Rapture (24 page)

Kage broke away from the group and made her way southeast toward what they hoped, from a distance, was a decent perch. Nyx and Ahmed gave Eshe a head start, and he went northeast, to come at the fukushusha from the opposite direction.

In truth, none of them were certain where the fukushu-sha were now. It would be a long night.

Kage trotted across the rocky terrain, gun and water bulbs strapped to her back. She was used to traveling alone, and though the desert was large and intimidating, there was some comfort in setting her own pace again.

The rise came slowly into view as the moons rose, blood-red, over the desert. She crouched a little lower, already far closer to the ground than any Nasheenian could get. She once heard a Nasheenian call her people spiders, because of the way they moved across the ground, crouched low, arms splayed, as if fearful they would fall off the flat plain of the world.

It was not a sand dune or a rock, but some bit of wreckage. An abandoned vehicle of some sort? It was covered in several feet of sand at the base, but the top was just a little dusty. She climbed atop it and dug in on the roof of the contraption. She lay on her belly and set up her gun’s simple bipod. Affixed the scope. She peered through the scope and made a long pan of the desert to the north. Experience told her that Nasheenians did not see well in the dark, but for her, the world on the other side of the scope was as bright as a blue dawn. But it was going to be just as easy for the fukushu-sha to see Nyx and her crew as it was for Kage.

She sighted what appeared to be Eshe from her vantage. He had gone down on his belly in the sand, his body obscured by his burnous, which trailed around him, dusted in sand and bits of desert scrub. He held the specs to his eyes, but Kage did not put much faith in them. She expected to wait here until morning. No fukushu-sha slept exposed.

Kage pulled the bug from her pocket and set it next to her. “I need a position,” she said softly. Her voice triggered something in the bug. It spasmed. The filament surrounding it gave off a soft blue light. She quickly shoved her hand over it to cover the light. Hoped she had been quick enough.

When the light faded, she removed her hand. A tinny voice said, “Eshe is still scouting. We’ve got nothing. No holes, no caverns. Nothing like that. Got any other ideas?”

“If they have no physical shelter, they will sleep under the sand.”

Kage would have. The only reason she cocooned herself in a sleeping roll instead of beneath a comforting layer of sand was because she feared that Eskander’s ridicule would become so enraging that she would do something regrettable.

The line was silent for a time.

Then, Nyx said, “Eshe. Hold up on your position. I know how we do this. Remember how I taught you to flush a field for mines?”

Kage peered through her scope. She saw Nyx crawling up behind Eshe. She did another sweep, searching for Ahmed. He was at least a hundred paces further north, given away by the soft blue glow of his transceiver. By all the gods, she should have told them not to use those. Why hadn’t they said they glowed?

Kage loaded her gun and trained her eye back on Eshe and Nyx. They had positioned themselves two arm’s lengths apart, and now they crawled slowly across the rocky sand.

They would need to find an area that had been recently dug up, but with their poor sight, they wouldn’t be able to make it out unless it was right under them.

Kage searched for it from the relative safety of her position.

“Nyx. You need to come further south. About… eight paces. Then go up another fifty paces. You’ll miss them if you keep on that route.”

Nyx and Eshe adjusted. They came up in a crouch now, to cover the distance more quickly. Kage knew Eshe was quiet, but Nyx looked like a lumbering animal out there. She was likely making enough noise to raise a swarm of palm bugs.

Kage covered their approach.

They got within twenty paces of the disturbed ground when it began to stir.

Kage moved her finger to the trigger.

But what leapt out of the sand wasn’t human at all.

Kage let off a staccato of rounds.

“Fuck is that?” Nyx’s voice from the transceiver.

“They’re over here!” Ahmed’s voice. “Not there! Fuck!”

Kage’s response was immediate, fluid. She left Nyx and Eshe to battle the thing and repositioned herself with a clear view of Ahmed’s blue transceiver.

He was too far to see anything clearly. Just black shadows. Blur. She took control of her breath. Long breath in. Long breath out. Darkness moved across the soft blue light. Estimating the distance was the most difficult part. Gravity would pull at the bullet the moment it left the gun. One small mistake here could mean missing her target by four or five paces.

She fired—right at where the light would have been.

Her reward was seeing the light blink back to life. But whether she had truly hit the assassin assaulting Ahmed or merely shot him in the back, she was uncertain.

The light was moving again.

Good sign.

Another blink. Another shadow.

She fired.

The light disappeared.

This time, she held her breath. Waiting. No light. Had he run, or had she shot him?

Nyx and Eshe were still yelling, their voices audible through the transceiver. But she didn’t check their progress. She wanted the fukushu-sha, not some giant bug or beast. She quickly packed her bipod and reloaded her gun. She sprinted across the sand, desperate to make the distance to where Ahmed’s light had gone out.

She pointed the gun ahead of her, watching for any hint of movement. She stumbled on a loose pile of rock, twisted her ankle, but didn’t go down. Coming up gun first, she pushed forward, ignoring the knife of pain driving up her leg.

The voices had stopped. She realized, just a hundred steps from her goal, that she had left her transceiver behind.

She saw a crumple of figures ahead. She raised her gun to her shoulder. Her arms burned.

Kage heard the sound of a gun being cocked. She dove for the ground. Rock bit at her elbows and knees.

“Nyx?” It was Ahmed’s voice.

“It’s Kage! Where are they?”

“One of them’s here. The other one got clipped and ran off.”

Kage shoved herself to her feet and limped the rest of the way to where Ahmed lay, tangled with a slender figure dressed all in deep umber brown. She hissed in a breath, expecting the worst, but the figure moved as she approached. Not dead.

Ahmed clutched at his arm. Kage saw blood beading between his fingers. The assassin wasn’t the only one she had clipped.

Kage dragged herself to the assassin. She pushed him over with the butt of her gun. This close, she wasn’t worried as much about weapons. They didn’t want to kill her. No Drucian wanted to kill another, no matter how bad things got.

The man was breathing heavily, but she saw no injury on him. His gaze found her, but, as was polite, he did not meet her eyes. Still, she recognized him.

“I did not think they would send you, Aya Haruto.”

“I should have expected you to act this way,” Haruto said, in Drucian.

“I did not aim to kill.”

He snorted. Blood bubbled from his nose. He was a young man, not even twenty. Where was his injury?

“We have a magician. She can help you.”

“Too late for that, I think.”

“That is fool talk. If you’re injured, you have to go home. You have to send someone else. Who was with you?”

Haruto showed his teeth. Bloody teeth. He was clutching at his chest now.

Kage knelt next to him without loosening her grip on her gun. “Where are you hurt?”

“You shot me in the back. One cannot expect anything better, from a baby-killer.”

She wanted to put the gun in his face this time, the way she had seen Nyx do it, but she still had some pride left, some sense of morality, even after all that had happened. Sadness and fear filled her. Sadness for this needless death, and fear that it was just one of many. She would never repay her debt at this rate. She could not stay long with these people.

“He will go home now,” Haruto said. “Just as you hoped. But it is me you killed. And it is I who will haunt you. I and those children you murdered.”

It cut at her every time they said it, even now, a year after the last body was burned.

“He will go home,” Haruto repeated softly. His eyes started to lose some light. “Go home, brother. I will haunt her. I will avenge…”

That’s when Kage felt the damp at her knee. She gazed down and saw a black pool of blood beneath Haruto’s body.

She wanted to wail.

Ahmed stood over her now. She hadn’t noticed him get up.

“So they won’t come for you again?” he said… in Drucian.

She started. By the gods, he’d understood every word. She shook her head. “The other will go home. But they will send more. More and more, until I am caught and caged again. It won’t ever end. All we can do is delay it a little while.”

“I know the feeling,” he said. “But don’t tell Nyx that.” He offered his hand. “We better move now.”

T
he swill they served in the bars and taverns now smelled even worse than she remembered. There were many things about what the war had done to Nasheen that turned her piss to vinegar, but the acceptance of the sulfur-tasting beverages that passed for liquor was among the ones she most despised. She ordered tea at an old haunt near the Orrizo. She did not mind much if she was recognized here, though few of the Firsts even came down to nicer colonial neighborhoods like this one. She sat near a window so she could get a good view of the street. The call to evening prayer wailed over the city. She watched the hubbub on the street subside as women pulled out prayer rugs or made their way to mosques. In her day, every woman and man went to prayer. It was practically a prerequisite for citizenship. But since the end of the Caliphate, secular law had become more accepted in Nasheen. Only in the state schools was prayer still compulsory. It depressed her and excited her all at once. She enjoyed watching the changes wrought by time, even if she mourned some of the old ways. Faith was malleable, she knew. Each age had to interpret the words and tenets differently. If things remained unchanged from the time of the Caliphate, she would worry about the health of the world.

As she listened to the opening prayer, she heard someone come up behind her, and casually turned, brandishing her cup in one hand, prepared to break it on the counter and use it to slice open the sneaking cat.

She was only moderately surprised to see that it was the woman who had come to her in her confinement and given her the job. In the open air, among the colonials, she stood out—taller than many of the others by a head. She had knotted her hair back into a twist of braids, and rimmed her eyes in kohl, an affectation she had not seen outside a fighting ring in many years. She wore a long, billowing blue robe stitched in organic material at the hem and cuffs to absorb filth.

The woman approached the counter, within an arm’s length of her, but did not sit.

“I am surprised to see you still in Mushtallah,” the woman said.

“I had unfinished business.”

“I thought we had an understanding of the job that needed to be done.”

“We do. I have my own methods. You did not say how, or when. I am biding my time.”

“You know your target is no longer in Mushtallah.”

“The ones I need are no longer in Nasheen at all,” she said.

The woman appeared to be perplexed, but not yet fearful. She must be a more powerful magician than she had pretended when they first met. Now that her mind was not so muddled, she could sense the way the air responded to this woman. It was a trick magicians and conjurers had, the ability to sense their own, but sensing a talent in no way told one just how much talent a person had. That you only knew if you pushed them.

“We are not pleased with your actions since your release,” the woman said.

“I expect my family is not, either.”

“This is a delicate time. It will be known, soon, who it was who entombed your family. We cannot keep it secret with you provoking them.”

“You will give me the time I need,” she said. “You would not have woken me unless things were very dire. I think you will do what is necessary to help me achieve my goal.”

“I must issue you an ultimatum. You must be gone from Mushtallah by morning, or we will be forced to reinstate you in your former quarters.”

She snorted and pointed out the window, to the glaring light in the southern sky, just visible now in the dusk. She had spotted it the first night of her release, and had seen enough of them in her time to recognize it immediately. She knew, now, why they had really called her from slumber. “Why not just have me deal with the real reason I’m here? Why run me around in circles after this woman?”

Her handler followed her gesture, and stood a long time staring at the light. “She is the real reason you’re here. If you don’t eliminate her, we can’t eliminate that threat there. She’s working against us, in her way. I know what you can do, but you need access to the tools to do it. I can’t get you access until your target is dead. If you fail at this…”

“I never fail. Who are the aliens on that ship? More mealy-mouthed djinns, like the Dei Keiko?”

“The Drucians? God, no. They were the last of their kind. These are… something else entirely.”

“You’re afraid those aliens will send more ships if we destroy this one?”

“I know they will send more. But they will do so regardless. This shows our teeth, and buys us time. It’s many years to their planet and back. The Queen tried diplomacy for far too long. We simply did not have the resources to take out this threat. Now, with the boys home and our country united… perhaps we do. Perhaps we stand some chance of remaining autonomous. But it will require all of us working together, and that is something we have not done in a long, long time.”

“How long before another ship comes?”

“Eight years before they know the ship was destroyed. Some time for them to mobilize, then eight years to come back. We could have twenty years to sort out our differences before facing an interstellar war.”