Rather than hearing the missile strikes, Aria saw them. From a spot several kilometers out, she saw a faint flash, and then a pair of missiles streaked out of the darkness. The helicopter gunships immediately tried to evade, but the missiles were far too accurate. The nearest helicopter took a missile on the tail, and it spiraled out of control to disappear below the treeline. The second missile hit the other helicopter dead in the center, and it detonated in a shower of flame and debris.
-Go, now!- Aria ordered the pilot, but he was already on the move. The transport shot forward towards the building. -Everyone get ready.- All of the Royal Guards stood up from their seats in the aircraft, checking their weapons. The guards were carrying shortened, lighter versions of the rifles that were standard-issue for naval troops, optimized for close-quarters fighting.
In a matter of seconds, the transport was hovering over the east side of the residence, barely a meter from the roof. At a wave from Aria, four of the guards darted to the sliding door and jumped out, landing lightly on the roof. The captain followed them, and then the transport moved to the west side and dropped off five more guards. After the drop was complete, it flew down to the first level of the building to where the landing pad was, to drop off the remaining eleven guards, who would enter at the main doors.
The first in line in Aria's group went immediately to a rooftop access door. When he arrived at it, he stopped. -East roof access has been breached. They came in this way.-
-Alright.- Aria keyed up on her radio. -Group Two, sweep the building top down. Group Three, bottom up. Group One is heading for the Empress' last known location.- The other two group leaders sent back their acknowledgment, and then Aria nodded to her lead soldier.
Staying in a line, the five soldiers went through the doorway and found the stairs, making their way quickly down to the second floor where Li'ren's quarters were located. The interior of the residence was, quite simply put, a mess. As they moved through the halls, they could see shell casings littering the floors. There were bodies as well, mostly servants and a few civilian personnel, but not all of them. Some of the fallen were Royal Guards, and mixed in with them were masked human soldiers clad in dark blue.
-Group Two, fourth floor clear,- Two's leader said over the radio. -Seven guards down, multiple civilians, multiple enemies down. Some civilians sheltered in place, one guard needs medical attention. Continuing.-
-Group Three checking first floor. No signs of movement. Nothing heard.-
Aria filed their reports away in the back of her head. Her group had a specific purpose, and they were focused on it. As they walked down the hallway towards where the Empress' room was, they passed a few fallen Ailians who were still moving. They ignored them, but made a note to themselves of where they were. If they were still alive when the building was clear, they'd make sure medical personnel got to them.
-Group Two, third floor clear. Ten guards down, multiple enemies down, no survivors.-
-Group Three has cleared the first floor. Five guards down, two need medical attention. Injured civilians as well. Two guards staying with survivors, rest moving up to second floor.-
Finally, they arrived at the door to Li'ren's quarters. Eight human commandos were lying dead on the floor. One of the Empress' personal guard detail was down in the hall, shot in the chest and head and crumpled in a heap against the wall. Her sidearm was still clutched in her hand, and there were three empty magazines scattered around her. She had evidently put up a hard fight before she had fallen. Her tail was still twitching erratically, and one of Aria's soldiers knelt to check her.
-Still alive,- he reported. -Barely. She needs help fast.-
Aria checked the handle of the door, and found that it was locked. She looked back at her soldiers. -You,- she said, pointing at the soldier who was next to the fallen guard. -See what you can do for her. Everyone else on me.- The captain shouldered her rifle, aiming it directly in front of her. Taking a preparatory breath, she raised one foot and kicked the door as hard as she could. The heavy wood frame splintered and the door swung open into the room.
Before the door could hit the wall it was attached to, the four soldiers rushed into the room with Aria in the lead. What they were faced with made Aria go cold. The room was almost entirely empty, apart from the second half of Li'ren's personal detail. He was dead on the floor in a pool of blood, which was soaking into the carpet. The room was in disarray, with the furniture overturned and broken. On the far wall, the window was open, and a perversely pleasant breeze was blowing in. Aria slowly lowered her weapon, stunned. She had been expecting to find someone here other than the guards, either alive or dead. She had not been prepared for nothing.
-Gone...,- Aria murmured in disbelief. The realization of what must have happened hit her in an instant, and Aria snarled as she walked over to the window.
-They left out of this window,-
she thought.
-They must have taken her. The gunships were a sacrifice to delay our assault, they weren't cover for anyone. They took her on that transport that left.-
Her fur bristled out as the fury of what had happened washed over her, intensified by the knowledge that she had failed.
-Captain?- a voice called over the radio. Aria recognized it as the lead guard for Group Two.
-What?- Aria growled, much more heatedly than she had meant to. She was far too angry right now to be ashamed of herself, though she knew that would come as soon as things had settled down. She had failed to fulfill her promise to Empress Solan. She had failed in her entire purpose for being sent to Arbaros.
-We've finished our initial sweep of the building,- Two's leader said. -Group Three located your family in their quarters along with their guard detail. They are all fine.- There was a pause. -We can't locate your oldest sister, and the human is gone, too. The guard detail says that your sister was visiting Her Majesty.-
It took a moment for what she had just been told to register. When it did, Aria felt anguish take over the fury. -Jack and Sami are gone, too?-
-It looks that way.-
For a minute Aria didn't know what to do. She looked blankly around the room, taking in the broken furniture, the blood on the floor, and the body of the dead guard. Then she looked out of the open window again, staring up at the night sky. As she stood there, the rage suddenly rose up again. With a furious roar, Aria lashed out with one arm, clenching her fist and punching a hole in the wood paneling on the wall right next to the window. She ignored the startled looks of her soldiers, her eyes narrowing as a gust of wind stung them.
-Mother...,-
Aria said to herself.
-This time you have gone too far. I will see that you pay for this, even if I have to kill you myself.-
- 9 -
“Ow, fuck...,” Jack hissed, putting a hand to his head. Everything seemed to hurt, but that was throbbing in an especially severe way. “Headaches...Why always headaches? I'd give anything for a nice, honest twisted ankle, or even a bad back...” Grumbling, he sat up, trying to figure out where he was and how he had got there. As he rubbed his aching cranium, some of the memories of the recent past started to bubble back to the surface.
He recalled being in Li'ren's room in the governess' residence, with her, Sami, and Brooke, while the Empress spoke about plans she had for the future of the Ascendancy. Then, the power had gone out, and the guards had locked them in the room. For whatever good that had done, since a short few minutes later there had been a commotion in the hall outside, and human soldiers had stormed in. He touched the back of his head, feeling around and finding a large knot there. He remembered standing up and trying to put himself between Sami and the soldiers out of reflex, and getting tackled and smashed with the butt of a rifle for his trouble. After that, everything had gone black, and then he'd come to here.
“Wherever here is...,” Jack mumbled. The room he was in was fairly nondescript, but it was slightly chilly and the only light came from a single lamp set into the center of the ceiling. The floor was bare, made of something like concrete but rougher and cool to the touch. As a matter of fact, the material reminded him strongly of the sandy stone that Aria's family estate had been built with, but he very much doubted he was back there. Jack got the impression that he was underground. He couldn't hear anything that sounded like a noise from outdoors, and the air smelled less fresh than it would were he above ground.
“I...I think this is...the cellar in the royal palace...”
Turning to look behind him, Jack saw Brooke sitting a short distance away, in the corner of the room. The dark-skinned, long-haired lass was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, with her knees drawn up in front of her and her arms around her legs. She had her chin resting on the tops of her knees, and she was staring at Jack with her eyes of deep green. Unlike the first time the two of them had been in this sort of situation, he had a clear view of her. She looked a lot better than he felt. Although her clothes were torn in a few places and she had a few scrapes on her hands, the slave girl seemed mostly unhurt.
Grunting a little with the soreness he was feeling all over his body, Jack crawled over to Brooke and sat up against the wall next to her. “The royal palace?” he asked. He found that a little hard to believe. Lirna was a good distance away from Arbaros, and it had taken nearly two days to get there, even at hyperspace speeds. “Are you sure?”
“I'm pretty sure,” Brooke said with a small nod. “I mean, I was blindfolded for most of the time after we landed, and I was only ever in the cellars a few times, but this looks a lot like them. I guess they took the food and stuff out when they decided to put us here.”
“But if we're on Lirna, I mean...was I really out that long?”
Brooke nodded again. “I...I was a little worried you weren't going to wake up,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “Those soldiers hit you really hard. I kept checking to make sure you were still breathing, but...I'm glad you woke up.”
“Ah...Yeah, me too.” His legs feeling like jelly, Jack managed to get to his feet. He walked to the door of the room they were in. The door looked heavy, but it had a small window in it which was covered in a wire mesh. Putting his face up to the mesh, he was able to look out into the hall. He couldn't see much other than a nondescript wall, but from some subtle noises that came every few seconds, there were probably guards standing outside of their makeshift jail cell. Two of them, if he had to guess. Not wishing to earn himself a second beating, just yet, he quietly went back to Brooke and sat down. “Do you have any idea why they locked us up down here?”
“I don't know,” the young girl responded. She put her head down, burying her face in her hands. Understandably, she seemed quite afraid. “I don't even know why they took us in the first place. They separated us from mistress and Lady Me'lia almost immediately. I don't understand what's going on...”
Looking up at the ceiling, Jack tried to think. Taking Li'ren and Sami made sense to him. Li'ren was the Empress, after all. She had value as a bargaining chip, or as some other sort of leverage that the rebels could use as an advantage over the Ascendancy. And since the leader of the rebellion was Ara'lana Me'lia, Sami's mother, she might have been reluctant to kill Sami. Aria was fighting her, but maybe Ara'lana hoped to find support in her other children. Brooke probably escaped death because she was just a slave, and seen as useful to keep alive, or not worth killing. But from what Aria had told him about her meeting with her mother, she had absolutely no qualms about killing Jack. He honestly couldn't think of a good reason why he was still alive.
“Well, there's no use in speculating,” Jack said. He reached over and put a hand on Brooke's shoulder, trying to be comforting. He lowered his voice a little. “All we can do is wait and see what will happen. Let's just bide our time.” He injected confidence into his voice as best as he could. “The first chance I see to try to get us out of here, I'm going to take it. So don't worry. I'll do my best to get us both out of here alive.” He wasn't sure what he, an unarmed human, could do against a palace full of human, Ailian, and probably Pteryd soldiers, but in his mind anything was better than just giving up and waiting to die.
******
She was frightened, she was among enemies, and she was far away from most of her loved ones. But for all that, Li'ren felt a strange emotion at being back on Lirna. She could not, of course, call it happiness, but it was something very akin to that. Even though her mate was dead, and her world was taken over by those who wished to bring her way of life to an end, it was still home. And as she was led through the halls by the foursome of crimson-clad Ailian soldiers, she realized she felt more at peace than she had in weeks. If there had ever been any indication that a battle had taken place in the palace, it had been quickly repaired by the invading forces. Doubtless Ara'lana had wished to enjoy her victory in pristine settings. Everything looked nearly the same as it had when she had left, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
The past several days had been quite unusual, to say the least. When human soldiers had entered her room and slain her guards, she had been prepared for the worst. Li'ren had fully expected to be killed right then and there, but they had instead bound her hands and taken her, along with Sami, Jack, and the slave girl, Brooke, from the room through an open window and to a waiting helicopter. The craft had ferried them to the landing pad of the governess' residence, where they'd all been taken on to a much larger ship. Once on board, Li'ren had been separated from everyone else while the ship had been underway, but upon landing on what turned out to be Lirna, she had been brought into the royal palace where she and Sami had been placed in a suite of rooms which had normally been reserved for guests of the Empress. They had been treated surprisingly well, but Li'ren had the suspicion that their treatment was more due to the fact that Sami was the daughter of the rebel leader, rather than any consideration for her own position. Of Jack and Brooke, Li'ren had no idea where they were being kept, but she fervently hoped harm hadn't come to either of them.
-Where are you taking me?- Li'ren calmly asked one of the soldiers, the third time she had asked that question since being taken from the room in which she had been held since arriving on Lirna. For the third time, her question went unanswered, but really the young Empress had a fairly good idea of where she was headed. She also felt reasonably certain of what her fate was to be. As scared as she was, that certainty gave her some solace.
After walking for several minutes, she was brought to a room that she knew very well, indeed. Near the center of the palace, close to where Li'ren had shared quarters with Kri'a, was the private dining room where the two of them had sat over many a meal during their time together. As she was led inside, she saw that it
had
changed quite a bit since the last time she had seen it. The room, once decorated with softly colored paintings and vivid bouquets, was now clad in hangings bearing patterns of red and black, and no flowers whatsoever. At the table, regally clad in robes of blood red and gray, was Ara'lana Me'lia. The table was set for tea, with a silver platter holding a steaming pot in the center, between the usurper and an empty chair.
-Ah, Li'ren,- Ara'lana said, standing from her chair. Her voice was carefully polite and measured, and her expression suggested a mood of friendship, but underneath that could be detected the air of a predator lying in wait. Ara'lana waved to the empty chair opposite her. -Do sit. We have much to discuss.-
Li'ren looked at the guards surrounding her, waiting to see if they would prompt her forward, but when they made no effort to do anything she stepped forward on her own. As calmly as she could, the Ailian woman took her seat, primly sweeping her tail out from underneath her so she wouldn't sit on it. She folded her hands in her lap, looking across the table and trying not to let her face betray how she was thinking about the various ways in which she would like to see the former admiral's life end.
-I do not see that we have anything to talk about,- Li'ren said. She was unable to keep the vitriol out of her voice entirely, though she did better than most could have. A lifetime being brought up in diplomatic circles did have its advantages. -I presume that you have had me brought here to be killed. I know you find amusement in cruelty, but I see no need for delay. Be done with it.-
-Cruelty?- Ara'lana repeated, looking somewhat taken aback. -Oh, I assure you, child, I take no pleasure from being cruel. But one must be forceful in one's political moves. You, of all people, should know that.- She waved a hand towards the guards behind Li'ren, and they all exited the room, leaving her and Li'ren alone. The white-furred Ailian reached for the tea pot and poured two cups of the bitter, fragrant concoction. -And I have no intention of killing you, my dear. Yet, in any case.-
Li'ren turned her nose up as a cup of tea was set in front of her by Ara'lana. -So you say, Ara'lana. But I'd wager I would find that tea...not to my liking.-
-You mean poison? That's really not my style, Li'ren. Just ask Kri'a.- She smiled, some of the placidity in her expression being replaced by sick humor. She picked up the cup she'd given to Li'ren and lifted it to her own lips, taking a sip from it. -You see? Nothing to fear.- She replaced the tea in front of the younger female.
After glancing at the cup, Li'ren left it where it was. -If you're intention is not to kill me, perhaps you should explain yourself, then.- She crossed her arms over her chest, and glared at Ara'lana with her ruby red eyes.
-No pleasantries? Come now, Li'ren, you are a politician. You know that there must be accounting for protocol.- Ara'lana picked up her own tea and cradled it in her palms. Li'ren could see the tip of her tail swaying back and forth behind her. The older woman was clearly enjoying herself royally. -Do try the tea, my dear. It's quite bitter, but I assure you that the flavor is beyond compare. A specialty of my home planet, and my very favorite. Much more complex than the pedestrian teas one is commonly limited to elsewhere in the Ascendancy.-
-Thank you, no,- Li'ren said, perhaps a bit petulantly. When really there was probably no harm to be had from the drink, she was still determined not to play any of Ara'lana's games.
Ara'lana sighed. -How boring. Very well, if you insist in being so intractable, I will not attempt to dissuade you. To business, then.- The white-furred Ailian glanced over Li'ren, seeming to evaluate her for a few moments. The young Empress had never felt very uncomfortable being looked at by another woman before, but Ara'lana was not looking at her out of any sort of romantic feeling, she was sure. Rather, she got the sense that it was much the same way that a slaver evaluated their wares. -I brought you here in order that we might try to cease this foolishness. I think you can agree now that you have little hope for victory. Even with the aid of our Nuretan neighbors, you are rather uncomfortably outnumbered.- She lifted her cup, glancing over the rim as she sipped. -I hope the last month has given you time to consider the offer that I made when we last spoke.-
Li'ren had to laugh at that. -You mean the most gracious offer you made to send me to prison for the rest of my life? I did not consider that an offer worth serious consideration.-
-Come, come, Li'ren,- the matriarch of the Me'lia family said soothingly. -I always thought you were a reasonable woman. Kri'a was full of fire, and not really the sort of impartial person one needs in an Empress. I was quite hoping you would not allow your emotions to get the better of you.-
-It is not a matter of just my emotions,- Li'ren said, choosing her words carefully. Hearing Ara'lana dare to mention her mate's name made her want to strangle her with her bare hands. -I have to consider the desires of my people. They wish for peace, but they are fiercely angry about the death of...their Empress. You must see that your rash actions have done nothing to unite. You have only deepened the divide between the colonies.- She shook her head. -I have watched the propaganda that you put out. You speak of unity, and peace, and cooperation, but everything you do foments more war, more death, and more division. The worst of all is this alliance with the Pteryd. I cannot believe that even the citizens of the Outer Colonies favor that friendship.-