by J. J. Green
Except one.
The disagreeable thought intruded into her state of bliss. She still hadn’t found and destroyed the single real threat to the EAC.
But she could think about it tomorrow, not tonight.
Tomorrow she would also embark on the next logical step of her plan. Now that the AP had served its purpose as an ally, it was time to turn on it. Ua Talman’s project had outstayed its welcome on Earth. It had to go.
Kala was laid gently down on a prepared bed of grass and flowers, and her mind returned to the present and the joyous celebration.
The night was young.
Chapter Forty-One
The Cornflower’s nose dipped, which meant they’d entered Earth’s stratosphere. Taylan tightened her grip on her pulse rifle and looked up at Wright, who sat on the bench opposite her. She could just about make out his eyes through the tint of his visor. He had his gaze on the corvette’s aft hatch, from where they would emerge onto Jamaican soil.
The last time she’d gone on a mission, she’d nearly been left for dead and ended up with a broken back.
Would this time turn out any better?
It wasn’t likely.
Wright’s attention had turned to her. They held eye contact for several seconds before he looked away.
What was he thinking? Was he blaming her for Colbourn’s decisions since hearing about the attack on Jamaica? Or was he grateful for the forthcoming battle, the chance to go out fighting for something he believed in? The only alternative for the marines on the Valiant was to secede from the BA with the rest of the fleet and eke out an existence spent drifting in space, scrounging for food, water, and energy.
It would be like how things had been after she made it to Ireland. Unable to find her children, crammed into an overcrowded refugee camp, barely able to find enough food to survive, life had no longer seemed worth living. Enlisting had seemed the only escape. She’d figured at least that way she might do some good and put right the terrible wrongs the EAC had done to her people.
Had she done any good in her time in the Royal Marines? She wasn’t sure.
Turbulence hit them and lifted the Cornflower high, then just as rapidly dumped her low. Again, the corvette rode the roller coaster, and then again, each time sending her stomach up into her throat and down into her intestines.
A nudge from an elbow.
Abacha.
She’d forgotten her friend was sitting by her side. Her nerves must really be getting to her.
He pushed his helmet against hers so they could speak without using comm, which others could listen in on.
“No puking, little chick.”
“I’ll be okay. You look after yourself, big man. I just thought of a xiangqi strategy that’ll blow your mind. You’ll never outmaneuver me now.”
“Ha! I’ll believe it when I see it.”
A pause stretched out, but Taylan didn’t move her helmet away from her friend’s.
Before the thought had formed properly in her mind, she blurted, “Do you think we’ll get back to the Valiant?” As she spoke, she realized her nervousness wasn’t for herself as much as it was for Arthur. With all that was going on in the world, there was little chance she would ever find her children. They were already orphans in spirit if not in fact, and she had to trust that someone, somewhere had taken pity on them and was bringing them up as best they could. So whether she lived or died no longer really mattered.
But what about Arthur? What would he do if she were killed? He would never survive alone in her world. If the shock of reality hitting didn’t kill him, his utter unpreparedness would. Skill at fighting with staves didn’t count for much in the twenty-third century.
“Who knows?” Abacha replied. “The bigger question is, if we do survive, will the Valiant be there for us to return to?”
He had a point.
Colbourn was acting alone without the support of the rest of the fleet. The Valiant was well equipped, but she was no match for the entire combined AP and EAC space forces.
It was true that the brigadier had had the lucky break of her life when they’d arrived. For some unknown reason, the majority of the EAC fleet was absent, and the handful of AP ships in Earth’s vicinity had ignored the BA ship’s arrival. Yet the Valiant would still be hard put to fight off the EAC space attack. Her odds were now better than impossible, but only just.
“Taylan,” said Abacha, not using the nickname he’d given her, not even calling her ‘Ellis’, so she knew he was in earnest.“Have you thought about what you’ll do if things don’t go our way?”
“If it looks like we’re going to lose? What else can we do? We carry on fighting.”
He moved away from her and straightened up, looking ahead, but his eyes were unfocused. Then he leaned over until their helmets touched again.
“My family is from the Caribbean,” he said. “Not Jamaica, St. Kitts. But I know the islands. I know how to get around, the backwoods places where it’s easy to hide. In the warm climate, you don’t need a lot to survive, and you and I, we’ve been trained to rough it.”
She stared at him. “What are you suggesting?!”
“I don’t think I need to put it into words. Just something to think about.”
Rocked to her core, she jerked her helmet away, breaking contact.
Desertion?
The man sitting beside her had suddenly become a stranger. She’d thought she knew him, she’d thought her friend was brave, loyal, and trustworthy. She’d been wrong.
Hadn’t what Arthur had said meant anything to him?
She could remember the king’s speech like he’d given it five minutes ago.
It had been her idea to get him to talk to Colbourn’s marines and crew. She wasn’t sure why she’d suggested it, except for the fact it seemed the BA had lost its way, and that Arthur’s beliefs and values were what was missing. Trying to restore them might do some good.
Colbourn had probably only agreed because she was desperate and didn’t know what else to do. She’d ordered everyone aboard the Valiant and Cornflower to gather in the Valiant’s largest gym, leaving a skeleton crew aboard the corvette. Even that wasn’t big enough to accommodate everyone. They’d stood shoulder to shoulder, crowded the gallery, and leaned in at the doors.
Then Arthur had arrived.
He edged through the crowd so unassumingly Taylan didn’t think anyone knew he was the speaker until he stepped onto the platform. His red gold hair made him stand out, but his expression was modest.
He began to speak, but softly, so that they all had to be quiet to hear him. He’d spoken about honor, integrity, and goodness, and what they meant to him. The terms and examples he used were hard to understand at first, but if you really thought about them, his points became clear.
He told them of the things his knights had done, acts that were selfless and virtuous, and how much they had sacrificed to stay true to their cause. He’d described their benevolence and kindness, their courage and valor. As he spoke, his esteem and love for these men long dead shone through his words, and Taylan was reminded of the awe with which her father had recounted their tales.
As the king neared the end of his speech, she found herself weeping.
Finally, Arthur had said:
I do not know who you all are or what place I am in. This dream continues so long, I begin to fear it is no dream at all, and that I am somehow in a strange, new world. But one thing I do know: You are men and women, the same as my people. Though a chasm separates us, inside you are the same as me and my folk. You share their needs and wants, their desires and fears. If you have listened and understood what I have told you, and if you hold these ideas in your minds and hearts in everything you do and say, you may one day be as honorable and valiant as my knights.
Had the speech had any effect on the listeners? Taylan thought it was more than likely most of them thought he was mad and talking nonsense. But Colbourn had been affected, and so had Wright. She saw a new resolve and co
nviction in their faces, and the uncertainty and doubt they’d shown for weeks had gone.
The brigadier had waited two hours before broadcasting a comm to all personnel, saying that she’d proposed to the new admiral that the Space Fleet go to the rescue of the BA citizens trapped in the Caribbean, but her proposal had been shot down.
The admiral reportedly replied it was everyone for themselves now, as Hennessy and Montague had demonstrated when they enacted their military coup without consulting anyone except their cronies. The subsequent invasion of the Caribbean was their own fault, in the admiral’s opinion, and though the devastation to the local population was regrettable, she wouldn’t risk any of her personnel to correct others’ mistakes.
“So you see,” said Colbourn, “if we try to help our people in the Caribbean, who are probably being hunted down and murdered as I speak, we’re going to be on our own. I want to do it and so does Major Wright, but neither of us is willing to order you to undertake a suicide mission. I’ll give you an hour to think about it, then we’ll take a vote. If the majority votes in favor, anyone who doesn’t want to participate will be ferried to the Moon Station on our way to Earth.”
Taylan voted immediately, hoping but not certain that anyone would vote the same way. When the results came in, it was clear that Arthur had reached them.
Now they were on their way to Earth, and she didn’t know why Abacha hadn’t elected to take the Moon option if he was so convinced they would fail. Perhaps he’d been worried he’d be stranded there with no way to get home.
For the rest of the ride, she didn’t speak to her friend again. Just before they touched ground, he spoke to her a final time. “Don’t discount what I told you, Tay. If the situation becomes hopeless, remember what I said. I’ll wait to hear from you, but only for a little while.”
A SHARP BANK TO THE left sent her sliding sideways, and then soft judders vibrated down the Cornflower. The corvette was under fire, no doubt from EAC anti-aircraft batteries in Jamaica, and she was firing back. Taylan clung to her harness, preparing to be slung around as the pilot jinked the ship to avoid being hit. The plan had been to come in low and fast, which would make her harder to hit, but she had to get down low first.
The vessel plummeted like a stone, so fast for a second Taylan wondered if the engines had been taken out. The fall seemed to take forever, then they powered forward. All the marines crushed into each other, in spite of their restraints. The ship had swerved sharply several times during the descent, but she seemed to have dodged the worst the EAC could throw at her.
Her thrusters roared, and Taylan was thrown in the opposite direction. The thump of landing would have jolted Taylan right out of her seat if it hadn’t been for her harness. At Wright’s order, she unclipped her harness and leapt up to join the line preparing to disembark.
Outside, the midday sun glared down, and her visor instantly dimmed, turning the world darker and highly defined. Data flashed up on her HUD: Conditions, a map of the terrain, and who within her field of view was friend and who was foe.
She was running up a wide, sandy beach. A ridge overlooked the shoreline, and from several spots along it smoke was rising. She guessed they were the sites of armaments the corvette had destroyed. She could also spy the shell of a building peeking out above the ridge line. It had to be the place they were aiming for and so the corvette should have spared it, but it had been reduced to walls, blown-out windows, and ragged reminders of the people had once lived there. Well, that was one place the Dwyr wasn’t at.
Dammit!
“Hostiles on the ridge, twelve o’clock,” Wright barked, exactly as the pulses began to rain down. The Cornflower hadn’t managed to wipe out all the opposition.
At the major’s signal, Taylan headed for the area where the ridge flattened out to meet the beach. Several paths cut into the slope among the long grass. She ran up one of them, peering ahead, trying to find the source of the pulse fire. On another trail, someone got hit, fell, and tumbled down onto the sand. He was squirming, still alive, his suit breastplate blackened and smoking.
Whispers of pulse bolts unleashed on the EAC defenders.
She saw one: A helmet had bobbed into and out of view and a single shot had fired. Keeping her rifle aimed on the spot, she carried on running. Randomly, she squeezed the trigger. The soldier bobbed up again into the bolt’s path. He didn’t reappear.
Marines were cresting the ridge, picking off the EAC troops. There didn’t seem to be many, and they were falling back.
As she reached the top, she saw Wright run up to one of the injured, a man lying on his back, writhing in pain from a wound that had almost severed his leg. The major knelt down beside him and unclipped and pulled off the wounded soldier’s helmet.
“Where’s the Dwyr?” he asked. “Is she on the island?”
The man’s face was deathly white and slick with sweat. He closed his eyes and jammed his lips together, shaking his head. His blood pooled around him.
“Tell me,” Wright insisted. “You’re going to die anyway.”
Still, the soldier refused to answer.
“Medic!” yelled the major. Then, to the wounded man, “If I give you something for the pain, will you tell me the Dwyr’s location?”
Finally, he spoke. “Yes,” he gasped. “Yes, I’ll tell you.”
Wright nodded at the medic who had arrived at his side. After hastily scrabbling in her supplies, she pulled out a pressure hypodermic and touched it to the soldier’s bloody, exposed thigh.
He screamed.
She fired the syringe, and the man’s rigid body relaxed. His eyes opened.
Before the major could even repeat his question, the EAC soldier spat at him. The gob of spittle hit his visor and ran down.
If Wright said something in reaction, he kept it to himself, turning off his external comm. He stood up. At his feet, the wounded man’s body shuddered and was still. The major took out his canteen and squirted water over his visor. “We’re going to search all the sites on our list until we find her,” he said.
Taylan groaned. They’d been given eight places the Dwyr might be using as her base. Going to all of them would take so long, the EAC would be bound to catch up to them and capture or kill them before they could escape on the Cornflower.
Unless they gave up on the mission, they were truly screwed. She thought again of Abacha’s suggestion, but firmly pushed the idea aside. After what Arthur had said, she knew she could never take him up on his offer.
A tall marine was walking up the line. It was her friend, as if her thoughts had called him. He approached the major, and for a minute the two stood in private conference.
By a small motion of his helmet, she saw Wright agree to something, then his order came: “Get ready to get back to the ship. We’re going to the royal estate outside Kingston.”
They got aboard the Cornflower just in time. As the corvette took to the air, the beach beside her exploded and the shockwave knocked her sideways. But the pilot had put sufficient space between them and the ground to avoid crashing into it.
A few tens of kilometers was no distance to the vessel, and before Taylan had a chance to ask Abacha what made him think the Dwyr would be at the royal estate, they’d landed. The plan was the same simple steps: Run out, kill the hostiles, search for the EAC leader.
This time, however, they encountered a strong defense. They’d landed within the estate grounds, so they were surrounded by enemy troops. Soldiers approached from behind. moving in from the gates and perimeter fence, and they were pouring out from the mansion. The firing began as the first marines left the ship. They fought their way forward, taking out the foremost of their attackers, but it was hard going. They were forced to leave injured comrades on the ground in their battle to reach the building, hoping medics remaining on the Cornflower could drag them aboard before the ship left.
The strength of the resistance was both a good and a bad sign. The place the Dwyr had taken for herself on Jamaica
would be well-defended, so it looked like Abacha could be right. On the other hand, the place the Dwyr had taken for herself on Jamaica would be well-defended, so their attack might not succeed.
Despite the danger, Taylan was struck by the appearance of the house. It was similar to the old stately homes of the BI: Huge, many-windowed, and solid.
She was sure Abacha had guessed right.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Bitch!” spat Lorcan.
He’d known Dwyr Orr was trouble right from the start. Why oh why had he entered into an alliance with her? He could have predicted this would happen.
Hell, he’d known it would happen, deep down, right from the beginning. How could he have been so stupid? She’d caught him off guard, and it had been entirely preventable.
He watched the pinpricks of light that represented the approaching EAC fleet on the display in the Bres’s control room.
“Sir,” said Jurrah hesitantly, “perhaps you should—”
The juggling ball Lorcan had launched with a flick of his wrist hit the man between the eyes.
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
It was obvious what he had to do. It was only that he was furious at himself for ever countenancing the Dwyr’s proposal, and about the time, money, and resources that defeating the EAC ships would entail.
Why couldn’t the evil witch leave him alone for another few years? Then the Project would be finished, and she would never see him or a colony ship ever again. That had been their agreement. He’d been a fool for imagining she would stick to it.
Mustering his considerable willpower, he put a lid on his anger and returned to his seat. He opened a comm to the admiral of his fleet. “Bujold.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you for your message. We also see the EAC ships.”
“Only awaiting your orders, sir.”
“You have free rein, Admiral. Have at them. Don’t hold anything back. I want those vessels wiped from space.”