Clawing Back from Chaos: Book 9 in the Cat Among Dragons Series (A Cat Among Dragons)

by Alma Boykin

  “Yes, Commander. Can you narrow the search once we get closer?”

  Rachel nodded and ran her hand over the tail of her long, brown-black plait. “Yes, sir. I have the means, plus a back-up.” She switched to Trader. “Is there something about Col. Sandborn I should know, Rahoul? As in, do I need to send for my heavy body armor and helmet?”

  He turned away, staring off into the distance. “Come in and close the door a little, Rada,” he said in English. “You understand that nothing leaves this room unless there is a cluster fuck of galactic proportions tomorrow?”

  His language shocked her. “Absolutely sir. Your alarms going off?”

  “Not yet, but I’m a little reluctant to go to sleep and give them the opportunity,” he admitted before sighing quietly. “Terry won’t try to kill you, Rachel. That’s not his way. He’ll work behind you, dropping a word here and an observation there. He’s just being cautious and looking out for the best interest of the Army.” Rahoul’s tone did not match his words and Rachel tried to read between the two.

  “Oh. He’s one of those.” She rolled her eye, “They pop up in so many species. ‘Just trying to help, ma’am,’ or ‘I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with so-and-so’s plan, sir, but perhaps if he were to consider’ . . .” and she let her voice trail off as she mimicked an especially memorable junior officer she’d wanted to strangle.

  “He dislikes you because he dislikes me, Rada. Nothing personal, at least not until he’s had time to find something since you are not useful to him. I was on the receiving end of his little games at Sandhurst, and he apparently feels that his position then still holds today.” Rada had never heard Rahoul use the nasty tone he just had. He added, “Oh and I’m a jumped-up wog who took a true Englishman’s place at Sandhurst.”

  “Would you like for him to disappear?”

  “When he’s being unreasonable, yes. But,” here he stopped and looked over at Rachel. “Not like that!”

  “Pity, since I’m still current.” Her coldly professional expression gave him chills. Then her mask returned. “Ah, hang about. I thought you got into Sandhurst through an examination, not appointment like the Americans do it.”

  He sipped his tea. “We do and I did. A friend of his managed to smash his car up driving back from the examinations and hasn’t walked since. I’ve never quite sorted out how that was my fault.”

  Rachel shrugged and levered herself out of the chair. “Stupidity will find a way, sir. And if you don’t have any questions for me,” she tried to cover a yawn. “Sorry.”

  “You’re dismissed. There’s hot food in the dining area.” He went back to his computer.

  A few minutes later she poked her head back in. “Ah, Rahoul? ‘Rowdy?’”

  He looked irritated. “Because I spent so much time studying instead of socializing with the others.”

  Rachel smiled conspiratorially. “Some day, ask me what we called the Graf-General back when he was a gawky private with a gift for tripping over his boot-laces, metaphorical as well as literal.”

  “I shudder to guess.” After she left he added under his breath, “Hairball.” Then he sighed and rubbed his forehead in a gesture that was becoming habitual. He was so damn sick of this sort of foolishness. Rahoul ran through all the old complaints—he’d not gone to public schools, he’d not gone to Oxbridge, his family were middle-class at best, he was the first in his family to be in the English military and not the colonial Indian army, and Panpit’s family were lower middle class and her father was “only” a senior Warrant Officer in the RAF. Plus, Rahoul’s family was “Asian,” as the British put it. It made no difference to the Terry Sandborns of the world that he’d served in combat, and that he had nothing but “excellent” on his fitness reports aside from that one—and Brig. Eastman had been carefully vague about that—and also had international staff and diplomatic experience.

  Well, Rahoul told himself firmly, either he could stew about it or he could just keep on doing what he’d always done. He was where he wanted to be, earlier than he’d hoped for, with excellent people under him, and with a magnificent, beautiful, utterly desirable wife at his side. Sandborn couldn’t change that, not if Rahoul kept his eyes and ears open.

  The next morning, Rachel borrowed Cpls. Zon and Lee, plus one of the less-obviously military vehicles, while the others continued with the second phase of the joint exercise. Unlike the previous day, everything went as smoothly as could be expected and better than some had dared hope for. Khan left Col. Selassie in charge, content to observe. He also had no objection to remaining indoors in the warm and dry for a change, and so managed to catch up most of the administrative foolishness he had been carefully ignoring. Despite his xenologist’s repeated twitting, Rahoul Khan was not a perfect, by-the-book officer—he just managed to make it seem that he was, much as she managed to make it seem that she was infallible.

  As a result, he was at their temporary base when Rachel and her guards, doubling as assistants, arrived. He cocked his ear as he heard Zon ask, “So someone is tapping off the power grid with the wrong kind of wire and no circuit breakers or insulators. And if they keep it up, something will overload on the grid and wherever they are doing the tap?”

  “That’s it in a nutshell, Zon. And like your auntie whose hip told her that weather was coming, I can tell when someone starts mucking with the power grid,” Rachel explained cheerfully. Rahoul heard approaching footsteps and waited around the corner as the trio walked in. Rachel, intent on not tripping on the threshold, didn’t see him until the last instant and spooked, jumping a little. Rahoul managed not to laugh at her as her shoulders jerked up and her eye went wide like a startled moggie, but it took some effort. Her tail would have bristled too, he recalled, and the memory took some of the pleasure out of surprising her.

  “I trust you were successful, Commander?”

  She recovered almost instantly and ignored the muffled snickers from the corporals. “Yes, sir, I was. The source is within Exeter, but not far inside the municipal limits, and it will not be difficult to find precisely.” «Something smells, Command One,» she continued into his mind. «We were shadowed.»

  “Very well. Show me what you found. You are dismissed,” he informed her escort. The soldiers acknowledged the dismissal as Rahoul began turning, then stopped. “Belay that. Zon, Lee, I’d like you to rejoin the exercise. Take the same vehicle you used today and report to First Sergeant Lee.”

  “Yes, sir.” They departed, leaving Rachel and the general more or less alone. The two looked at each other. Rahoul turned and led the way to his temporary office, his advisor falling in at his shoulder as she had with so many general officers.

  He sat down and waved her toward a chair, which she declined. “Full report, please.”

  “With Zon and Lee’s help, I backtracked our steps from yesterday. From the bracken patch.” She paused, fished something out of her black satchel, twiddled with it, and projected an Ordinance Survey map onto the wall. “This position here, sir,” she said, circling it with a laser pointer. “From there I was able to get a solid directional trace. Using that, and what I found yesterday afternoon, the corporals and I isolated the potential sources of the disruptions. There is a primary and a secondary. We looked into the secondary and it is no longer of concern.”

  “What is, or was, it?”

  She smiled a little. “Archaeological site. I had a word with the dig supervisor, and he agreed to let us know if he finds anything especially interesting. He probably will, if memory serves, but I’ll have to check my records. But that’s not the problem, sir.” She shifted, then fiddled more with the projector box, changing the map to a regional display. “This is the problem.”

  As Khan watched, a set of shimmering lines appeared on the map. “These should run a few degrees east of north,” his advisor informed him. Instead they curved toward Exeter, converging on a point not far from the River Exe, within the municipal limits.

  “You said that these are power li
nes? What is generating them and are they dangerous?” He didn’t exactly doubt her, not after this long, but this was a little strange even for him.

  She thought for a minute. “I’m having to translate, sir, so please bear with me. The power, energy streams is a better phrase, comes from living things and from the energy within the geological entity that is Britain—natural radioactive decay, geothermal activity, the metabolic processes of plants and animals, all that sort of thing. Some beings have the capabilities necessary to make use of it. Over time, some of those energy streams were shaped into distinct channels—channels which have been disrupted, so that the streams are now flowing elsewhere. As Cpl. Zon put it, someone is trying to tap a four-forty line with a one-twenty wire. Sooner or later something is going to short out or overflow.”

  The South Asian officer sifted through what she’d said and what she’d omitted. “All right, I follow you this far. But what does this have to do with ‘a certain volcano in Scotland’?”

  “Many of these channels lead to a central point where the energy is used or redistributed. A disruption in the system down here could ripple—and apparently is rippling—through the network, at least judging by what Major De Alba has been sending me. Edinburgh is one of the places where energy is redirected from.” She rubbed under her eye. “Nothing exciting will happen there tomorrow, sir, but eventually it will. Most likely Exeter will turn into a smoking hole first, then a few other places will get interesting.”

  Rahoul ran through a mental list of available personnel. “I’m supposed to meet with Col. Sandborn tomorrow morning to debrief the exercise with him and some others. Unless something else ‘interesting’ comes to light between now and then, I’ll send you, Desta, Lt. Gretchkaninov and some of Sergeant Lee’s people to Exeter to see what is going on.”

  “Very good, sir.” She was being crisply professional and Khan wondered what was wrong. Rachel turned off the mini projector and slid it into her workbag. “Ah, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please be careful. At least two Army soldiers watched us as we worked from the bracken fire site, and the corporals and I were followed almost to the gate.”

  That was not necessarily comforting news. “I’ll take that under advisement, Commander. You are dismissed to your duties,” he said a touch louder, warning whoever was coming down the hall.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” and Rachel limped out. “Oops, sorry,” Khan heard her apologize as Lt. Gretchkaninov appeared and tapped on the doorframe.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” He seemed to be saying that more and more often, he noted.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s message from London for you.”

  The next morning, Col. Selassie tugged her scarf tighter around her throat and wondered what alien or mad scientist in his, her, or its right mind would invade Britain in winter. Exeter town perched on a rise beside the River Exe. Once it had been a major commercial port, but now tourism and administration dominated the economy, much as the cathedral dominated the old city. At the colonel’s elbow, Rachel did arcane things to a hand-sized electronic box and muttered under her breath about volcanism, Dartmoor, hot springs, and other geologic matters. “All right, I’ve got it down to within a kilometer. The disruption centers here.” She showed the officer a map. “The dark bit is the solid rock it sits on, an old bit of volcanic something or other.”

  They got into the vehicles and carefully navigated through toward the center of town. “Commander, do you know what ‘it’ is yet?” Selassie asked.

  “Not a clue,” a cheerful voice replied. “Around the river bend, please. We’re within half a kilometer.”

  Whatever it was required entering the pedestrian section of town. The few passersby out that early on such a miserable morning gave the soldiers odd looks but generally ignored them. The previous evening Lt. Bustos reported that someone had been spreading a rumor on the Internet about a VIP coming to town for the folk culture festival down by the river. The poster had whinged about the mess that the security staff would cause.

  “There.” Rachel pointed to a building on the volcanic spur. “It’s there—or rather, under there.”

  Col. Selassie groaned. “St. Nicholas’ Priory museum? Are you absolutely certain?” This would not be easy to explain, the Ethiopian woman thought, as she looked at the remains of the red stone buildings. In part demolished after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, according to the historic trust sign by the gate, the former priory now housed a Tudor and Renaissance history museum.

  “I’m quite certain, Colonel,” the small woman affirmed, peering through the closed gate. “Hmmm, that’s interesting. If the restoration and repairs were all finished last year, then why all the draping around whatever it is in the courtyard?” Rachel turned back to the troopers. She pointed down toward the River Exe, cheerful expression gone. “And why is the river boiling?”

  Sergeant Lee braced in case the hill started moving as the river churned, but the ground under their feet remained stable. As he watched, the festival tent trembled and collapsed as the ground softened under it. The workmen setting up for the day’s events were trying to run, stumbling and scrambling in panic as the ground heaved and opened up around them. A fountain of darker soil surged up in one place. “Oh shit, the dirt’s liquefying,” Cpl. Allens swore. “Just like Christchurch.”

  “And Sikeston, yes,” Rachel said quietly. “And like will happen in London, and a few other places, if we don’t get this stopped. Get me in there.” She pointed to the gate.

  It was unlocked, and the troopers fanned out. Rachel aimed for the construction area, pulled aside the concealing sheeting, and pointed at a pair of metal plates. “Open that, please, but carefully.” The panels lifted away, and two soldiers shone torches into the hole. Rachel started in, but Lee grabbed her.

  She started to fight and Selassie reminded her, “Manx One, you go second. You, you, and,” she pointed to Lee, “you go with Rachel. Keep me apprised of whatever you find.” As Rachel vanished down the hole, she heard the officer continuing, “You lot secure the gate.”

  As soon as they turned away from the opening, Sgt. Lee felt the tunnel closing in on them and he started to panic. “Take a deep breath, Boer One” a familiar voice ordered, her voice calm and steady. “This is not Germany. Only the Graf-General is allowed to panic in tunnels, remember?”

  That distracted him. “Say over, ma’am?” He moved closer to her voice.

  “The Graf-General is terribly claustrophobic, First Sergeant. Utterly allergic to elevators as well,” the alien stated dryly. “Not that any of you lot ever heard from me that General von Hohen-Drachenburg is anything other than perfect or infallible. This way, please.” With that, she set off down the tunnel.

  Lee stretched his arm out and grabbed her jacket collar. “Zon, take point, Command Two’s orders.”

  Rachel snarled and tugged against his grip, but gave in. The corporal led the way around two bends and a sloping bit, stopping at a dead end. He studied the blockage, and before Lee or Cdr. Na Gael could say anything, he began running his gloved hand along the edge of the bricks. Zon turned and pushed a little on the wall opposite where he’d been feeling, and the mass shifted inward, swinging open.

  “Hmmm. Very nice,” Rachel murmured, examining the inside of the entry panel. “Quick quiz, gentlemen—what is this and what does it do?”

  Zon shook his head, focused on whatever waited ahead of them. Cpl. Lee looked at the pneumatic seals and heavy metal. “A pressure door, ma’am?”

  “Spot on, Corporal. A very well-hung pressure door designed to keep something inside whatever this place is. A very expensive pressure door,” she added, eye narrowing with speculation. A sound from down the passage distracted her, and she darted off, passing Zon and making Sgt. Lee cringe, even as he tried to catch the trotting woman.

  She stopped at a doorway and poked her head around the frame of the open door. “Oooohh,” she breathed. “Sankt Nikolas never brings me any
thing this nice.”

  Sergeant Lee peered over her shoulder into a well-equipped laboratory or engineering room of some kind. Either way, it shouldn’t have existed under the old priory in the heart of Exeter, and the NCO began pulling back from the entry. “Boers, fall back to report.” He reached for Rachel’s collar and his hand closed on air. Oh no he winced to himself—as soon as he’d turned his head she’d slid under his grip and was now inspecting the lab.

  “One, I’m not raising Command Two,” Cpl. Lee said. Indeed, all three radios produced nothing but static.

  The sergeant liked the situation less and less, and he pointed to Zon. “Get Manx One. We’re leaving.”

  An aggrieved woman’s voice sounded from the other end of the hall. “Oh what is it now? How many times have I told Terry not to let you come tromping in here?” A mousy but still attractive woman in a practical suit strode up to them. “Tell the Colonel that I need two more hours and I’ll be ready to do the full power tests. Two hours. Is that clear?”

  Lee nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Tell Col. Sandborn two more hours and you will be ready to do the full-power tests,” he repeated back, playing along.

  “Correct. Now move along,” and she made a shooing motion as she went into the lab. Behind her back, Zon gave the NCO an odd look and the First Sergeant mimicked a shooing motion. The trio retreated around a corner.

  Cpl. Zon whispered, “Now what, First? Wait until we hear a boom?”

  The other Lee grinned a little as the sergeant considered their options. Then they heard, “Who are you? What are you doing? Get away from that! Security!”

  The debriefing went much better than the exercises had, to Gen. Khan’s pleased surprise. Sandborn and his executive acted like professionals, making several constructive suggestions, notably covering communications. The regiment’s latest encryption upgrade failed to “shake hands” with the Army’s previous generation of wireless decryption and vice versa, and the colonel knew of a source for a potential patch. And his earlier point about the regiment’s not explaining clearly enough what a xenologist was and why he or she needed access to certain things remained valid.