“Wait.” Amaranthe gripped her arm. “This might not be the best time to blow up the Behemoth. If Flintcrest wasn’t responsible for those explosions, if none of the candidates were, this could represent some new enemy to the city. Someone who’s swooped in to take advantage of the chaos.”
“But, who?” Maldynado asked. “The Nurians are already here with Flintcrest. Who else would attack? The Kendorians? How would they know about the secret aqueducts? The Mangdorians and the Kyattese prefer peace to war-they’ve never struck at us in force before. The desert city states haven’t shown any ability to come together to make a cogent attack on the empire in the last hundred years, so it seems unlikely they would now.”
“I don’t know,” Amaranthe said, “but we may need this craft to fight… whoever it ends up being.”
Tikaya arched her eyebrows. “The technology must be destroyed; I thought you agreed with that.”
“I did. I do. But maybe it should wait until after the city is safe. If we have some new enemy to deal with, some army we hadn’t anticipated…” Amaranthe imagined a massive invasion force poised on the nearest ridge, looking down upon the city. Was it possible that in all the chaos created by the succession squabbling, armies could have slipped past the border forts?
“Here in the heart of your empire?” Tikaya asked. “I deem that unlikely. Besides, those explosions weren’t acts of armies. They were guerrilla tactics. The kind you’d expect from a small group of desperate men. I have a feeling we should finish here as quickly as possible and go talk to Rias and our group of desperate men.”
Amaranthe stared at the professor. “You think… You don’t think Admiral Starcrest would have orchestrated this, do you?”
“It’s possible things are not as they seem. We’ve been away from your headquarters for nearly twenty-four hours. Let’s not make up fanciful new enemies until we’ve checked in. Either way, this craft cannot be kept in reserve. We must win this war with our own wits and resources, if it is to be won at all.”
Amaranthe hung her head. Had she been the one doubting the professor’s willingness to do the right thing when it came to disposing of the powerful technology? And then she’d been so quick to think of the ship as a potential means of defending the city. She wondered if Forge’s intentions had started out innocently.
“You’re right. Yes, do it.” Amaranthe met the eyes of her teammates. They’d all gathered their weapons and gear. “We’re ready.”
Chapter 10
Amaranthe jogged down the corridor with Tikaya at her side, she with her rifle and the professor with her bow. Maldynado, Basilard, and Mahliki followed on their heels. Tikaya had supposedly manipulated the cubes so they wouldn’t appear to trouble them on their run to the lifeboat, but Amaranthe kept her finger on the trigger. The Behemoth was already airborne, hovering over farmlands on the other side of the lake. Tikaya had arranged for an hour delay before the craft “self-immolated.” That should be plenty of time, but Amaranthe didn’t want to risk being anywhere nearby when it happened. If they could escape in the next five minutes, that would be excellent.
“Left,” Tikaya said, her breath winded from the jog, but she was keeping up admirably, especially with all the gear bouncing about on her back. “Two more turns and we’ll be there.”
Amaranthe surged ahead a couple of paces to round the corner first, in case danger awaited. She stuttered to a halt. It wasn’t danger in the form of cubes, as she’d been ready for, but two men dragging a bulging burlap bag down the corridor. Daggers hung from their belts, but neither person was otherwise armed.
A stream of succinct and vitriolic Kyattese words streamed out of Tikaya’s mouth. A heartbeat later, Amaranthe twigged to the reason for them. The idiots with the cannon might not have found a way in, but others had. If these two people were on board, hunting for treasures, ancestral spirits knew how many others had found their way into the labyrinthine passages.
One of the men released his bag and dropped into a fighting crouch, his hand darting for his knife. “This is our claim. We found it, right and honest.” He eyed Amaranthe’s rifle though, and didn’t draw the blade. When Maldynado and the others jogged around the corner, he stepped back.
“We’re a mile in the air above the lake,” Tikaya said, “and the ship will blow up soon. You’d better come with us, or you’ll blow up with it.” She cursed again in Kyattese and said something to her daughter.
“You lie,” the second man said, not releasing his “claim” bag. “We would have felt it if this place moved. You just want our stuff.”
“No,” Amaranthe said, lowering her rifle and walking toward them, hand open. “It’s true. I’ll show you. I have a device in my pocket that’s worth more than anything you have in there.” She glanced at Maldynado, meeting his eyes and giving a quick nod. The men were watching her hand. She lifted it toward a jacket pocket, thrusting out her breasts for good measure as well-they’d been enough to intrigue those young soldiers on the train, after all-though she suspected the prospect of more treasure was what riveted them.
Flowing around her like water, Maldynado and Basilard jumped the two men while they were watching her. Heads were hammered into the floor, and within seconds the team had two whimpering and grumbling prisoners, their arms drawn behind their backs in painful grips that made them easy to control.
“Good work. Let’s go.” Amaranthe jogged into the lead again.
“Wait,” Tikaya said. “There could be more people in here. I didn’t think to check before activating the immolation program. I should have, I should have. I didn’t think-I was distracted by the explosions, and- Blighted banyan sprites, there could be hundreds of people in here.”
The anguish in her voice made a lump well in Amaranthe’s throat. Treasure hunters or not, anyone exploring inside the Behemoth didn’t deserve to die for greed. Emperor’s warts, people might have wandered in out of sheer curiosity.
“I know,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t think of it either and should have. Can we check from the lifeboat? We’ll get these two in there, and my men and I will go back out to find any others.”
If they had time. Blast it, how many people would be left aboard? The Behemoth was a… a… behemoth. It could take hours to round everyone up. Hours they didn’t have. And those cursed cubes… just because Tikaya had cleared them from this route didn’t mean they weren’t elsewhere in the ship.
The argument got Tikaya and the others moving again, though the professor must have been having similar thoughts. She murmured something under her breath, again speaking in Kyattese. It sounded more hopeful than the earlier cursing. Maybe Amaranthe’s words had given her an idea.
“What about our things?” one of the prisoners gasped, as Maldynado and Basilard pushed them around a final corner.
“Can we go back for them?” his partner asked. “We lost Tedak to one of those black boxes. It melted him to nothing. It’s not worth him dying without-”
Maldynado jostled him. “You’ll all die if you don’t stitch your lips together and do what these ladies say.”
They’d come to a dead end. Amaranthe shifted from foot to foot while Tikaya teased symbols from the wall, big ones such as they’d seen often next to doors, but then a smaller set below, one she took the time to read. Amaranthe wished she had a pocket watch. How much of their hour had already raced past?
“Is this the right spot?” Amaranthe asked. “The lifeboat?”
“Yes.” Tikaya removed her gear, opened her rucksack, and pulled out the black sphere. “But if I understand this correctly, the pod is very simple, meant to land escaping personnel safely and nothing more.”