“Is this going to take much longer, Sir?”
It was the corporal. Collis had shared only a few words with her since her little team was assigned to protect him as he went about his business, but she seemed pleasant enough, if a little impatient.
“At this site? No,” said Collis. “But then there are another seven sites left to survey.”
She huffed and rolled her eyes.
“It has to be done,” said Collis. “That city wants self-sufficiency.”
“Not my problem,” she said.
“Not directly, but you’re here to make sure I don’t get turned into weed fertiliser. And I’m not going to go back to the city until this work is finished. So it sort of is your problem.”
She muttered something under her breath.
Perhaps she is not so pleasant, after all, Collis thought, and turned back to his work.
After a good twenty minutes of observations, measurements, and acutely accurate record-taking, Collis was ready to move on. He packed up his equipment, whistling merrily, and slung the kit bag over his shoulder.
“Next site,” he shouted over to the soldiers.
They started moving towards him.
“What’s that?” Collis asked. He pointed over their heads.
The corporal gave him a confused, tired look, then turned around.
By the time she looked, the tiny, glinting object had vanished, and Collis was afraid she had missed it. But as she scanned the skies for whatever it was he had been pointed at, a wispy vapour trail appeared. Judging by its position and the speed with which the trail lengthened, it was being produced by the object.
“That,” he said.
They watched the trail progress across the sky, head right over the capital, and descend towards the horizon. The tail end of it dispersed quickly, fading away to nothing high in the air.
“No idea,” said the corporal. “Could be all sorts of things. Traffic control might know.”
“Yeah, like I’ll be calling them,” said Collis. “I’m not that invested.”
He hoisted the strap of his kit bag, and set off for the next survey point.
• • •
“You can’t do this, Voice,” said Caden.
“I can. It has already started.”
“You don’t understand,” said Caden. “These people you’re taking… many of them will die because of it.”
“Every new process has a degree of wastage.”
“They aren’t wastage,” Caden railed. “They’re people. They have lives. They have thoughts, and feelings, and meaning.”
“They are a means to an end, nothing more.”
“Don’t you care about what you’re destroying?”
Voice looked at Caden as if he pitied his lack of comprehension. Caden could hardly say he understood, that much was true, but pity was the last thing he wanted from Voice in this moment.
“I care about what I am creating.”
“And what is that? A world without independent thought?”
“Ha,” Voice said. “You flatter your race.”
“I don’t think so,” said Caden. “We understand how the cosmos works. We figured out mathematics, physics, chemistry. We create art. Symphonies, poetry, love songs, sculpture. We travel between the stars. We can undo nature’s errors. We command our own destiny. So don’t look at me like I represent some primitive mud-culture. Don’t you dare.”
Voice curled his lip with obvious disdain — an expression which Caden found heart-breaking to see twisted into Rendir Throam’s amiable face — and hissed through teeth which didn’t belong to him.
“Sneer all you want, Voice. You know I’m right.”
“Your time is running out,” said Voice. “You must leave soon, or not at all. When all of this is done, when your many worlds fall to my will, then you will understand. And you will agree with me, Elm Caden. You will gladly agree.”
“Tell me right now. Let me give you my thoughts.”
“Such conceit. Typical of your kind.”
“It’s not conceited. I’m obviously going to have some kind of an opinion on whatever you say.”
“It is entirely conceited,” Voice snapped. “You are all the same. All you can possibly find to dwell on is the importance of what you think. And I can assure you, Elm Caden, that your greatest thoughts are less than trivial.”
“And yet you study us.”
Voice lurched forwards, and Caden took a step back. But Rendir Throam’s body froze in place, and he turned his gaze to the ceiling.
“Our song grows louder,” he said. “They are joining us.”
“You just hit a world?”
Voice tipped his eyes back down to meet Caden’s.
“Many worlds.”
“Okay,” said Caden. “Clearly you’re not going to stop. What can we offer you that would make you change your mind?”
“Nothing. You have nothing I want, except that which I am already taking from you.”
“And that’s your final word?”
“It is.”
“It really is war then,” said Caden.
“You call it war. I call it transformation.”
“I really don’t think the name matters. We will keep fighting you.”
“As you wish. You really should be leaving.”
• • •
As he had done for more than half of his life, Westry Eilentes closed up shop himself. He pulled down the plasteel shutters and locked them in place. It was very unlikely anyone would ever break into the office, given that there was nothing of any great value in there, and given that Villium’s crime rate was essentially zero, but one could never be too careful. Besides, if anyone did get in when the shutters were still up, there would be no insurance payout.
Business was good. Excellent, in fact. He did not pride himself on capitalising on the flood of movement from the outer colonies to the inner worlds, but one could not say no to a new contract. That was not how a company remained standing. If he did not carry the goods and the people, a competitor would.
He rubbed his hands together; there was a chill in the air. Winter was still weeks away, and he had not brought a heavy coat. He popped up his collar to cover at least some of his neck, and started walking.
The light pollution from Villium was not too bad and he could see the stars easily. They shone steadily in a clear sky. Ah, no cloud cover. That was why it was so damned cold.
He pressed his link and called Mai.
“It’s me, I’m on the way home. Twenty minutes? Well I love you too.”
He came to the market district. The permanent stalls were all shut up, their shutters and hatches closed firmly. The rest of the consecutive squares were filled with the skeletal frames which during the day would house the temporary stalls rented daily by itinerant traders and those locals with less well-defined business ventures.
Nothing but him moved in the streets he walked.
Westry considered himself lucky to live in Villium. The town had suffered no unrest; at least none of which he had heard, or seen with his own eyes. He knew that elsewhere on Kementhast Prime there had been angry protests in the streets, the townsfolk of such-and-such a place railing against the Proconsul over the apparent lack of action from the central government.
People were scared, he knew. And scared people do silly things.
Still, the MAGA presence seemed to have sorted out all of that. He knew from his contacts at the trading hub and planetary flight control just how many of their camps had been placed on the surface.
Three garrisons in total. Three ‘expeditions’.
He had a good idea how many troops that was, how many guns. Brex had explained it in his last call home.
“Don’t worry,” Brex had said. “It’s mostly just for show. The presence of an authoritative, capable force. Obviously nobody wants our own guns turned on civilians. Once people see MAGA in the streets, things will quieten down.”
On the whole, Westry thought things had quietened down
. The stream of news coverage from the other cities had trickled away to nothing, not that he had paid it that much attention. He was a busy man after all.
The only thing which really bothered him was how suddenly it had all begun.
He had seen civil unrest before, and it usually had a pattern to it. Although essentially random at first, and sporadic, it generally took on a certain shape. That shape had been absent on Kementhast, and from what he had heard from his sources farther afield the planet was not unique in that.
Something had triggered the mass protests, and they had come virtually out of nowhere.
But that was not his problem. He had a shipping business to run, plenty of clients to work with, and a table upon which he had to place food. Which, as it happened, was what waited for him right now.
He hurried along.
When he came to the long, straight avenue which would take him the rest of the way, he gazed up at the night sky as he walked. His breath misted in front of him. It really was cold.
The stars were magnificent this far out from the town centre. He could see the disc of the galaxy reaching from horizon to horizon and beyond, the blink-blink-blink of the trade hub sailing smoothly across the firmament, and the constellations he had known since he was a child.
A thin streak of light appeared, then vanished almost as quickly.
A falling star! Make a wish.
In the cold, still air, a faint rumble and crack reached his ears.
He stopped walking. Shooting stars didn’t usually reappear.
Whatever it was, it was still high enough to keep catching the light from the hidden sun. It was not descending; it was travelling through the air as if chasing the planet’s terminator line.
Weird, he thought.
There were plenty of things it could be, he supposed. With so many MAGA units on the ground, there was bound to be the occasional unscheduled shuttle. It could even be a large drone. He would give flight control a call in the morning, and see if anyone could tell him what the thing had been.
He carried on, eager to feel the warmth of home.
• • •
“We’ll go,” said Caden.
“I would strongly advise it,” Voice said.
“This is not over, Voice. I will find you, wherever and whatever you are. And when I do, you’re going to regret a lot of the things you’ve done. You’re going to regret sending a good friend back to bait me.”
“This body was chosen for a reason.”
“Because you knew I would not kill it. You knew I would let it speak.”
Eilentes moved to Caden’s side, took hold of his arm.
“If we’re going, let’s go,” she said. “I don’t want to stay here… not with him.”
“Okay.”
They edged back around the table, Caden tapping Caecald on the way and gesturing for him to follow. Bruiser moved towards the door, keeping his gun trained on Throam’s body. Only Daxon stayed where he was.
“Dax,” said Caden. “Shift it.”
“Like fuck,” said the corporal.
“I’m not kidding around, Daxon. We’re leaving right now.”
“You murdering son-of-a-bitch,” said Daxon. “You think you can kill off my buds, and then just tell us to leave? I will fucking end you.”
“Leave it Daxon. That’s an order.”
But Daxon did not leave it.
He leapt at Throam, tried to land a fist right in the bigger man’s face, and was swatted aside like a fly.
Daxon crashed against the panelled wall and landed on his side.
Caecald was the first of them to respond. Before anyone else had moved a muscle he was in the air, springing from the ground and hurling himself towards Throam. The Viskr’s feet smashed against Throam’s back, catapulting him forwards.
Caden had had no idea that the Viskr was capable of such things.
Throam fell forwards and landed on his hands, rolling to the side to get up. Caden rushed past, propelling Eilentes in front of him, and pushed her out through the doorway.
“Bruiser,” he said. “We still need Caecald.”
Bruiser nodded, lurched back into the room, and reached for Throam. The counterpart was already wrestling with Caecald, the two of them trying to pin the other’s limbs while seeking the opportunity to strike.
“Caden…” Eilentes said.
He looked to where she was pointing, out through the panoramic windows and across the city.
Dreadships hung high in the air, in every direction he looked. Beneath them, pummelling the batteries which fired on them from the ground, the Viskr’s own frigates drifted vertically over the tops of the highest buildings; swords hanging above the heads of their builders.
The floor of the chamber trembled.
“They’re getting close.”
“Bruiser, time to go!”
Caden ducked his head back in through the doors and saw Caecald retreating towards him. The Viskr limped awkwardly, blood smeared across his thigh.
Bruiser had already lifted Throam from the ground, gripping his neck in one big hand and yanking him right off his feet. The counterpart swung his legs up, wrapped them around Bruiser’s arm, and the Rodori lost his balance straight away. They both went down together.
“Bruiser! Leave him. Don’t harm him, just come on.”
Throam laughed loudly when Bruiser pushed him away roughly, sending him flying across the room. The counterpart hit the backs of the nearest chairs, spilling dead cabinet members onto the ground, and sat amongst broken furniture and draped limbs.
Daxon was up again, this time moving much less quickly. He held his ribs with one hand as he shuffled towards Throam, and in the other he brandished a combat knife.
“Daxon! Don’t you dare.”
Throam climbed swiftly to his feet, side-stepped the one thrust Daxon managed to attempt, and punched the corporal in the neck with all of his considerable weight behind his fist.
Daxon’s throat collapsed with a crunch, and he fell to the ground. Caden did not need to check his body to know he was dead.
Throam stood over Daxon’s body and stared at Caden.
“Leave,” said Voice.
“Bruiser; bring the others.”
Caden waited for Bruiser to trundle past, carrying Dax under one arm, and Bro under the other. He took one last look at the man who once would have done anything to protect him, and turned away.
Caden found Norskine in the outer chamber, and Caecald came without prompting to help him lift the private’s lifeless body. Caden saw Eilentes looking at him worriedly, her lips moving silently as if she could not find any words, and he did not care. Whatever happened to them now, as long as they made it back to the worlds he was damned if he would ever rest before he found Voice — the real Voice — and tore out his heart.
The whole building shook with a heavy impact, shattering windows around the chamber. Glass sprayed across the floor.
“Back the way we came,” he said.
They retreated through the main doors, back down the corridor towards the elevators. Even away from the chamber and its viewing windows, Caden could still hear the thunder of engines and the slamming of ordnance. The assault on the city was reaching its peak.
Then, not so far away as he would have liked, the rising shriek of a grounding splinter tearing through the air on its way to bury itself in the ground.
The Falling had reached the capital.
“This was the most powerful world in all of the Viskr territories,” he said. “The Shaeld Hratha took it from them like it wasn’t even a challenge.”
Eilentes kept jabbing the controls to summon elevator cars.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said. “This could have been Earth.”
“No,” said Caden. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Then what?”
“This will be Earth.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t.”
“We can’t stop
them, Euryce. We don’t know how. We don’t even know where they come from. And Voice? For all that talk, we still don’t have the first clue what he really is.”
She went quiet.
When the first elevator arrived, Caden and Caecald lifted Norskine into it. Bruiser placed Bro and Daxon next to her, carefully, as if he did not want to awaken them. The Rodori pressed the button to send them down, and stepped out of the car.
Caecald was the first to step aboard the second car. Eilentes followed him in, and Caden stepped in after her, pressing the button to descend.
“Caecald. Make the subordinate will have safety.”
He stepped out.
The last thing he saw before the doors closed against each other was Eilentes’ shocked face forming the question ‘why’, while Caecald pulled her away from the controls.
I was wondering when you would get around to my way of thinking.
“Back to the chamber, Bruiser,” said Caden. “We have a conversation to finish.”
“What are you doing, Caden?”
“I just said: finishing our little chat with Voice.”
“I do not understand what you want to do.”
Caden hefted his rifle, looked at Bruiser, and smiled.
“Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Caden,” said Bruiser. “But what…”
Caden had already set off along the corridor. He heard Bruiser’s heavy footfalls coming after him.
Part of him wished Bruiser was not there. There was a good chance that this would be the last conversation Caden ever had, and he had no wish to see the Rodori die in front of him.
All living things die.
The doors to the chamber still stood open, and Caden stepped inside. He moved around the room until he saw Throam standing before one of the large windows. There was no glass left in the frame, and Throam stared out over the city, watching the invading fleet rain destruction down upon it.
“I told you to leave,” said Voice.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 95
