She stood and made her way to the cockpit with Darbeni in tow. Great! thought Darbeni. I am putting my life in the hands of a junkie.
Jena slid into the left-hand pilot’s seat and looked up at Darbeni. “Well? Aren’t you going to take the copilot’s seat?”
“But I don’t have the slightest idea of how to fly an airboat,” Darbeni protested.
“Just sit down, put on your seat harness, and don’t touch anything,” said Jena. “I’d like to have you up here so I can hear more about your plans.”
Darbeni nodded nervously, sat down, and buckled her harness as she was bid. Jena went through the familiar preflight checks and then powered up the airboat. Everything felt and smelled brand-new. “These engines sound different,” she observed aloud.
“My mother had new-generation engines fitted on her airboat,” she replied. “They’ve been fully tested, but we haven’t yet sold any to the military.”
Jena smiled in anticipation as she taxied out of the hangar. She took off steeply as a precaution. But then, on a whim, she opened up the throttles to full. As Darbeni had said, the engines were more powerful than any she had flown. Even though the airboat was bigger and heavier than the standard military Mark VIs and Mark VIIs, she accelerated much faster. Jena delighted in the G-forces that pinned her back in her seat. She held the airboat in a near-vertical attitude, her face stretched in a grin of pure glee, her eyes glazing over as the katsang began to kick in.
Darbeni held her seat armrests in a white-knuckled grip, closed her eyes, and concentrated on keeping her lavish lunch down. Jena kept the airboat climbing in that attitude till the sky outside the view-ports began to turn black, indicating that they were reaching the limits of the atmosphere of New Eartha. She debated dropping into a free fall and trying some aerobatics with this exhilarating new toy. However, glancing over at Darbeni, she saw that the Chief Counsel had her eyes tightly shut and her whole body was rigid with panic. Jena relented, glided down to a normal altitude of thirty thousand meters, and assumed level flight.
“We’re up and on our way,” she said. “You can relax now.”
Darbeni cautiously opened her eyes. As she got used to the smooth and horizontal flight, she slowly relaxed.
“Did you have to do that?” she complained. “You made my scary landing seem tame by comparison.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jena, laughing. “I guess I shouldn’t have used the retro boost. But this girl is just so powerful! I couldn’t help myself. When are we going to get these engines on our military boats?”
“As soon as High Priestess Princess Andromache agrees to pay for them,” said Darbeni crossly. “But don’t hold your breath—she is notoriously tightfisted.”
Jena made a face.
“Where are we meeting our first contact?” she asked, checking the instrument panel.
“In the small hamlet of Teslin, right by the falls,” Darbeni responded. “He is coming from Dreslin Center.”
“And what is our plan, once we get there?”
“We will land and meet my contact. Once I secure what I need, you will deal with him.”
“How sure are you that he will come alone? You have brought me with you—how do you know he will not bring warriors with him?”
“He is coming to get money,” said Darbeni. “He will not want to share it with others. Besides, he will want to keep his contact with us a secret.”
Jena nodded thoughtfully. Darbeni tapped her wrist bracer and sent her the coordinates of their landing site. Jena keyed them into the console and guided the airboat down on a gentle approach. They landed outside Teslin, in a gully by the head of the falls. The mighty Amu-Shan went over a precipice here and dropped into a gorge, creating a wild stretch of whitewater that ran almost to Chenak. Outside the airboat, the cataract made a continuous roar. However, it was still whisper-quiet inside.
“It is about half a kilometer to Teslin,” said Jena, pointing through the forward cockpit viewports. “The main Dreslin-Chenak road runs just on top of the rise at the end of the gully. What do we do now?”
“We wait,” said Darbeni cryptically.
Jena did not question her. She leaned back in the comfortable pilot’s seat and closed her eyes, seeming to drop off instantly into a nap. Darbeni was unused to her ways and frowned, thinking again about the drugs. I hope I have not chosen the wrong huntress for this job, she thought.
Darbeni stared out through the forward viewports till her eyes ached. Minutes ticked by. She continually checked her chronometer. He was not due for another fifteen minutes. However, she had convinced herself that he would be early and waiting for her, so she fretted. Finally, just a couple of minutes before the appointed time, she saw a head pop over the lip of the gully and look around watchfully. The man warily emerged and walked down toward the airboat, constantly looking around him.
“Not a very trusting customer.” Darbeni whirled around to see Jena was wide awake and unsnapping her harness with katsang-induced, bright-eyed hyperactivity. “What now, Chief Counsel?”
Darbeni unsnapped her own harness and scrambled to her feet.
“He will approach the airboat and put a parchment into the electronic reader by the main hatch. I will make sure it is what I want, and then you kill him.” Now that the time had come to act, she put her fear behind her.
Jena slid out from her seat smoothly and drew her laser pistol.
“No!” said Darbeni sharply. “Kill him with a barbarian weapon. And don’t leave anything behind like an arrow or a bolt. Use a dagger or a sword.”
“Picky, picky,” grumbled Jena, holstering the pistol.
They made their way to the main hatch. Darbeni activated the external cams, and the viewscreens came to life with outlooks all around the airboat. It was Holodus, Alumus’s senior cleric. He approached the airboat, and when he was just outside the main hatch, he reached into his robes and pulled out a parchment. He obviously knew exactly what he was looking for. He unerringly fed the parchment into the electronic reader.
Holodus expected the parchment to be fed back out to him and then for the mechanical arm to dispense the five gold talents. He had grown so used to this routine that he waited with his hand out, expecting to retrieve the parchment. However, the parchment did not reappear, and neither did the mechanical arm emerge to dispense his money.
Darbeni had reprogrammed the reader so it smoothly transferred the parchment into her hands on the interior side of the reader. She took it and read through it quickly.
“It is what I want,” she hissed to Jena. “Go and kill him!”
Holodus thought that there was a malfunction of some sort in the equipment. So he began to pound the smooth side of the airboat by the reader with his fist, hoping to jog the machinery to function as it always had in the past. Instead, the main hatch of the airboat hissed open, letting out a gust of warm air into the frigid atmosphere. Holodus gaped as he saw a huntress in combat uniform appear in a small cloud of mist as the warm air condensed.
As the hatch opened, the first Jena saw of Holodus was his stupefied face. However, he recovered quickly and retreated, holding his long triangle-mounted staff as a weapon. Jena came down the ramp and drew her sword.
“Where is my money?” Holodus cried angrily. His words were barely audible above the din of Teslin Falls. Jena did not answer him. She advanced on him purposefully, her boots crunching on the snow. Her temperature shield left a trail of snowmelt behind her. He moved his staff from side to side to guard against her rushing him with her sword. To his surprise, Jena stopped. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, judging the distance to the edge of the gully and the main road.
As he was debating fleeing, she transferred her sword to her left hand and drew a knife from her thigh boot. He looked back to see her heft the two weapons. He expected her to close in on him and moved his staff again from side to side. She did not attempt to come any closer. Too late, he saw her draw back her right arm with the knife in it. She threw the knife
adeptly, and it buried itself in his chest. He let out a gurgling sigh and sank down to his knees, clinging to his staff for support. Now she closed in on him and moved her sword to her right hand again. Her eyes were glassy as she prepared her sword.
“I go with joy to meet the divine Thermad,” he croaked. “And you will suffer the eternal torment of the damned.”
“Your Thermad is a worthless fraud,” said Jena, her voice mocking and higher-pitched than usual. “The truth is in my Mother Ma.”
She ran him through with a skillful thrust. Pulling her sword free, she stooped to retrieve her knife from his body. She jumped when she heard Darbeni.
“Go through his pockets,” said Darbeni, using a comm channel to be heard above the thundering waterfall. “You should find one of our locator bugs. Then take his money and leave his empty money pouch by the body. I want this to appear the work of bandits, with robbery as the motive.”
Jena did as she was bid and found a small Zon locator bug and a leather pouch in one of Holodus’s voluminous pockets. She transferred the coins to one of the pouches on her weapons belt. She dropped the empty pouch by Holodus’s body. By this time, Darbeni had already returned to the airboat. As soon as Jena joined her, she hit the hatch control. The ramp retracted, the hatch sealed, and they were in the blissful silence of the airboat again.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” asked Darbeni.
“Why don’t you kill the next one then,” snapped Jena.
“I was being facetious,” Darbeni said.
They settled back into their cockpit seats, and Jena opened up the engines.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Chenak,” said Darbeni. “And then our last stop is outside Aurora. I’ll give you the coordinates when we are airborne. Please take off gently.”
Jena nodded and rotated the engines downward to lift the airboat in a hover mode. They lifted off very gently, much to Darbeni’s relief.
In a secluded area out of Chenak, they repeated the exercise, this time with a plump merchant. His money pouch yielded considerably more, and Jena was pleased when Darbeni told her to keep it. Back in flight toward Aurora, both were beginning to think the operation would be much easier than they had expected.
In a secluded gully outside Aurora, the winter’s day had grayed into dusk. Jena landed the airboat and switched on discreet outside lights to guide their prey to them. Then she drifted off into her habitual catnap, while Darbeni worried.
This time her worries did not abate, for the appointed time came and went with no sign of her contact. She fretted and fidgeted as time seemed to move at a glacial pace. The dusk deepened into darkness, but still there was no movement outside. She asked Jena to turn on the bio-scanners and spent the next half hour tirelessly tuning and fiddling with them. But the only thing they picked up was a small pack of white-toed hyenas that slunk by the clearing.
Finally, when it was almost two hours past the appointed time, Jena seemed to wake and said, “It looks like he isn’t coming, Chief Counsel.”
“But he must,” insisted Darbeni. “He has never failed to keep his appointments before. I have data going back years! His last two meetings have been at this precise site.”
“Maybe he had to travel.”
“He would have touched the transponder on the locator bug we gave him and his new location would have been logged by our systems.”
“Maybe something made him suspicious.” Jena had video of the first two assignations saved in her personal data bank, so she felt she had enough to keep Darbeni under her control. “In any event, we can’t stay here indefinitely. We must get back to the Residency before the last watch. The later we get back, the more difficult it will be to convince the duty seignora that we were just out for a lark.”
“I suppose you are right,” said Darbeni, still agitated. “Let’s return. I’ll have to do more research to locate him.”
Jena has doubtless collected evidence of our doings today, she thought. I need to get her promoted quickly so she has as much to lose as me. And it will be good to have a personal ally who is a senior military officer. As Vivia says, a perfect plan works at many levels.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE THETIS WAS again at full speed, this time sailing for Karsk. Hebe was in the captain’s stateroom, lunching with her daughter, Brendel. The captain’s dining table was set up by a view-port, and they both looked down. Through breaks in the cloud cover, they could see the rugged terrain of the Plateau of Rocs, laced with ravines and raging rivulets.
“The barbarians think that rocs nested down there,” observed Brendel. “It is quite believable, isn’t it? Even from this height, it looks forbidding down there.”
“Rubbish,” said Hebe dismissively. “It is thinking like that that keeps them ignorant. Our priestesses have undertaken countless scientific expeditions there. They have found no evidence of a supersized bird. They have found fossils of large reptiles, including some that flew, but even the most recent ones are several million years old—long before the barbarians had evolved.”
“Oh, that is so boringly nerdish,” said Brendel with a laugh. “It is so much more romantic to think of great sentient flying beasts, nesting in the wild crags.”
“Well, my dear, romance won’t keep this ship in the air,” said Hebe. “But on the subject of barbarians, I will breathe much easier when we have debarked Lothar and his army at Karsk.”
“My squadron is going to give them air cover,” said Brendel. “It should be good fun.”
“Who told you that?” asked Hebe sharply.
“Cornelle Diana sent us a message on the comm. She’s planned the attack with Baron Pinnar Nibellus, the barbarian commander.”
Hebe almost cursed but held herself in check with an effort. Trust Diana to take over everything and leave me out of the loop, she thought.
“What else has she told you?” Hebe asked, her voice brittle.
“She also sent me a personal message,” Brendel said. She was so happy that she did not notice her mother’s discomfiture. “After we take Karsk, she wants me to lead a squadron to support First Maiden Durga Bodina in retaking Ostracis. She says that she has every confidence in me and that I have unique combat experience in the Steefen Gorge. Isn’t it exciting, Mother? Leading a squadron! I will be a seignora soon.”
“Yes, very exciting,” said Hebe. Brendel finally noticed her lack of enthusiasm and fell silent.
THE THETIS HAD huge prison holds, mainly used when the Zon resettled troublesome barbarian populations. These had been appointed with minimal comforts and were now occupied by Lothar’s troops. In an unprecedented move, he and his barons had been given upper-deck suites at the rear of the airship. These suites and the prison holds were sealed off from the rest of the airship. Armed huntresses guarded the sealed portals. Greghar and Nitya were allowed to remain in the sick bay with Caitlin, since Dannae had reluctantly concluded that their presence seemed to lift her spirits. However, two of Ling Mae’s huntresses were detailed to watch over them.
Diana had just completed what she hoped was her final meeting with Pinnar and his captains. She opened a comm channel to the huntresses guarding the portal. It slid open to admit her and silently resealed behind her. She acknowledged the salutes of the huntresses and proceeded to the sick bay in response to a call from Dannae. She found her in the physical therapy unit with Caitlin. They both stood, hands on hearts, when she entered. Greghar and Nitya stood by, trying to be unobtrusive.
“Thank you for coming, Cornelle,” said Dannae, her salute incongruous with her heavy pregnancy. “Seignora Princess Caitlin wished you to sign off on her progress sheet as she prepares for reaccreditation as a huntress.”
Diana smiled at Caitlin, who looked uncomfortable.
“Everything proceeding well, Caitlin?” she asked.
“I…I…hope…” Caitlin stuttered.
Dannae rescued her. She smoothly cutting in, saying, “Princess Caitlin has had a difficult morning, Corn
elle. We are running a bit behind schedule in her rehab. But you will see for yourself.”
Self-consciously, Caitlin sat down in a leg-press machine. Dannae strapped her in and adjusted the settings. She positioned her good right leg first. She set the resistance at level ten, which was the minimum required to qualify as a huntress. Caitlin looked up at Dannae, who said, “Give it a go whenever you are ready, ma’am.”
Caitlin gripped the handrails, tensed her muscles, and pushed. She grunted with the effort, and the pedal moved, slowly at first and then more fluidly. Once she got it moving, she easily moved her leg out to a near-full extension and did three repetitions. Dannae moved the resistance to eleven, and Caitlin repeated the exercise with slightly more effort. She clicked it up to twelve, the minimum level required by the Palace Guardians, and Caitlin was still able to repeat the exercise, though now her effort was obvious.
“Bravo, Caitlin,” said Diana, clapping her on the shoulder. “You did that pretty easily. You could probably go up to fourteen or even fifteen.”
Nitya squeezed Greghar’s hand, whispering, “She is back to normal! I’m so happy!”
“The injured leg is much weaker,” cautioned Dannae. “Don’t expect anything near this strength.”
She switched the straps and positioned Caitlin’s left leg. In spite of the rebuilt muscle and skin grafts, there were large black patches on her thigh.
“I thought everything was rebuilt,” said Diana.
“It was, Cornelle,” said Dannae. “We did the best we could. We have every medical capability here on the Thetis; we could not have done better in Atlantic City. Princess Caitlin’s injury was untreated for over twelve hours. Bone shards had severed several major arteries. The internal hemorrhaging was very severe—by the time we got her into the operating theatre here, she was near death. The black patches stem from damage deep in the tissue. They will fade over time but will probably never completely disappear. And there is no telling whether the leg will ever be as strong as it was before the injury.”
The Empire of the Zon Page 61