House of Reeds

becomes expendable. An honorable sacrifice to cover some political game played out by the xochiyaotinime. Her brave heart spared the wrecking yard…

He started to feel very bitter and forced himself to think of something else, something beyond the faceless hand which placed his ship and crew in danger of disgrace. The first words which popped into his consciousness were very old, a fragment he'd seen on a moss-covered tombstone in the old temple grounds at Joriku, on the western side of Shinedo city, overlooking the Chumash Sound.

A noteless tune fills the void:

spring sun, snow whiteness, bright clouds…

clear wind.

He grunted, feeling entirely helpless, trapped in a tight, confining suit in a tiny bubble of air, light and power speeding through limitless darkness towards an uncertain welcome. A death poem. But whose? Mine?

Heicho Felix grunted, feeling the strain in her upper back, and heaved a packing crate onto the back of the groundtruck her squad had commandeered. Helsdon and one of his technicians grabbed hold on the other side and shoved the heavy package against the sidewall.

'That's the next to last,' a man in an Imperial Development Board jumper yelled, scrambling up onto the truck. Felix turned, jammed ink-black hair back behind her ears, and saw two of her troopers struggling to carry the last crate out of the warehouse.

'Leave it,' she snarled, listening to a steadily increasing level of panicky chatter on the all-hands channel serving the Imperial installations around the periphery of the landing field. 'We've got to get to the shuttle. Let's go!'

Ignoring her, both men staggered up, then tipped the crate onto the rear lip of the truck bed. Cursing, Felix joined in, pushing for all she was worth. The vehicle groaned, settling on its springs, and then complained bitterly as all three troopers swarmed aboard. Helsdon ignored them, concentrating on throwing tiedowns around the cargo and punching the liftgate control. The Heicho clicked over to the squad channel.

'Drive,' she barked, swinging her Macana around to point out the back of the truck. The corporal in the forward cabin fired up the big engine, threw the vehicle into gear and they jounced out of the cargo yard behind the warehouses in a cloud of fresh dust. Felix swayed, caught herself, then braced one armored foot against the metal- reinforced crate squatting between her and the machinist's mate.

'What is all this stuff?' she asked, dark brown eyes wary, as the truck turned out onto the ring-road surrounding the number two landing strip. The driver jammed on the accelerator and they raced down the unsurfaced road. Felix could feel a pregnant heaviness gathering in the air. A thunderstorm was about to burst over their heads, turning the roads and fields around the strip into gooey, hip-deep mud.

Helsdon grimaced, eyes tight, holding a bandanna to his mouth and nose. None of the technicians were in armor and they'd left their z-suit helmets back on the shuttle. 'Power supplies,' he shouted, trying to best the roar of the methanol engine in the old-style truck. 'They were supposed to go into the communications satellites the Board is putting up.'

They hit a buried culvert under the road and everything bounced up, then slammed back down again. Felix clung grimly to a stanchion, hoping she wouldn't be pitched out. 'How'd you get them?' she wondered aloud, watching the packing crate shimmy and bounce from side to side, straining the tiedowns. 'Aren't they expensive?'

'Part of our trade.' Helsdon shrugged, face coated with a fine layer of yellow dust. He sneezed, wiped his nose and left a muddy smear. 'These are Fleet-grade packs, but they're not the right kind to fit the latest round of satellites. So Isoroku traded all our scrap -'

The man in the Development Board jumper leaned over, shaking his head. 'These aren't Fleet grade,' he shouted, then clutched wildly at a hanging strap as the truck swerved off the main road and into a parking lot behind shuttle hangar six. There was a squeal of brakes, Felix felt the tires slipping on loose gravel, and then the whole vehicle lurched to an abrupt halt. A veil of road dust drifted past, settling on everything.

'Everyone out!' Felix bawled, jumping down and stepping out, scanning the immediate area. Her Macana was off-safety and she'd made sure a fresh clip of armor-piercing was loaded up. The latest intel on the Jehanan troops deployed on the perimeter said they were lancers in heavy ceramic and cloth armor, armed with a wide variety of hand-weapons and native muskets. Against targets in so much ablative armor, she thought penetration would knock them down faster than trying to flay them alive with splintering sub-munitions. Technicians piled out of the truck, surrounded by a screen of Marines with weapons at the ready.

The Board technician jumped down and Felix seized him by the collar. 'What do you mean, those aren't Fleet- grade power supplies? That's what the packing display says. That is what we paid for!'

The civilian went pale, fingers clutching at her armor-clad wrist. 'Urk! I repacked those crates myself…Go easy, ma'am! They're the original power supplies from the satellites. They've got the same interface -'

'Helsdon!' Felix pointed at the crates being lifted down from the truck. 'Break open one of those once we're inside. I think you've been stiffed by this insect…'

'Not me! Not me!' The technician was now an alarming shade of parchment. 'The lead engineer on the project had us switch them out – he wanted to extend the time-to-repair for the commercial comm relays! They can drain a pack pretty quickly. But…but these will work fine in your equipment. I swear!'

'That,' Felix said, shoving the man in front of her and prodding him towards the hangar with the muzzle of her rifle, 'is not the point. You don't cheat the Fleet, and if you do…'

A long, drawn-out crackle of thunder drowned out the rest of her threat. Everyone looked uneasily at the sky, which was now dark with huge, humped clouds. The Fleet crewmen seized hold of the rest of the crates and began moving them inside with commendable speed.

Scowling at the buildings across the road, rifle to her shoulder, Felix waited just inside the hangar doorway until everyone else had gotten under cover. Nothing was moving save stray winds eddying debris across the tarmac and the ring-road, blowing clouds of dust and litter into swirling tchindi. The Heicho could hear Sho-sa Kosho's distinctive voice echoing inside, ordering everyone onto the shuttles and the crates aboard.

Uneasy, Felix threw the locking bar and sprinted for the shuttle. Kosho was waiting on the loading ramp, silhouetted against the bright lights of the shuttle hold and the yellow-orange glow of the sun gilding the runway and the other station buildings.

'Come on, Felix, the captain wants us upstairs right away.'

The Heicho double-timed up the ramp, automatically checking to make sure her men and the engineers were strapped in, the cargo was secured and everything was shipshape. The ramp whined up, and then clanged shut. Koshoran through the environmental seal checklist at light-speed and then tapped open her comm.

'Kosho to pilot, we're clear to lift. Is the other shuttle ready to take off?'

Hai, kyo. They are on rollout now.

Felix found a seat and wedged herself in. Kosho was sitting opposite, somehow already secured and looking unruffled in her matte black Fleet z-suit. The shuttle began to tremble and the Heicho felt the landing wheels rolling across broken concrete through the seat of her armor. She thumbed up a v-pane on the inside of her visor, catching the feed from the pilot's station. Clouds were still building over the field and the northern horizon was black with rain.

'Kyo – did Helsdon tell you about the power packs?'

Kosho nodded, lifting her chin to indicate the row of crates secured to the pal-lets running down the middle of the hold. 'Isoroku got stiffed, I see. What was supposed to be in these packs?'

'Military-grade field power cells,' Helsdon said. The machinist's mate had his comp out and the inventory tag on the side of the nearest cargo pack was blinking in response. 'Sunda Aerospace Yards PPCAM-17's – that's a long- term, antimatter powered cell – should keep those satellites with juice for…' The engineer paused, and Felix turned, catching a raised eyebrow through the glassite of his facemask. '…about three thousand years at the draw on file for the commsats the Board is putting up.'

'What?' Kosho turned her attention on the Board technician, who looked like he'd swallowed a whole puffer fish. 'What does the Development Board think it's doing? Those satellites will wear out from micrometeoroid abrasion