“The point is, you couldn’t stop them and all of us have suffered as a result.”
Ravindra’s lips smiled. Damn his insolent hide. “You’ve been most fortunate, Sur. I expect your house’s position on this island helped protect it. I note that you were here, not in the city as you would normally be at the time the attack took place. The workers in the Shuba districts on the mainland were not so lucky.” He glanced down at his notes. “At last count, five thousand killed, fifteen thousand homeless and still rising.”
Gupta sat upright, chest swelling in righteous indignation. “I do not have to account for my time to you, Ravindra. But I was here because my wife was ill. You think I haven’t been damaged? The blast and fires destroyed my town house in Electra, flattened it. And my office and one of my factories. It will take me years to recover.”
“Sur Gupta, Admiral, please,” Fohrai said, holding a fist in the air. “We have more pressing concerns than laying blame.”
“Of course.” Ravindra held Gupta’s gaze until he looked away. “I have deployed troops and equipment to assist and support your people in rescue and recovery, as well as clean- up operations.”
He went through the list; how many, where, what equipment. One or two people asked for additional resources. Lindar made notes and Ravindra agreed to do what he could. He detested this; detested arriving too late, detested feeling impotent, especially with that smirking clown opposite him virtually admitting complicity.
“We appreciate your help, of course, Admiral,” a sour-faced woman sitting beside Gupta said. “But what do we do next time? Will you leave a fleet to protect us?”
Ravindra touched her image on the panel. Lisper Wintari, Vesha, mayor of Chesson, resplendent in an orange costume, orange ribbons in her hair. “I wish I could, Suri Wintari,” Ravindra said. “But we do not have enough ships to leave a fleet in every system.”
She pursed her lips. “So you’re saying you can’t protect us? Surely you can leave a couple of warships, at least.”
“Suri, you were attacked by a fleet of ten ships,” Ravindra said. “Even a large warship is vulnerable to attack from so many vessels.”
“We need our own fleet, that’s the answer,” another man said. Another Vesha mogul, Hordon Zaffra.
“Don’t you know your history, Zaffra?” Gron Teed, Mirka, minister for planetary security, placed his hands flat on the table and leaned at the speaker, brows lowered. “If we go down that course, the Union will disintegrate. It’s happened before.”
Zaffra dismissed the remark with a flick of his fingers, within an ace of rudeness. “That was centuries ago. We’ve come a long way since then.”
“On this planet, yes.” Governor Fohrai raised his voice and the others subsided. “Fifty years or so ago, Esterlina tried and failed. You might remember they had to call the Fleet in to restore order.”
Ravindra allowed himself a tiny smile. Esterlina had self-destructed, torn apart by rival armies—paid for and led by the wealthiest Vesha. They’d all bought Mirka officers, of course, but the Vesha retained strategic command themselves.
“That’s all irrelevant for now, isn’t it?” Gupta waved a hand, sending the ruffles at his wrist dancing. “I’m sure we’re grateful for whatever small help the Fleet can give us.” He caught Ravindra’s gaze, his intent obvious in his sneer.
Ravindra resisted the impulse to lean across the table and throttle the man.
At last the conference was over. Ravindra strode out to his shuttle, Fohrai at his side. “I’ve organized for you and your senior staff to stay at the Hotel Rajasthan, up in the mountains. It’s a lovely place, the food’s good and I’ve organized women,” the Governor said.
Women. Ravindra’s mind filled with golden skin, mercury eyes, her body hot beneath his.
Chapter Seventeen
Morgan waited until she knew Ravindra’s shuttle had left before she crawled out of bed. She kicked herself again. What had possessed her? Yes, well. The answer to that was simple enough. She couldn’t deny she’d enjoyed the sex. Every moment. Very much. Stupid stupid stupid. And what would happen when he came back? Maybe he’d be as embarrassed as she was. But somehow she didn’t think that was how his mind would be working. He’d want more and she couldn’t afford that. She could deny it to herself until she was blue in the face but she was at least a little bit in love with him. She enjoyed his company, looked forward to the nights in his quarters, missed him on the rare evenings when he was absent. Stupid. How had she let him get under her skin like that? It could only end in pain. Hers.
She had to keep busy, think about something else, go and work.
Morgan found Hanestran in his workshop, his battle armor ready to put on, supervising collection of equipment. Well, now. This might be interesting.
“Are you going down there, SenComm?” she said.
“Yes. We’re to scan, look for evidence.” Hanestran checked an equipment case offered by one of his techs.
“Evidence of what?”
“Who was responsible.” He flicked through the contents of the case.
“Can I come?”
Hanestran stopped and straightened. “I don’t know…”
“I can be useful.” She gave him a sideways glance.
“I know.” He looked pensive, gave a nod and waved the hovering tech away. “You’d be very useful, but—”
“Admiral Ravindra won’t mind. I asked him last night if I could go down to the planet. It’s been months since I breathed unfiltered air and walked on ground.”
Okay, she hadn’t asked, but if she’d thought of it she would have. But surely Ravindra wouldn’t mind. She was fairly certain he trusted her by now. And she could be useful. A portable set of very sensitive scanning equipment.
Hanestran dithered, almost swaying from foot to foot. “I should check with him.”
“He’s gone. Oh, come on, SenComm. Please.” She leaned toward him, begging.
His chest heaved as he sucked a deep breath. “You’ll need armor.”
Fantastic. “Order me some. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
****
The shuttle descended through uniform cloud cover and jolted into rain. Electra lay below their ship, a strange mixture of flattened debris surrounding intact buildings, some of which still pierced the clouds.
“Either they were terrible at pattern bombing or they picked their targets,” she said to Hanestran, who sat beside her.
He grunted. “Let me just say that mess on the ground over there used to be the Governor’s palace and that untouched tower over there is the interplanetary trade center.” He flicked up a ‘before’ image and overlaid it so she could see. The Governor’s palace had nestled in one of the few garden areas of the city. Smoke still curled up from the blackened mess surrounding the remains of the building. Certainly everywhere else the bombardment had been selective. A block destroyed here, next to a relatively intact block there. So maybe not a pirate attack. Was that the implication? And if not pirates, then what? Bunyada?
The shuttle swooped lower, affording Morgan a closer look at the buildings. Interesting architecture, not like anything she’d seen before. They’d used a lot of transparent or glittery material in their buildings. Shards of it winked and glistered in the roadway and even in the drizzle, the standing walls reflected light. This place must have been really something before the attack. An amazing city of glittering cones and pyramids, multi-colored shards that soared into the sky amid flatter, less exotic domes and cubes stacked together. Horizontal layers of crystal in shades of blue and green and cream towered into the smoky air, while reds and ochres predominated for the lower cubes and domes and for the streets themselves.
“Did they land anywhere?” she said.
“Yes.” Hanestran pointed at the graphics. “The markets were hit, many killed. They took consumables. And one Vesha prince’s house was raided, many valuable articles taken. The story is they realized our fleet had appeared in the system and they took o
ff relatively empty-handed.”
The story, but not necessarily the truth. “What are we looking for?”
“SenComm Prasad wants me to check what’s left of the military headquarters for anything we can find in the systems to identify the attackers.”
The pilot maneuvered along deserted streets, some covered in a macabre jigsaw puzzle of colored pieces mixed with the detritus of destruction, others steep-walled, striped canyons where undamaged structures lined the road. The ship landed beside a rectangular pool in a paved square. A tall building, pockmarked but intact stood close by, its shape reflected in the pool’s still water. The image wavered, distorted as the down-draft ruffled the surface.
Morgan climbed out into fine drizzle. Rain. You never got that in space. Or that stink. The sooty, chemical odor of melted duraplast vied with the rank smell of burnt flesh. The stomach-churning stench caught at her throat, choked her.
“Better activate your helmet,” Hanestran said while the rest of his team alighted.
Good idea. Morgan pressed a button in the armor and the helmet concertinaed out of its packing around her head. Cool air flowed in and she fought down the nausea. This wasn’t going to be fun. “Where to?”
“Down there.” Hanestran waved a hand at the ruins of one of the nearby red and ochre blocks, blasted and battered but with three walls still standing. He set off, picking his way through the debris.
Morgan followed more slowly. Funny how things don’t look so bad from the air. And then you get down there and realize. There would be dead people. Working with the military she’d become used to death, she knew it happened but she’d never become accustomed to the horror of shattered bodies. A group of soldiers stood around a heavy lifter straining at a huge piece of fallen green crystal. The masonry lifted, revealing a blackened corpse still trapped underneath. Her mind shrank at the sight of a mangled torso and an arm, bloodied and broken, burnt fingers clawing at the ground. Her stomach spasmed. Bile burnt her throat. Don’t be sick in your helmet. Don’t be sick in your helmet.
A hand fell on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Suri?”
Morgan looked up into concerned blue eyes. “Yes. Fine.” She breathed in hard through her nose, fighting back the nausea.
“Let’s go.” Hanestran sounded normal but his face was tense and angry. He led the way into the headquarters building with a purposeful stride.
She trailed into rooms where ceilings had collapsed, where hardly a window remained unbroken. The bodies may be gone but the bloodstains remained, brownish streaks on tumbled chairs, spatters on keyboards, reminders that not long ago, living, breathing people worked here.
“Looks like the place got a direct hit from a missile,” said one of Hanestran’s team as he followed the track of the projectile through the building with his eyes. “With respect, Senior Commander, I doubt it’s very safe.”
“Probably,” Hanestran said. “But we don’t have time to wait for engineering to secure the place for us. We’ll just have to do our best, as carefully as we can.”
Morgan picked her way through the shattered equipment, polling for interfaces as she went. Her heart bounded when she heard a crackle. Fragments rained down on her upturned helmet. A settling piece of ceiling. No, this certainly wasn’t safe. And it was a crashing waste of time. “How do you expect to find anything here?”
“The main computers will be down in the basement,” Hanestran said. “I’m looking for stairs or something.” He looked around him and took a step closer to her, lowering his voice. “And please, Suri, formality is required in this situation.”
Morgan bowed. “Srimana.” There was always that fine line, wasn’t there, between familiarity and formality. She’d have that with Ravindra, too. Even more so. Only she wouldn’t. It wouldn’t happen again. No.
“Over here, Srimana,” somebody called.
A metal staircase, broken in the bombing, led upwards until it ended in twisted ruin. The section going down appeared to be intact. Hanestran trained a light down.
“The stairs look okay,” he said, playing the light over crisscrossed metal treads.
Her stomach lurched again. “We’re going down there?” Hanestran’s light swung around, casting strange shadows. The darkness loomed.
“Yes. Lomas, get some lights down here.” He was already on his way, the light held in front of him. Lomas hurried behind, directing a couple of others holding lights and generators. They clattered down the stairs, sending dust into the air.
Morgan swallowed. A shiver of fear scurried down her spine. She’d always hated cellars, right from when she was a little girl.
Hanestran’s face appeared below, gazing up at her. “Come, Suri. Your skills are needed.” He sounded impatient.
“On my way.” She dismissed the childhood memory, shoving it back into the archive from whence it had sprung, and placed a shrinking foot on the top step. She enhanced her sight so she could see what was down there, lurking in the gloom beyond the lights they’d set up. One step at a time, down into the depths. Her distorted shadow accompanied her down the wall. At last, heart pounding, she reached the bottom, feet crunching on a gritty floor.
“Over here.” Hanestran took her arm and led her to a tall grey cylinder. “This is their emergency backup system. It was hidden behind a false wall.”
Dust and debris lay surprisingly thick. She trailed a foot, making a line in the dirt. Hanestran noticed. “This room held up against the bombardment, but only just.” He looked up at the ceiling. “See the cracks? And how much it’s sagged?” His gaze moved to the walls. “There’s some damage there, too.” Fallen masonry littered the floor in front of an ominous bulge.
Morgan took a deep breath, willing herself to keep her mind on her job. Pools of shadow menaced from the walls and the corners. The ceiling loomed just overhead. Within the helmet her breathing had become rapid and shallow, her lips parted. Childish nonsense. Breathe… stay calm…There was a data point; she had work to do.
The floor trembled. She staggered. A grinding groan from above her moved her muscles before her mind caught up. She dived, head tucked in and hit the ground in a roll even as the groan became a crash. The lights went out and choking dust filled the air. Fear clutched at her heart, sucked the very air from her lungs, constricted her throat.
“Suri? Lomas?” Hanestran’s voice sounded close.
She lurched toward him, clutched at his arm, hugged it as if it was a lifeline.
“It’s okay, Suri, you’ll be okay.” He pushed her toward the stairs but he didn’t come with her.
The hole in the ceiling that was the stairwell glowed with light like a blessing from heaven, almost solid with dancing, sparkling particles. She struggled toward it, over the debris. The stair was a twisted sculpture, struck by a slab of ceiling that hung down to the floor. She stumbled up the angled surface, slipping and sliding in the grit underfoot. Hands reached down to her just as another tremor swayed the building.
Morgan staggered and flailed for something—anything—to grab as the slab shifted. Terror clutched at her throat. She flung herself forward, toward the light, fingers rigid. A hand grasped her forearm hard enough to hurt.
“I’ve got you.”
Someone dragged her up. Her stomach hit the edge of the hole. She felt the ragged edges scoring the armor. It hurt but she was out. Safe. She was safe but… she whirled.
“Hanestran,” gasped Morgan.
She stared down into the darkness, heart in mouth. He was there, his eyes bright blue, almost luminous inside the helmet. Somebody tossed down a rope. Hanestran caught it and pulled himself along as the slab Morgan had climbed tilted. All around them the building groaned and creaked. Fragments clattered to the floor, an ominous staccato. Hanestran hung on to the rope as the slab slid away from his feet. A roar of sound. The stairs vanished. Willing hands pulled Hanestran up and out as clouds of dirt and particles erupted from the stairwell. Morgan wouldn’t have been surprised to see spectral hands reaching out, som
e malevolent power making a last attempt to claim a victim.
Hanestran stood for a moment, panting. Dust whirled around his helmet like a mist, unable to settle on the transparent surface.
She pulled at his arm. “Come on, we have to get out of here. This place is collapsing.” She headed for the door, out of here, out into clear air.
Hanestran followed. “Out, everybody. Now.”
Morgan bolted, back toward the reflecting pool where the shuttle stood.
Behind her the building moaned as if in pain. She turned as a wall of sound crashed around her. Smoke surged. Fragments of rubble pattered out of the sky like some strange hail. Somebody caught her arm. “Quickly, this way.”
They darted down a passage between two buildings.
No, this was wrong. Morgan slowed, pulling back against the insistent tug on her arm. “The shuttle’s that way.” She peered, trying to discern the face behind the helmet.
Hands grabbed her, pulled her arms back behind her.
She arched and fought, straining against the pressure. The man released his grip a little and fumbled with something. Morgan kicked backwards. Her boot connected. He swore and moved his leg. She whirled and twisted, broke one arm out of his grip. Someone else thrust forward, hands outstretched. She wrenched her arm free and thrust her head at the new attacker. The head butt clashed against her assailant’s helmet and he staggered back. Now. She sprinted. Three strides and arms locked around her thighs. The roadway rose to meet her.
A hand reached over her shoulder and pressed the helmet release. The sections snapped down into the suit. She felt a sharp jab in her neck.
Chapter Eighteen
Morgan kept her eyes shut. Nightmares loomed just beyond the edge of sanity. Monsters in a cellar, clutching spectral hands, detention cells and wrist-binders. Think, Morgan, think. Use your brain, that wonderful, enhanced brain that everybody wants.
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