by J. J. Green
“Could you please stay below, ma’am,” said the commander on Kala’s amphibious craft, a woman named Novak, “just until I give the all clear? For your own safety.”
Kala nodded her agreement, though reluctantly. She knew she could get out and walk across the sand without being harmed, but she didn’t want to distract or disturb her officer.
Distant sounds of fighting were penetrating the solid steel hull as she waited at the bottom of the companionway, and a hot, acrid smell began to permeate the air—the vessel’s forceshield was heating up as it absorbed defensive pulse fire. But, again, she harbored no worries. The armaments along the shore were inadequately manned. As she’d predicted, the main force of the BA army had been occupied in Kingston and elsewhere in the Caribbean Islands, taking over banks and government offices and suppressing civilian protests, when the initial air assault had begun.
Taking advantage of the military coup and launching the offensive from neutral Cuba had been a piece of cake. Ua Talman had guaranteed one thousand places aboard the Banba for the country’s elite in exchange for its government’s cooperation. When it came to deciding who would take the places, there would be vicious fighting and probably bloodshed, but that was none of her concern.
From the bow of her craft came the sound of vehicle engines revving and the vibration of their motion as they drove away, heading inland.
Kala grew impatient. The moment of victory, of utter domination over the arrogant, anachronistic, misguided Britannic Alliance, was so close she could almost feel it. Only one—perhaps two—deeds were needed for her triumph to be complete.
Boom!
Even within the vessel, the sound was loud, and Kala thought she’d felt the deck shift slightly under her feet. “What was that?!” she yelled.
“A moment, please,” replied Novak from up ahead. “I don’t think...No...”
The wait for an answer dragged out. Meanwhile, footsteps rang from overhead as the last of the EAC troops left the vessel.
Eventually, the commander said, “It was a wind power site going up.”
Kala hadn’t given orders to target the island’s energy generation plant. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. In the early days of invasion, until the place had converted to the EAC way of doing things, the free energy could have been useful. Perhaps the assault had been one of Lorcan’s ideas, or maybe it was collateral damage. Either way, she concluded phlegmatically, the plant was no great loss, and depriving the island of electricity would be an advantage when it came to suppressing any resistance from the surviving citizens. Cutting off resources from the remaining Britannic Isles natives had helped to crush them after that invasion.
She heard nothing for a couple of minutes, no shouts, no vehicle engines, no booted feet running.
“The area must be secure now, Commander,” she called to Novak.
The officer came out to join her. “It should be fairly safe, ma’am, though I’d feel better if you would suit up. We have plenty of...” Reacting to Kala’s stare, she swallowed the rest of her sentence. “I’ll accompany you.”
She climbed the ladder to the hatch and opened it. Kala followed.
The sun was coming up as they emerged into fresh air. Novak stepped out onto the deck, and Kala quickly did the same, eager to move on to her next tasks.
In the distance, beyond the dunes, the sky remained dark. But it was an artificial darkness, created by billowing clouds of dark gray smoke. Closer to hand were the destroyed armaments of the BA land force, twisted and wrecked. Among grassy tussocks and salt scrub lay bodies deformed into ugly angles, their blood soaking into the sand. EAC advance amphibious assault craft ranged down the beach at the shoreline. The tide was coming in, and waves were splashing up and over their hulls.
All was surprisingly quiet. Aside from the noises of the sea, little could be heard. Novak really had waited until the fighting was completely over before allowing her Dwyr out into the area. Kala was mildly annoyed, knowing the commander had delayed her gratification, but she grudgingly allowed the officer’s caution had come from a good place.
“Is my vehicle ready?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s over there. I have a company awaiting us at the road.” She led Kala to a ramp that ran down to the beach. At its head sat an all-terrain vehicle with two soldiers in the back seats. Novak opened a door for Kala, then climbed in the other side. Reaching out to the dashboard, Kala set the map coordinates she’d memorized. The island’s net was out, but EAC vehicles could link to the AP’s satellites.
They drove over the dunes, swaying and bumping, as the car took them by the shortest route to the nearest road. The tough seaside plants grew thicker and taller the further inland they drove and the ground flattened out. The way before them had already been broken through by the advancing EAC troops. It looked like they hadn’t met much resistance once they’d left the shoreline.
It had all gone to plan. The military coup on top of the fighting at the outer islands had drained the already thinly spread BA defenses in the Caribbean to a shadow. Their military leaders had been astoundingly foolish. Kala didn’t think of herself as a particularly clever strategist—she’d always relied on the fervent religious zeal of her followers to win many of her battles—but she would never have been so dumb as the Britannic Alliance.
It really didn’t deserve to survive.
They drove out onto the road, and the waiting convoy of armored vehicles fell into line behind them.
“May I ask where we’re going?” said Novak.
“We’re on our way to the last known location of King Frederick.”
“No kidding. I didn’t know he was hiding out here in Jamaica. I guess it makes sense.”
“There were several possibilities. I suspected he might have been moved to Oceania, probably Australia. It’s easy to hide someone in the wilderness there. But my sources couldn’t turn up anything. Next I looked in India, where the BA has historical ties. I thought he might be in a mountain refuge. But that was a blank, too. The Caribbean was the last place I looked. I couldn’t believe the BA Government would be stupid enough to keep their monarch in the same location as their new Parliament, but I overestimated them, in this and many other things.”
Looking somewhat embarrassed, Novak half-turned in her seat toward Kala and quietly asked, “When it’s all over, will we be holding a victory celebration?”
“If you mean will we be blessing the Caribbean Islands and returning them to Earth’s embrace? Naturally we will! In a month or so, when we’ve cleansed them of their former inhabitants.”
“Hm,” was all the commander responded, but she seemed satisfied.
Kala could appreciate why. She also enjoyed the celebrations.
The car crested a rise, and the road wound out through the hilly ground in front of them. The light was growing stronger, and now it was easy to see to the horizon.
She thought she could see King Frederick’s hiding place. To the right a gray slate roof was visible among the trees, an unusual construction for a tropical island. Sure enough, after another minute’s travel, the car turned into a driveway and came to a halt. Heavy gates barred the way. On the other side of them, an avenue of trees ran into the distance.
“Ah,” said Novak. “Don’t worry, Dwyr. We’ll make quick work of that.”
She wasn’t lying.
Ten minutes later, after she’d given the order, the gates lay in a hot, twisted mess. Kala waited as soldiers dragged them off the road, hooking them with their rifle butts, the metal scraping channels in the gravel. Then her journey to find King Freddie recommenced.
They encountered some armed resistance farther down the long driveway that led to the stately home, but it was quickly dispersed. The fight had clearly gone out of the BA forces. She didn’t send soldiers after the departing BA guards. They would meet their end in the mop-up operation.
Inside the mansion, all was silent. Whatever servants had worked there had apparently fled hours ago. Had t
hey taken the young king with them? That would be inconvenient. Kala ordered a thorough search of the place, from the basement to the attic. In these old houses, hiding places and nooks and crannies abounded.
She waited while the search went on, sitting on one of the antique chairs in the hall. The invasion had gone smoothly so far. She hoped there wouldn’t be too much of a delay in finding the brat. From all around came the sound of her troops opening doors and running up and down stairs and along passageways. She tapped the floor with the toe of her shoe.
Finally, the shout went up. The king had been found.
Novak’s head appeared over the banister railing. “He’s on the second floor, ma’am.”
“Good. Bring him down.”
“Er, a woman’s with him. She’s putting up quite a fight. What would you like us to do?”
“Is it his mother?”
“I don’t think so. She’s too old. Probably a servant. Maybe his former nurse?”
“It doesn’t matter. Kill her.”
“Yes, Dwyr.” Novak’s head disappeared.
A few beats later, a long, agonized, child’s scream echoed out from somewhere in the building.
Kala stood up, preparing to leave. She had another stop to make that day before her work was over.
YOUNG KING FREDDIE was about Perran’s age, she estimated. He was squeezed in between two soldiers on the back seat of the car as they left the house that had been his home since the Britannic Isles had fallen.
The kid was blubbing like a boy half his age, his eyes and face red and wet, strings of snot hanging from his nose as he huffed and sobbed.
Kala curled her upper lip and turned to face forward.
How undignified.
Perran would never have behaved so pathetically, not even if she herself had had her throat cut in front of him. For all his expensive tutoring, apparently no one had taught the boy to have a fucking backbone.
“Where are we going now?” asked Novak.
“Our next port of call is Kingston Prison.”
When the commander cocked her eyebrow at her questioningly, Kala explained, “The BA Prime Minister is there, Beaumont-Smith.”
“They put their leader in jail?!”
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Commander. I would have thought you’d seen enough of how the BA work by now. There’s very little intelligence to their actions.”
“I knew about the coup, but...”
“I imagine their military invented some crimes he supposedly committed, in order to justify taking over the government and locking him up. That’s often how these things work.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
Kala frowned. The noises from the backseat were getting annoying. “Could you put a gag on him or something?” she asked the soldiers.
After a brief scuffle and some shouting, the kid’s crying quietened down, though it was still loud enough to be irritating. Luckily, at that moment, the square, brick building of Kingston Prison appeared.
The prison was about three kilometers outside the capital, and it hadn’t been touched by the bombing. As with the king’s estate, the place was relatively quiet. A few guards had stayed at their posts, but they were quickly dispatched.
The prison security system proved a more worthy adversary. The outer double doors were locked and required bio-ID to open them.
“Shit,” said Novak, her nose nearly touching the panel. She took a step backward and sized up the doors, her hands on her hips.
“Can you get through?” Kala asked.
“With enough time, we can get through anything. The problem is, we might take out the whole building.”
“Unless you have another suggestion, go for it. I’d like to look Beaumont-Smith in the eye, but if I can’t, I’ll deal with the disappointment.”
One corner of Novak’s lips lifted. “It’ll be safest if you wait in the car, ma’am.”
Watching the destruction of the entrance to Kingston Prison would have been more entertaining if the head of the BA’s royal family had let up his wailing, but it was not to be. Kala grimly listened to the kid in between the blasts of mortar fire.
When Novak approached the car to tell her the route into the prison was now clear, she ordered that the boy be brought with them.
“The building probably isn’t stable,” said the commander as they walked back to the rubble remains of the entrance, “but I guess you’re set on going inside.”
“Of course I am. Are the prisoners still in their cells?”
“Yes, the guards left them there when they ran off. Do you have a plan for them?”
“Not particularly. I’ll think about it.”
Dust and smoke hung heavy in the atmosphere around the front of the building, and the heat from the blasts radiated from the debris. Kala coughed and her eyes smarted. She lifted the collar of her shirt over her mouth and nose and gingerly stepped through the shattered concrete and bent iron spread over the ground.
Within the prison, the inmates were hollering and screaming and creating quite a cacophony, even at their distance from the entrance. At least the noise drowned out the muffled sniffles of King Fred. The lights were out, but the helmet lights of Novak and the accompanying soldiers cut into the darkness.
“We should have the Prime Minister located soon,” said Novak. “If he’s in here, we’ll find him.”
“He’s here,” replied Kala simply.
Some things she just knew. It was hard to describe, but it was an ability she’d had as long as she could remember. It was one of the things that had started her on the path to founding the EAC. Every so often an extra sense that other people didn’t seem to have, a nameless certainty, would strike her. Now was one of those times. She could feel Beaumont-Smith somewhere nearby, feel his fear and dread, his rage toward his adversaries, his longing for the perfect, comfortable, powerful life he’d led and that was now gone forever. He stood out to her, a bright bundle of emotions in the darkness, shining out stronger than all the lost souls surrounding him.
“This way,” Kala suddenly said as they came to a branch of the main corridor.
“Dammit,” said Novak. A closed, reinforced door stood in their way a few meters down.
Kala carried on walking until she reached it. She grasped the handle and turned it. Satisfaction surging, she pulled the door open. The departing guards hadn’t locked it.
They found the BA Prime Minister cowering in the corner of his cell, ineffectively hiding behind his bunk like a three-year-old playing hide and seek.
“Y-Your Majesty!” he breathed when, peeking out, he realized they could all see him. One of the soldiers was holding the king by the scruff of his neck. The boy appeared intent on beating the record for a fit of crying, Kala mused, her brows creased.
The PM crawled from his hiding place and got uncertainly to his feet. Addressing the kid, he said, “I hope they haven’t hurt you. If you’ve hurt one hair on this child’s head,” he said to Kala, “I’ll—”
“What?” She snorted derisively. “Do you want the honor?” she asked Novak.
“Me?” the commander replied. “I’d love to.” She took her beamer from its holster.
This movement sent Beaumont-Smith into a frenzy of terror. He fled to the wall of his cell and tried frantically—and rather nonsensically, in Kala’s opinion—to climb the walls. He looked rather like an old spider trapped in his own web.
Which, she reflected, he was, kind of.
“It’ll hurt less if you don’t move,” Novak called out.
But the old man was beyond any kind of self control. Abject fear had seized him, and he continued to try to make an impossible escape from his doom.
It took three shots to finish him off, and Kala felt a bit sick by the end. That barbecue smell of cooked human flesh was something she’d never grown accustomed to.
The kid was now shrieking calamitously, hurting her ears despite his gag. She held out her hand to Novak, who passed over her w
eapon.
She fired, and the noise stopped.
“That’s better.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Wright was like a plushy with all the stuffing taken out. He sagged as he leaned against the bulkhead, and then collapsed onto a chair. He put his head in his hands and slowly shook it.
“I can’t believe it,” he murmured.
Then he straightened up. Ignoring Taylan and Arthur, he said, aghast, “Brigadier, is this true?” He was comming Colbourn.
Taylan was beside herself with curiosity. She’d never seen Wright react so strongly before. He’d always been the model of self-control and professionalism, whether faced by a dumb marine who had got her foot trapped between rocks or a raging, violent sick bay patient. No matter what life threw at him, the major always kept his cool.
This was different.
He was listening to Colbourn’s reply.
Arthur was also watching Wright, clearly curious, but he stayed silent.
The major suddenly leapt up and strode to the door.
“Hey,” Taylan said, “what’s happened?”
As if only just remembering there were other people in the cabin, he replied, “Military business. Wait here.”
The door opened and he marched out.
Taylan turned to Arthur. “Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”
“But, didn’t he say...”
She was already out in the passageway. Wright was a few meters away, moving fast. She ran to catch up to him.
He glanced at her with a look of annoyance. “I told you to—”
“You said it was military business. I’d like to remind you, I am military.”
“Huh, you didn’t want to be for a while there. Go back to your mythical friend. He needs someone to look after him. He’s obviously mentally ill.”
Wright was setting such a quick pace, and she had to trot to keep up.
“Arthur isn’t mentally ill, he’s who I said he was. He told you so without any suggestions from me. I never went near him all the time he was learning English, and before then he couldn’t understand me, so I couldn’t have influenced him.”