“Naturally,” Ernie said. “That’s the closest to Jerusalem and the main conduit Cariniancitizens use. But the officials usually come through Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv.”
“Okay,” Davin said, trying to follow along. “So can you access their manifests?”
“Of course I can,” Ernie replied, talking at a frenetic pace. “For any Carinian government ship flying under the radar, most of the manifest would be a lie. They’d just make up information to put in the form.Except—” He pointed at the top right corner of the sheet in the holo, where it had blanks for arrival and departure times. “The clock don’t lie.”
“Can you search for shuttles that landed shortly after we did?”
Ernie grinned. “And for departures after you got pounced in Jerusalem. Narrow it down to a few, follow the projected gate path out of Sol, and you should be able to work out the plausible locations, at least down to the star system.”
“Well, alright! Now we’re getting somewhere!” Davin rubbed his hands together, already feeling wind in his sails again. “How long will it take to narrow it down?”
Ernie sucked air through his teeth again and sat back. “I don’t know, homes. I can put my assistant on it first thing. He’s pretty good, but it’s alodda data to comb through, know what I’m saying? Not like there’s some search algorithm for this shit.”
Davin sighed. “Ernie, we need that gate pathyesterday. Any way to speed up the process?”
Ernie shrugged and started to make a noncommittal sound in his throat, but then Strange sat forward, animated eyes glued to her tablet screen.
“Cap, we might not wanna wait to get off this rock.” She glanced at Ernie with a finger pointed at the hologram. “You mind?”
“Be my guest,” Ernie replied.
Strange angled her tablet and swiped her fingertips across the screen in the direction of the holo. The image switched to a live feed of a street in Jerusalem. No light came from the blown-out light poles, but blazing fires inside all the autos illuminated the whole scene in warm, orange light. A charred crater in the middle of an autobus left the crispy interior exposed and choking black smoke. Only the structural steel on the identical front and back ends remained. Smoldering bodies littered the ground amongst the rubble. Probably fifty autos had been destroyed by the explosion.
The scrolling ring banner circling the bottom of the holographic image read, “Defenders of Glory Send Warning Through Bombing.” Kiki watched with a mixture of horror and fury on the far side of the holo.
“This kind of thing happen a lot?” Strange asked.
Ernie shrugged, mesmerized by the scene. “Not like that.”
“So much for not killing innocents,” Davin muttered.
Kiki stepped closer and snapped, “We—they don’t kill innocents. This isn’t like them. It’s not something they would do.”
Davin gestured to the macabre scene. “Apparently it is.”
Kiki opened her mouth to fire back, but hesitated. “I . . . I don’t know what this was, but it wasn’t the Defenders. They would never hurt their own people.”
“Did a little more than ‘hurt,’ sweetheart,” Ernie said casually. “The savages. All the world could burn and they wouldn’t care. Long as they get their temples back.”
Davin saw fire and brimstone blazing in Kiki’s eyes through the holo. Her hands flexed into fists, her forearm muscles bulged, and her lips curled in revulsion. The moment her mouth opened, Davin thrust himself to his feet to cut her off.
“Kiki!” he exclaimed. “I know it’s upsetting. But there’s nothing we can do about it right now.”
Ernie eyed Davin inquisitively as the tension slowly—very slowly—unwound between him and their incognito Defender.
“Kiki’s from Jerusalem,” Davin explained. “She’s got more perspective than we do. Probably know the neighborhood where this happened, don’t you?”
Kiki let out a long, frustrated breath and loosened her fists. “Yes, and it’s not a Confed area.”
“We don’t have to figure out what happened right now,” Davin said. “We got bigger fish to fry. Right?”
Kiki stared him down but eventually nodded.
Ernie glanced between them, clearly flummoxed, not knowing what the hell had just happened in front of him.
“If the impromptu therapy session is over,” Strange cut in, “maybe we could get back to my original point. An attack like this is gonna make the Confed tighten up security. We should leave tonight.”
“You’re right,” Davin said. “Last thing we want right now is to get tangled up with the Confed.” He reached for his tumbler, swigged the last of the tequila to a sharp burn in the back of his throat, then squeezed his eyes shut and shook himself. “Whew. Damn, that smarts. Okay—” He opened his eyes and focused his vision on Ernie. “We’re gonna head toward the Carinian border. And you’ll let us know when you’ve got something?”
“Hermano, the minute I know something, you’ll know, too.”
Ernie stood, and Davin clasped his old friend’s hand. Every friend, even old ones, seemed to matter more now. Davin didn’t know how long they—or he—would be around.
Chapter Twenty-One
Somewhere in the Milky Way . . .
Sierra floated in a gently rippling sea of feeling, as if clouds were carrying her through the sky. Her body numb to everything outside the tired beating of her heart, the placid flow of blood through her veins, the swell of her breathing.
But there was a beeping—a persistent, nagging beep that tugged her away from the cloudy feeling. Then voices joined the beeping, penetrating the daze. Consciousness drifted back into her like a wispy ghost, and she hated it. Some gut-deep dread gripped her at the thought of waking, of returning to the murky darkness and uncertainty of reality.
Fingers snapped over her face. Once, twice, three times, getting louder each time. Her sore eyelids flitted open to find a blurry man’s face above her, scrutinizing her with a tilted half-grin. He had rounded, muscular shoulders. Panic set in, but it wasn’t strong enough to trip her out of her sluggish state. She felt a twinge of pain in the crook of her arm when she tried to move—an IV needle.
“Top of the mornin’, Sierra,” the stranger said, brusque for Sierra’s barely conscious ears.
She let out a moan, unable to form words. A vague ache enveloped her body.
The man put his hand on her wrist. “It’s alright, Sierra. You’re alright. You’re safe now. You’ll feel better in a minute, just give the drugs a chance to work.”
“She’s not ready yet,” said another voice—a woman’s voice, quiet and flat and professional. When Sierra blinked a few more times, she detected the woman standing on the other side of her medical bed as the man, examining her with more skepticism.
“I know she’s not ready,” the man whispered back. “Just wanna see where she’s at.” He leaned his head closer to Sierra again and brushed the hair away from her eyes with strong fingers. “Sierra, you’re safe here. You’re among friends. We want to help you, but we have to know what happened. When you can, we want you to tell us what you remember, okay?”
What she remembered . . .
In that moment, a thick fog hung in her head, putting a barrier between her present and her past. She glanced around the room as she tried to unlock her own mind, her memories.
The concrete walls had no windows. Neither did the high ceiling, criss-crossed with steel girders. Cones of artificial light spread down from lights attached to the walls. Cold, menacing machines and medical equipment surrounded Sierra’s bed. The beeping came from a heart monitor, she realized—the only machine that gave her any ease of mind. Wireless sensors suctioned to her skin like an octopus tentacle under her loose cotton shirt.
So much clutter filled her head. Images, thoughts, sentences spoken by faintly familiar voices, pieces of memories but nothing coherent. The grogginess prevented her from organizing any of it, like looking through shaky, out of focus binoculars at something in the
distance.
A deep fear gripped her. What power did she have if she couldn’t even control her own mind? None. She had nothing.
The strange man put a hand on her thigh, making her clench inside if not outwardly.
“You can feel that, right?” he asked. “Try to nod if you can feel my hand on your leg.”
Sierra struggled to remember something as simple as nodding her head. The muscles in her neck resisted, but she forced them to angle her head down and back up.
The man’s half-grin flashed wider. He patted her thigh then removed his hand. Sierra felt herself relax a little. The female doctor looked uncomfortable and a little agitated.
“See?” the strange man said to her. “She’s alright. She’s strong. Aren’t you, Sierra?”
She didn’t try to answer, instead testing out her voice. It felt like some sludge coated the length of her throat. She tried clearing it, then grunted to hear her own voice. Somehow her fear laced even the weak sound.
The man’s half-grin faded. “Tell us what you remember, Sierra.”
She inhaled a long breath and ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Wh—where—”
The man cut her off, placing a hand at the top of her forehead. “You’re somewhere safe. We’re trying to rehabilitate you because some bad things have happened, but we need you to tell us what they were. What do you remember?”
Bad things . . . Those words seemed to trigger something in her head, like the flip of a switch releasing a portion of the water being held behind a dam. Images fluttered in her head, popping in an out so fast it was hard to concentrate on any one of them. She closed her eyes and focused. Things became clearer in the darkness of her mind.
“Owl,” she rasped. “I remember an owl face. On their sleeves.”
Sierra heard the two standing above her shift. The man let out the slightest laugh under his breath.
“That’s good, Sierra,” he said. “Whose sleeves were they on?”
So many images. The plastic flaps. The foreign accents. Little gadgets and empty food wrappers flying this way and that with the quickly veering gravity. Her beautiful yacht with huge holes punched in it . . .
“We were . . . attacked,” she said, remembering bumping around her bedroom inside the preserve bag. How bad it hurt her elbows.
“Who attacked you?” the man asked.
Sierra sifted through the scattered images in her mind’s eye, fighting to remember. So hard. So many scraps. The Owl people . . .His lordship will be quite pleased with our spoils.And theFossa. A dozen new images surfaced from her subconscious with the memory of theFossa. Waking up in sheer terror inside the scanner tube. The electric shock surging through her body the moment the stunner round hit her. Her fingertips lingering on Davin’s cheek. The warm, safe feeling of his eyes on her.
Panic welled inside her when she remembered the image of Davin, bleeding from several wounds on a rug, mouthing the words,I’m sorry. Sierra’s eyes burst open.
“Davin,” she croaked weakly. “TheFossa crew . . . are they okay?”
The fire in the strange man’s eyes faded. His half-grin slid off his face. He hung his head and let out a long sigh. The doctor eyed him with a look that said,I told you so.
Sierra didn’t understand. All she cared about was Davin and theFossa crew.
“Is Davin . . .” She stopped herself as more memories slipped into place. Standing in front of the Abramist leader as he smiled and said,Almost. She realized who these people were, who they must be. They were her enemy. A true daughter of God was not supposed to have enemies, but there was no other way to think of these people, these murderers.
“Put her back under,” the man said, his voice laced with disappointment.
The doctor shrugged and pulled on a pair of thin, rubber medical gloves. “We both knew she wouldn’t be ready. It’s not like there’s a delete button in the brain.”
“Doesn’t make it any less annoying.” The man pushed away from the bed and walked away.
The doctor slid the needle of a syringe into a small, gel-topped medicine bottle with a clear liquid inside. Sierra panicked and squirmed on her bed, making the ache in her muscles turn into pain.
“No, no,” she moaned. “I don’t wanna go back to sleep. I don’t wanna go back—”
She didn’t fully understand why, but sleep was her enemy, too. It was the place where she had even less control than this room. The worst nightmare she’d ever experienced. The thought of going back terrified her.
It didn’t stop the doctor. She poked the end of the needle into a plastic node attached to Sierra’s IV tube and pressed down the syringe’s plunger. The liquid drug flowed down the tube, into her veins.
“Please—” Sierra pleaded, feeling herself getting weaker already. “Don’t make me go . . . don’ mae me go . . . don’ mae . . . doe . . .”
Consciousness slipped away from her. She grasped at it, but like a fistful of water, it escaped without slowing. Those same dark clouds returned, sweeping her up into their gossamery embrace. Soon all memory of that concrete-clad room had disappeared into the ether, out of her head and out of her reach.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sagittarius Arm, in the Trifid region, on the planet Targus . . .
Freyz sat with his legs crossed and his white cape swooped around, resting over his knee. He raised his fine, porcelain cup and sipped some of the hot beverage the planetary locals called “skyleaf tea.” An appropriate name, given the setting where it grew.
Below the balcony on which Freyz sat, he looked out on a verdant field of green bushes with tiny, ruffled leaves, growing in uniform rows. Their branches flittered and made a light rattling sound in the breeze. A wall rose and curled toward the field on all sides of it, and beyond the wall there was nothing but air. The skyleaf field took up one of the tip ends of a long, X-shaped platform floating high in the Targus sky, hundreds of meters above the nearest billowing, tawny-orange clouds. Streaks of coral red swirled through the cumulus landscape like arteries around a heart.
Overhead, enormous, translucent helium bladders held the platforms aloft by thick wires stretching down to steel connection points. The raindrop-shaped bladders reminded Lord Freyz of jellyfish with spindly limbs reaching down to capture their prey. He could see a great number of them levitating at various heights across the vast heavenly vista, so high above the toxic, humid surface as to make the curvature of the planet visible at the horizon.
“It’s a good batch, but I’ve had better,” Didacus said as he placed his dainty cup back on its saucer across the table. “Even engineered to perfection, some harvests are better than others.”
Freyz found it a fine beverage. It had a floral taste with a light, lingering sweetness. But he hadn’t come to talk about the Trifid lord general’s skyleaf tea.
“More supply ships arrived from Swan this morning,” Freyz said.
Evidently, Didacus hadn’t received the intended prompt, instead squinting out at the bright rays of sunlight from just above the horizon.
“We mustn’t tarry,” Freyz said. “We have titan ships at every border gate. Our fleets are in position. Our invasion plan is solid.” He waited a moment but got no reply. “What new information could change the situation? The Royal Showcase has already come and gone, and Trifid offered nothing. You are with Swan now. And Owl, and the Wings.”
Didacus finally locked eyes with Freyz. “My concern is for the rest of the Regnum. They hate us right now. Of course I’d like to see the Confed cut down to size, but I want the rest of the Regnum to follow us. I want reconciliation.”
“And we’ll have it,” Freyz cooed confidently. “Once we invade, the Grand Lumis will have no choice but to support us.”
“I thought that, too,” Didacus said with a strange wariness in his voice. “Until recently.”
Freyz couldn’t fathom what trance of doubt had befallen his fellow lord general. “But nothing has changed.”
Footsteps picked up from behind them—
slow and casual, not like a servant. “These are extraordinary times,” uttered a newcomer’s voice, a younger man’s voice. Familiar. Debonair, but void of the self-satisfied joviality Freyz had come to expect in it. “Much can change when you aren’t looking. As the Grand Lumis discovered not long ago.”
Larkin, Champion of Triumph, stood before them in an unarmored uniform with the Sagittarian archer pinned at his breast. Freyz almost panicked, but calmed himself with the knowledge that his own bodyguards laced the entire floating vessel. At the press of a button on his cuff, they would swarm the balcony in seconds. Not to mention the fact that a blazer sword hung from his hip while the young champion’s was bare.
“Ah,” Freyz said, letting his hand rest conspicuously on his blazer hilt. “So Master Larkin has come to parley. He’s the one whose given you pause?”
Larkin flashed an unamused smile. Such a pretty lad, clad in that girlishly smooth skin and that foppishly neat uniform. Surprising that he was engineered for leadership instead of pleasure-giving.
“I’m not that fearsome on my own,” Larkin said. “It’s the message I’ve brought from the Grand Lumis that gives Didacus pause.”
Freyz narrowed his eyes at the young champion. “And the Grand Lumis has revived the pony express to deliver his messages now, has he?”
“Sometimes a recording just can’t convey the message quite right,” Larkin replied.
“And what message is that?” Freyz asked, leaning back in his chair and resting his elbow on it.
Larkin stepped around the table, pulled out a cushioned wicker chair, and sat. Not just another warrior-born anymore. Freyz noticed a gratified tug at the corner of the champion’s lips at sitting across from two lord generals as their peer. Larkin let the moment linger, glorying in it before clearing his throat and getting back to work.
“The Grand Lumis is going to broadcast a statement today declaring his support for the Terran Confederacy. They have every right to their claimed systems, and there is no proof of their culpability for Upraad.”
Horns of the Ram (Dominion Book 2) Page 11
