Warp World (36 page)

“Ama,” Shan said, “tell me what you need.”

She let out a long, ragged breath. “Sleep.”

“Sleep. Good. I can help you there.” Shan stood and offered her hand down.

Ama stared at the hand, reached for it, and Shan lifted her to her feet. “I made it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I made it out of there.”

“Yeah, you did.” Shan looked into her eyes for the first time, her own narrowing, searching. Whatever she saw satisfied her and she looked away. “Next time we go flying, it’ll come out better. I promise.”

“Next time?”

“Theorist’s going to buy me a rider soon.” She scratched her head and shifted from one foot to the other, once more.

“Seg?” Ama asked, and the muscles of her stomach constricted. She shook her head, her hands clenched. She reached to fidget with her collar, then dropped her hand. Fidgeting was not allowed.

“Okay, that’s not important right now. Let’s get you to your rack and we’ll figure out the rest after a good sleep. You hungry?” Shan asked, as they headed back into the dark recesses of the warehouse.

“I don’t know,” Ama said. Her body felt as if it were made of rock, her head was pounding and her mouth was dry. Time had been rendered so irrelevant in the processing facility that her body had stopped responding to natural cues. She ate when they fed her. She slept when they allowed it. Woke when they ordered. “I don’t know anymore.” Her body threatened to crumple.

“We’ll figure it out, okay? Just stay with me here.”

She let Shan lead her to a bunk and was aware of being helped into it. Then a blanket was pulled up over her. She lay there, eyes open, willing sleep and waiting for the sense of security she thought would come once she had been freed from that torture chamber.

But when the lights went out, she was awake and terrified, clutching her blanket.

Gressam had not taken her name, but he had taken everything else.

For once, Seg wished his long legs did not carry him so fast. Fismar had divided the Warehouse into sections for training, eating, cleansing, a court for weekly games of Yoth, and sleeping. Shan’s bunk was set furthest away from everything, in a far corner of the warehouse, to offer her some privacy. Now she shared that space with Ama, who had arrived hours earlier. As he approached the darkened area, Seg replayed the words he had rehearsed—a thorough explanation of all that had transpired.

He had come bearing gifts, as well. If only Ama would be half as pleased with her favorite book as Fismar had been with the crates of weapons, supplies, and fresh food that had accompanied his arrival.

Shan was seated on a bunk, hunched over, honing a knife. Noticing his approach, she hurried to intercept him, raised her hand, and shook her head.

“She’s asleep. Finally,” Shan said.

“I won’t disturb her,” Seg said, his usual superiority absent.

Shan scrutinized him for a moment. When her eyes found the book in his left hand, she sheathed her knife. “She wakes up easy.”

Seg nodded as Shan swung her body to one side to let him pass.

“Boss.” Shan halted him with a whisper, and he paused to look over his shoulder. She didn’t speak but the mournful pall that fell over her face told the story.

He nodded and resumed his course, a lump growing larger in his throat. With uncharacteristic tact, Shan wandered off.

Between a natural wall and a wall of crates were two bunks and a makeshift living space. Tarps overhead created the illusion of a ceiling and blotted out the lights from above. He stepped into the darkened sanctuary and looked down on Ama as she slept. Fismar had warned him about the impromptu haircut but that wasn’t shocking. That was pure Ama. It was Gressam’s marks that unnerved him. The color of her skin had been tweaked, blemishes removed, lips darkened, teeth lightened and straightened. And her neck; his chest ached at the sight of it. Her character had been polished away. Erased.

The book in his hand filled him with shame. Had he been foolish enough to think a simple gift could compensate for what she had endured? He dropped it onto Shan’s bunk, thankful Ama had not been awake to see it. Or him.

“Damn it.” He wanted to punch something. If he were honest, he wanted to hunt down everyone who had harmed Ama and make them pay in blood. Starting with Gressam.

He stepped into the central area that had been cleared for training and saw his troops gathered around Fismar and the crates of weapons that had just been delivered. Fismar was joyously describing the contents to his men.

At least I’ve made one person happy.

“Storm cells, these are your new best friends.” Fismar held up a rectangular black box with prominent ribs on each side. “Only four for now, but that’s enough to train on before the rest come in. Storm cells are like mini-shields and they’re all that stands between you and the Storm out in the wasteland.”

The Kenda muttered in wonder at the strange object.

“And this …” Fismar hefted a large gun from the crate, a radiant expression on his face. “This is a Gelmat Stock 48 Spine Rifle. Ranges out to three hundred meters. Selective fire from low-burst to high-burst—” He stopped as Seg approached and checked the weapon before lowering it back into the crate. All business once more, he stepped to the front of the training area. “Raiders! Form up!”

The troops assembled into disciplined ranks with practiced ease. Shan fell in at the side, not part of any particular unit but part of the whole. Seg looked out at the gathering as he contemplated his speech. This wasn’t about glory or changing the World any longer, it was about keeping his promises.

Ama opened her eyes the moment she knew Seg was gone. She let out a held breath and fought down the tremors that seized her. She had feigned sleep to avoid him. Direct disobedience that she knew was cause enough to send her back to processing.

She sat up, rubbed her hands on her knees, and focused on the safe place Flurianne had given her—the blue eyes of Nen, her home. A few moments later, her heart settled and the tremors ceased.

She heard voices. Fismar
’
s, then Seg’s, echoing through the warehouse. There was a loud gasp, followed by Kenda voices talking over one another. A quick scan confirmed Shan was gone.

Leave it alone. Try to sleep,
she told herself, but by then she was already padding silently, on bare feet, toward to the voices. Ducking behind stacks of crates or pillars, she made her way forward, out of sight, until she spied the men. Seg and Fismar faced the Kenda troops; a large hologram flickered between them.

“One hundred and fourteen years ago, House Etiphar abandoned contracted raider troops during an extrans on raid Yivvis 014,” Seg told the crowd. The display showed troops in raider gear performing a fighting withdrawal under air attack while trying to reach a warp gate that closed moments before they could pass through. The scene shifted, as Seg continued; now it showed a walled fortress surrounded by sand, buildings made of stone. “What you see is House Etiphar’s compound. A luxury of space on this World.”

To the Kenda, the fortress would be unimpressive—not much larger or more well-appointed than a Damiar prison camp—but Ama understood that this complex represented enormous wealth to Seg’s people.

“Under prolonged questioning, Etiphar’s House Financiary admitted that abandoning raiders in the field was done not due to operational pressures, but rather to recover cost on a raid. House Etiphar was declared Black House by convocation of the Greater Houses.”

The image shifted—parts of the fortress wall were now missing, smoke rose from destroyed buildings, craters pitted the roads. Ama snuck closer, captivated by the scene.

“Multiple units under the Mercenary Raider and Review Commission moved, either under contract or of their own volition, to destroy House Etiphar.”

Now the complex disappeared, replaced by moving images that elicited more murmurs of awe from the men. A rider streaked across the sky, the tail end exploded moments before it tumbled gracelessly downward. Armed troops jogged beside a giant, floating metal box. Another rider passed over a collection of buildings, fire spewing from its cannons, shattering the targets below.

Seg’s words didn’t mean much to Ama, and she suspected they would mean even less to the others but the battle scenes held their attention.

“Retreating and in disarray, House Etiphar forces moved to secure an old bastion of the wastelands: Julewa Keep,” he continued.

Footage of the Keep appeared on the aerial display. The structure was built into the side of a mountain, protected from ground attack by a long, curved stone face that offered no means of entry. A prominent landing pad was built into the upper works—obviously the only main entrance and exit. Weapons studded the top side of the Keep and surrounding peaks, perhaps the source of the missile that had been fired at Shan’s rider on the night of their reconnaissance.

“A heavily fortified position, built to resist both aerial and ground-based strikes. As best determined later, Julewa had been occupied by wasteland flotsam, bandits, and escaped—” he paused, glanced up, and Ama realized he had spotted her.

He turned back to the display. “And escaped caj.”

Several Kenda whistled at the sight of the stone fortress. A few muttered between themselves. Julewa was not as pretty as a Shasir Sky Temple but looked every bit as impenetrable.

“Once there, House Etiphar established themselves and repelled an independent raider force that attempted to complete their punishment. They’ve languished in the Keep ever since. Cowards and traitors to their own People.”

Those words were as vile as any curse among the Kenda.

“The People build their systems to last, and Julewa housed independent production facilities of a type that aren’t built anymore in our current state of materials scarcity. It is an insult to the World that this site remains in the hands of traitors and murderers, that this Black House has escaped punishment for its crimes. An insult that cowards live in luxury while you men, warriors all, should be crammed into this small space and never know the freedom of open air.”

The men shouted their agreement. Seg waited for the noise to die down.

“We are going to seize Julewa Keep, take it for our own, and make it our home. It won’t be easy, but Lieutenant Korth has the plan, and now you have the weapons. You
are
the weapons.”

Fismar gestured at the schematics of the Keep that flashed on the display, as gathered by Shan and Ama’s more recent recon. “I know you’re all looking at that wall and thinking there’s no way we’re getting through that. We don’t go through walls here. We go over them, and Julewa’s air defense system isn’t anywhere near what it was. Once we’re down and past the wall, it’s going to be close and nasty and we’re going to go through them hard.”

Fismar looked at the Kenda, a long steady gaze. “Just like you’ve been trained to do. We’ve got tricks coming in that they haven’t even dreamed of. When we’re done with them, they’ll be blind and in the dark. That’s when we’ll take them.”

The men barked shouts of agreement.

Ama looked to Shan, who had not joined in the shouting. The Keep looked different in the light, but it was a sight she would never forget.

Fismar looked back at Seg. “Theorist, your troops are ready for some action.”

“Yes, soon enough,” he said. “Excuse me, all of you.”

The men moved aside to let him pass. Ama saw that he was walking directly to where she stood and, without thinking, dropped into the retyl.

“No, don’t.” He rushed to where she waited. “Stand up.”

Ama did as ordered. Over his shoulder, she could see some of the Kenda watching, making her painfully aware of the pose that had become second nature in processing.

“Please, I just want to talk.” Seg urged her back toward her bunk. The babble of voices picked up again and the men gathered to study the projected images.

When they were out of earshot of the others, Seg turned back toward Ama. “I’m glad you saw that. I wanted you to see it. Once we take Julewa, I’ll have my own land. My word there will be law. No one will ever be able to do what was done to you. You’ll be free.”