by Dan Koboldt
“Do you have a better solution?” Alethea asked.
Even without a heads-up, he had only a few minutes until Jillaine and Bita would be entering their destruction code. Holt had cautioned them that both stations had to be taken down at around the same time, or the network would be able to compensate. Even if he and Alethea ran in there weapons-hot, there was no guarantee they’d get to the keypad fast enough. It was so close, too. If only I were still on the payroll. He sucked in a sharp breath. “I’ve got an idea.”
She drew her long knife. “Me, too.”
“No, I want to try talking first.”
“Talking?”
“I can be very persuasive. Don’t come in, unless I call you.”
She made a face that said I don’t take orders from you, but she nodded.
He straightened himself, threw back his cloak, and strolled into the front door of the inn with a casual air. “Hello? Anybody home?”
The last mercenary, the fourth man, popped up from behind the bar. Quinn didn’t recognize him, but he was almost as big as Logan and had the same haircut. His eyes narrowed when he saw Quinn. His hand drifted to his sword-hilt.
Quinn gave him an easy grin. “Sorry to drop in, but the lieutenant’s busting my chops about checking these panels. Where’s the rest of your patrol?”
“Something spooked the horses.”
Quinn blew air across his lips. “Probably a snake. They’re really bad around here. You need a hand getting them back?”
“My men are on it.” His hand still hadn’t moved from his sword-hilt. “Did you say the lieutenant—”
"Oh, she’s all over me,” Quinn broke in. Can’t let him get in a question. “You having any trouble with the panel?” He pointed back to the kitchen and just walked back there. Not hurrying, but not taking his time, either.
“No. Where did you come from?”
“Bayport,” Quinn called over his shoulder. He’d nearly reached the threshold. Thirty more seconds.
“Wait a minute!” the man said.
“It’s all right, I know where it is.” He gained the threshold and went right for the oven. Hoped he wouldn’t hear the other man draw his sword and come charging in. Keep him talking, man. “You hear what happened down south?”
The mercenary came to the kitchen door, right as Quinn reached the hearth. “No one tells me anything. Matter of fact, no one told me you were coming.”
“I’m trying to keep ahead of schedule. Kiara’s been breathing down my neck about these upgrades.” He reached into the oven, found the panel. 1. 2. 3.
“What are you doing?”
“Just a little sound check. Getting a feel for the button tones, you know?” 4. 5. How many was it going to take? A loud buzzer answered that question for him.
The mercenary made a surprised sound.
“Perfect,” Quinn said. “Let me just put in the override.”
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Another resounding buzzer. Two beats, this time. “Whoops. Hit the wrong number.” He started in again. 1, 2.
“Hey! Stop that.” The hand had gone back to the sword. “Who are you? What’s your identification code?”
“Like I said, I’m the panel guy,” Quinn said. “And my code is . . .” 3. 4.
A metallic click announced two unfortunate facts: the man had a crossbow, and he’d just taken off the safety. “Don’t move an inch,” the man said.
Quinn froze. “What’s wrong?”
“Get your hand away from the panel.”
“I’m just—”
"Now!”
Quinn sighed, but complied and put his hands up in the air.
“Turn around.”
Quinn obeyed, nice and slow. Sure enough, the guy had a crossbow on him. He must have had it tucked behind the bar or something. That’s what I get for not clearing the rest of the room. Now this guy had the drop on him. Right when he was so goddamn close, too. He could call in Alethea, but then the man was certain to shoot one of them. Probably her, and he’d be damned if he was going to let that happen.
He didn’t know what to do, so he kept pushing the story. “We both know a crossbow won’t penetrate flexsteel armor.”
“Good point.” The man lifted it, so that the bolt was pointing right at Quinn’s face. “How’s that?”
Quinn laughed to himself. “The lieutenant’s going to be so pissed about this.”
“Stop talking about the lieutenant, and tell me your goddamn name.”
“Julian Miller,” Quinn said, making a gamble. The real Julian Miller ran the prototyping lab on the island facility. Odds were, this mercenary hadn’t met him. “And I promise you I’m supposed to be here. Call it in if you want.”
The man’s eyes widened just a fraction when he heard the name. He recognized it. And the fact that he didn’t pull the trigger meant that the gamble had paid off. This guy must be a new recruit, not senior enough to have met the engineering team. He took one hand off the crossbow and brought it up to his ear to activate the comm unit. That left only one hand holding the weapon. Quinn’s magic screamed to be used. He let the power fill him, and brought an invisible hand swinging in to smash into the mercenary from one side.
The crossbow fired, but the bolt missed Quinn by a good foot. He turned and jabbed a finger at the number five. The buzzer sounded three times, then kept going in quickening beats. Thirty seconds. The mercenary hit the wall but kept his feet, and fumbled for his sword. Quinn yelled and shoved the prep table into him, pinning the man into the corner. Then he flew out the door, ducking beneath it. Halfway across the common room, he managed to shout “I’m coming out hot!” Twenty-five. The table scraped in the kitchen. Then boot steps pounded after him. He sailed out the main door and around the corner. The mercenary charged out the doorway. Alethea swung one of the prop tankards. It smashed his face with a wet thud. He collapsed on the dirt. Twenty.
Quinn ran back and grabbed his arm to drag him clear. Damn, he’s heavy. “Help me!”
“We don’t have time for this,” Alethea said.
“Just grab his arm.”
She mumbled something that might have been a curse, dropped the mug, and took the mercenary’s other arm. They dragged him across the dirt as the beeping grew louder and more insistent.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Ten seconds,” Quinn panted.
They dragged him clear of the houses and headed toward the dunes. Every breath burned Quinn’s lungs. Three, two, one . . .
Nothing happened. They reached the top of the dune. Quinn paused and glanced back. “Maybe we’re—”
The building exploded, and sent him tumbling over the dune into a blinding white wall of pain.
Chapter 26
Winds of War
“Few things are more vital to our in-world operations than our ability to communicate.”
—R. Holt, “Investment in Alissia”
Logan hated to leave Port Morgan, but he couldn’t delay any longer. He’d done the goat hunt and the fish fry. Jass had stocked their skiff with two weeks of fresh provisions, a barrel of clean spring water, and even a jug of his son’s moonshine. When Logan tried to pay him, he waved it off.
“You did enough for us on the hunt this morning.”
“Come on, I only got one,” Logan said.
Jass guffawed. “You took out the herd’s sentry. We’d never have gotten close otherwise.”
“We both know you let me take that shot out of politeness.” Logan looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I think you could have taken him yourself.”
“Maybe,” Jass allowed. He’d hung back and let the younger men take most of the shots that morning, but he knew his way around a bow. “Not from forty paces, though.”
“Call it a lucky shot.”
“Five goats in a single trip.” Jass blew out his mustache. “Luck hardly begins to describe it.”
“Remember that, when it turns sour,” Logan said. Jass was sixty-two, above Kiara’s arbitrary cutoff, but if he so
much as touched a weapon when the CASE Global fleet arrived, he’d be a dead man. Logan wished he could warn him, but he didn’t dare take the risk. I’ve done all I can. “Thanks for bringing me along.”
“We were glad to have you.” Jass offered his hand. “Look after the lads, will you?”
Logan shook it. “Trust me, they’re doing me a favor.” It had taken a lot of promises of money and adventure, but he’d convinced every man younger than Jass to take a trip to Valteron City. Six of them in total. Let it be known I’ve taken out every able-bodied man in Port Morgan. He’d simply added on my ship to that particular order. It might be playing with words, but he’d take his chances with the lieutenant.
Besides, he could use the extra manpower in any case. And they were already aboard the ship, getting it ready to sail.
Jass turned and Logan dropped a couple of coins into his pocket using a little move Bradley once showed him. When was that, on the way through Landor? It seemed like half a lifetime ago. Logan kind of missed having the magician around. Now I know I’m getting soft.
They rowed back to their pirated Valteroni vessel. Ralf and Snicket must have been in high spirits, because they volunteered to handle the oars. Logan didn’t protest—the huge midday meal of fried fish and sea potatoes had him in a comfortable half-coma. Mendez lounged opposite him in the bow of the skiff, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d lost Chaudri.
“How come I didn’t get to go hunting?” he asked.
“You?” Logan laughed. “We had to wake you for lunch.”
Mendez grimaced. “Too much moonshine.”
“It’s strong stuff,” Snicket said. “I tried to warn him.”
“Speaking of warnings, why didn’t you tell us you’re from here?” Logan asked.
Snicket watched the village recede. “It’s not something I like to bring up.”
“You know, when we first met, I thought you were Tioni.”
Ralf snorted. “He wishes.”
They climbed back aboard the Valteroni ship and hauled the skiff up on its crane. It was midmorning, overcast, but with a steady breeze out of the west as they got under way.
If I grew up in a place like this, I’d never leave. Logan mused on this while they glided along the cliffs and out toward the open sea. Mendez vaulted up to the wheeldeck. “Good sailing weather.”
“The best,” Logan said.
The land fell away on the northerly side of the harbor, revealing a wide line of blue-green ocean. Not a ship in sight to the north. Good. He’d just started to relax when he noticed the knot of confusion on Mendez’s face.
“What’s the matter?”
Wordlessly, Mendez pointed the other way, to the south. They’d just cleared the southern point of the harbor. Beyond that, on the horizon, a long line of jagged white clouds hung low over the water. This alone wasn’t unusual—Alissian weather certainly had its oddities—but these clouds formed a steady line from left to right as far as he could see. A few of them shifted to one side, moving independently of the others. But they all were getting larger. Getting closer.
That’s when he focused on one shape and realized his mistake. They weren’t clouds. They were goddamn sails.
“Shit!” He swung the wheel around and hoped they had enough momentum to coast back into the harbor.
Snicket ran up to the wheeldeck. “S’wrong?”
“Look south.”
Snicket ran to the rail, shaded his eyes, and whistled. “Where’d they come from?”
Logan had a suspicion, but he brought out his field glasses to be certain. Blue-and-white banners. Damn. “Valteron. Get ready to reef sails.”
They coasted back behind the southern cliffs. Not as far back as Logan would have liked, but they didn’t have much time. Mendez and Ralf climbed up in the rigging to take down canvas.
“Take the banners down, too!” he shouted.
“No one will know our colors if we do that,” Snicket said.
“That’s how I want it.” The ship’s hull and mast would be hard to spot against a brown coastline, but the sails stood out like highway billboards.
“The old duck and cover, eh?”
“Something like that.”
Snicket ran and started climbing the mainmast.
Logan prayed that no one in the Valteroni fleet had spotted them. Out of the way or not, Port Morgan had to be on the Valteroni navy’s maps, and they’d be suspicious of a deepwater vessel in its harbor.
Mendez dropped out of the rigging. “You sure they’re from Valteron?”
“Blue-and-white banners. Must be his entire fleet,” Logan said.
“Son of a bitch. What’s he up to?”
“A preemptive strike.” Logan shook his head. “He must know Kiara’s coming by sea.”
“Did you already set the beacon?”
“Yeah, right before we left.”
Mendez grunted.
The worried grunt. “What?” Logan asked.
“If she sails right into the Valteroni fleet, it’s not going to look good,” Mendez said.
“You think we should warn her?”
“Unless you want her thinking we set a trap.”
“Hell, you’re right.” Logan jogged up to the wheeldeck and put his comm unit in burst mode. “Logan to HQ.”
The comm unit buzzed in his ear, then gave two soft beeps. Transmission failure. Maybe he’d hit the wrong button. He tapped it again. “Logan to Kiara, come in.”
Three beeps this time. The code for network outage. “Of all the goddamn times!” He climbed down and found Mendez near the bow, taking a depth measurement. Which was good thinking, given how far they’d drifted toward the cliffs.
“Is your comm unit working?” Logan asked. “I can’t raise Command.”
Mendez handed Logan the sounding-chain and put his hand to his ear. “Mendez to HQ.” He shook his head. “I’m getting beeps.”
Logan’s heart sank. “I think the network might be out.”
“Huh.” Mendez drummed his fingers on the rail. “And they don’t know this fleet is coming?”
“How could they? We’re the only team this far south.”
“Well, I’d say they’re probably screwed.”
“Pretty much,” Logan said. And so are we.
Logan stood in the crow’s nest with his binoculars, counting wave upon wave of Valteroni ships. First were the scouting ships with shallow drafts that zigzagged across the water looking for trouble. One of these, a little two-master, came within about a half mile of the harbor. Logan shouted down for Ralf and Snicket to “look busy” like they were repairing something with the rudder, just to hedge his bets. The ship didn’t give them so much as a second glance.
The mast shook as someone climbed up to join him. Mendez. “Any joy with the comms?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s like I’m talking to dead air,” Logan said.
Mendez stared out at the approaching sails. “Never seen so many ships in my life.”
“They’re well disciplined, too. Something tells me the admiral came back out of retirement for this one.”
“So he survived, eh?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“When his keep burned down, I figured he was done.”
What a nightmare that raid was. First losing Chaudri, and then learning that Kiara had set the place to burn down. “Did you know the lieutenant was going to torch it before we left?”
Mendez pretended not to hear him and looked away, the classic avoidance technique for when you knew something but weren’t allowed to say it.
“She doesn’t have munitions training, the last time I checked,” Logan pressed.
“No, she doesn’t.”
“But you do.”
Mendez looked at him. “So do you.”
“I didn’t help her. I’m laying that out right now,” Logan said.
Mendez still didn’t answer.
Hell, he was involved. What a goddamn mess.
Logan sc
anned the next line with his field glasses. “I make another twelve in this set. Riding light like the others.” That worried him as much as the sheer numbers did. A ship riding high in the water didn’t have a hold full of cargo. But men and weapons are light.
One of the ships in this set stood out. Logan didn’t notice it on the first count, but it caught his eye on the double check. She was a two-master with clean lines, and her sails perfectly taut with the wind. Looked brand-new, and somehow familiar. Either Holt had trained his shipwrights with modern techniques, or. . . . No. It couldn’t be. “I think they might have drugged me last night.”
“Why?”
“Cause I’m hallucinating, that’s why.”
“What do you see?”
Something that can’t be real. Logan handed him the field glasses. “Check out the two-master at twelve o’clock. Fifth ship in.”
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . all right, I see it. What am I looking—son of a bitch, is that one of ours?”
“It’s the gods-damned Victoria.”
“I thought it sank with all hands.”
“We all thought that. I was part of the search and rescue team. I’m telling you, there wasn’t even a scrap of wreckage.”
“Forgot to frisk Holt, I guess, huh?”
Logan shook his head. “He was out there with us. Had three members of the research team aboard. He’d have gone himself, except he and Relling didn’t get along.”
“You think she’s aboard that ship?”
“I don’t know. I’d sure as hell like to find out, though.”
“Too bad our mission is to find Holt.”
“Yeah.” Logan looked again through his binoculars. “I’ll be damned, I think I just saw him.”
“You spotted Holt,” Mendez said, in a tone laced with disbelief. “With these field glasses.”
“Sure as hell looked like him.”
“I don’t know, man.”
“I think this fleet is probably the biggest threat to CASE Global at the moment.”
Mendez looked back out at the flotilla. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Once the last ships are past, we’ll loop in behind them. Pretend to be a straggler trying to catch up.”
