Warp World (77 page)

“You really didn’t bring enough personnel to ensure compliance with your directives, anyway,” he said.

Akbas was speechless as she took in the scene. She dug into her pocket and produced a digifilm. A few taps connected her to the CWA network and soon Seg could see the bad news was there, in bold print. Her two lips became a single line, straight and thin as the edge of a knife.

“No,” she said, simply. “We won’t let you pull your tricks on us again.”

Seg took two steps toward her. “Oh?”

Akbas moved close enough to Seg that she could speak just above a whisper. “Listen, you smart-mouthed, unortho little karg.” Her eyes pierced him like icicles. “Put one foot on that rider and my agents have orders to open fire.”

“Why wait? The People around you were with me at the temple. I know how far they’ll go. If you’re ready, I am. If you don’t take the moment here, Akbas, understand this: some day, I am going to come for you and I am going to crush you. And when I’m through with you, you’ll wish you were in the ponds.”

“I have the CWA behind me, Eraranat. Who do you have? A few disgruntled raider curs? Some caj? Word is even the Guild doesn’t want you anymore. You’re a liability. All we have to do is wait. Your merry band of misfits will figure out who you are soon enough and then what?”

“Strange how, with so little, I keep upsetting your every scheme. This conversation is finished. Make your decision, shoot or run. I’m ready.” Seg took a single step back and spread his arms wide.

Akbas stared for a moment, weighing the risks. Her eyes moved to the raiders. Then to her own agents.

“Enjoy your victory,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just remember, it’s only fuel on a very large fire.”

With that, she backed away and called to her agents.

“We’re done here.” Akbas turned to face Nallin’s viscam. “Once more, Theorist Eraranat has exploited the hard work of others and the necessary protocol of our World for his own selfish ends. We must wait for justice, as the Thirty-first Virtue of a Citizen decrees.”

The CWA contingent began filtering out. “Akbas,” Seg said. “You’ll risk everyone’s life but your own. You fight like you have something to lose, and that’s why you always do.”

Akbas’s only reply was to turn her back and walk more briskly.

Nallin followed her progress and then panned the viscam back to Seg before she powered it down. “Off the record, that woman is an abominable cunt.” She looked over at the rider. “So, now where are we going?”

“I’m going to my new home,” Seg said. “I have more than fifty troops assaulting Julewa Keep and I intend to join them. I have the notion, however, that you’re not going to show any more sense of self-preservation or discretion than you have thus far, so—” He gestured to the dilapidated shuttle. “—get in. I have some business to tend before we go.”

“Any business you want to talk to me about?” Her eyes darted to the viscam.

“It’s personal.” He turned away from her and waved to bring in the scattered raiders. “Arel!”

“Theorist,” Arel said as he proceeded toward the rider.

“I need you here, in Cathind,” Seg said.

Arel shook his head. “I can fight.”

“I know you can, but I need your mind more than your chack. There are few People I can trust inside the shield now. We’re dealing with a new kind of war here.”

Arel frowned but assented. “Understood. I’ll stand by.”

He squared up and gave Seg a formal salute. Seg returned the gesture, then smiled at the sight of a fast-approaching Manatu. Lissil jogged to keep up with the big man’s ground-eating pace.

“Manatu, good to see you. Business taken care of?”

“Just like you asked,” Manatu said.

“Theorist!” Lissil said. “You’re alive. I was so worried.” She added a respectful bow and, when she looked up again, her wide brown eyes were brimming with tears.

Seg grasped her hand and squeezed once. “It’s good to see you alive, as well. I should warn you, where we’re going—”

“Rocky soil,” she said.

“Yes.
But once we’re there, no one will ever threaten you or hurt you.” He glanced at her leg, where she had been shot the night of the Haffset party.

She stepped up and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Manatu cleared his throat and looked away; Nallin watched the scene with growing interest.

Seg glanced back at the rider and called out to the gathered raiders. “I have six more seats! Who’s with me?”

Raiders answered over top of each other.

“I’m in.” The largest of the twenty men and women pushed past a cluster of his fellow raiders as he climbed into the rider.

Others followed in his wake and the remaining five spots filled quickly.

“For a
smart mouthed, unortho little karg
, you have a lot of friends,” Nallin said.

“Friends? These are family, born in blood, Nallin Sastor.” He turned back to the remaining raiders. “I’ll be back for you! The future is waiting for us!”

“Damn.” Nallin raised the viscam a moment too late. “Warn me the next time you plan on uttering something ridiculously inspirational.”

The passengers filed in quickly and strapped themselves into their seats. The machine came to life with an unhealthy rumble; moments later, it was airborne. On the way home.

“And so the charter commander says,
How did this karging Outer get in my rider?
”
Shan looked over at Ama’s blank expression. “See, because they were six thousand and climbing, so nobody could figure out how—”

“Son of a whore!”

“Just now getting it?” She glanced at Ama again and saw her staring intently at the EW board. “What is it?”

“The Storm’s switched direction. It’s headed right at us.”

“Karg!” Shan flipped the comm switch. “Ground Lead, this is Air Lead. Speak.”

“Air Lead, I was just about to check in with you. What’s the situation?” Fismar asked.

“We have Storm track inbound in—” She checked the board. “—three-five minutes, repeat thirty-five minutes.”

“Noted. We’ll get the wounded downlevel and you can put up the rider’s Storm cell to ride it out if it comes to it,” Fismar said.

“Understood, hold and use cell,” Shan said.

“Got a situation of my own down here. Have a few eyes on it, uploading visor imagery, now. Need your opinion on what we’re looking at.”

Shan switched a display over to the incoming feed. Grainy images with flares of light showed Etiphar troops moving around equipment, apparently attaching explosives to banks of machinery.

“What are they doing?” Ama leaned forward and squinted at the monitor.

Shan stared at the display. “Uh, I think those are capacitor banks, Fis, er, I mean, Ground Lead. I’m not a tech, or anything but—”

“Capacitors make a bad boom, don’t they?” Fismar asked.

“Yeah. Maybe enough to blow the top off the mountain, if they’re big enough, I dunno. Even if it’s not that bad, capacitors are toxic as all karg and that’ll dump straight downlevel.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just go in and make them stop. Ground Lead, clear.”

“Air Lead, clear.” Shan leaned forward in her seat and looked down at the landing deck nervously. “Well,” she said. “Well.”

“Shan?” Ama said.

“Uh huh?”

“I thought the grabber was supposed to stop the Etiphars from destroying the Keep.”

“Guess they had a back-up plan. Or they’re improvising.”

Shan reclined in her chair, eyes darting between the monitors and the board. Unconsciously, her hand stroked the power lever next to her seat.

“Fis’ll take care of it. Just keep your eyes on that Storm and be ready to deploy the Storm cells.”

“What about Seg?”

Shan turned her face away from Ama. She wouldn’t say it, but she knew he wasn’t crazy enough to risk flight when there was Storm sign, no matter who was hunting him down in Cathind.

“Boss knows what he’s doing,” Shan said.
I hope.

S
eg hung onto the grab-bar in the middle of the rider bay, knees bumping the passengers on either side of him, as Manatu helped him into his gear. Turbulence was kicking up and through the small window he could see the black line of the Storm racing in. It ran perpendicular to their path and threatened to cut them off before they could land at Julewa. He released the bar long enough to pull the clamshell of his armor over his head. He fumbled to latch one side as Manatu latched the other. A gust sent them both rocking toward the wall. Seg caught the cargo bin over Nallin’s head and muttered an apology before he pushed himself back upright.

“Theorist.” Nallin raised her voice over the noise of the shuttle and the approaching Storm. “I’d like to talk to you.”

Seg wedged a leg in between her and a neighbor and slid the straps of his harness around his thigh. “It might be your last chance, so go ahead.”

She raised her viscam and cocked her head questioningly.

“We’re going to a fight,” he said by way of explanation. Manatu passed him a pair of battery cases, which he stuffed into his vest harness. He shifted legs and finished fastening the harness down. Turbulence threw him backwards. Manatu grabbed the rail with one hand and Seg’s shirt with the other, and stopped him before he landed on the seated raiders.

“That’s if we even land!” a raider yelled, which set off a wave of cackles among the volunteer troops.

“Theorist Erarant.” Nallin enunciated her words in an exaggerated manner now that she was recording. “There has been no end of speculation about you and your behavior. Some call you a rebel, some compare you to Lannit, some view you as a hero of the common Citizen.” She panned across the rider to show the raiders. “But I think the World deserves to hear from you: Why? Why the fifty Outers? Why the multi-strike? Why the words that sparked a riot? Why Julewa?”

Seg pulled himself upright and accepted a small case of ammo cassettes, which he attached to the cassette clip on his vest. He looked down at the viscam with a shrug.

“I was considering the World …”

As the last of the Kenda troops arrived, summoned by Fismar’s emergency comm, Cerd did a quick count and weapons check.

The area, like so many of those they had passed through, was a moldering storage space, stacked with crates, pieces of machinery, or objects of indecipherable purpose. Whatever the Keep had once been, it was clear that it was stagnating, production neglected in favor of whatever strange gods the Etiphars worshipped, and the lunacy of their leaders.

He was taken back, suddenly, to his first introduction to the Rift pirates and their shrines to gods so ancient and dark-hearted that even the Kenda had forgotten their names. The air in his lungs turned cold. This was an evil place, full of bad omens.

He shook off the premonition and nodded to Fismar to let him know the Squad Leaders were ready.

“We’re going to infiltrate right at the edge of their perimeter, then we’re going to converge quickly,” Fismar said. “We don’t know what the Etis are rigging in there or how it detonates, but we don’t want to risk touching it off. So it’s up close and knives, shots only from each squad’s designated shooter and only in the designated zones. Forget everything I said before about not stabbing people—now’s a good time for it. Prow, Tirnich, your squad
s are
peeling to the left here, then you’ll pivot and catch ’em on the flank. Cerd, you and Wyan are going to take the middle. I’ll be accompanying Viren up the right and clearing the banks.”