Soldier's Duty

by Patty Jansen

  Wait. Those timers could be disrupted by a strong external signal. She held her comm next to it and issued a message blast. All around Barresh, people would be waking up now from her messages.

  She held her breath. The blinking light stopped.

  Taerzo blew out a deep breath. He sank down on the lover's bench, on top of the fallen flowers, his head in his hands.

  Braedon's pale face looked in from the street through the metal latticework in the wall. There were voices in the street behind him, and a child was crying.

  "I think we've got it disarmed," Izramith said. Her heart was still thudding.

  "You need help?"

  "I've got to find the explosives before anyone can go back into the house."

  "Wait. I'll be there soon."

  A moment later, the gate creaked and Braedon came back, together with Rehan.

  "Is it safe to approach the house?" Rehan asked.

  "I think so. The ignition has been disarmed, but don't touch anything, especially not items that can be moved, like furniture or plants."

  Taerzo joined his brother up the path. A moment later, the light from Rehan's comm device lit up the dark space under the porch. He scanned the walls, found nothing and jumped off the porch, looked underneath.

  "This is going to take a long time," Izramith said to Braedon. "You're better off taking the family somewhere else."

  Braedon went back out the gate. People were talking out there and a moment later the gate opened again and someone tall with curly hair came in.

  Daya.

  He came straight for her.

  "Need help?" He spoke in clipped Hedron Coldi. Very business-like.

  "I've called Dashu and asked for Eris. He's got explosives and tech experience. He should be here soon."

  Daya nodded and looked at the house, where Rehan and Taerzo were still examining the outer walls.

  Izramith was wondering if he was going to say anything else. Something like sorry or I think you might be right would do for her, but that didn't seem to be part of his vocabulary.

  Chapter 28

  Izramith remained with Rehan and Braedon in the garden, assisting Dashu and Eris and other security crews when they arrived. When daylight came, Izramith left the house and walked back to her guesthouse room.

  The markets in full swing already, with a steady stream of people wheeling trolleys with produce from the local fields up the hill. There were tottering piles of baskets with leaves, nuts, fruit and fish. Also, bags full of flowers, which a couple of Pengali men were weaving into ornamental head dresses. Probably some festivity going on.

  She came past the airport, where a number of private craft stood in the corner furthest away from the building. Two bored guards leaned against the gate.

  Just a normal day in Barresh. No one cared much about the missing girls apart from their families. No one cared about the missing Pengali and the missing zhadya-born at all. Worlds were not so different from each other. They each had groups that were too distanced from the society norm to be truly part of that society. Governments didn't judge these people worth the risk of sparking a conflict. Their relatives didn't have the power or were too tied up in abusive structures to challenge.

  She arrived in her room, and sat with her reader on the bed, flicking through maps of Miran. The city had a classic village structure, like Pataniti, but of course much bigger. There was a central square, where the council buildings were located on the north side, a huge interlinking complex with a couple of different building styles and courtyards big enough to land an aircraft.

  The more she thought of it, the more she realised that she would be the ideal person to mount a private action to free these people and the more she wanted to do it. Between maps and pictures of the council building complex in Miran and Mikandra's description, she could tell where the group was likely to be held. The Mirani Trader Guild headquarters were to the north-west of the square. There was a narrow street in between it and a part of the council buildings that, on the satellite image, were not marked as in use for anything. From the top floor of the back of the Trader Guild building, you would be able to see over the wall that surrounded the council complex, and you'd see parts of those wings.

  She could go to Miran with a team pretending to be visitors of some kind. Over the days that she'd been here, she'd been surprised at how many shuttle flights still went to and from Miran. The borders were not entirely sealed. If Miran was like Hedron, shuttle crew had immunity from border checks anyway, as long as they didn't leave the airport. Merchants and private people still travelled to Miran, and they weren't all Mirani either.

  With a bit of dressing up, she could pass for a merchant. She'd seen old bit and pieces of security equipment for sale in a shop. She could carry those along as "demonstration material", as long as the equipment in question didn't violate the boycott on imports into Miran.

  A team would go in and climb the wall that surrounded the complex at night. They would take the people into the courtyard. The person flying the craft would then bring it and land it in the courtyard.

  What would she need?

  An aircraft, a pilot, a couple people handy with guns, especially when hanging out an aircraft, someone who spoke Mirani well enough to pass as local.

  Getting the people… might not be a problem, although she doubted that any of the Andrahar brothers would be interested, but who would lend an aircraft for this mad mission? The brothers' Traders' Craft were all too small.

  * * *

  For the next few days, Izramith and the team spent a frustrating amount of time doing mundane work: checking out all the councillors' yards and overseeing the issuing of passes for the day. Every time when in the street one of the councillors from the cellar walked past her, Izramith wanted to scream at him, It's not my fault that no one is doing anything. It wasn't entirely true that nothing happened. Rehan agreed to change the route so that it wouldn't go past the guesthouse or the commercial building. It would now go one block further to the north and go past the Exchange instead. Izramith didn't think it was enough, and would have preferred the parade to be cancelled in favour of a street party at the markets, but at least the parade no longer went past a number of houses in the hands of risk families. And the parade might yet be cancelled; there were some rumours about that. Even the larger security force was paralysed with indecision: there were those who agreed with Izramith and those, mainly older ones, who said threats and posturing by Miran was nothing new and the best response was to ignore it.

  A middle-aged Kedrasi woman replaced Loxa. She was a good worker, but very quiet and Dashu didn't speak to her more than necessary. In fact, Dashu didn't speak much at all, except to announce publicly that after the wedding she would go back to her family in Athyl. Eris became withdrawn as well, but it took a lame joke about how he would have to develop a ceramic skin for Izramith to realise that there had been a lot more going on under the surface of her team.

  "You not know?" Wairin asked her when she commented to him about it. "Loxa and Dashu—they zhaymas. But Eris, he have stars in his eyes when she walk past."

  And that made Izramith angry. Well, why the fuck would she get angry with Daya's ineptitude to judge people when her own judgement was just as bad?

  She might as well face it: the team was broken and Izramith didn't know how to fix it.

  They saw little of Braedon. He only came in for short periods of time, and Izramith got no opportunity to speak to him alone.

  If she had, she wouldn't have known what to say to him anyway. All his actions showed that he was happy with their pledge of nethana and had moved on. Like most Traders, he probably visited companion ladies a lot and thought nothing more of their one-night stand.

  But every time he did walk into the security room, or met the team in the street, the light became a little brighter, and the breeze a little warmer. Izramith tried to get to speak to him personally, but the one time she did, on the stairs leading up to the foyer, she clammed up
and didn't know what to say.

  She was standing there, her mind gone blank, looking into his eerily light eyes and all she could think of was seeing his eyes closed and the look on his face as he spilled himself inside her. The feel of his hair under her hands. The male scent of his sweat. Thoughts like that would normally set off a flush, and by now enough days had gone past that she could flush again. But no matter how much she wanted the flush to happen, it wouldn't come. See? Even her own body thought she was being stupid.

  And Braedon said, "Well then, I'll go back to work." And went back to his job, leaving her to stand on the stairs, screaming frustration on the inside.

  For fuck's sake, three simple words shouldn't be so hard to say.

  I was wrong would have been a good starting point, not to think of all the other three-word sentences that she wanted, but was too afraid, to say.

  So he left the building, as she had told him, and did not look back.

  * * *

  A couple of days before the wedding, the pace increased. A small Rhion craft arrived from Hedron. Izramith happened to be at the Exchange and from the large window that overlooked the square, she could see Ydana and Amandra Bisumar come down the ramp, in presence of their adopted children. They both wore the purples and lilacs of the Hedron Traders and since the picture Izramith had seen of the couple, she had cut her hair even further so it was now short and spiked-up, like Mikandra's. She also wondered why, as Traders and with at least two aircraft between them, they'd use a shuttle, but on further inspection, there were a lot more small shuttles at the airport. The Andrahar family had probably hired them to bring their guests to Barresh. Some people had entirely too much money.

  Izramith met a group of pilots later in the street. Laughing, talking, all dressed in Pilot Guild uniform. Her eyes met those of one of the female pilots. While as guard, she had seen most of these people before, this particular woman was different: she had also served at Indrahui.

  She saw the Trading family later in the afternoon, too, when she walked into the guesthouse and they were coming out, talking and laughing like a happy family.

  There were guards everywhere on the streets now, and Eris had his hands full managing them. From the security room, Izramith could now see along the entire route through cameras Dashu and her council workers had installed and someone attended the station at all times.

  It was Izramith's turn that night.

  She sat in the chair in the middle of the room struggling not to fall asleep. The last few nights she had slept badly again. Seriously, that adaptation crap was supposed to have finished by now.

  Darkness was falling over the city outside. Flocks of meili fluttered between the trees. She switched to the camera that stood at the back of the Andrahar house. Daya had just come out of the balcony door for his daily feeding ritual. It was such an oddly private moment for a man whose social awkwardness rolled off him in waves.

  Izramith almost felt sad when the moment was over, the contents of the bowl consumed and the furry visitors had gone back to their trees. She returned to her regular program: Sunset Street, markets and square, Fountain Street—

  Wait, what was that?

  A golden-curled head in the citizens at Fountain Street. Not just anyone, but a familiar face: Ridan.

  Eris was off-duty, but she called him anyway. He answered his comm with a lot of noise in the background.

  "You know how we got the news that Ridan apparently killed himself in jail? Have you seen a death report?"

  She had to repeat her question. He was, he said, at a family function and couldn't hear her very well.

  No, he hadn't seen the death report. "But that's not unusual. It's not my job to look at those. Why?"

  "Because he's walking down Fountain Street."

  "You're sure? Wait for me, I'm coming in."

  Izramith protested, but he said the party was boring anyway and was looking for a way to escape.

  But when Eris had turned up, and they'd run the security camera recordings through the face recognition, the man turned out to be someone different. Moreover, Izramith began to think that this could be the man she had seen making threats to the young Semisu nephew on her second night in Barresh.

  "Ridan said he was born from a keihu mother and a Mirani Endri father. There are obviously more of these people that look like him of similar parentage. Ridan might have turned against the Mirani, but others clearly haven't. We might have dented their plans, but we haven't killed them. Those people are even still walking around the streets. No matter what Daya says, I think we need to get the councillors' full cooperation before, and not after the wedding. They've admitted that there will be people in town who have sold out to Mirani interests. I know you've been through the wedding guest list extensively, but there are members of old keihu families on that list, and until we solve the problem of their girls kept hostage, we can't trust any of them."

  Eris nodded, his face dark. "Believe me, we all know that you're right. It's just that right now, with as little time as we have, all we can do is instate a contingency plan."

  "Or do something that no one expects." Like strike deep into Miran and free those people.

  Except she still hadn't solved the aircraft problem.

  Well, bugger that.

  She leaned on an elbow, staring at the many recordings of the security cameras. People walking to the markets, people carrying their purchases home, people talking at eateries, a line of people walking from the half-completed aircraft building—

  And then she had another crazy idea.

  * * *

  Silence fell in the room when Izramith finished speaking. It was late and the Andrahar house was quiet—no twins running in the hall, no voices in the kitchen.

  Outside the large window everything was dark. She couldn't even see the outlines of the aircraft, only her own reflection, and that of Braedon and Rehan's backs, in the glass.

  Rehan regarded her with a serious expression on his face. She would have preferred not to to have him here. He seemed too friendly with Daya. But Taerzo, whom she'd judged more inclined to agree to her plan, was on a business run and Rehan had opened the door and he had let her into the formal living room.

  "So, essentially, you want to run a quick mission into the heart of Miran, free these people and get out again?" His voice sounded incredulous, sarcastic even.

  "Pretty much."

  "Whatever makes you think that crazy plan will work?"

  "There are no guarantees, ever, that anything will work."

  "No, of course not." In a don't-be-smart-with-me tone.

  Izramith glanced at the clothes stand in the far corner of the room. On it hung a heavily embroidered dress with a sheer, see-through veil. It was pretty, but not elaborate enough to be the family's wedding costume, she thought.

  "However," she continued in a lower voice, "It is something Miran won't be expecting."

  "Well, that is true." He frowned and then met her eyes. "Does anyone know of this?"

  "I proposed it to Daya, and he didn't like it."

  "I'd say for good reason. This is the craziest thing I've ever heard." But he continued to frown and his voice had lost some of its sting.

  "We don't need Daya's approval to do this. In fact, the less people know about it, the better."

  "But—what is the plan? I haven't heard you talk about anyone except yourself. You're going to need help. There are at least thirty of these people, if not more. How do you expect to walk into Miran and demand their freedom. For one, you'd never get a visitor's permit, not in the current climate."

  "I'm not demanding anything. We'll go up to the part of the building in question, and simply free them."

  "I understand that part, but how would you even get into Miran?"

  "Well… We pretend we're someone else, like a passenger flight. There happens to be a suitable craft I could borrow."

  "One of the passenger shuttles?" Braedon's eyes were wide.

  "Tell me the fuck
you're kidding."

  "Nope. I served at Indrahui with the pilot."

  "Shit." Silence. "You're serious, right? You could lose your job."

  "My contract is about to finish anyway."

  Braedon gave her a glance of astonishment.

  "The crew could lose their jobs."

  "We don't need a crew. We need a pilot." She didn't let her gaze waver from Braedon's.

  He blew out a forceful breath and hid his face in his hands.

  "The fuck you don't, brother," Rehan said. "Don't you go doing stupid things. One conviction and your licence gets suspended."

  Braedon nodded slowly. He looked at his folded hands on his knees. "Yup. We know that from experience. It's much safer if we don't do silly things like that."

  "Good. Then we're in agreement."

  "However, I suspect that she will go anyway."

  Izramith nodded. "Whether Daya agrees or not, we can't sit here and—"

  "She is one of the Hedron guards and has no personal involvement in this issue—"

  "—I do, actually—"

  Braedon kept talking. "Miran is our nation. I've kept my citizenship because I hope that some time in the future people will see sense and get rid of this tyrant and his lackeys. However, that is not going to happen unless people see the truth of what sort of person Nemedor Satarin really is. In one way or another, we've known about these prisoners for a long time. Everyone's been talking about it, even at the Mirani chapter of the guild. They were always rumours denied by the council, but we know that anything like this that the council denies is likely true. We've stood by and let it happen, too busy saving ourselves.

  "Well, guess what? I'm not busy anymore. Out of the three of us, my business has taken the hardest hit. I had a successful Trading business and now I don't. My business was reliant on Miran and the Miran hospital, where I can barely travel these days without someone attempting to stick a knife up my back. I love Miran, and one day hope to go back there. For that to happen, it is important that we get rid of the tyrant. Maybe we should stand up and see that their deeds are exposed. It's all very well to hide in Barresh, but if even someone who has no personal involvement—"