“So you think the Levron will surround the UC battleship, and, what? The Class 5 will just accept that?” Havna's voice was disbelieving.
Silius shrugged. “I don't believe it's out of the solar system, but it's not close enough to react that fast. If our Levron surround the Urna, what is it going to do? It won't want to harm the UC ship and anyone onboard, and the moment it fires on the Levron, at least one of them will be able to destroy the Urna.”
“Until the UC send in reinforcements,” Kai said.
“Even if they do, by then, we'll have had time to purge the systems of all evidence, get rid of her,” he waved his hand at Lucy, “and it will just be put down as teething trouble of an ill-advised political solution. If we decide to go that route.”
They weren't going to go that route. Lucy could see that in the way Silius waved his hand as he spoke.
“What alternative route is there?” Casivera asked.
“War.”
Everyone was so surprised that Lucy had spoken, they swiveled to look at her in shock.
She shrugged. “It's what he's dying for. Can't you see?”
The others looked at Silius nervously.
“Why are you in the military if you're afraid of war?” Silius asked them.
“This is madness.” Casivera's nostrils flared in disgust. “Have fun in your fantasy land, Silius. I'm going out to rejoin actual Tecran society.”
“Your fingers are all over this, Casivera. You helped to grab her, you helped to hunt her. You are all in this up to your necks.”
Everyone paused at that.
“So who's going to out me, you?” Casivera asked. “It will implicate you just as much. I'll take my chances. What I won't do is kill someone in Karn's resting place.”
He turned his back and stepped between the two soldiers who'd shuffled back before, but before he'd gone two steps, shockgun fire brought him down.
He fell without a sound and lay still.
The two soldiers moved away from him, and Lucy stared at them. No one went to see if he was still alive, they all looked down on Casivera in shock.
“Anyone else got any scruples they can't ignore?” Silius's voice was low.
“What do we do now?” Havna asked. He stared at her rather than look at Silius.
“I want to try to get hold of the general one more time. As long as we keep her in here out of sight, I don't think we'll have any trouble, so I'll try to get orders before I take matters into my own hands.” Silius pointed to Fai and Havna. “Guard her.” He looked at the two who'd had second thoughts. “You can come with me.”
Lucy watched him go and tried not to show her relief.
At last, the odds were moving in her favor.
Chapter 38
The slim pen lay in her trouser pocket. She hadn't tried to hide it, had actually forgotten about it until she'd started trying to fight free earlier. They'd overlooked it when they'd searched her.
Her hand came up to fiddle with the beads on the necklace, which they hadn't taken any notice of at all.
Lucy eyed Fai and Havna from the corner they'd put her in, watching the way they leaned together to talk in hushed whispers.
They'd moved Casivera's body to one side and now they were talking strategy.
She wondered if they were talking themselves into or out of supporting Silius.
She could tell Fai now that if she went against Havna's decision, he'd either take her down or rat her out to Silius.
He was a yes man.
She pulled out the cylinder. Looked around for any metal in the room she could use.
Fai had turned on a light. The space was open and clean. A tight spiral staircase stood to one side, with a barrier across it to prevent anyone from going up without the proper access.
A shrine had been built into the far wall. A miniature Karn stood, hands outstretched, on a shelf above a miniature waterfall. It fell in a pale green sheet into a pile of rocks below and disappeared into the floor.
The rest of the space was empty.
Not much to work with.
She weighed up the benefits of using the beads, but she still had to get out the door, so beads or flying up onto a wall with the cylinder, either way, she was still in the room, and she had a feeling Silius hadn't gone far and wouldn't be away long.
She was feeling more and more herself as the drug left her system, and she flexed her fingers, wriggled her toes, tensed the muscles in her legs.
She couldn't pretend to still be groggy after her attempted escape earlier, but she had been compliant and quiet since they brought her in here, and she hoped that gave them a false sense of control over her.
The door opened, and Fai and Havna turned, shockguns raised, only to relax when one of the soldiers who'd gone out with Silius poked his head around it.
“What?” Havna's voice was sharp as he got over the spike of shock.
The soldier gave him a dirty look. “Silius wants one of you. He says to drug her again if it will make things easier for just one to watch her.”
Fai and Havna exchanged a look.
“Fai can go.” Havna tilted his head at her.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
Doesn't fully trust her, Lucy thought. And now she knows it.
“Fine.” Fai holstered her shockgun, pulled her cloak around her, and stepped outside.
Lucy watched as Havna closed the door behind her. Took a look at the round metal handle on the door that reminded her of the hatch locks on submarines.
She didn't know if it was the right kind of metal, but she might as well find out.
Havna turned to look at her, slid his shockgun away and pulled out a flat disc with a sharp tip in the middle. The sedative, she guessed. She'd just officially run out of time.
“We should have gotten rid of you hours ago.”
She shrugged. “You should never have taken me in the first place.”
He hunched a little at that, because she guessed he'd thought the same thing himself more than once.
She smoothed a finger down the side of the cylinder, and even though she knew what to expect this time, she still flinched as the tip shot off, past Havna, and then suddenly she was being dragged across the floor at speed.
She'd made sure her legs were bent to her chest when she'd released the magnet and she stuck out an arm to grab Havna's shins as she passed him.
Her shoulder was wrenched in a vicious jerk as she hit him, and he fell with a shout of surprise.
As soon as she reached the door, she ran her finger down the cylinder twice, to uncouple it and free her hand, and then she pulled the door open.
Silius was standing just outside, looking down at his handheld.
At the swing of the door, he looked up, and his face contorted at the sight of her.
She slammed the door shut again and spun, looking for escape.
Havna was on his hands and knees, groaning.
She spun back to the door, looking for a way to lock it, and then realized there was no lock.
This was a shrine, and anyone could come in.
She saw the handle begin to spin and she turned away from it, ran her finger down the cylinder, pointing it upward, and hoped it would find something to attach to.
Suddenly she was flying, moving out of the way of the door a moment before Silius slammed it open.
She sailed over Havna's head as he pulled himself to his feet, and landed on the first curve of the stairway.
For a single beat, there was silence as everyone took in the changed circumstances, and then Silius gave a shout of rage and Lucy grabbed the handrail and started climbing.
As Dray ran out into the square, the night suddenly lit up.
He snapped his head upward, and couldn't help but go still at the sight above.
Bane's Class 5 ship was hovering directly over the city, the spiky ball of it illuminated in an eerie blue-white light.
The ship was as low as it could go in the atmosphere, he guessed, but
even so, as high up as it was, it loomed.
Bane was off the leash he'd imposed on himself.
The square slowly went quiet as one by one people looked up and noticed the threat above them.
“Someone has Lucy Harris.” The words blasted from every speaker in the square. From the public comms systems, from people's handhelds, even from the vending machines, and a still image of Lucy laughing, eyes lit up in amusement, was suddenly on every screen. “Let her go, or I will make you very, very sorry.” Bane's words were like the hiss of a thousand furious voices.
People gasped in shock.
Then someone ran out to the small open area in the center of the square and screamed, shaking their fist up at Bane.
Some joined him, others edged away.
This was no unified crowd. It hadn't been from the start.
The military had only been able to play their dirty tricks because of the diverse views of the protesters.
“They won't know how to tell you if they've seen something or know where she's been taken, but they might tell me.” Dray spoke normally, hoping Bane was listening. Someone walked past him, toward the center of the square, and hissed at him as they passed.
Or maybe they wouldn't tell him, Dray realized grimly. They would see Bane's appearance as part of a UC strategy.
It would be hard to convince them the thinking system was acting alone.
Except, he wasn't.
Dray was with him all the way.
“He's absolutely striking, isn't he?” Cossi spoke in a quiet voice, and Dray remembered she had come out the door behind him. “How has he lit himself up like that? Where's the light coming from?”
Dray shook his head but Cossi didn't even notice, she was still looking up.
“Do we need to run? Is he going to strike the square?”
Dray lifted his shoulders. “I don't know. He hasn't spoken to me since his appearance.”
“I'll give you some warning before I strike the square.” Bane's voice was almost too calm in his ear, and from Cossi's sudden jerk, Dray guessed Bane was allowing her in on the conversation as well.
“Can I talk you out of doing that?” Dray looked around, noticed people were streaming in from all around to see Bane.
The shouting at the center had only gotten louder.
All day and through the night, there had been a sense of waiting, of small outbreaks of defiance, but a sense the big moment had yet to come.
Bane had just ensured that big moment was now.
“I've got a small team coming to join us,” Cossi said. A Tecran shouldered her as he walked past and she shoved back, then raised her shockgun, and the protester stumbled away.
Dray felt the impatience to get moving, to do something, rise up in him, but Cossi gripped his arm.
“We can't walk any deeper into the crowd without more numbers. You want to actually find Lucy, don't you? Not die trying.”
He gave a nod, looked behind her, and saw two of his own people, two of Cossi's and two of Chep's come out the door, all geared up for serious engagement.
“The Garmann still nowhere to be seen?”
“Wouldn't want them, anyway,” Cossi said. “I like to trust the people watching my back.”
Dray nodded, but he knew this was a serious issue. They couldn't have an alliance with the Garmann if they couldn't trust them to even uphold the agreement to be part of the UC delegation.
“See this Grih officer? This Bukari officer?” The buzz of a thousand angry insects cut off all other noise again as Bane took over every speaker. He switched the image of Lucy to the live feed of Dray and Cossi standing in the square. “Let them know if you've seen any sign of Lucy Harris. Do it now. This is the countdown, before I shoot down the statue of Karn.”
A time stamp came up on the screen.
“Half an hour?” Even Cossi couldn't hide her shock.
“Let's move into the crowd. No one will approach us if they have to break cover to do it.” Dray strode forward, and Cossi jogged to come abreast with him, the six other officers taking up the rear, shockguns ready.
They didn't need to go far to get into the thick of the protesters. A few tried to shove and push, but Dray wasn't in any mood to be diplomatic. After the second person crumpled and crawled away, no one tried to touch him or Cossi again.
The threat to blast the massive statue of Karn, which loomed over the square, palms cupped to receive the blessing of the wind, seemed to have electrified the Tecran.
Shock and outrage were the dominant reactions.
While Dray had understood from his research before he arrived in Fa'allen that the Tecran saw Karn as the embodiment of their transition to an advanced sentience, he hadn't understood until now the significance it had as a symbol to them.
Bane obviously did. He had been birthed here, in as much as a thinking system could be born.
“You will destroy our legacy?” A woman planted herself in front of them.
Dray looked at her in silence.
She pointed upward. “Call your mad kol off.”
“Bane doesn't answer to me. And he no longer answers to your own military leaders, either.” Dray made sure to raise his voice so everyone around them could hear.
“He does answer to you. He came along as your insurance that you'd get your way.”
“Our way is your way, too.” Dray reminded her. “It was an agreement your own leaders drafted.”
“Under threat of war!” Someone in the crowd shouted.
“A war you started, but then realized you couldn't win,” Cossi said. She turned slowly, looking everyone in front of them in the eye before moving on.
“What part of the agreement covered having our most treasured monument destroyed?” The woman asked, and for the first time, Dray saw the fear and desperation in her eyes.
“It didn't. I have asked Bane not to do it, but you think about why he's chosen it as the target if Lucy isn't found.”
“Because it will hurt us the most,” the woman said.
“Because it will hurt you the most,” Dray agreed, “and because it symbolizes your ascension to advanced sentience, and yet, you have chosen not to respect Lucy's advanced sentience.”
Cossi gaped at him, as if she hadn't expected such an insight to come from him.
The woman stared. “Either we respect her or he disrespects our view of ourselves?”
Dray shrugged. Said nothing.
“But what if no one knows where she is?” The woman looked around at the Tecran who surrounded her. “Does anyone know?”
There was silence.
“We have so little time. Let's start looking.”
Shockgun fire suddenly jumped through the crowd, touched Dray lightly on the chest, and was extinguished by his protective suit.
He lifted his own weapon, searching for the source, and saw four protesters who'd been in the path of the shot had been hit.
“Take cover.” He shouted over the screams and cries.
“Don't pretend you're not behind this,” a man shouted from behind a wall of panicked people. “Stop the UC and this madness stops.”
Dray swung around, looking for the Tecran who was shouting, because he had a strong suspicion he was part of Ulima's military team, and then the first object hit his shoulder.
He looked down at it as it dropped to the ground.
A boot.
“Time to find cover ourselves,” Cossi said, as she took a step back, shockgun lifted.
Dray considered it, taking in the crowds around them.
But he didn't have time to retreat.
He straightened, stood his ground, and shot over the heads of the protesters.
Some ducked, others ran, another missile, a bottle, flew through the air but landed in the open space his warning shots had created in front of him.
Bane had it right. Time to raze a few things to the ground.
Chapter 39
Lucy ran up three twists of the spiral, and then had to stop, breat
hing heavily.
She could hear shouting from below as she gasped for air, and then the sound of boots on the stairs. Silius had just worked out how to get over the barrier.
She looked up, gauging how far she had to go, and realized she wasn't fit enough to do it.
Except, she didn't have to run.
She pulled out the pen and leaned out over the handrail, pointing it upward without making any attempt to aim. The tip flew up and she had a split second to notice the magnet had attached to the ceiling far above before she was wrenched off her feet.
She hit the stair's handrails as she passed them, banging her shoulders and her shins as she rotated upward.
For one, horror-filled moment, she thought she'd be stuck, hanging from the ceiling to the right of the stairs with no way to get down, until she swung and managed to get her feet onto the platform at the top.
She released the magnet and threw herself forward in the same movement, and ended up on her hands and knees, in a cold sweat, until the sound of Silius and Havna racing up toward her spurred her to her feet.
There was a door, and she stared at it for a moment in fear, terrified it would be locked.
“Then find out and make another plan,” she muttered to herself, and turned the tiny airlock-like handle.
The door swung open, and she stumbled out into the night.
It seemed unusually bright, and she spent precious moments looking upward.
The ship that hovered in the sky high above Fa'allen was lit up in a way that made her blink, trying to work out where the light source was from.
She guessed it was Bane, but she'd never seen his ship from the outside. It was shaped like a spiky ball, like a floating mine she'd seen in WWII films, or one of the spiky chocolates he'd found for her, and it illuminated the city like a bright, third moon.
She realized she was staring, wasting time, and slammed the door closed behind her, and then got her bearings.
She was standing on Karn's outstretched arms. At the far end, his hands were cupped, palms up.
Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4) Page 23