Periodically, another ball of flame or sphere of light would be visible in what appeared to be random points through the camp but concentrating on the north side. ‘That’s our new recruit?’ Kory asked. ‘Nava Greyling? She’s taking on an army singlehanded and I think she’s winning.’ He was not exactly a seasoned Greyling himself. Mitsuko figured he was in his mid- to late-twenties. His body appeared to mostly consist of lithe muscle, and he was probably pretty attractive under the bruises. His hair was the kind of blue-black you only saw in commercials and his eyes were an interesting blue-green colour which probably looked great under better circumstances. Now he was clinging to Mitsuko rather tightly and limping a little on his left leg.
‘That’s Nava,’ Mitsuko said, ‘our one-woman army. I admit, I’ve never seen her take on this many troops before, but… Uh, don’t say anything like that to her face. She doesn’t really like being thought of as a killing machine.’
‘If we get out of here, I’ll call her a goddess.’
Mitsuko smirked inside her helmet. What she said was, ‘Hands off, she’s my goddess.’
Hausman City.
The workstation Rhianna had her ketcom plugged into chimed and she walked over to check her results. Tapping at a file icon on the screen, she watched it expand into a window containing a message she had copied out of Oberstleutnant Stefan Sieger’s mailbox. After a second, she smiled.
She reflected that a smile was probably not the correct response for what she was seeing. This was the sixth message she had decrypted using a program the Greylings had commissioned and had the exclusive use of. It could crack about seventy-five percent of known encryption methodologies inside of an hour. It had another couple of methods it could beat in a few hours to a couple of days. Then again, when you used weak-ass cyphers like this, it took minutes. The messages Stefan had left in a folder called, of all things, ‘Tax Documents’ were all related to his ongoing collaboration with Befreit Beherbergen.
She had already been through the militia’s records of the missile strike. It was possible that Stefan would claim there was a very unfortunate typo in his message giving the order to fire at thirteen hundred, but Rhianna was not sure how you could mistakenly type 13 when you meant 21. It had also been an order to change the time when there was no reason to change the time. And there was no mention of friendly combatants possibly being in the target area.
Stefan Sieger House was in it up to his neck and he had panicked.
A message receipt indicator popped up in the corner of her screen and she tapped it to see what the Yosozume wanted. It turned out they wanted nothing, but they had observed an unusual change in the terrain in an area a few kilometres from the town Stefan had said contained the Befreit base. It seemed that a valley had suddenly appeared where there had not been much of one before. A valley with a camp in it. There were also indications of an artillery bombardment landing in the encampment, though the ship had not been able to detect any nearby weapons.
‘So, that’s where you’ve got to,’ she said as she scanned over the pictures the Yosozume had sent down. She shook her head, grinning. ‘That’s really unsubtle, Nava. Really impressive, but really unsubtle.’
Graugebiete Region.
‘We’re maybe five minutes away from Mel and Chess, Nava.’
Mitsuko’s voice sounded over the radio and Nava considered pouting. ‘Acknowledged,’ she said. Turning, she dropped a Magic Burst into a group of soldiers before turning and starting for the vehicle parking area.
She figured she had killed off around thirty percent of the Befreit troops. They were getting organised, finally, but they had lost a lot of people and morale was not high. On top of that, their command structure was a mess, their camouflage illusion was gone, their encampment had no power or communications, and the core of their mercenary support was dead. Given another hour or two, she figured she could wipe them out entirely, but the mission was to get Kyle and Kory out. She was just going to have to ignore her instincts for now. Well, she could take out a few more of them while she made her retreat…
Nava raised one of her pistols, aiming at the next concentrated grouping of soldiers.
~~~
‘They’re here,’ Melissa said. Invisibility had worn off both her and Rochester, so they were hunkered down in their stolen contragrav, watching for where they thought Nobuyuki would turn up with the others. And there he was, slinking between vehicles of various types.
Stepping out of their van, Melissa waved him over, just in case he was not sure where they were. Something caught her attention in the corner of her vision, and she turned her head to look toward the back of the valley. She figured it was one of Nava’s explosions, but it had seemed too high and… And something trailing pale smoke was rocketing toward them from the only watchtower still standing, the one right at the back of the valley. A missile. Someone had fired at missile. At her!
On reflection, she came to the conclusion that she should have panicked. She should have stood there, staring at the oncoming missile with her mouth open until it blew her to pieces. Instead, the training Nava had drilled into her for the last year and a half took over. Without even raising a hand, she focused on the air a hundred metres from her and a plane of semi-transparent energy appeared, six metres wide by four high, hanging in the air in what appeared to be an entirely unnatural manner. The missile was capable of over Mach one point three, but it had a kilometre and a half to travel. It had covered a bit more than two-thirds of that distance before Melissa got her Force Wall up and it was not even capable of dodging. It slammed into the plane of energy and exploded. The blast wave barely made the grass shift around Melissa’s feet.
~~~
Nava saw the missile passing overhead and her heart sank. For a fraction of a second. One of Melissa’s Force Walls appeared in the air just in time to block the missile’s path. A dumb missile, no avoidance electronics. Useful under the circumstances.
Turning, Nava lifted an SAH-301 and aimed at the watchtower which, on reflection, she should have nailed before now. It had not seemed important. Pushing her mind into the right shape for an enhanced Magic Burst, she launched it out toward the tower, some eight hundred metres away. She had a brief impression of a man reloading a rocket launcher before her senses snapped back to her body and she watched the quintessence explosion expand to consume the top of the tower. That would be no further trouble.
Swapping Flight into the slot left by the improvised spell, she lifted into the air and accelerated over the camp toward the vehicle park.
~~~
Melissa was dimly aware of the watchtower’s platform vanishing into a ball of light, but she was still a little too surprised at her own reaction to know what that meant. Then Nobuyuki was speaking to her.
‘Inside,’ he said. Melissa looked at him. ‘Inside, Mel. Quickly.’
‘R-right.’ Melissa climbed back into the van, moving aside to make way for Nobuyuki and then Courtney half-carrying Kyle, and Mitsuko half-carrying Kory. ‘Oh,’ Melissa said in a slightly moaning tone. ‘C-could you take them to the back of the b-bus? I know it’s dried blood, but… Uh, there are some bench seats back there they can lie down on.’
‘Good excuse,’ Mitsuko said. ‘That was a neat trick you pulled there. With the missile.’
‘It was,’ Nobuyuki said, ‘quite masterful. You’re a schoolgirl, you had seconds to react, and you did exactly the right thing, successfully.’
Under her helmet, Melissa went scarlet. ‘I j-just reacted the way Nava taught me.’
‘You certainly earned your pay for this trip,’ Mitsuko said.
‘Wait. We’re getting paid?’ Melissa shook her head. ‘Stupid thing to… Where is Nava anyway? She took out that watchtower, but–’
Nava appeared as she stepped up into the van. ‘I’m here,’ she said, somewhat redundantly, ‘and I suggest we get out of here before the angry villagers arrive with the pitchforks and torches.’
Straightening from laying Kyle do
wn on one of the seats, Courtney looked toward the front of the van. ‘On it,’ she said, starting their way. ‘Close the door.’
‘Not yet,’ Nava said. She stepped into the doorway, grabbing a bar set there to help people step up. ‘There’s some possibility they may try to shoot us down when we take off. So, I’m going to be ready to shoot back, and Melissa is going to be ready to put a wall between us and anything they may launch.’
‘I am?’ Melissa asked. ‘Oh, yes, I certainly am.’
Pulling off her helmet and replacing Rochester at the pilot’s console, Courtney checked the controls and then put her hand on the throttle. Below them, the contragravity system whined as it was given power. ‘Buckle up, folks,’ Courtney said. ‘We are going home!’
Hausman City.
‘Are you seeing this?’ Nava asked Nobuyuki over a closed channel. Her ketcom had alerted her to an incoming message, so she had put her helmet on to read it. It had been… interesting.
‘Not an entirely unexpected turn of events,’ Nobuyuki replied. ‘Admittedly, the person involved was not something I could speculate on, but that there was a mole in the militia seemed quite obvious.’
‘Huh. Yeah. I suppose you’re right. And considering that missile strike, there were a limited number of people it could be. It had to be someone with authority.’
‘And this does explain why the clan has had so much trouble dealing with Befreit.’
‘Yeah… We’ll be landing in a couple of minutes.’ They could both hear Courtney talking to Hausman City’s traffic control.
‘Expect trouble.’
Nava gave a shrug, reaching up to unseal her helmet. ‘I was trained to expect trouble in my sleep.’
The trouble was, in fact, waiting for them as they touched down on a landing pad outside Militia Headquarters. Stefan was there with a squad of soldiers. His subordinates had assault weapons and bulletproof vests. Stefan had only a pistol, but then he looked like the type to avoid getting his own hands dirty. From the look of him, he was affecting an authoritative, confident demeanour, but Nava thought he looked nervous. The early-evening sun was glistening on the sweat on his brow.
‘I’ll handle this,’ Nava said. ‘The rest of you stay in the van.’
‘Nava?’ Mitsuko asked.
‘It’s not a problem. Not really. Nobuyuki will explain. Close the door behind me, Courtney.’ She hit the button to open the van’s main door and stepped out to face Stefan’s squad. The door slid shut behind her with a soft hiss. ‘Oberstleutnant,’ she said, ‘how nice of you to come out to meet us.’ She was not wearing her helmet and the evening breeze lifted her white hair into a streamer. She looked relaxed, which she was.
‘Second Lieutenant Nava Greyling Sonkei,’ Stefan said, ‘I am placing you under arrest for–’
‘Please don’t give me the made-up charges,’ Nava said. ‘Whatever it is you’ve come up with, it won’t stand up to a minute of investigation, so why bother? Were you hoping we’d give you an excuse to open fire and you could actually get out of this?’
Stefan’s jaw tightened. ‘Unteroffizier Sebastian Schenck, if the subject resists arrest further, you will shoot her.’
A man who had sergeant written all over him looked at Stefan with a slightly incredulous expression. ‘Sir, she hasn’t–’
‘You have your orders, Unteroffizier!’
‘I don’t think they’re going to be willing to follow someone who’s betrayed his clan,’ Nava said. ‘Rhianna dug up all the data we need to prove it.’
‘This woman has collaborated with the enemy!’ Stefan barked. He was definitely losing his cool. ‘We have evidence of her treasonous acts. Don’t believe her lies. She is the traitor! You will–’
‘Years of making sure the militia never got close to bringing Free Beherbergen down,’ Nava went on calmly. ‘We have all the emails. Never leave emails lying around when they could incriminate you. Not even if they’re encrypted.’
‘Espionage! You’ve conducted an illegal search of–’
‘Rhianna will be putting it before your clan’s leader right now. Leave this too long and your men will get orders to arrest you. You’re done for, Oberstleutnant. Not that they’ll let you keep that rank. Dishonourable discharge is going to be the least of your worries. As I was saying, you’re done for, Stefan Sieger.’
‘Sir?’ Sebastian said, unsure of where to point his rifle.
‘I’ll do you a favour,’ Nava said. She could see Stefan reaching boiling point. Any second now. ‘I’m going to give you three choices.’
Stefan’s pistol was in his hand and coming up to aim. Nava watched it. Aim was not the right word; he straightened his arm so he could see roughly where the bullet was meant to go, but he did not take the time to actually use the sights. Still, at maybe three metres, there was not much chance he would miss. The bullet hit Nava’s side just under her ribs and would not have been a lethal wound even if her suit had not stopped it completely.
Nava raised her hand. ‘You could’ve let me finish the speech.’ Then she put a Magic Bullet through his right eye.
Yosozume Armed Courier, Beherbergen system, 236/8/10.
‘They say he’s going to live,’ Rhianna said as she walked beside Nava through the ship. ‘There may be brain damage and he’ll need to have his eye replaced if he wants binocular vision, but he’ll live to stand trial.’
Moving around on the Yosozume as it powered away from Beherbergen was a lot easier than it had been on the way to the planet. Out of deference for the two ‘wounded’ they were carrying, and because they were not in a hurry, they were accelerating at only one gravity. They were, apparently, going to take two jumps to do the interstellar section of the journey as well. It would take about two days to get home. Neither Kyle nor Kory were physically wounded now, thanks to Nava hitting them with Active Recovery on the way to Hausman City. Their mental wounds were another matter, but that was why they were returning to Shinden rather than seeing out their time on Beherbergen.
‘I should have shot him again,’ Nava replied.
‘It’s better this way,’ Rhianna countered. ‘He’ll be stripped of his rank and position. His family have probably already disowned him. He’ll be locked up for years and then cast out of the clan. The humiliation will be enormous.’
‘Better for whom? Seems like I’ll have someone trying to kill me when he’s eventually released.’
‘One, I doubt he’ll be able to afford a ticket to Shinden. Two, so what? You took on a regiment of troops and walked away without a scratch.’
‘I’m not actually indestructible, Rhianna. Catch me off-guard and–’
‘There are times when you’re off-guard?’
Nava let that one go. ‘I suppose I just prefer my enemies dead.’
‘And there are some twelve hundred Free Beherbergen troops who can attest to that. Well, twenty-eight hundred that can attest. The twelve hundred won’t be saying anything ever again. The militia were sending in troops to capture as many of them as they could. Free Beherbergen’s back is thoroughly broken. They’ll probably lose around half of their number. The mercenaries with them are more of a concern. You didn’t get any idea of where they were from, did you?’
‘Not really. They weren’t wearing any insignia I could see. Maybe the militia will figure it out after they’ve been through the camp.’
‘Maybe.’
The conversation stopped as they reached a ladder and started to climb. The sound of laughter was coming from above. Nava climbed through the hatch to find the rest of the rescue team, and those they had rescued, celebrating in one of the lounges. Kyle and Kory seemed to be in good spirits, but there was something distinctly shadowy around Kyle’s eyes. Kory’s too, to some extent, but he was a Greyling and maybe a little more mentally resilient.
Courtney spotted the two newcomers and raised her glass. Nava was guessing it contained alcohol. ‘We’re all here. The celebration can begin properly. I want to thank everyone properly for g
etting me my boyfriend back. In one piece too.’
Nava watched as Kyle looked away for a second and then turned back, smiling. She was not sure how many pieces Kyle was in, but he was definitely a little divided.
Epilogue
Admiral Aurora Trenton Advanced Training Centre, Alliance City, Shinden, Clan Worlds Alliance, 236/8/12.
It was about half past three in the morning when the shuttle landed at the training centre. There was a hospital there where Kyle and Kory would be undergoing a few checks before they started mandatory sick leave.
Despite the early hour, Fawn was waiting for them, dressed in her uniform and looking very official. Well, until she smiled after the salute. ‘Second Lieutenant Nava Greyling,’ she said, ‘I’m glad to see your mission was successful.’
Nava saluted and gave her a nod. ‘Thank you, First Lieutenant. We got together and wrote up a report on it while we were in transit. It’s probably in your mailbox by now. Might I suggest that any questions wait until after the medical checks?’
‘Your recommendation is noted and acceptable.’ Fawn relaxed. ‘The short report I got this morning suggested that you kicked a lot of ass.’
‘She was pretty amazing,’ Courtney said. She affected a deadpan tone similar to Nava’s: ‘“Oh, I’ll just distract them by killing them all.” Then she did.’
‘Not all of them,’ Nava said. ‘I think I’d have needed another couple of hours to kill all of them.’
‘She’s a walking artillery barrage.’
‘Huh.’ Fawn grinned and turned to Kory. ‘First Lieutenant Kory Greyling, how are you feeling?’
‘Physically fine,’ Kory replied. ‘I admit I may not be quite over the experience, however. I will be fit to give my mission report when–’
‘We’ll talk about that tomorrow. You’re staying here until the doctors have seen you. Second Lieutenant Kyle Maynard, once you’re checked out, you’ll be free to take your sick leave wherever you wish. I… suggested to command that you might be better off recuperating with your girlfriend than on a base.’
Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) Page 23
