Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Of course,” Nehemiah agreed. His mind raced, trying to find a way out. But there was none. He doubted it would be long before he was taken into protective custody. The madmen wouldn’t tolerate even the merest hint of disagreement. “God will always defend the right.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I am truly sorry about the delay,” Janice said as the hovertank made its way towards their destination. “It should have happened sooner.”

  “It is of no matter,” Junayd assured her. “General Winters was right to be concerned.”

  He sat back in the tank and forced himself to relax. A week of hard fighting had given the marines a chance to clear an ever-expanding spacehead, ending with the destruction of a PDC near a large city. Now, wave after wave of reinforcements could be landed, allowing the marines to prepare themselves for the final thrust towards the Tabernacle. Junayd hoped there might be a way to avoid the devastation such a campaign would leave in its wake.

  The thought made him shudder, despite himself. Starship combat was clean. He’d never seen enemy spacers gasping for breath as they were swept out of gashes in starship hulls and thrown into space, nor watched the wounded struggling to survive. A starship might die in agony, her last moments an eternity of pure horror for her crew, but all he saw was icons vanishing from the display. Crews might be blotted out of existence without him ever emotionally grasping what had happened. They were just . . . statistics.

  But the world around him was real. The small convoy had passed through countless wrecked farms and villages, towns that had been fought over so savagely that they’d been reduced to rubble. Dead bodies had been collected and dumped into mass graves, the survivors, often wounded, left staring in horror at the wreckage of their world. And the insurgents, men who feared there would be no life for them if they were captured, were still sniping at everything that moved. An entire world was dying in front of him.

  This is what we brought to other worlds, he thought. And now it’s come back to haunt us.

  He sighed inwardly. Civil Affairs teams were trying to organize the local population, but thousands of people were too scared to come out of hiding or be seen helping the invaders. The government had finally admitted that their world had been invaded, yet their messages had come tinged with bombastic promises about crushing the invasion force and pledging dire punishment for anyone seen collaborating. Junayd believed them. He knew precisely what the government would do if it drove the invaders back into space.

  The tank hummed to a halt. Junayd braced himself as the hatch opened—he hadn’t been given any armor, let alone a weapon—and then stepped out into the bright sunlight. The air smelled of home, he realized, the indefinable scent that belonged to Ahura Mazda and Ahura Mazda alone. A large mansion was right in front of him, surrounded by a trio of tanks and a dozen men in heavy armor. He and his escort were several miles from the nearest settlement, but Junayd knew they were right to be careful. Their passage might have been noticed.

  He looked west. Smoke and flames rose from the front lines, reminding him that the battle was still underway. The marines were being challenged constantly, their defenses probed to keep them on the alert. No military force could hope to stay at full readiness indefinitely, not even the marines. Junayd knew his former masters were hoping to weaken the ground-based Commonwealth forces before they began their real counteroffensive.

  Janice clambered out of the tank, her uniform looking rumpled. She’d dressed down as much as possible, trying to pose as a man, but it was hard to miss the swell of her breasts despite the ill-fitting jacket. And yet, he knew she was a woman. Someone who wasn’t used to women in male clothes might mistake her for a man.

  We will see, he thought.

  “So,” Janice said, “this is how the other half lives, right?”

  “Yes,” Junayd said. The mansion was tiny compared to some of the buildings he’d seen on Tyre, but immense compared to the tiny apartments allocated to the majority of the population on Ahura Mazda. It had been passed down from one of the first settlers, a man whose family had lost much of their power since the first landings. “Most people down there”—he nodded towards the plumes of smoke—“don’t even know this place exists.”

  “The marines say he’s inside,” Janice said. “He’s waiting for you.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Junayd said. “I hope.”

  He took a breath as he walked towards the doors, feeling sweat trickling down his back. If his old friend had been subverted, if he’d been forced to betray Junayd, there was a very good chance that both he and Janice were about to die. And yet, surely his confidante would have done more if he had been subverted. The mansion might be half hidden in the hills, but it wasn’t concealed from orbital observation. There were plenty of reasons to assume the invasion force would pay it a visit.

  The doors were already open, revealing a wood-lined corridor leading into a sitting room, the scent of wood bringing back memories, some good and some bad. A gray-haired man stood by the bookcase, holding a copy of a forbidden tome in one hand. His connections might not have been enough to save him, if the Inquisition had realized he owned so many banned books, but he’d never seemed to care. Junayd had never seen him as a potential threat.

  “Nestor,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Junayd,” Nestor breathed. “I always knew you would return.” He nodded to Janice. “And who is your companion?”

  “Commander Wilson, Commonwealth Office of Naval Intelligence,” Junayd said before Janice could say a word. Nestor was one of the most liberal-minded Theocrats, but even he had his limits. Better to let him think Janice was male. “A friend.”

  “More like a handler,” Nestor said. He waved a hand at the comfortable sofas. “Would you care for something to drink? I’ll have to make it myself, of course. The servants have been taken into custody by your new friends.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Junayd said. The question hovered on the tip of his tongue for a long moment. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. “My family?”

  “Waiting for you,” Nestor said. “I had them brought here when I heard about the landings.”

  Junayd leaned forward. “Take me to them.”

  Nestor nodded and led him through a side door and down a concealed passageway Junayd didn’t recall seeing during his last visit. Nestor’s family had always been uncomfortably paranoid, not always without reason. The Inquisition had tried to have them all arrested more than once. Junayd was surprised Nestor hadn’t been purged after his defection, after the Theocracy thought Junayd had died in the line of duty. Surely, his former protection hadn’t been enough to save Nestor’s life.

  “There’s news from the city,” Nestor said. Junayd didn’t have to ask to know which city he meant. There were hundreds of cities on Ahura Mazda, but only one of them was actually important. “The council has been purged. Nehemiah is still in control, it seems, yet Samuilu and Eliseus are pulling the strings. Everyone else is either dead or imprisoned.”

  “Shit,” Junayd muttered. Beside him, Janice looked just as alarmed. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure as I can be,” Nestor assured him. “So far, there haven’t been widespread purges, but hostages have been taken and everyone agrees it’s just a matter of time.”

  Janice coughed. “How can a society survive like this?”

  “They’re not used to defeat, young man,” Nestor said. “They certainly aren’t used to a long war.”

  Junayd nodded, curtly. The longest campaign the Theocracy had fought, before launching the invasion of Commonwealth space, had been on Hobson’s World, where the locals had resisted their new masters with fanatical determination. No one had doubted the outcome, not when the Theocrats controlled the high orbitals right from the start, but it had still cost thousands of lives to batter the planet into submission. The First Battle of Cadiz had cost more lives than the entire campaign on Hobson’s World . . . and it had only been the start of th
e war.

  “I kept them in a nearby homestead,” Nestor said as they reached the female quarters. Some of the really old houses maintained a guard on the doors, but Nestor didn’t seem inclined to honor the old traditions. “Officially, they were distant relatives of mine; poor, few close relatives, no strong marriage prospects. No one asked any questions.”

  “Good,” Junayd said. He promised himself silently that he’d spend the rest of the night in prayer if he had the time. Nestor had come up with a good cover. No one would be interested in girls who were too wellborn to marry the lower classes, but too poor to interest the higher classes. “Can you wait here?”

  “Of course,” Nestor said. “And your companion can wait here too.”

  Junayd nodded his thanks, then stepped through the door. Nestor was being astonishingly kind under the circumstances. Strangers were not allowed in the female quarters, even if the rooms were empty. He still recalled the whipping his father had given him for sneaking into the female quarters back when he’d been a little boy. The old man had bloodied his back so badly that the scars had lingered for years.

  He paused outside the inner door, feeling a sudden urge to turn back. Who knew what he would find? Bitter and resentful women? Or women who understood the blunt truth that he hadn’t had a choice? He opened the door and stepped through, shaking his head at the surprising luxury that greeted his eyes. Female quarters rarely had any decoration, even though the women only left such spaces when they were summoned. Nestor, in so many ways, bucked tradition.

  Junayd’s three wives sat on the sofa, staring at him. He wondered, suddenly, just what they’d been told when they’d been hurried out of his house. The truth? Or something else? His senior wife smiled at him while his junior wives looked nervous. They knew their positions were uncertain as long as they failed to give him sons. And none of them had given him a son.

  “Junayd,” his senior wife said. She sounded relieved. “It’s good to see you again.”

  A man didn’t cry. A man never cried. But Junayd had to blink hard to keep the tears out of his eyes as he hurried forward. He’d changed, part of him realized. He’d never really appreciated just how dependent his wives had been on him, not until he’d seen how women lived elsewhere. Their very safety depended upon him. They couldn’t speak for themselves, let alone own property and live independently. If he’d died, they would have been dumped on his nearest relatives.

  “Our children,” he said, hugging her. “Where are they?”

  “Waiting for you,” his youngest wife said. She’d been a beauty when he’d married her, purchasing her from her parents for a tidy sum. Now she looked stressed and worn. “They missed you.”

  “I missed them too,” Junayd admitted. They might only be girls, but he loved them anyway. “I need to see them, then we will leave this place.”

  “I’m very glad you found your family,” General Winters said four hours later. “Are they well?”

  “They’re malnourished,” Junayd said. Janice had insisted on taking the women to the medics, even though his wives had been reluctant. “But they survived.”

  “I see,” General Winters said. “And did you learn anything useful?”

  “Much of my old network remains intact,” Junayd said. That had been a relief. He simply hadn’t had much to bargain with on Tyre. “However, the government is now led by extremists and fanatics.”

  General Winters grunted in disapproval. “Was there ever anything else?”

  Junayd shrugged expressively. “They told everyone I died,” he said. “If I start making broadcasts now, I can try to convince people to rebel.”

  “Oh,” General Winters said. “And do you think it will actually work?”

  “It’s the best shot we’ll have of taking the planet without marching on the Tabernacle,” Junayd pointed out. “If vast numbers of people rebel, the government and military will simply come apart.”

  “A lot of your people will die,” General Winters said.

  Junayd took a breath. “They’ll die anyway, General,” he said. “Or have you forgotten the mobs aimed at your troops?” He went on before Winters could say a word. “This is the best chance we’ll have of convincing the troops to overthrow the government,” he said. “And if it fails, you can still march on the Tabernacle.”

  “He’s right, General,” Janice said stiffly. Junayd glanced at her. She seemed preoccupied with a greater thought. “Junayd’s name is well respected among the Theocrats.”

  “And that leads to a different question,” General Winters said. “Would any of them recognize your voice? Or your image?”

  “They’d certainly recognize my image,” Junayd said.

  “Images can be faked,” General Winters said. “It wouldn’t be hard to put images of you and Nehemiah fucking like little bunny rabbits on the air.”

  Junayd kept his anger under tight control. “Do you have a better idea?”

  He understood the general’s concerns. Chaos on the streets would either lead to mass slaughter, forcing his men to intervene before they were ready, or give the Theocrats an opportunity to purge enemies before the Commonwealth could move to assist the rebels. But the opportunity was already slipping away. Junayd knew Samuilu, knew just how much the Inquisitor wanted supreme control. Anyone who might aid the Commonwealth, anyone who might want to stop the war before everyone was killed, was on the verge of being purged. Time was running out.

  Maybe we should put black propaganda on the air, he thought. The people might believe it.

  “No,” General Winters said after a pause. “But I expect you to run the crap you intend to put on the air past me first.”

  “Of course, General,” Junayd said.

  He allowed Janice to lead him out of the makeshift office and into the open air. The spacehead seemed to be expanding by leaps and bounds, dozens of prefabricated buildings springing up out of nowhere as more and more terrain was cleared by the landing parties. A dozen point defense weapons were in clear view, their sensors constantly sweeping the skies for incoming threats; a long stream of hovertanks was checked and rechecked before being sent down to the front lines. Junayd found the whole display a little terrifying, even though they were on the same side. The sheer level of resources the Commonwealth had deployed so casually was thoroughly intimidating. It seemed impossible to believe that there was anything capable of standing in their way.

  Janice said nothing until they stepped into the intelligence compound and walked into her office. It was a barren room, barely large enough to swing a cat, but Junayd had been assured that it was completely soundproofed. He couldn’t imagine precisely how the Theocracy might have managed to get a spy into ONI, yet ONI was still taking precautions. Junayd approved. Even paranoids had enemies.

  “I read the doctor’s report on your wives and daughters,” Janice said. Her voice had an odd hint of . . . something. “Do you know what it said?”

  “Malnourished,” Junayd said.

  “It said more than that,” Janice said. Her voice hardened. “There was a strong suggestion that your wives are mentally ill.”

  Junayd blinked. “They’re not.”

  “They were on the verge of going mad from the isolation,” Janice snapped. “And your daughters aren’t much better. Your two oldest daughters had to be practically dragged out of the doctor’s office after spending nearly an hour talking to her. They were that desperate for someone new to talk to. And your wives have agoraphobia as well . . . they needed to be shut up in a small room just so they could sleep comfortably. Didn’t you ever let them out of the house?”

  “Not where someone else could see,” Junayd said. He’d taken his wives and daughters on vacations, of course, secluded from public notice. But even that had been difficult when getting there posed a major logistics challenge. And later, as he’d spent more and more time away from home, he’d been content to leave them there. “It was—”

  “They’re not the only ones,” Janice said. Her voice softe
ned, but only slightly. “The women in the POW camps are . . . weird. Half of them seem terrified of men; the other half seem terrified of everyone. A couple panicked when they realized one of the marines was female. Most refused to let a medic, male or female, examine them. Why?”

  “Doctors are rarely allowed to examine female patients,” Junayd said curtly. He had spent a vast amount in bribes to arrange for his youngest daughter to be treated after she’d fallen badly ill. The greedy swine of a doctor had demanded enough money to buy a practice of his own. “The doctors have to ask the women’s husbands or fathers to describe their symptoms.”

  Janice stared at him. “Are you mad? Is your entire population mad?”

  “It’s the way they were raised,” Junayd said sharply. He would have been outraged, a few years ago, at being questioned so blatantly. Ahura Mazda was his world. But he’d learned hard lessons over the last two years. “They never thought to question it.”

  “It will change,” Janice said. “Do you understand me? It will change!”

  “Yes, it will,” Junayd agreed. “The cracks are already starting to show. My broadcasts will make them worse. And then . . .”

  He shook his head. It would be years before Ahura Mazda recovered from the Theocracy, if it ever recovered at all. And while he hoped to build a new power base for himself, he saw now it would be built on a rotting foundation. The population might reject him as thoroughly as they’d reject the speakers. God alone knew what would happen in the future.

  “All we can do is press on,” he said. “If Samuilu and Eliseus are running the government now, they won’t surrender. They’ll keep looking for ways to hurt you, whatever the cost.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “. . . is Admiral Junayd,” Junayd’s voice said. “Reports of my death were falsified.”

  Kat watched as the speech went on, Junayd calling out his former masters for starting a hopeless war, throwing away so many lives, and finally allowing an invading force to set foot on Ahura Mazda itself. He spoke of a future without war, a future without the clerics, a future where life was free and uncontrolled. And he called on his people to rise up against their oppressors.