He gave her a sad smile. “You were just tryingto help and I do appreciate that. It’s not so bad, really.” Henodded his head toward the plaza below, where a crowd was gathering.
“None of them have any idea of the things I knownow,” he said. “I’m not sure why but that gives me a certainsense of smug satisfaction. I’ll die smarter than them and save myfamily.”
He swiveled his legs over the side and slid downthe sponson to land on the ground. She stood and watched as hedescended the front of the pyramid, its steps still stained with theblood of his friends.
The people at the base shrank away from him as heneared the bottom.
She sat and closed up her canopy again. A hardturn to port brought the scene below back into view and she used thefighter’s optics to zoom in.
A Mictan approached in an ornate headdress buthe’d clearly come in a rush because he wasn’t wearing his robe.His posture was bent and uncertain.
“Time to go,” Luna ordered.
With a sigh, Gabriella started swinging around tofollow but she caught sight of Dentrat knocking off the Mictan’sheaddress as she turned. Maybe something will come of this, afterall?
Lockdown
Ragnarok
Hennessy had adjustedhis shower to work out the knots in his muscles automatically. He’dknown the waterproof cubicle had scanners but he hadn’t realizedhow useful that could be until one of the pilots from the republichad explained why he was a little late to a briefing.
It was like having ahighly trained masseuse on call.
They’d justfinished their third practice session and, though his body wasgetting better at dealing with the demands put on it, there werestill a few aches.
A buzz startled him. Itwas a chime but the thousands of water droplets had an impact on theway the ship applied energy waves to the air to create sound.
He sighed. “Thisis Hennessy.”
“Sir, we have atransmission for you from the surface,” the comms officer said.“It’s the garrison commander.”
“Put himthrough,” Bill said. “Audioonly.”
“Commander,this is…” He’dnearly identified himself to a ground-pounder as just the captain ofthe Kuphar. “CommodoreHennessy,” he finished. “What can I do for you?”
No sense in abdicatinghis authority to Mal. You never knew when you might have push‘pay a visit’ to shove between the two military leadersand Bill wanted to ensure he had the higher ground over his republiccounterpart, figuratively and literally.
“I’m getting a lotof interference in your signal, Commodore,” Mal said. “Are youhaving comms issues?”
“No, I’m having ashower.”
“Ah.” Mal soundedcompletely unfazed at catching Bill in a private moment but, then, hewas from the republic, where Human interaction had been very… 60’s,until recently. He’d probably been in more than a few orgies, socatching someone in the shower was no biggie.
“We’ve been havingsome strange occurrences down here. A few colonists working up in thenorthern highlands reported missing an hour or two of time and somesort of psychic interference.”
Bill opened his eyes,though there was nothing but a moving line chart tracking Mal’svoice tones. “Really?” he asked. “And we’re sure this isn’talcohol related?”
Mal laughed. “I doubtit. We’re talking about two of our council members, as well asmembers of their families. They don’t seem like substance abusersto me.”
“What’s your takeon this, Commander? Do we have a security threat? Do we need toconsider relocation?”
He could almost hearthe grimace in Mal’s response.
“This is a new onefor us,” Mal admitted, “but the colonists who’ve been affectedseem to feel the phenomenon isn’t hostile.”
“And what’s yourtake on ‘seem to feel’ as a reassurance?” Bill asked.
Mal grunted. “My takeis that we need to run a lock-down drill or two, just in case there’ssomething dangerous down here that might wake up with an appetite.
“Just lettingyou know, so you don’t end up putting the fleet on alert when yousee what we’re doing down here.” He ended the call.
Hennessy killed theshower and activated the air-curtain. Screw that! he thought.Give up a chance for a drill? He must be probing to see how lazywe wild Humans are.
A ping sounded as hewas putting on a fresh under-armor suit. “Sir, we’re getting anotice from the planet. The colony is going into a lock-down drill.”
“And we’redoing a corresponding drill up here,” Hennessy replied. “Set fullcombat alert throughout the fleet with a drill caveat and then launchboth alert flights. I’ll join you on the bridge right away.”
Frank and theother councilors had left Mal’s office just before he contacted thefleet. Frankhad reached his housejust as the gut-wrenching alarm sounded.
It had a deep,throbbing buzz to it, like a wrench dragged up a braided steelsupport cable. There was no ignoring it, even if you were deafbecause it was tuned to make a person’s muscle tissue tingle fromthe harmonic resonance.
Every street-lampin town was displaying aholographic notice indicatingthat it was a lock-downdrill. It also provideda map showing the closest access-points for the bunker. Everycolonist with one of the ubiquitous Earth-built phone implants alsogot direct information as well.
He reached hishouse just as Trisha appeared at the entrance, holding Vikram by thehand and trying not to look alarmed. Terry emerged behind her,looking like he was havingthe time of his life.
Theyheaded for the transport-pod at a brisk walk. The instinct, with thealarm rumbling in their guts, was to run for all they were worth butthey were testing the system. If they could walk to the pod and reachit in time for evac, they would probably make it during a realemergency.
Frank was prettysure folks would run if it weren’ta drill. It was already all he could do to keep to a walking pace.
They reached a majorintersection in their neighborhood and approached the pod. Itincreased the sense of urgency to see that its sides were now open.
Ordinarily, it wasclosed off, just a tower-like structure with a hexagonalcross-section that sat in the center of the intersection. It lookedmore decorative than utilitarian, a staple of all imperial design.
Six columns rose up ateach corner and supported ornate street-lamps, each of which nowpresented a count-down to the deadline. An ornate dome, clad in freshcopper scales, added another third to its height.
They stepped insidewith more than a minute to spare. A few stragglers arrived in theremaining time,
