Tides of Maritinia (15 page)

 

CHAPTER 20

“Right and wrongg, why must one alwys bleed into teh other?”

–
J
AKOB
B
RYCE

I
exited the air lock and dropped the octopus in its tank before sneaking down the corridor. I was cold, chilled by deep water, and doubly chilled by my second pass through the underwater graveyard.

Nearing the end of the corridor, I pressed up to a steel wall that felt like ice against my wet skin. I inched my face toward the bulkhead and edged an eye past the corner.

Clear.

To avoid tracking bloody footprints, I walked with my right foot wrapped in my bag. My left foot, I'd had to bundle it in my waistwrap. Which left the rest of me naked. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering and peeked into the stone-­carved waiting room outside the massage cave.

Clear.

Shivering, I entered the saunalike room and luxuriated in the warm glow of relief. I'd made it back unseen. Whatever came next, this phase of my mission was complete.

I ducked behind a shower curtain to wash the salt off my skin and out of my hair. I rinsed my bag, same with the waistwrap.

“Colonel!” The voice echoed from the rock tunnel leading to the baths. “Colonel!”

I poked my head over the curtain and saw the flicker of shadows coming down the tunnel before Dugu burst into the room. “Colonel,” he said. “You must come quickly. There's been an explosion.”

“What kind of explosion?”

“The missile system. It's gone.”

“Gone?” I asked, feigning a mix of shock and outrage. “How can that be?”

I told him to wait outside until I dressed. I quickly dried, using a coarse mammoth-­wool towel before slipping back into my uniform. Ignoring the pain, I crammed my wounded feet into socks and boots.

I met Dugu outside the baths and hustled to keep step with his double-­timing pace. “Don't ask,” he said before I could speak. “It's best you see for yourself.”

We journeyed down one empty corridor after another. Other than the guards outside Mmirehl's torture chamber, we didn't pass a single soul until we reached a somber crowd outside the main control room. We forced our way through the soldiers and black sashes packing the entryway. Inside, Kwuba technicians huddled over terminals and stared at the wall of video screens. With hushed voices and wringing hands, they shook their heads in confusion and disbelief. How could such a thing happen?

Afraid of the carnage I might see on the video screens, I kept marching, eyes straight ahead. Exiting the other side of the dome, I let Dugu lead me through ankle-­high floodwater toward the long staircase that led topside. I didn't want to go up. Didn't want to know the extent of the damage. Didn't want to know how many I'd killed.

I told myself to stay strong. I'd done my job. A job that had to be done. Mnai and Mmirehl had to be overthrown.

Starting up the staircase, I concentrated on steeling my thoughts. We passed the first bulkhead and continued upward, my feet falling into the rhythm of the stairs, my mind fully focused. I had to build a wall against the ugly truth of my violent actions.

Step by step.

Brick by brick.

Reaching the top, we walked past the unattended water pumps. The machinery cranked and whined and spat high-­pressure needles of water that pelted my uniform and stung the backs of my hands. Jebyl workmen packed the doorway that led outside.

Dugu whistled to signal our approach. Wearing glum frowns and grease-­stained waistwraps, the workers moved aside. I walked into the light breeze that smelled of smoke. Sunbeams slanted through the arched doorway, twinkling motes of dust drifting in its glare.

I stepped into the sunlight. The atoll's rock floor was dusted with ash and charred chunks of bamboo. Looking to the far side of the ringed island, I could see that the missile platform was gone, a water-­filled crater sitting in its place. The usually resplendent lagoon was dulled by a scummy film. My boots crunched on grit and debris as Dugu led me past the cries of a bloodied man suffering too many wounds to count.

I spun around slowly to take in the full panorama of my destruction. The archway of the dome I'd exited was pocked and scarred. Patches of silver tile had been stripped away from the dome, exposing swaths of naked stone. To my left, a damaged boat listed in the waves, its deck bustling with Jebyl who feverishly bailed water. I counted five bodies on the quay, their crumpled forms strewn about like dirty socks on the floor.

Dizzy, I steadied myself by taking hold of Dugu's shoulder.

The injured man called at my back. “Colonel? Is that you?”

I closed my eyes. Hadn't I done enough? I shouldn't have to see any of this devastation.

“Give me your blessing, Colonel.”

I cracked open my eyes.

Dugu stared at the ground. “I don't think he'll last much longer, sir.”

I took my hand off Dugu's shoulder and went to the wounded man. Seeing my approach, he started to smile, but his grin quickly devolved into a grimace of bared teeth. His uniform had been shredded into blood-­drenched rags. Same with his skin.

I knelt next to him, pebbles of debris trapped painfully under my knees. He lifted a hand and reached for my cheek but only made it halfway before his arm started shaking.

Taking his hand, I pulled it the rest of the way, pressed it against my scarred cheek. “In life and death, we are all one with Falal.”

His eyes became a little less desperate, his breathing a little less labored. As he languished, his arm weighed heavy in my grasp. I lowered it and rested it by his side.

His eyes became distant, and I watched him fade a few minutes more before his breathing withered to nothing.

I stood. I made no effort to wipe his blood from my hands. His blood belonged on my hands.

I heard Pol's words and knew they were true, but they didn't make me feel any less pained. I doubted they ever would.

I heard a splash and turned to see a soldier who had dived into the lagoon. A Jebyl workman dove in next. Leaving rippling trails of clear water, the two of them swam through the surface scum toward a body floating a short ways out.

I stayed where I was, aching feet planted to the rock floor. I watched the two men, Kwuba and Jebyl, approach the body. They stopped every few strokes to look back, checking with several men posted around the atoll who had taken the up the task of looking out for cuda fins.

The two men arrived at the body, and I watched them drag my victim through the water. Reaching the stone, they passed the body to a group of soldiers who pulled the waterlogged corpse from the lagoon. The pair of swimmers about-­faced and went back out to claim another of the dead.

I held in the tears with the stoic poise of an officer and a veteran. Instead, I let the tears rain down inside me.

I remembered the last time I'd seen bodies floating in the lagoon. Kell had stood in almost this very spot to supervise the brutal slaughter of the Empire's contingent, and my drowning heart gasped with the painful realization that I'd found another way to become him.

W
ith each word, Mmirehl poked the table using a pointed finger. “They will pay for this.”

Sitting at the head of the conference-­room table, Admiral Mnai held my carved cuda fish in his hands. It had been found a half hour ago. Right where I'd left it tied underwater.

Mmirehl pecked out another sentence, hand bobbing like a bird. “The traitors have gone too far.”

“How did they do this?” asked the admiral. He tossed the bamboo cuda onto the table. It bounced once, twice, and skidded to a stop. “How?”

Sitting between two lieutenants, I stayed silent. My eyes were on the cuda, my mind drifting out to sea, out to where the ancient cuda had stared me down. It must've smelled my blood in the water. It should've attacked.

But it didn't.

“Tell me, Colonel. How did they do this?”

I lowered my bloodstained palm from my cheek—­couldn't remember putting it there. Reluctantly, I pulled my gaze off the bamboo carving and turned to the admiral. He sat forward in his chair, his fat gut compressing into the shape of a powder keg, eyes burning like a fuse inside his cannonball head.

“I can't be sure,” I said wryly. “They probably hit one of the missiles with a rock.”

The admiral's stare looked ready to detonate. I turned to Mmirehl, whose eyes quizzed up as if he had to wonder if such a thing was really possible. “Can't be,” he said after another moment's thought. “The technicians report-­ed losing control of the system before the explosion. The system was hijack-­ed.”

“They seized control of the system?” I shook my head as if Mmirehl's words were a stunning revelation. “Even I wouldn't know how to hijack a weapons system.”

The admiral's thick fingers squeezed into blunt fists. “The resistance didn't do this on their own. Those ingrates are even more ignorant of technology than we are.” The fists came together on the table. “They had help from the Empire's spies.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I don't see how else they could've done it.”

“The Empire will be coming soon, won't they?”

I nodded gravely.

“I need options,” the admiral said.

“There's nothing we can do to stop them,” I replied. “If they can land, they will retake Maritinia.”

“We can fight,” said Mmirehl. “You said they wouldn't bring an army.”

I scoffed with as much derision as I could muster. “Trust me, with their technology, they don't need an army. Our only chance is a new air-­defense system.”

“And where will we find one of those?” asked the captain.

I put my eyes square on his. “We need to talk to Mathus. He'll have something we can buy.”

Mmirehl crossed his arms over his narrow chest. “Mathus is gone.”

“I know,” I said with innocent sincerity. “But he might not have left orbit yet. Even if he has, he couldn't have gotten far. We can enable the offworld antenna to send him a message.”

Mmirehl's face tightened, jagged features sharpening. “We can't.”

“Why not?” I asked, secretly enjoying the opportunity to play dumb. I wanted to hear him say what he did. Wanted to hear him say he tortured the man and left him to rot on the bottom of the ocean. And I wanted to know why.

Mmirehl twisted in his chair, lips pinched into a tight pucker.

“We still have a missile,” said the admiral with a breath of hope in his voice. “Mathus gave us a spare. It's store-­ed with all the other supplies in Dome 4.”

“It won't help without a launch system,” I said. “We need to contact Mathus right away.”

“No,” said Admiral Mnai. “That is not going to happen.”

I leaned back in my chair.

I opened my mouth to protest once more, but the admiral wouldn't hear it. “We cannot contact Mathus,” he said.

“Why not?”

“He's dead,” he said with no trace of emotion. “He knew too much about our defenses. We couldn't trust he wouldn't sell that information to the Empire.”

“You killed him?”

“No. I protect-­ed us. Everything we've built.”

I tossed my bloodstained hands. “Then we have no more options. The Empire will take Maritinia.”

The sour twist to his lips said he'd come to the same conclusion.

Silence reigned for a time, and I used the opportunity to prepare for my next move. I knew where this conversation had to go, where I needed to lead it.

I looked into the admiral's eyes and held them in place with the force of my gaze. “It's over, Admiral. Free Maritinia is doomed.”

He didn't fight it. He knew. The man was crazy but not at all stupid.

“You only have one choice,” I said. “You have to run and hide. We all have to run and hide.” I looked to the other faces around the table, met them one by one with a determined stare. Mmirehl slumped in his chair. The two lieutenants' shoulders sagged with defeat.

Confidence surged inside me. The regime's power players were ready to quit. The government was ready to topple. My goal was close. So close I could actually end it and end it now.

A year and a half ago, I was just a paper-­shuffling bureaucrat. But I'd turned myself into a force. A spy so cunning he could infiltrate the enemy's innermost circle. An assassin so lethal he could crush a regime all by himself. I clenched a fist and felt the course of history in my grasp. Squeezing down, a rush of power rippled up my spine. The surge was so strong it sent tingles to my fingers and toes.

I dropped my fist on the table. “We're all dead.” I let my voice rise to an impassioned pitch. “We can't fight them with machetes and firerods. Do you understand what kinds of weapons they'll unleash upon us? Bullets so smart they can enter one ear and exit the other before taking out the next man. Flash bombs that will fry our eyes inside our skulls. Gas grenades that will melt our lungs. We can't afford to waste time. We need to get as far as we can. We can make it if we abandon the Ministry now.”

I had them. I could see it in their faces, that perfect mix of fear and hope that could compel any man to action. I coaxed them along with my own nodding until I scored nods of agreement from each of the lieutenants. Then Captain Mmirehl.

Only the admiral resisted. But his defenses were cracking, worry lines spreading from the corners of his eyes and mouth. I had to keep at him. A few more blows with my verbal hammer, and Free Maritinia would crumble.

The admiral looked to the hatchway, and I pulled the reins on my next words. Somebody was coming, footsteps clapping quickly down the corridor outside the conference room.