by Jo Zebedee
That made her laugh, even though she was tight with nerves and her fingers tingled with adrenaline. He pulled on an old, battered cap and tilted it over his eyes.
“Lichio,” she said, her voice halting. She touched his arm. When he was a kid he’d been army-mad, running around the base with sticks in place of a rifle, determined to beat the bad guys. All of them. He’d no idea what would be asked of him. Her throat tightened. “Take care of yourself. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
“You too.” He gave a quick grin. “Love you, sis.”
It was so casual, so unforced, so Lichio. She smiled. “Love you too.”
He gave a mock-salute and made his way through the commercial travellers milling around the concourse. He blended in perfectly; even his walk was different, less graceful, somehow, the rolling gait of one who’d spent a lot of time on ships and not always ones with grav-regs.
He vanished into the crowd, and she faced the door to the security hall. From beyond she could hear voices and the sound of security-scanners.
This was it: time to not just face the music, but to make it sing her tune. She thought of Abendau’s city streets, where Lichio would weave his way through, keeping to the shadows. Had he really believed she’d let him walk into danger and not do what she could to support him?
Abendau was her city, its people had voted for her: let the Empress try to stop her claiming it back. This fight was what Sonly had been born to, what she’d trained for years to face, and she was more than ready for it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The lights of Abendau came closer, sharp pins against the now-dark sky. The sand was lit up by the scoot’s lights, reminding Kerra of the night she’d been taken from the compound, the night she’d learned what it really meant to be a Varnon.
She had to do something: anything. She closed her eyes and reached inside. No matter how strange it felt or how uncomfortable it made her, she had to find a way to make the mesh work. She glanced at the two scoots flanking theirs: she’d have to deal with them, too.
She gritted her teeth, and the mesh responded to her, faster than the last time, switching its broken shape into something more orderly; a circle of minds, a linked hive of power, formed around her. She let it settle into shape. She’d tried shaping it, she’d tried controlling it, she’d tried coming out of it. None of it had worked. Maybe she should just let it have its own way.
She focused on the stream of power, endlessly circling. It had formed into a deep pool that wouldn’t drain, its shape smoother than the one her father had governed. Slowly she let the knowledge of the power grow. She breathed deeply, relaxing. Colours bloomed and vanished behind her eyes, in tandem with the power – a red for a sudden surge, purple holding it steady, a blue for when the mesh was quiet and still. She let it go where it wanted, take what it needed of her. The hive-mind oozed into every corner of her, but she stayed calm.
It stilled to a steady, warm purple. She no longer knew where the mesh ended and she began. Slowly, she concentrated on the scoot. She reached out, steady and careful, and the power came with her. It was working.
Stop the scoot. The response was a cascade of power; a flower opening to its full potential. She focused on the engine.
The scoot slammed to a halt. The shielding fell away. Phelps cursed, loud in still air. Baelan looked over, his eyes alert, questioning. She smiled. Yes, she’d done it. She, who could barely shift a cup across a room, had stopped the scoot. She felt for her seat-bindings, and they were loose. Quickly she undid the clasps. Baelan did the same, looking between Phelps and her, eyes shifting and restless.
Phelps, night creature that he was, turned at the soft clicks. “Stop.”
She’d had enough of him. She jumped from her seat onto the packed desert sand and glared up at him. “Get down.” She held her hand out, palm open. The mesh hummed with anticipation and she smiled at the sensation of being so right, and so complete. “I’m warning you.”
“A nice bluff.” His face grew colder. “Get back on the scoot.” He raised his hand to the other scoots. “Take her.”
Bluffing, was she? Baelan jumped down, giving a soft thud as he hit the sand. She advanced on Phelps. The stream of power was still there, waiting, and she blasted it at him, knocking him from the scoot, hard onto his back.
“Hey!” Booted footsteps ran across the hardened sand. The other scoots were idling a few feet away, their soldiers on the ground, hoping to take her.
She raised a hand. The power waited. This must have been how Baelan felt in the forest. Like he couldn’t be stopped. She hit out, hard. The lead soldier’s head snapped back, hit by something, and he fell, yelling. She hit the others, one after the other, and none of them got back up.
“Way to go, sis!” shouted Baelan. “Watch Phelps! Hit the backstabbing bastard again!”
She spun and Phelps was struggling to his knees, one hand reaching for his blaster, the other across his chest as if protecting it. She had hurt Phelps, the way he’d hurt her father. He freed his blaster, and brought it up but, with a quick close of her fingers, it fell from his hand. She advanced, slow and steady. His eyes were wild, staring. He was frightened of her. She opened her hand, letting the power build again. He was right to be frightened. She could do anything she wanted. It felt amazing.
“I’m not bluffing.” She smiled, ready to use it. She wouldn’t just stun him, she’d finish him.
“Kerra!” Baelan’s shout broke her attention. She swung to him, furious, but he held up Phelps’ blaster. “I can take him.”
“No need,” she said. Phelps was on his feet, his eyes desperate and dangerous. “I can deal with him.” He’d killed Sam, who’d protected her at the compound. He’d taken her father to the Empress, not once but twice. And he’d taken her. She opened her palm. “I want to.”
“Kerra...?” Baelan’s voice was small. “What are you doing?”
“I’m enjoying myself.” She was, too. “It’s incredible. You must know – you’ve had power like this all your life.”
She turned back to Phelps, ready to hurt him like he’d hurt others. The general had left, sprinting across the sand, kicking it up with his heels, small puffs against the dark sky. No matter; she could reach him for miles.
Baelan grabbed her hand. “Let him go,” he said.
She shook her head. She could finish it right now.
“Trust me.” He was grinning, the way he had in the forest when he’d known something she didn’t, and the light in his eyes was similar to when he’d told her about the sprites. “Let him go. It’ll be better this way.”
She lowered her hand. Baelan knew the desert better than she did, and he hated Phelps at least as much as she did. More, perhaps – the man had never pretended to be her friend and then abandoned her. Phelps disappeared from sight.
“Did you do all that?” Baelan asked, taking in the scene: the scoot on the sand and the soldiers lying in a tangled heap.
“Yeah.” She found herself smiling. “I’ve fixed the mesh.” A part of her, deep-buried, tried to protest, but she pushed it away. Her dad had been the wrong person; she was doing him a favour by making the mesh stronger.
“Kerra.” Baelan looked more than worried, almost frightened. “I don’t think that’s a good thing. We don’t really understand how it works.”
Details, details. She looked at her brother with pity. To know only his single-stranded power, and not this… this… magnificence. She was never going to let this go. She couldn’t remember why she’d been fighting something so right.
She turned her head to Abendau, her eyes narrowed, thinking. “Can you drive a scoot?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why?”
Why? Wasn’t it obvious? Their father wasn’t the right person to face the Empress, not when he had to force and twist the mesh to his command. She was; he needed her with him. She jumped into one of the two front seats, leaving the control seat free for Baelan.
“Good,” she
said. “Take me to Abendau.”
***
The transporter reached the palace and pulled into one of the service entries. Kare swallowed against a dry, tight throat. The palace operatives had confirmed the Empress had returned to her personal quarters.
Cold terror gripped him at the thought of going into the building, of feeling its walls imbued with the sense of his mother. He climbed out, drawing the cold desert air into his lungs, and held out his security documents with a hand as steady as it needed to be. He stared at his feet; he was a cleaner entering the palace, in thrall to the Empress. He should know his place.
A soldier stopped in front of him, and his nerves grew. His disguise should be enough, but the palace garrison knew him well. Assuming some of them had survived the change in regime, a mannerism, or the way he walked, his crooked fingers perhaps, could be picked up. If he was picked up, the rest of the squad would be, too. He could feel their tension, as if the air was cracking with it.
“You’re new,” said the soldier.
Kare nodded his head. “Yes, sir.” He took the voice of Kerra’s old tutor, desert-reared, and matched the cadence. It might not be the perfect match his powers allowed him, but it was close enough that they wouldn’t pick him out by his voice. “I was based in the compound until now.”
“Your clearance documents.”
Kare handed them over and the soldier went into the palace, out of sight, leaving Kare to wait and will himself to stay calm. His docs were top-notch; there was nothing to worry about. Long moments stretched. The rest of the squad had theirs handed back, one by one. They got into the transport and their muted voices reached him, talking about the rally planned in the city later, their plans, anything except their colleague.
Kare stared forwards, not allowing himself to glance at the transporter. Damn, there was something wrong; this was taking too long. He itched to know the man’s thoughts. Sweat broke under the heavy cleaner’s uniform; to have come this far and not even make it inside couldn’t be thought of.
Footsteps rang out. The soldier returned. His blaster was loosened in its holster and Kare couldn’t remember if it had been like that before. He stopped in front of Kare, running his eyes up and down him, contemptuous of the ragged hair and old uniform. “You’re clear.”
Kare let his shoulders sag – a cleaner undergoing a palace security sweep was always nervous, in his experience – and took back his documents. “Thank you, sir.”
He climbed into the back of the transporter. His colleagues gave a few jeers about being checked out but fell into silence once the door closed. The transport passed smoothly under a long arch and stopped in a service courtyard, one of many in the palace.
The doors opened, light from the floodlit courtyard spilling in. Kare got out first, jumping onto the cobbles, and the team followed. They unpacked the cleaning equipment from the back of the transporter, working in near silence, the perfect model of palace efficiency.
Soldiers manned the courtyard: two on the arched entranceway, two at the door into the palace, others patrolling the ramparts, but no one approached to check his squad’s work. Cleaning crews filled the palace at night, invisible in hierarchy-obsessed Abendau. He half-smiled; good, let his mother’s blinkered vision, her focus on a person’s status and not their worth, be her downfall.
The back doors of the transporter closed with a dull thud. Kare straightened, fighting to keep his nerves under control. He stepped towards the entrance to the palace and the security hall beyond, on the balls of his feet. A familiar surge of pre-battle adrenaline filled him, and it wasn’t unwelcome. He stooped through the door into the entrance hall, carrying a floor cleaner in one hand, a vermin-sensor in the other. It was appropriate: tonight, the palace was going to get the cleaning it had long deserved. One that removed all the vermin. Especially the spider at the centre.
He cracked his knuckles, the familiar pain keeping things real, and walked into a future he had never foretold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The double doors slid open in front of Sonly and she passed into the port’s security hall, filtering through with the other new arrivals. Just below ceiling height a pair of personnel-scanners worked at full speed, sending constant beeps through the air to accompany the buzz of voices. Body after body flashed as they scanned the crowd. Any possible contraband or weapon brought the scanner’s attention onto the person, showing them in a red colour, easily picked out by the roving security teams. No wonder Lichio hadn’t come through here – with the sort of equipment he routinely carried, he’d light the whole hall up. He’d have to bypass the cargo-security bays, too, but he had been privy to the port’s security procedures over the years and should have the knowledge to work with.
Beyond the scanners a second line of security waited, this one human. She’d have to get past that and out into the main concourse, full of luxury shops and eateries. Therein lay the problem, and the one Lichio had felt insurmountable. She was the president. She was known – even if she had tried to get through on false documents, she’d have been picked up, not to mention how it would look, trying to sneak into her own city. Once that happened, she would not be allowed to pass – and if she forced it, she would be arrested.
Her hand went to her waist, without thinking, to where the holster for her pistol would normally be strapped. Despite its being legally held and within ordinary parameters for a personal citizen, it would have brought her to the early attention of the security guards. Without it, she felt bare, which was silly – the pistol would make no difference to her plans. In fact, if she got to the point where she needed one, things would have gone badly wrong.
She stepped past two security guards, their batons by their sides, shock-tensors full. She kept her head down, not wanting to be recognised so soon. Not here, where there were too few people to notice her. Already Abendau was reverting to what it had once been: brutal, cruel, the Empress’ city. It further strengthened the knowledge that, once recognised, she’d be dealt with robustly. Her only defence lay in who she was.
She swerved to avoid a pilot undergoing a full search at a security bay well back from the main line of bays. He held his arms out, his face resigned, and she noticed there were others waiting in a cordoned-off line. Normally, she wouldn’t come through a security hall such as this, but be whisked through the VIP channels. The fresh eyes allowed her to pick up the disparity between the back of the hall and the section closest to the concourse, where there were no shabby pilots, but passengers in stylish clothes much like her own. Their luggage was richly embellished with great family insignias to indicate the planet they were from. Some, like her, would have landed in private ships; most would have flown first class in shuttles. However they’d got there, that was the company she needed to be in.
She joined a line for the security barriers, choosing one in the centre, and scanned the concourse beyond. There was no sign of any of the senators. A brief tickle of worry started as the queue moved forwards quicker than she’d expected. Without support, this was going to be brief. She gulped past a hard knot in her throat. Without support, it could be a visit to the city and the Empress: Sonly under arrest was undoubtedly what the regime would prefer.
She reached the head of the queue, and the guard on the main desk held his hand out. “Your pass.”
“Certainly.” She handed over the documents proclaiming her President of Abendau. Her face, one of the stills she used for publicity, stared out of the security holo.
The guard’s eyes widened in recognition. She savoured that moment, and the pause he gave before turning away and beckoning another guard over. It felt good to be doing something instead of waiting and worrying.
“I wish to pass into the city,” she said.
He grabbed her arm, his fingers hard. “We have orders to detain you on sight, Ms le Payne.”
“You have no right to anything until I clear security,” she said. “I’m under intergalactic administration until then.” A small crowd had
gathered. She held her head up and let her voice ring out. “If you arrest, detain, or do anything to me, these people will know.”
She cast her gaze around the crowd, who appeared more inquisitive than militant, and fought the urge to stand on tiptoe to get a better look at the concourse. She needed the senators, right about now.
“Got your clothes on?” asked a man in the crowd. A ripple of laughter spilled out, but she ignored it. If nothing else, at least she’d make a different news story today.
The crowd parted, their laughter dying away as a news-crew passed through their midst. The security guard tightened his grip for a moment and then loosened it. More people joined the watchers, drawn by the cameras.
“Sonly le Payne.” The voice was professional and known to Sonly. Sinead Solento, one of the leading news broadcasters on Belaudii, and always up for a scoop. “Can you give us a smile?”
She could, of course, but she didn’t. Instead, she stared at the camera, allowing her anger to build just enough that it would show. This was her city, that she’d been voted to lead, and she was having to turn somersaults just to get in.
Sinead beckoned four holo-recorders forwards. She had been one of the journalists tipped off that the story they’d been covering for the last day might not be the accurate one. As she was never one to miss a scoop, Sonly had been sure she could be relied on. The recorders fanned out so they captured each angle of the incident. Sonly’s stomach rippled with an excitement familiar from her early days in Abendau when every success had been fought for. She’d missed this when she’d led the Senate.
More security reached her, one talking into an earpiece. He gave a firm nod and approached her. “Ms le Payne, we have a directive issued for your ar—”
She pulled herself up to her full height. Yes, she’d definitely missed this.
“On what grounds?” she asked. She waited, and no answer was forthcoming. She spread her hands, taking in the three cameras. “Any action you take will be on the news-holos as soon as you do it.” She lowered her voice and leaned in to the security chief. “I’ll make sure it’s one hell of a show. Arresting the elected president for returning, unarmed and openly, to the city? That’s the sort of headlines I would like to see.”