“I can take you into the city.” Major Dar’Tan paused for effect. “Today.”
Melin blinked, returning to the present. “Why?”
“I have an idea I’d like to confirm,” he told her. “I want to see how well you blend in.”
“Again. Why?”
“Humor me.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Half-trained monkey and all that.”
Melin turned toward the city in the bay.
She’d denied herself that view since there was no point mooning over something she could never experience. The buildings along the harbor were clumped together, none more than two stories, and all painted different pastels worn paler by the elements. She barely made out figures walking along the docks—Saturans going about their lives. Three ships were docked at the harbor, tiny things meant for fishing only, not commerce.
“The tech is down.” She turned away, facing the open ocean once again.
“When it comes back up, we’ll go out. Today’s a market day in the commons—celebrating the last clear day of fall or some such thing, so there will be people outside.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll go.”
“There’s my girl.”
“We’re the same age.” Melin glared at him.
He smiled, cheerily sunny now he’d gotten his way. “Actually, I’ve got you by three months.” He patted the battlement, a sharp rat-tat-tat. “I’ll get you when it’s time.”
Chapter Ten
After the ambush on the parapets, Melin deemed a tactical retreat necessary.
Fortunately, Trudi had lent her a stack of books, and one of them was in her mostly abandoned room. She struggled to wrap her head around the words on the page when the tech came back, surprisingly and without warning.
Melin closed her eyes as the now familiar hum coursed through her body. When she opened them, everything was just as it had been. The book was propped on her stomach and she was still laying on her bed, trying to get comfortable by bunching her blankets into a pillow since she’d left her pillow on her cot in the quartermaster’s office.
The text stopped wriggling and squirming, but her head was muddled and foggy. She couldn’t concentrate. She groaned and tossed the book onto the end of the bed. It was no use.
She only felt alive when tech was down, when everything felt crystal clear and sure, but reading was painful. It felt like the words wanted to come alive, each sentence bursting with anticipation as blue skittered at the edges of her peripheral vision. But when tech was up and the words stopped moving, she had no desire to read.
She stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she should complete some annual training courses or take a nap. All embassy staff were required to take courses on the net—most completed them during their sleep cycles through their implants—and Melin had slogged through two-thirds via her console.
Deciding against the training in favor for a nap, she closed her eyes and settled into a more comfortable position on the bed.
The doorbell rang.
“Of course,” Melin muttered and stood up to answer it. The book thunked to the floor as she left the bed, flopping open to a random page.
“Seras G’Darion and Accalia are at work,” she said as she opened the door. “Oh. It’s you.”
Major Dar’Tan stood outside along with Sorem Bartroilly and Sergeant Major Elihu. All three were dressed in loose brown pants and brown tunics belted by a stunner holster. Their tunics were bunched oddly, indicating some sort of body armor underneath. Her pulse sped up.
Dar’Tan thrust a bag toward her. “Get dressed.”
“Please, do come in,” Melin drawled, waving them inside.
The three shared a glance—Eliliu and Dar’Tan’s oddly pleased expressions contrasting with Sorem’s bland neutrality—and stepped past her into the room.
Melin took the bag and contemplated changing in front of them.
With a sigh, she headed to her room, letting them find their own spots in the small living room.
She pulled the clothing from the bag and stared at the outfit in dismay before pulling it on.
The entire ensemble was uncomfortable, itchy, and ridiculous. They had found a faded blue skirt with a hem ending at mid-calf and a waistband threatening to slip off her hips. The orange tunic sagged at the chest and strained about her shoulders. The slippers pinched her feet and offered her soles no padding or protection. She stared at her comfortable boots wistfully. Unfortunately, the skirt was too short to conceal them.
She took a couple of tentative steps in the skirt, stumbled, then planted a hand against the wall to avoid hitting the ground. The fabric dragged against her skin and restricted the movement in her thighs, forcing a chopped step. If she had to move fast, she’d fall all over herself.
The final pieces were a stained white bonnet that perched around her head and cut off her peripheral vision, and an old navy shawl. She removed the bonnet and smooshed it into the bag. There was no way. The shawl received the same treatment.
All three straightened when she entered, their lips turning down in dismay. Elihu put a hand over his mouth and turned so his back faced them all. His shoulders heaved.
“Where’s the hat?” Sorem asked.
“In the bag, and it’s not coming out,” Melin replied and dared her to argue. “How the hell do you expect me to pass as anything other than ridiculous in this?” She put her hands on her hips. “I can barely move. What happens if we get in the shit, and where the fuck is my body armor?”
“You need to blend—” Sorem began.
“I need to be able to defend myself,” Melin interrupted. “Do you have a spare stunner?”
“I thought you said you were retired, Sera.” Elihu was unable to restrain his smile.
She glared at him. “I have the right to self-defense.”
“You’ll be fine. We’ll have two squads posted about the market, and we’ll be visiting the mayor first, and he has his own security,” Major Dar’Tan said. “Your every move will be watched.”
“Then let’s move out,” she told them, not the least appeased but realizing there wouldn’t be any compromise. At the very least, they could have given her a knife.
Major Dar’Tan led them to one of two hovercars parked in the courtyard. Melin was unsurprised to see Ravi Guptraja and two of their scientists waiting, rucksacks half-empty, along with twenty soldiers. A small group watched curiously from the embassy door, also unsurprising since this was the first time anyone had been allowed off the island since the shuttle brought Melin onplanet.
One of the hovercars had a squad of guards riding inside with the other squad on foot, rifles and battle armor at the ready. Melin envied the battle armor. She would give anything to link up with a suit again, feel the power encased about her and the thrill of being able to destroy and conquer anything in her path.
The ride across the bridge was slow to keep pace with the soldiers on foot, which left plenty of time for a briefing.
Sorem handed her a tiny receiver-transmitter. “Speak slowly. You’ll be wearing this wire the entire time since you don’t have an implant.”
Melin pinned it to her bra, wishing for the first time ever that she had enough cleavage to prevent the cloth of her tunic from rubbing over the tiny microphone. Since they hadn’t brought her authentic Saturan undergarments, she had worn her own. Not that she would have worn them if they had. The clothing she was wearing was awful enough.
Despite the cramped confines of the hovercar, she had plenty of room between her and the others. The scientist nearest her leaned against the window and tried to discreetly pull the collar of her shirt over her nose. Melin wanted to give herself space too. The borrowed clothes smelled like they hadn’t been washed in a thousand lifetimes.
“We will be heading to the mayor’s house first,” Sorem continued after fiddling with her instruments to ensure the microphone was working. “He will escort you through the market with his wife.”
“Is he an ally?” Melin asked. She hadn’t
thought they had contacts among the Saturans, not with the embassy being walled off from the rest of the planet, but that was naïve. Of course they had contacts on planet. The IASS ruled the planet and all traffic offworld, and the nearby fleet was literal power projection to ensure compliance.
“He’s well-known to play both sides, but at the moment, that’s the best we have,” Dar’Tan interjected. He resumed tapping his hands on his knees and humming an off-key rendition of a popular tsetsepop band.
The hovercar bumped along with painful slowness and reached the mainland after an excruciating hour that was only two minutes. The docks had been emptied of people, the tiny houses shut tight against the foreign intruders.
Melin stared out the window as they rolled through narrow streets and hoped they would not encounter an ambush. One perfectly aimed sono-grenade would cook them all in the homemade oven of the car. The emptiness of the streets had her on edge. They were easy targets, moving this slow with personnel on the ground.
Melin’s fingers twitched, missing the comforting weight of a rifle. “What do you expect me to do?” she asked, trying to take her mind off the empty streets. There was an itch in between her shoulder blades not entirely from the tunic. She forced herself to look back to the major and Sorem and not out at the intriguing and scary two-story buildings lining the road.
“Listen. Observe. Test out your Saturan. We will be stationed on the outskirts of the market,” Major Dar’Tan said. “Unfortunately, this will draw down on the number of shoppers present, but there should be some people around. With the mayor and his wife in the market, guerrillas will be less likely to attack.”
“Common attack strategies?” Melin asked. She didn’t dare voice her private concerns that this entire thing was an exercise in futility.
“Less likely when the tech is up,” Major Dar’Tan explained. “But suicide bombers have been known to occur in the marketplaces when IASS are present.”
“Religiously motivated?”
Major Dar’Tan spread his open palms apart. “We just don’t know much about these people.”
Great. She was going to get blown up by a fanatic. Melin grunted, already turning back toward the window. Her fists clenched. Two hundred years of occupation and they knew fucking nothing. Unbelievable. If she had command—she shook her head. Retired, retired, retired.
She ruthlessly tamped down the small voice that whispered, headless corpses on bridges. She was not going to die. Not doing something this utterly pointless.
The roads widened, leaving houses on either side that were nicer than the tiny apartments they had been passing but just barely. Everything was run down, yet didn’t seem as old as she expected for a city over a thousand years old.
Most buildings were built from bare wood exposed to the elements. A couple had been painted, but the facades were chipped and faded. The few buildings built in stone had dark soot stains and blast holes on the facades with alarming gaps between, filled in by smaller, grittier wooden structures. There were no flowers in windowsills, no flags hanging across the streets, and no people walking about.
It was nothing like Anikki had described in her stories. According to her, Jidda had once been a colorful city, filled with people, animals, and magic. Everyone had worn bright, bold clothing; the homes were painted bright colors, all different. It was a city of prosperity and excitement, the seat of power and government.
Now, it was a city under siege. Without life. Without hope.
The center of discord.
Every so often she sensed eyes watching their convoy and was grateful the window’s heavy tinting allowed her to examine the rooftops and shuttered buildings without being seen. The streets were empty save for their escort, but the feeling of being watched persisted.
“Here we are,” Major Dar’Tan said as they pulled in front of a walled compound set apart from its neighboring houses.
Guards lined the walls—the first people she had seen on the streets besides the IASS. These guards scattered inside when the battle-armored IASS soldiers knocked on the gate.
The gate opened, and her hovercar entered a tiny courtyard while the other remained outside.
Inside the compound was a large house with rose-stone walls in far better repair than the houses they had passed. There were tiny white flowers along the stone walkway and an ivy-like plant creeping around the cracks in the walls. A strange square-and-circle rune had been etched into the wooden front door. She stared at it, wondering what exactly it meant.
A slight, light-skinned man with long, curly brown hair pulled into a queue and wearing an unbelted light-blue robe, faded black pants, and a white shirt stepped outside of the house, two people standing beside him. The entourage was dressed similarly to the lead man, minus the robe. She couldn’t tell if they were armed, but their postures screamed security. All three held their arms down carefully away from their sides.
Major Dar’Tan and the others stepped out of the hovercar to greet the man. Melin followed, trailing behind and feeling conspicuous in her “Saturan” clothing.
“Zhoki,” Sorem said with a slight bow.
The lead Saturan returned the gesture, his stance purposefully mild and meek as he offered his hand to shake. Melin stared at his black trousers. They were a familiar style, tucked into the tops of his black calf-high boots. The memory of seeing them before gnawed at her mind.
“Serim,” the mayor replied, stepping forward until he was within comfortable speaking distance. “To what do I owe this visit? The city has been quiet this past month.” His accent was thick and heavy. A fine layer of sweat beaded his forehead.
“The embassy requires your assistance in a matter of planetary security,” Major Dar’Tan said, his tone even.
The mayor raised an eyebrow. “An agent, or a mission?” Some of the meekness dropped away.
“I have an operative I’d like to test in the market today,” Major Dar’Tan said. “She’s part-Saturan and speaks your language.”
The mayor glanced about, his eyes landing on Melin as the only one not wearing any visible sign of body protection, his gaze roaming critically up and down her body. His upper lip curled. “Those clothes are ridiculous. And she looks like a soldier.” He dismissed her. He hadn’t even bothered to look at her face. “She won’t pass.”
“Say something in Saturan,” Sorem ordered.
Melin bristled. She was not a talking parrot. “Good afternoon, bojan.” Her Saturan was clipped, revealing her growing irritation. “I apologize for my friends’ lack of manners.” Your manners are just as bad.
The mayor stiffed, his nostrils flared, and their gaze met for the first time. His eyes widened before he retreated into his meek and mild posture as if he had never been surprised. He was a decent actor, but his hands betrayed him. They shook.
“You should not be here, csira-hrathi,” he replied, not in the dialect she didn’t know, but the one she had been taught as a child. His words were slow as if he were unused to this language or as if speaking to a young child. “Your protection cannot be assured in the middle of the city, and I do not wish for you to bring any undue attention here.”
“What attention? From whom?” she replied in Saturan.
Zhoki flicked his fingers, dismissing her. “It won’t work,” he told the men in Standard. His tone was flat with undertones of anger at odds with his submissive posture.
“Why not?” Elihu asked. “She seemed to speak pretty fluently. It looked like you understood her.”
“It’s the old Saturan.” He laughed. “Few speak it anymore.”
“Who speaks it now?” Sorem asked interested.
“No one here in Veskie,” the mayor said with particular emphasis on the IASS name for the city.
“Jidda,” she corrected quietly.
Zhoki’s gaze darted to her and then away. Curiosity seemed to fight his obvious discomfort. He closed his eyes, shaking his head as though arguing with himself. Melin had seen enough people having conversations thro
ugh implant to know what one looked like, but this man didn’t have an implant, nor did she see any ear buds or other obvious communication devices. Was he arguing with himself?
Before she could question further, Zhoki’s shoulders slumped, and he opened his eyes, then faced Sorem. “I will take her to the market.”
Melin blinked. Curiosity had won.
“It is a poor idea and it will not work, but I will take her.”
“We need your wife as well to have a women’s excursion,” Sorem said.
“No,” Zhoki said sharply. “My wife will not accompany us. She does not go into the market. It shall be myself and this…woman.” He did not look at Melin. There was a twitch to his fingers as if he were testing something electric in the air. “We shall go now on foot. This is something I do often, to examine the wares and ensure the prices are fair.” The last comment sounded like an inside joke. No one laughed.
Zhoki waved, and two guards trotted down toward them from their station at the far end of the courtyard. Unlike the two behind Zhoki, these were visibly armed. Melin was surprised they had weapons in front of the IASS soldiers even if they weren’t rifles or stunners. Instead, they carried crossbows and wore short swords slung across their hips. Small round shields were buckled about their backs. They clinked when they walked, indicating that underneath their haphazard clothing they wore some sort of archaic armor.
“My force will be in the marketplace, establishing a perimeter.” Major Dar’Tan eyed the mayor’s guards with distaste.
Melin understood his snap dismissal. Zhoki’s guards were ragamuffins compared to the spit and polish of the embassy’s security team. But underneath their shabby appearance lay a quiet competence; from the way they held their crossbows, how they scanned each embassy member, how their eyes were constantly moving, and their bodies tense and ready.
Melin only noticed because she was used to fighting with and against enemies who did not have access to the IASS’s range of military weaponry; although, she’d never been to a place where her enemies didn’t even have hunting rifles. She caught herself. Were these people her enemies? Sure, they were trying to kill her, but not because of who she was, just what she was. She shook her head. That was a dangerous thought to pursue. Treasonous. Insidious.
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