by Kate Elliott
“That’s why he’s gone?”
“You don’t understand him either.” Clearly, to Kuan-yin’s mind, this was an insult. “He’ll have gone straight to the heart of the matter. He’ll have gone to Blessings.”
21 The Battle for Blessings
THEY CAME SKATING INTO Blessings ten days later to find armed revolt broken out across the beautiful blue-and-green jewel of the planet. The comm-signals emanating out from downside were rife with panic and exhortation.
No fleet met them, no one except a strengthened garrison, which was wiped out by the entrance, one after the next, of the large bulk of Jehane’s fleet. No fleet, because Central had either not yet heard, or was not yet able to respond.
“They will,” said Kuan-yin ominously from her station on the bridge of the Boukephalos. “They will.”
Lily stood beside her, staring at the huge screen that showed the image of a planet as brilliant as Arcadia, suspended in the dark void of space. “But if Blessings is so valuable, why hasn’t Central guarded it better? They doubled their space garrison, but—” She shrugged.
Kuan-yin glanced at her, at the two other soldiers who had been called up to the bridge with her; the three leaders of the tracking expeditions.
“Look,” she said harshly, pointing to her console, on which a map of the largest continent shone across the screen. “They didn’t choose to strengthen their space defense by much. But according to comm-traffic, five centuries of Immortals were posted in the capital and outlying cities three months ago. That’s one piece of information Central kept hidden from us.”
“Jehane is down there, somewhere.” Lily looked up from the map to the globe of Blessings, turning slowly on the screen. “Alone.”
“Not alone,” said Kuan-yin scornfully. “Jehane is never alone once he makes himself known.”
At comm, a woman turned in her chair to address Kuan-yin. “Comrade, we have confirmation that the former Blessings ‘Independence’ movement has now allied itself totally with Jehane.”
“But there is still no sign of comrade Jehane himself?”
“No, comrade. He has not spoken over any medium that we can track, nor has any broadcaster referred to him as being with him.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Lily, beginning to feel impatient with this fencing, “that he wants government troops, and certainly not the Immortals, to know where he is. Does he know we’re here yet? He could very well be trapped in one of the cities and unable to move.”
“Precisely.” The intensity of Kuan-yin’s regard made Lily uncomfortable. “That is why you three are to choose teams, find him, and get him back here.”
“What if he doesn’t want to be found?”
Kuan-yin dismissed this possibility with a cutting gesture. “He has obviously accomplished his purpose by galvanizing the entire Blessings resistance into open revolt.”
“By galvanizing it under his name,” Lily murmured under her breath; then, louder: “I can’t believe that Jehane—comrade Jehane—would act so impulsively and put himself in such danger.”
“Then you don’t understand him. The unexpected feint wins the engagement. In any case, comrade”—Kuan-yin’s stance seemed threatening as she stared at Lily, one hand resting on the immaculate tuck of her tunic’s collar—“he knows that I can be counted on to safeguard his interests. And his person.”
Lily inclined her head, but refrained from comment.
“So?” Kuan-yin swept her scathing gaze over the three soldiers. “You have your orders.”
“Comrade.” The woman at comm turned again. “We have another ship coming in.” A pause while she listened. “The Forlorn Hope, attended by Zima Station and Savedra, has just entered Blessings system and awaits orders.”
“There,” said Lily quickly. “Let me get my team from the Forlorn Hope.”
Kuan-yin regarded her speculatively. “Weren’t you just transferred from that boat?”
“Yes, and I’ve worked before with a team now assigned there. Twice. Successfully. Surely that’s in Jehane’s interest.”
Kuan-yin hesitated. Lily realized in that hesitation that Kuan-yin was reluctant to countermand Jehane’s previous orders, but could think of no good reason, under the circumstances, not to.
“Very well,” she said. “Go on. Your team will put down near the capital. You others—”
Lily waited to hear the other team assignments and then left, Bach trailing after her, at a brisk walk from the shuttle bay.
“Wonderful,” said Jenny. “It sounds like we’re headed for another disaster like Landfall.”
“No.” Lily rested her palms on the table in the tac room; Captain Machiko had let the team meet there while one of the shuttles in Forlorn Hope’s bay was readied. “That plan was flawed from the start. Callioux was overconfident.”
“Are you sure you’re not?” Jenny asked. She stretched her long legs out and rested one boot, the other crossed atop it, on the table. Her hands she slipped behind her head, elbows out.
Lily grinned, acknowledging this. “Jehane’s no fool. And he’s not impetuous, either. If anything, he calculates every move down to the finest detail.”
“Then what?” asked Yehoshua. He traced the curve of his dark hair around an ear with one finger of his artificial hand. “You’re not suggesting that he wants you to get in trouble downside?”
“Jehane doesn’t trust you, Lily, my love,” said Kyosti, drawling over the endearment. Since her sudden and hurried arrival on the Forlorn Hope, punctuated by enthusiastic, if brief, greetings from everyone else, he had maintained a studious distance from her. “You’ve been a bit too successful for him, I think.”
“What do you mean?” asked Yehoshua. “I’m not sure I like the tone of your voice, comrade.”
“Come now, comrade.” Kyosti waved a negligent hand. “Why else do you think he transferred our Lily from a post where she was clearly doing a great deal of good to one where she would inevitably be lost among an already established chain of command?”
Yehoshua frowned, but said nothing.
“Why else,” Kyosti continued, “send us into a series of engagements that was surely designed to rid him of a few people he had cause to believe might prove more loyal to her than to him?”
“Like yourself,” said Yehoshua, but he rubbed one lip absently as he said it, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Kyosti shrugged eloquently.
“All right,” interposed Lily, not wishing to continue such speculation. She paused a moment to take stock of her team: Jenny, Yehoshua, and Kyosti; Pinto, Paisley, and the other three Ridani; the Mule, Finch, Nguyen, and Wei. Blue was still too valuable in engineering to risk, and Aliasing had agreed to stay with Gregori on board the Forlorn Hope. Lily suspected that Jenny did not, in any case, want Lia along on such a mission.
“Let’s make some cautious assumptions,” continued Lily. “For instance, let’s assume that Jehane accomplished exactly what he meant to do in getting Blessings to combine with him against Central’s forces on the planet. Let’s assume that he has something further planned that we don’t know about. Let’s assume that he in fact did not know that Central had garrisoned Blessings with five centuries of Immortals.”
Jenny whistled. “Five centuries?”
“Finally, let’s assume that Kuan-yin really does want him back on the Boukephalos. Any arguments?”
“That’s pretty general,” objected Yehoshua.
“Well, yes, but we haven’t got much time. Now I’m going to make one final assumption: he’s stuck in the capital, which is being patrolled by one or two centuries of Immortals who either don’t know he’s there or only suspect it. He’s got to get to the countryside to get a shuttle off planet. He has to risk the Immortals to get out.”
“Risk the Immortals?” Yehoshua shook his head. “You don’t risk Immortals. How can even Jehane hope to fight past them?”
Lily looked at Jenny.
Jenny smiled. “Doubtless comrade Jehane i
s full of surprises,” she said sardonically. “Where’s your faith, Yehoshua?”
“Levity is all very well. I’m talking about the Immortals here.”
“Yes, I know you are,” replied Jenny. “I was one.”
His eyes widened. So did most everyone else’s around the table. “But—I thought Immortals couldn’t retire.”
“They can’t.” Jenny said this in a tone that sounded tired of the subject. “So there you are. Listen, Lily.” She turned her attention back to the other woman. “I’ve a good idea how they’ll post patrols. Especially if they’re looking for one person.”
“Good.” Lily nodded. “I was hoping you might. Bach has a map of the capital and a précis of all current and recent comm-traffic out of that area. Finch, you’ll assist Bach in trying to use that information to trace the most likely locations Jehane might be holed up in.”
Finch nodded.
“We’ll need two shuttles. One will act purely as a decoy. Pinto, can you find me a volunteer who is willing to risk their life—”
“I’ll do it,” said Kyosti casually.
“No, you won’t. You’re staying on board this ship, comrade. The work you’re doing with the Formula—as a physician—is far more valuable to the citizens of the Reft right now. Don’t you agree?”
At first he was too stunned by her fiery stare to retort, but after a moment he laughed.
“Lily, my heart,” he said softly. “Our old friend Robbie must have inoculated you with his idealism.” He smiled, gently mocking. “I bow to your superior charity.”
“Get your gear,” ordered Lily. “We leave in one half hour.”
The room cleared quickly, except Kyosti, who did not even bother to rise, and Paisley, who stood, but supported herself on her chair back as if she could not stand without aid.
“Paisley?” Lily went across to her and rested a hand on the Ridani girl’s shoulder.
“I were sore ill,” whispered Paisley, looking fragile for a moment. “You know I bain’t scared, min. You know it. But I fear I be ya right sore hindrance to you if I go.”
Lily glanced at Kyosti. He studied Paisley, measuring the girl, but said nothing. “Very well,” said Lily. “Then you’re better off staying here.”
Paisley dipped a brief curtsey and left, head down.
“I wonder what that was all about,” said Kyosti. He stood up. “Lily.”
She went to the door, put her hand on the pad, but did not open it. “Why did you give me the Formula?”
“I can’t imagine,” he said, sounding disgusted, “why you feel the need to ask that question. The answer must be obvious.”
“Only if you assume that I can possibly forgive you for murdering that man. He never threatened you.”
His face shuttered: lips drawing straight and tight, eyes half-closed, breath caught in; lifting his chin, for an instant he looked impossibly alien to her—framed all by the startling blue of his hair.
He did not reply.
“Wish me luck,” she murmured as she pressed the pad. The door slipped open behind her.
Still, he did not reply.
Only after the door slid shut behind her, leaving him alone in the dimming room, did he sigh, echoing the door’s soft hushing close: “Luck.”
Lily was in no mood to discover an argument at the shuttle, but she did so anyway.
“—and who is going to take care of Gregori, pray tell?” Jenny stood on the ramp, effectively blocking Aliasing from boarding the shuttle.
Lily halted in the boarding walk, staring at Lia. The two women remained unaware of her. The rest of the corridor was empty.
Somehow, somewhere, Lia had cobbled together a white Jehanish soldier’s uniform that really fit her: she had always been too petite to meet any standard soldier’s issue. Most of the splendid dark fall of her hair still hung loose, but in the front it had been cunningly braided to keep away from her face.
“Paisley,” Lia replied, hands clenched tight as she stared stubbornly up at Jenny. “It’s true enough she was sick later than the rest of us, so she said she’d plead sick and stay here with him.”
“You idiot!” hissed Jenny. Lily had never seen her so angry. “Whatever training you’ve had in the past year hasn’t begun to prepare you for this kind of action. You can’t go.”
Lia sucked in an obvious, big breath of air, like resolve. “It’s not your choice. I’m taking Paisley’s place.”
“You can’t go,” repeated Jenny.
Lily was shocked by the violence of Jenny’s tone, especially directed at Lia, whose frailness under this attack, enhanced by the cleverly ornamented lines of the white uniform—like, yet unlike, Jehane’s people’s uniforms—was beginning to dissolve away to reveal something unyielding underneath.
“You don’t want me to meet Jehane,” said Lia, shifting her ground so abruptly that the expression on Jenny’s face immediately betrayed the accuracy of the hit.
“You’re afraid,” Lia continued, sounding anything but fragile now, “that I’ll leave you for him when I find out who he really is. But I knew all along, Jenny. After all those years as a Senator’s only daughter, do you think I don’t watch every face that pretends to power? Do you think I don’t measure them, and wonder, and predict? I grew up with politics. I can’t ignore it like you can.”
She paused, but Jenny merely stood, hands motionless at her side, stiff with an emotion Lily could not name.
“I don’t know how long you think you’ve been protecting me. I thought you knew me better than that, that just because I’m so small you didn’t treat me like everyone else does: something to be protected. Void bless, how my mother and aunt laughed when I said I wanted to join the Immortals. Size requirements, you know.” Her voice held a bitterness that Lily would never have guessed existed there, under the cloud of soft hair and the sweet piquancy of her face.
“I’ve known who Jehane was ever since his revolt really began to threaten Central’s government. Yes, he’s changed the timbre and pitch of his voice a lot, and he looks a little different—it’s mostly his carriage, I think—but still. Still, Jenny.”
She stopped. Paused, and turned her head to see Lily standing some twenty paces behind her in the empty corridor. Turned back. “Let me by,” she said softly.
Jenny moved to one side and let her board the shuttle. Just stood there, as Lily came up to her.
“Jenny.”
A single tear snaked down one ebony cheek. “She loves him,” Jenny whispered. “Void and Hells. You saw him. How can I compete against him?”
“By not competing,” replied Lily softly. “Anyway, do you think Jehane wants the burden of her love?”
“Do I think I care if he wants it or not?” Jenny demanded in a low, harsh voice. “I care that I’ve lost her. I care that she never once told me what it was she did to break the fabled chastity of the man who was Mendi once. Don’t you think she can do it again? That she doesn’t have some power over him? That even if he doesn’t want her love, he’ll be able to resist it?”
Lily could think of nothing to say. She did not dare attempt to touch Jenny, standing there taut and tense as a strung cable.
“She even made a uniform,” said Jenny at last, almost inaudible.
“The uniform?”
“Yes. Oh.” Jenny glanced at Lily, a spark of irony showing in her expression. “You probably didn’t notice. The differences are subtle. That’s not a Jehanist uniform—Jehanish whites, like ours. Look at the ornamentation, and the cut. That’s an Immortals uniform.”
A face in the shuttle door: Finch. “Oh,” he said, relieved. “There you are. We’re three minutes late.”
Jenny whirled and went inside the shuttle.
“Oh, Hells,” said Lily under her breath, and followed her.
“Bach and I are picking up some new comm,” said Finch as Lily strapped into the seat directly behind him and Pinto. “There’s troop movement in the capital—the Immortals are setting up some kind of ring aroun
d the very center of the city. I think, from what we can piece together, that they’ve isolated one of the ‘Independence’ movements’ strongholds, or meeting places, in one of the downtown buildings.”
Lily looked at Pinto. “Let’s move. Whether or not it’s Jehane, there’s somebody down there worth saving—if only because they might know where Jehane is. Is the decoy ready?”
“Affirmative.” Pinto flipped through his controls. “We have engines, detach sequence counting down.”
Finch handed Lily a headset as the shuttle detached and, after separation, canted with a flash of engine to begin the descent.
“How many centuries are we up against?” she asked. “Can you give me an estimate?”
“Two, Bach guesses. Do I transmit to the Boukephalos?”
“No. For now we maintain silence. If we locate Jehane, Kuan-yin will send in backup, probably on our tail, to pick him up. We’ve got to find him without alerting Central’s people that we’re looking.”
Finch glared at Pinto, who sat intent at his controls, then leaned back in his chair. “We’re not really going in twenty meters up, with that decoy riding in two hundred meters above us, are we? Even Pinto—”
“Finch. We’ve got to get in undetected. We don’t have time to go overland. By this time, you ought to know that if anyone can do it, Pinto can.”
Finch’s lips twitched as if he felt he had to say something, but could not bring himself to. “I suppose,” he said at last, grudgingly.
Lily chuckled. “I’ll bet that hurt.”
His lips tightened, and he turned stiffly back to his console. Lily listened in.
“—we have achieved complete command of the ten-block circumference. All civilians are now being evacuated through our points of entry. Acknowledge.”
“Accepted. Lieutenant, give me an estimate of time remaining to clear the area before your troops can move in. Acknowledge.”
“Accepted. Due to the necessity of careful search procedures and the opportunity to close the ring as each building is cleared, we estimate the operation will take over six hours. Acknowledge.”
