”
“Yes. The ceremony. I’m ready.”
“Good,” he said. “The boats go this afternoon. Captain Mmirehl, you will write up a story about it. I want it running on all the skyscreens a half hour before he departs. Keep it on a continuous loop. I want the departure film-ed and broadcast live, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said the captain.
“Are you sure you’re up for it, Colonel?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Good. The Jebyl need to be mollify-ed. I hope to get a positive response from the Falali Mother when the mantas arrive, but if not, it will be up to you to convince her to come back with you so she can make a statement and end this unrest.”
“You think she’ll do it?” asked one of the lieutenants.
Mnai nodded, a second chin appearing on his big head with each downstroke. “If anyone can convince her, the colonel can.”
How, exactly, I was supposed to do that I didn’t know. “I’ll do my best.”
A woman appeared at the door, her hair braided with silk ribbons, her robes the color of the sea, with an embroidered eel spiraling round and round. Her thin-soled sandals were strapped to her feet with silks that snaked around her ankles.
“The businessmen have arrive-ed,” she said. “They’re waiting for you to greet them topside.”
Mnai didn’t respond.
“Did you hear me, husband? Answer me when I talk to you.”
Tides of Maritinia Page 5