Bitter Wind (Death's Handmaiden Book 2)

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Now, you come with us,’ Courtney said. She was standing in the platform’s entrance, as Nava had been, but she had Kyle with her. ‘What happens after that… isn’t really up to me. I’m probably going to recommend a suspended sentence with psychological assistance, but I don’t know whether that’ll be accepted.’

  ‘You heard most of that?’ Nava asked.

  ‘Quite a bit of it. Enough. I’m impressed. Either your tendency to lethal violence has been curbed, or you were holding out on me when you turned down the SSF.’

  Nava shook her head. ‘Neither. Nicola Alvin isn’t a threat. I think she only attacked me because I didn’t take the time to change my clothes. Speaking of which, can we take this inside? Maybe Yuki is comfortable wearing this gown in freezing temperatures, but I’m not.’

  ~~~

  ‘Do you think they’ll accept your recommendation, Courtney?’ Melissa was asking; Courtney and Kyle had joined the usual crew for dinner at their favourite refectory.

  ‘I’ll ask Mercia Reynell to do an evaluation,’ Courtney replied. Various people flinched at the mention of the school’s psychologist. ‘I think she’ll decide that Nicola Alvin is not a danger to anyone else. I’ve got her stashed in the medical centre in case she’s a danger to herself. From what Nava got out of her, I think it’ll be ruled that she’s better off being given the option to carry on here with a course of psychological supervision.’

  ‘Good,’ Melissa said. ‘What she did was wrong, but she did it out of–’ Cutting herself off, Melissa put food in her mouth and began chewing feverishly. Her cheeks were turning scarlet.

  ‘Out of what, Mel?’ Nava asked.

  ‘I’m not going to finish that sentence. It’s too sappy for words.’ Mitsuko and Hoshi giggled. Melissa glowered at them.

  ‘Well, at least this matter is resolved today,’ Nava said.

  ‘Why?’ Melissa asked. ‘What’s special about today?’

  ‘Nothing. Tomorrow, however, Kyle will be starting his finals.’

  Kyle let out a groan. ‘Don’t remind me.’

  ‘Do you think you’re ready for them?’ Mitsuko asked.

  ‘As I’ll ever be. I’m pretty confident about the practical aspects. I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble with the metaphysics. It’s going to be the written tactics exam that’s probably going to trip me up if anything.’

  ‘You’ll ace it,’ Courtney said. Nava looked at her; the SSF captain sounded enthusiastic, upbeat, and encouraging. If you just looked at her surface expression, you got the same impression. Just a little tightness around the eyes and a hint of stress in her tone suggested she was not quite as happy as she appeared. Nava was fairly sure that was not worry that Kyle would do badly. Courtney was not as happy as she seemed because the finals represented the end of Kyle’s school career while she would be here for another year.

  ‘Good luck,’ Melissa said. There was a round of similar sentiments from the others at the table.

  All except for Courtney and Nava. The former looked at the latter. ‘Not wishing him luck, Nava?’ Courtney asked.

  ‘I don’t believe in it,’ Nava replied. ‘More importantly, I don’t believe he needs it.’

  235/12/1.

  ‘Kyle’s looking stressed,’ Mitsuko commented as she brushed her hair.

  ‘Stressed,’ Nava agreed, ‘but not worried. We’ll probably look the same toward the end of next week.’

  ‘I might. You won’t.’

  ‘Probably. I don’t believe that Kyle is having trouble with the exams, he’s just feeling the pressure. And so is Courtney.’

  ‘Mm. She’s been out of sorts for a couple of weeks. In two weeks, Kyle graduates. I don’t suppose he’ll go straight into work, but she’s basically going to lose him soon.’

  Nava nodded. ‘And she still hasn’t done anything about her family. She–’ She paused as her ketcom buzzed in a staccato pattern, then reached for the device to check the alert.

  ‘More weird weather?’ Mitsuko asked.

  ‘Yeah…’ Nava had set up an alert on her ketcom whenever there was a report of weird weather phenomena on any of several news channels. It had been quiet for most of the week. ‘This one’s a little weirder than the others. A storm is developing in the ocean, down near the equator. A little south of the equator, actually, and due south of Jukai Forest.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound particularly weird.’

  ‘There was nothing predicted for that region. It’s only been sent out as an alert for shipping. Let’s see what’s happened to it in the morning.’ Nava folded her ketcom screen and placed the device on the cabinet beside the bed. ‘Isn’t your hair combed enough?’

  ‘Listen, Miss Tanglefree, some of us have to work at keeping our hair in good condition.’

  ‘It’s just going to get all mussed up again.’

  ‘That’s… a valid point. You’ll still have to wait.’

  235/12/2.

  ‘Did you see the news this morning?’ Melissa asked. She put her tray down across from Nava’s. ‘Sorry, that was probably a stupid question.’

  ‘Even if we hadn’t,’ Mitsuko said, ‘it’s all anyone’s talking about.’

  ‘At least we know for sure that these weather phenomena aren’t natural,’ Nava said.

  ‘Well, yes, if you believe it,’ Melissa countered. ‘I looked it up. The most powerful weather controller in the Clan Worlds is Winter Glass Firmin.’

  ‘I’ve heard of her,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Doesn’t she do rescue and disaster relief operations on Bosquet?’

  ‘Did. She’s been missing for almost a year.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Nava said.

  ‘I guess, but here’s the thing: her maximum control radius is about eight hundred metres. She can affect weather just about anywhere on the planet, but only in an area about sixteen hundred metres across. This cyclone that’s appeared in the ocean is a hundred times bigger than that.’

  ‘More or less precisely a hundred times, in fact.’

  ‘Uh, I suppose it is. Whatever, whoever is claiming to be able to control the hurricane has cast a spell a hundred times more powerful than any known weather controller can cast.’

  ‘And they’re demanding money to divert the storm away from us,’ Mitsuko said. ‘Five hundred billion Solars. A hundred for every man, woman, and child on the planet.’

  ‘Which seems a little unfair,’ Nava said, ‘given that most of them aren’t under threat. How big is Alliance City?’

  ‘Depends how you count it. There are probably forty million under threat. The problem is that this area isn’t generally in danger from hurricanes, so neither the city nor the school are set up to deal with them. There’s really no space for them to develop between the continent and the equator. Storms which develop south of the equator aren’t supposed to head across it.’

  ‘That and the targeting suggests control,’ Nava said. ‘If it continues in the direction it’s moving, it’ll hit both the school and the city. That requires it to make landfall in a fairly tight area. It’s stretching coincidence a little too far.’

  ‘Okay, so it seems impossible, but someone’s doing it,’ Melissa said. ‘What do we do now? Evacuate?’

  ‘The school probably can be,’ Nava said, ‘but the city is an entirely different matter. They’re expecting landfall around midday. You can’t move forty million people in under four hours. I have an idea, but I need Hoshi to confirm something.’ Lifting her head, Nava looked toward the refectory’s entrance. ‘She should be coming…’

  ‘You think she can counter the other controller somehow?’

  ‘Oh, no. What I need is her knowledge of the land around Jukai Forest.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Here she comes. I’ll explain it to both of you at once.’

  ‘Nava?’ Hoshi said as she approached the table. ‘You said you needed some advice on Jukai?’

  ‘Specifically, are there caves in the mountains north of the forest? Very specifically, around the r
egion we airlifted out of.’

  ‘Uh, yeah, I think so.’ Hoshi pulled her ketcom out of her bag and unfolded the screen. ‘I’ll check. Why am I checking for caves?’

  ‘Because the ASF would have noticed someone digging a big hole. I think whoever is controlling the weather has a base there. If it was on the surface, it would’ve been seen. It can’t be too small, so it would require some fairly major construction if it were underground unless they used a pre-existing hole in the ground. Maybe a mine rather than a cave?’

  ‘No mines in that area. Why do you think it’s there at all?’

  ‘The storm started due south of there last night. There’s also the matter of those mercs we ran into. I think the storm we sat through in Jukai was a test. I think the mercs were escorting scientists who were there to see what damage had been done. They walked south from their base.’

  ‘Okay… Well, there are maybe four cave systems in that area which could support some sort of large structure. Those mountains are ancient and there’s been plenty of time for water to erode out the softer rocks.’ Hoshi turned her screen so that Nava could see the map she was using.

  Nava scanned over the image and nodded. ‘Can you send that to my ketcom?’

  ‘You’re going? You’re not going to tell the ASF?’

  ‘I can be out there in less than an hour,’ Nava replied. ‘This is largely guesswork. If I find something, I can call in the ASF to deal with it. If they’re needed.’

  ‘There could be more merc– Forget I said that.’

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ Mitsuko said. ‘At least take someone with you.’

  ‘You know of someone useful who can fly as fast as I can?’ Nava asked.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Neither do I. So I’m going alone.’

  Northern Jukai Forest.

  The first indication Nava had that she had found what she was looking for came in the form of a sensor attached to the ceiling of the cave she was walking through. She was invisible and not worried about it, but it appeared to indicate that someone was interested in monitoring anyone moving too far into the darkness.

  It was certainly dark. Nava was having to use a spell called Sense Environment to get around since using a light would have made the invisibility pointless. Sense Environment was more like having magical radar than being able to see in the dark. It presented itself as vision, but what you saw was more like a relief map of your surroundings out to about two hundred metres. Spotting the sensor on the ceiling was almost as much luck as skill.

  Spotting the four-man team coming toward her from the other end of the cave was another matter. She could actually see a soft, blue glow in the black; they were using ultraviolet lights to see by. That was not an issue since the Invisibility spell worked on all forms of electromagnetic radiation. Still, she paused and then shifted off to one side, crouching down to see what the mercs would do.

  The cave at this point was essentially a tube, taller than it was wide. At some point, a V-shaped section of softer rock had taken up this space and time had carved it out. The cutting tool time had used was now nothing much more than a trickle of water winding its way through a shallow groove to the cave mouth. Maybe it had been more of a torrent at one time. The stone was grey and dull; even the glow from the helmet-mounted lights of the mercs could draw no lustre from it. It made the darkness seem thicker, and the darkness seemed to make the soldiers uncomfortable.

  ‘You see anything?’

  ‘Not a damn thing. If this turns out to be another overactive water drip…’

  ‘Shut the fuck up. The motion sensor indicated something larger.’

  Motion sensor? That was not so good. An infrared motion sensor would have been fooled by Invisibility, but something using sonar was another matter.

  ‘What about animals?’

  ‘There’s nothing wild on this rock. You know that.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I still can’t see anything. There’s nothing here.’

  ‘Yeah…’ One of them seemed to be the leader. At least, he seemed to be the one with more authority. When he spoke again, it appeared that he had activated a radio. ‘Gatehouse to Central. Seems like it was another false alarm.’ Pause. ‘Okay, returning to station. Let’s move it, people. My coffee’s getting cold.’

  As the mercs turned on their heels and started back the way they had come, Nava moved in behind them and followed. Motion sensors could detect her, but if she was in close formation with the men guarding the place, it was doubtful the sensors had the resolution to pick her out of the group.

  A little less than two hundred metres down the tunnel, the cave broadened out and the ceiling rose. The cavern was not huge, but it was large enough to hold several prefabricated buildings. Each was composed of a framework of metal girders supporting foamed-plastic panels. The design was not uncommon in rapidly constructed buildings meant to handle a range of weather conditions. They were not recommended where they had to handle large pressure differentials, but they had good insulating properties. Caves tended to maintain the same, relatively cool, air temperature through the year, so some insulation was not a bad thing. However, right now the cave was actually warmer than the forest, possibly warmer than it should have been. Something here, it seemed, was putting out more than a little waste heat.

  The guards walked through between a pair of more or less identical buildings, heading for a third which differed only in the number of doors cut into the wall panels. Opposite was another building which looked different, but significantly more so. Nava concluded that the first pair were dormitories and that the pair she could see further into the cave were the same. The one the guards were heading into, on Nava’s left, was their command centre, maybe with accommodation for their leaders. On her right was what she was looking for, the heart of the operation. Some recon would be advisable, however; she followed the guards into their control centre.

  The interior of the building was as bland as the exterior. It reminded Nava a little of her own apartment, one of a number of them bundled together into a building by the addition of some walkways and stairs. Here, it was a bunch of rooms, each one panel wide, long, and high, connected together with some corridors. At least, until you entered the central part of the structure where a control room had been set up. Here there were desks, consoles, monitors, and people in shirts and slacks rather than combat gear. No one wore rank insignia, but there was a pecking order evidenced by the leader of the search squad immediately reporting to an older man with a solid, muscled physique, closely cropped brown hair, and an eyepatch. An actual eyepatch! The scarring visible above and below the accessory suggested that something with claws had been responsible for the damage. Now that was a grizzled mercenary.

  ‘Report,’ Eyepatch said. Good, authoritative tone too. Definitely the boss.

  ‘We found nothing, sir,’ the squad leader replied. ‘No indications that anyone had been there, never mind that anyone was still there.’

  Eyepatch grimaced. ‘I thought we’d got these false positives ironed out.’

  Someone else was, apparently, the target of the comment. A woman sitting at a console which had four monitors attached to it looked around. ‘It wasn’t a false alarm. That was a human-size contact.’

  ‘We still found nothing,’ the squad leader replied. ‘Maybe they backed out before we got there.’

  The tech glowered at her monitors for a second. ‘We need to section the sensor field so that we have more of an idea where the movement is. Then I’d know. If it was a magician, they could be using Invisibility. The whole point of this sensor is to defeat invisible magicians.’

  ‘So you said.’ It appeared that the squad leader was less than impressed with the technology. Or the technician. ‘They can’t have all been invisible freaks.’

  ‘If we had a couple of them here with us, we’d know whether there’s a magician here.’

  That was useful to know: there were no magicians among the mercenaries. There had to be some amon
g the scientists they seemed to be protecting though…

  ‘We could get one of Hugo Milton’s people to do a patrol with us.’ The squad leader did not seem especially impressed with his own idea. It seemed that he had something against magicians, but he was willing to work with them if he absolutely had to. He just liked the fact that there were none in his company.

  Also, who was Hugo Milton? Nava knew of a Milton family in the Morgan clan. The Morgans were a minor clan and all Nava knew about the Miltons was their name. It seemed that Hugo was the mercenaries’ client. Presumably, he was the one responsible for the weather phenomena and the ransom demand. Also presumably, he could be found in the other building. Now, Nava just needed someone to leave the room so that opening the door would not look suspicious.

  ~~~

  Demetra Morrison Firmin was feeling more than a little disheartened. The motion sensors were not her invention, but they had been deployed under her recommendation, and they were proving to be a real pain in the ass. Getting the sensitivity right was annoyingly difficult. The initial setting had triggered constantly due to the stream flowing through the bottom of the cave. Then it had been random water droplets falling from the ceiling. She doubted she would ever figure out what had triggered the thing today. She was sure she had it set right this time…

  One of her screens switched focus and she glanced at it. It was the door camera for one of the doors on the laboratory building, so she expected to see Hugo Milton or one of her own company on the screen. Instead, she saw nothing. A couple of taps on her keyboards produced the display from another sensor which was placed about midway down the corridor that door led onto. The camera showed no one in the corridor. The motion sensor paired with it suggested that a human-sized body moving at walking pace was there.

  It took a second or two for Demetra to say anything. Her boss was not going to be especially pleased if this somehow turned out to be a false alarm again. But the door would not have opened without someone opening it…

  ‘Sir, we have a problem in the lab building.’

  ~~~