“I thought they were close. I picked up a burst transmission a moment ago on our freqs.” She frowned as she rushed past Duhyle. “There was also another squawk on a shielded freq…not shielded enough.”
Duhyle trailed her outside.
“Subcaptain!” called Helkyria as soon as she stepped through the stone doorway. “Move the transport up here as close to the south side of the station as possible. Right now!”
When Helkyria used the full force and command in her voice, it reminded Duhyle why her military-security rank was commander. The demonstrations against the planetary government headed by the Vanir had increased a year earlier. Then, he had been surprised that she had not been recalled to deal with the unrest. Her assignment to the canal project—and his recall and promotion to chief tech—had confirmed that her project was far more important.
The subcaptain hesitated not at all, but gestured brusquely. The techs sprinted toward the station, and the subcaptain trotted beside the biosolar transport. Both the officer and the transport were directly beside the station entrance where Helkyria stood when the first rocket exploded—exactly where the transport had first come to rest. Shrapnel—or heavy ceramic flechettes—deluged the east end of the station. Some of the projectiles struck the rear of the transport.
Duhyle had sensed several flashing by him. Three of the techs staggered. Two straightened. One pitched forward.
“Shields!” the subcaptain snapped at the transport driver.
Only the faint distortion of the mid afternoon light revealed the shields—that and the high-pitched humming from the transport.
“Get the equipment inside before the shields fail,” ordered Helkyria.
One of the techs knelt to check the fallen man, while the others immediately opened the transport’s rear doors. Duhyle hurried to join them. He could carry equipment.
Another rocket arched down and exploded above them. The shrapnel fragments rattled against the transport’s shields, then dropped like dark hail to the stone surface, clattering irregularly. Some flechettes dropped onto the brush and grass to the south beyond the stone.
A third rocket followed, but the result was much the same.
“Tracking complete,” reported the driver. “Relayed to SecCon.”
Helkyria, standing beside the subcaptain, nodded, then said to Duhyle, “Have them take the equipment directly up to the workroom.”
“Yes, ser.” Duhyle took one of the crates as another tech handed it out of the transport and then stepped back, waiting for a moment before leading the way into the station and then up the ramp to Helkyria’s workroom.
He had just returned to the transport to carry another small crate into the station when he noted that the figure of the fallen tech had been shrouded and sealed.
The spec-ops tech with the shrouder stood. “Flechette caught him in the temple.”
Duhyle nodded. Their uniforms provided a considerable amount of protection, but not against head wounds.
The booming echo of a loud explosion rumbled through the afternoon air. He couldn’t help but glance over at Helkyria.
“SatCom located the Aesyr submersible. The debris pattern suggests that the retaliatory strike was successful.”
“No more rockets?”
“For the moment.”
Duhyle moved to the rear of the transport. There he picked up the last crate and followed the other techs inside and up the ramp. Helkyria trailed them. As he walked up the right side of the ramp, he passed the other techs coming back down, but not the subcaptain, who had remained outside with the driver.
“How long will it take us to set up?” he asked as he set down the last crate beside those already carried in by the spec-ops techs.
“A week…if nothing’s broken and everything goes right. Another few days for testing and calibration, and then we’ll see.”
Duhyle stepped back as the subcaptain walked up the ramp.
“Commander, ser. All the equipment is out of the transport.”
“Thank you, Subcaptain.” Helkyria glanced at Duhyle. “If…if you’d show the techs to their quarters on the lower level. The subcaptain will have the smaller main-level chamber.”
“Yes, Commander.” The situation was now definitely security-defined.
Once he had the remaining seven techs and the driver settled into the long chamber that served as a barracks of sorts, Duhyle made his way back up the ramp to the main level and then toward the bottom of the ramp to the workroom. He listened.
“They were waiting, ser,” offered the subcaptain.
“Why do you think I had you move behind the station so quickly? If we had entries here large enough for vehicles, there wouldn’t have been any problem at all. But then, without the attack, Security wouldn’t have been able to find and neutralize the Aesyr submersible.”
“Ser…”
“You don’t like being a target, Subcaptain? Neither do I, especially when it takes away from research that just might have a possibility of averting more unrest and more deaths in the years to come.”
“What about the reports? Won’t they bring more attacks?” The junior officer’s voice was lower, but tighter.
“Unless I’m mistaken,” said Helkyria, “there won’t be any reports at all, even on the subnets.”
“Ser? What about Tech Maruk?”
“I’m certain his death will be reported as an accident. Aren’t all spec-ops’ deaths accidents? As for the rockets, the Magistra of Security won’t report the attack, and Security will be waiting to hacktrack any reports of the attack. The Aesyr know that. They won’t risk trying to leak it, not after the destruction of the submersible. That would compromise their nets. They might try to get some naive idealist to do it, but after what happened to the Sudaarn Student Activists who became a WCE front…I don’t think that there are many idealists stupid enough to want to announce a part in an offense involving attempted premeditated homicide and treason.”
Duhyle understood that, but how long could Security keep tightening the pressure on people while rations were being stretched thinner and thinner? Or could they keep doing it for just that reason? How long before the Aesyr forced a plebiscite on the Vanir government by causing more and more unrest and blaming it on the Vanir?
He shrugged, then turned and headed back down to the kitchen. He’d be feeding more mouths, and he needed to plan the meals based on what he had in the storeroom…in addition to assembling and testing all the new equipment.
10
20 Ninemonth 1351, Unity of Caelaarn
When he stepped off the canal-runner outside the tube-train station in Daelmar, Maertyn scarcely glanced back at the vehicle that was little more than a steamer powered by a solar flash boiler and a biofuel boost, with a single long car attached to the antique engine. The front half of that car served for freight and the rear for passengers, both freight and passengers almost entirely destined from or to the various Reserve posts along the canal. How much longer the Unity could afford to maintain those posts was open to question.
Maertyn carried but a shoulder bag, since he had a full wardrobe at the town house in Caelaarn, in fact a far greater wardrobe there than at the station. He hitched the strap higher as he crossed the street and walked toward Haarlan’s Victualary, the third narrow front to the east opposite the tube-station arch. The first front he passed was the Outfittery—closed, as it usually was. Maertyn wondered how long the owner would even keep up the pretense of the business.
The girl sitting before the screen and behind the counter at Harlaan’s looked up as Maertyn entered.
He recognized her as Harlaan’s niece, although she was a white-blonde, so unlike her grizzled uncle. “Eylana…I’d like to order a side of lamb and a half score of fowl to be sent to the canal weather station on twoday, along with an assortment of whatever greenery and vegetables are the freshest.”
“Yes, Lord Maertyn.” While it was clear from her initial glance that Eylana hadn’t immediately recognized hi
m, she was bright enough to deduce his identity from the order and destination, as well as his maroon and silver-gray travelsuit. “Would you like anything else?”
Maertyn considered, then nodded politely. “The same order two weeks from next twoday.”
“For the two, sir, it will be one hundred thirty-seven, including the delivery charge.”
“That will be satisfactory. Thank you.” Maertyn pressed his personal credpass against the old-style recorder. A faint chime sounded.
“Thank you, sir. We do appreciate your patronage.”
“You’re more than welcome.” He smiled politely, but warmly, before turning and leaving the victualary.
The street was nearly empty, as always, except for a steamcart headed eastward in the direction of the methane extraction works, and the associated power-generation facility. He strode across the broad expanse of composite, once necessary to handle a long-vanished rush of vehicles, to the wide sidewalk on the south side and then through the entry archway and down the ramp toward the single platform under the station, carpeted in what amounted to a form of hard-surfaced, and slow-growing, self-repairing, deep gray lichen. From the top of the ramp he could see that the left-hand side of the platform was vacant, while the three linked shimmering sleek gray cylindrical cars on the right awaited passengers.
For all that he knew Maarlyna was far safer at the canal station with Shaenya and Svorak, and the nearby Reserve guards, than in the capital, he still worried about leaving her for so long—and the fact that once he was in Caelaarn, even more unforeseen circumstances were likely to arise and delay his return. Yet he couldn’t have ignored the summons of Minister Hlaansk, pretext as it mostly likely was, not when he needed the additional equipment to have even a chance of discovering anything meaningful about the canal.
Just short of the entry kiosk and the gates that blocked unpaid entry to the trains, on the side of the platform awaiting the late-afternoon inbound train, Maertyn saw a figure in a scarlet singlesuit. He couldn’t recall when he’d seen brilliant scarlet as the sole color of apparel. The wearer looked to be a woman with short-cropped hair, either silver or white-blond, and an angular face that still appeared close to androgynous. Was she an ice-sport who’d crossed the canal to tempt some unfortunate from the dwindling population of Daelmar?
He shook his head. Despite the lore, the Unity had proven long ago that there were no ice-sports, rumors and reports to the contrary. Yet the unfounded rumors persisted.
Still…his eyes lingered on her slim figure, with only the hint of curves, just enough to suggest femininity.
In her hands was a metallic rectangle that caught light from some source he could not see…or generated its own. Her head lifted from the metallic gleam, and her eyes focused on him. For the briefest moment, her eyes seemed to linger on him before she turned and retreated back into the shadows to the north of the ramp and kiosk.
What was that about? It was almost as though he were the ice-sport…or the oddity, rather than the lord of a distinguished, if financially diminished, line.
Maertyn hurried to the kiosk and swiped his credpass through the beam beside the gate.
“Car two, third compartment,” the kiosk announced as the deep green gate-bars recessed.
He quickly stepped through, but he couldn’t help looking back to make certain that the gate had closed behind him. There was no sign of the woman—or ice-sport—in red.
Walking deliberately, he made his way along the empty platform toward the second car.
“The train will be leaving in fifteen minutes, sir,” came the words from overhead as he stepped from the platform through the open portal into the car, a conveyance whose interior walls were brushed pewter with silvered fixtures and a piled carpet of sea green. The faintest scent of evergreen infused the air.
He moved forward until he reached his compartment and slid the recessed pewter-finished door open. The high-backed couch, upholstered in a green two shades darker than the carpet, could have seated two comfortably and three less so. The small corner desk held a built in wall screen capable of interfacing with any dataport. There was a faux-window, displaying a view of the Reserve as seen from the west side of Daelmar. The view would shift once the train got under way, showing what passengers would have seen had they been conveyed on the surface.
Maertyn set his shoulder bag on the end of the couch farthest from the compartment door, then sat down. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had the only occupied private compartment on the train—at least until Brathym, the first stop of five on the way to the capital. There would be a handful of Reserve workers or officers in the seats of the first compartment, although most of them would depart at Brathym, where most of them had dwellings.
He turned back to the compartment door, then slid it shut. After a moment, he pressed the lock bar. He glanced to the corner desk. That could wait, although he did need to go over his presentation to the internal ministry council. Instead, he sat down in the middle of the couch, trying not to think about Maarlyna as he waited for the train to depart.
11
20 Quad 2471 R.E.
Eltyn virtie-scanned the MetSat images of the massive storm headed westward, well to the north and east of the MCC. Enhancements displayed points of violent weather across much of the midsection of Primia. He couldn’t do much about that, and he turned his attention to that area of the continent to the southeast and below the MCC. While the canal did have a moderating effect, the massive northern low pressure was still causing a wind shift to the south. All the indicators were that another sandstorm was already beginning to form and would sweep toward the canal station.
He thought to pulse Faelyna, but refrained. She was running the last set of tests on the equipment necessary for her approach(9). As she’d predicted, the polariton generator/imager had arrived on fourday, and the two of them had set to work reassembling and testing the equipment piece by piece. Even with both of them working, it had taken more than a week before the PG/I was ready to test, and another three days after that before the entire assembly was ready for its initialization.
He had the sense, backed by probability calculations, that they were running out of time before their TechOversight project came to the attention of someone at Ruche Meteorology, if the overseers at RucheControl didn’t ferret it out sooner. How long would that be? Days? Or a few weeks? The project was designed to discover ways to use the station to mitigate climate warming. It was something to benefit the entire Ruche. Yet it had been turned down ten years earlier as too “individualistic,” and it had taken TechOversight years to change the approach and wait for MetCom personnel to change before recrafting it.
He continued to scan the continental met-data, and the alternative weather projections ranked by probabilities, hoping that it wouldn’t be too long before Faelyna finished the last set of initialization checks.
Interrogative estimated formation of sandstorm, duration, and intensity? The query came over the geosat monitor chief’s link, but without the petulant intensity of Laembah. The duty monitor was likely making the request for the chief.
Margin of error for estimates at this point in time exceeds half unity. Currently project Category 7, two days at full intensity, four days from now.
Report appreciated. Request updates.
Will comply.
Eltyn took another quick scan of the already fully developed northeastern storm. He shook his head. The sandstorm-to-come would be nothing compared to what was already happening across the northern midsection of the continent.
As if to punctuate his assessment, a white priority pulse seared across the command level. URGENT NOTICE. Intense regional tornadoes across NRS have resulted in destruction of more than 28.5% of mid-continental atmospheric turbine stations. Cyclone Betar has disrupted Primia continental tidal bore stations. Nonessential energy usage is hereby declared an offense against the Ruche…
Emergency energy curtailment? That made sense in Hururia and other more popul
ated areas, but except for comm-links, MCC MetStation (W) had no connections with any population centers either in Primia or, through the undersea links, to Secundia, and no links at all to the power grids. So how could the station’s failure to reduce energy usage be declared an offense? The local solar grids and tidal pump couldn’t be connected to anything else, and what was the point of cutting down monitoring when better observations might help?
All stations must certify compliance with RucheCom directive to appropriate authority…and list steps to eliminate nonessential uses…
Idiots6, pulsed Faelyna, irritated at being interrupted, since command-level links overrode all privacy barriers.
Frightened/worried idiots6, returned Eltyn.
Idiots, nonetheless.
Definition of nonessential??? [dry humor] To what, The Fifty’s sense of propriety and equalization?
Don’t even inquire, replied Faelyna. Especially on RucheNet.
She was right about that, too, although he was anything but that foolhardy.
MCC MetStation (W) certifying reductions, Eltyn pulsed to Met-Control. No power downloads from grid this time. None required in immediate future.
Report and certification received, MCC MetStation (W).
Eltyn waited for any further reply. There was none.
After several moments, he returned his attention to the meteorology screens. The station was still receiving satellite feeds. That made obvious sense, since shutting down orbital solar collectors wouldn’t help the planetary power grids in the slightest. At least someone in Meteorology had some intelligence and understanding of reality. So far.
He leaned back, for only for a moment.
Pulse anomaly detected and blocked, the local system announced.
Supply specifics, Eltyn immediately shifted full attention to the local-net defenses.
Pulse on GeoMet tertiary…
The single pulse had been a probe, not a snake or a full-spectrum assault, and it had not been followed by any other activity. Who even cared about an isolated MetStation system…unless they knew the true reason why Eltyn and Faelyna had been assigned? Only TechOversight knew that, or so Eltyn hoped.
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