“A bit of improvised rebellion, eh? I can’t say I disapprove. So you’re Ravana?” remarked Kartikeya, looking at her as if seeing her for the first time. “The one who saw Namtar and Inari with the young Raja?”
“You’re from the hollow moon?” Surya asked, regarding Ravana warily.
“That’s her,” Fenris confirmed moodily. “Trouble-makers, the lot of them.”
“The Raja was kidnapped!” snapped Ostara, with a glance to Surya. “Don’t you dare use that patronising, pig-headed tone with Ravana or anyone else! I am here as chief of security on the Dandridge Cole and if anyone is in trouble it is you!”
“Big words from a small woman,” mused Kartikeya, though he said it with a smile. “There is no need for hostilities! We have enough of that going on outside. You are here at Kubera as my guests. Please don’t let me keep you here as my prisoners.”
“I’d like to see you try,” murmured Yaksha.
“Why are they here?” retorted Fenris. “What is going on?”
“Hanuman said you could help me rescue my father,” Ravana told Kartikeya. “But I did not know you were in league with Fenris! He and a Que Qiao agent commandeered the Platypus and forced my father to fly to Ayodhya.”
“Did you do that?” Kartikeya asked Fenris.
“Quirinus needed to be dealt with,” Fenris declared. “He and the Maharani were colluding against us. Besides, you remember how he was part of the movement that opposed Taranis before the war.”
“That was a long time ago,” Ganesa pointed out.
“What business is it of mine?” Kartikeya asked irritably, gently shooing Ravana’s cat away with his foot. “Fenris obviously had his reasons for doing what he did.”
“You owe her,” Yaksha said. There was a degree of menace in her voice and Ravana looked at the old woman in surprise, suddenly seeing the rebel within.
Kartikeya gave her an odd look. “Owe her what?”
“You took her mother away from her. You have no right to take her father too.”
“That’s not fair!” Fenris spluttered. “These things happen in war!”
“Look at her face,” said Yaksha, fixing Kartikeya with a steely glare. “Look at it!”
“That is quite a nasty scar,” Kartikeya admitted. “Are you saying that’s my fault?”
“Perhaps Fenris could enlighten you. He seems more than ready to dig up the past,” she said coolly. “Let me take you back to your first command, when we still had a Maharaja, Taranis held sway in court and Que Qiao had just started sending troops to Yuanshi. Do you remember Aranya Pass? The attack on a Que Qiao supply convoy?”
“Aranya?” murmured Ravana, feeling her right arm twinge. It was a name that conjured up disturbing memories from her childhood.
Kartikeya sighed. “Ganesa’s right. Some things are best left in the past.”
“A little too late for that now,” Hanuman murmured to Ganesa.
“What has it got to do with Ravana?” asked Ostara.
“She was there,” Yaksha replied. “Along with her mother, her father and all the other volunteers who defied the Que Qiao curfew to bring medical supplies into Lanka. The mighty commander here comes in with all guns blazing and destroys the lot. Ravana was left scarred for life. Her mother was not so lucky.”
“You did that?” cried Ravana, staring at Kartikeya in horror. “You killed my mother?”
“War is hell,” Fenris said coldly.
“You got your scar in a war?” Zotz gazed wide-eyed at Ravana. She just knew he was thinking that battle scars were in the top ten of cool things to have.
“I thought it was a troop convoy,” mumbled Kartikeya. He was unable to face Ravana. “My intelligence let me down.”
“In more ways than one,” muttered Ostara, putting an arm around Ravana.
Tears welled in Ravana’s dark eyes. She clutched Ostara tightly and buried her face in the crook of her friend’s shoulder. A surge of anger lashed out at random at the implant images in her mind and for a split second the basement was left in darkness as the overhead lights faltered then recovered. Fenris glanced up at the ceiling, visibly startled.
“Is that really how it happened?” asked Hanuman, regarding Kartikeya curiously.
Seeing he was not about to reply, Ganesa nodded. “I had a friend who was there also.”
“You killed all those innocent people?” Surya’s expression suggested he was suddenly seeing Kartikeya in a new and not very flattering light. “What if I insisted you help Ravana? You brought me here as heir to the throne of Yuanshi. I believe my father would have felt it was your duty to do what could be done to right the wrongs of the past.”
“I am in command here!” snapped Kartikeya. He looked at Ravana. “I am truly sorry for your loss, but I cannot help you. I have been granted diplomatic immunity to attend the peace conference, with an official shuttle waiting for me at the spaceport as I speak. In a few hours Fenris and the Raja are to follow in the Sun Wukong. I simply do not have the time nor the resources to mount what would undoubtedly be a foolhardy enterprise.”
“Foolhardiness is your speciality,” Yaksha said bitterly. “As I said, you owe her. Dwell upon that as I attend to our guests. You come too, Surya,” she said, beckoning to the Raja. “Let us adjourn to somewhere more civilised.”
After giving the commander a final glare, she led Ravana, Ostara, Zotz and Surya out of the basement, in a silence broken only by the sound of a young girl’s muted sobs.
Ravana clung to Ostara every step of the way and barely lifted her gaze as they followed Yaksha upstairs to the first floor. By the time they reached the old woman’s quarters, a small suite of rooms that doubled as the palace’s medical centre, Ravana had exhausted her tears but remained disconsolate and wary. Surya and Zotz stayed close to Yaksha, subdued and eyeing each other uneasily. Zotz held Ravana’s electric cat rather awkwardly under his arm.
“Amongst other things, I have the privilege of being chief medical officer here in Kubera,” Yaksha remarked. She led them into a large room that was in equal parts an office, laboratory and operating theatre. “All that means is I get to wrap bandages, dish out pills and occasionally press a few buttons when the autosurgeon is called upon to pluck bullets and shrapnel from one of Kartikeya’s heroic revolutionaries.”
The far side of the room was dominated by a large operating table, next to which were all manner of surgical automata, diagnostic instruments and boxed medical supplies. Yaksha directed them to a cluster of comfy-looking chairs and invited them to sit. Ravana needed no encouragement and slumped into the nearest seat without uttering a word.
“Wow,” Zotz murmured, looking at the operating table. Ravana’s cat started to fidget and he dropped it clumsily to the floor. “Do you get to see lots of blood and guts?”
“Not really,” Yaksha admitted. “I keep my eyes closed.”
“I wouldn’t,” declared Surya. “I’d want to see everything!”
“Charming,” muttered Ostara, taking the seat next to Ravana. “Why are we here?”
The old woman ignored the question and instead knelt before the crumpled and emotionally-drained Ravana. Reaching forward, she took the girl’s unresisting grip in one hand, lifted her other towards Ravana’s head and then hesitated.
“Ravana,” Yaksha said softly. “You did something to the lights in the basement. Do you have a cranium implant?”
“That’s a sore point,” Ostara retorted. “She didn’t know she had one until yesterday.”
“We were in a VR machine and it all went wrong,” added Zotz.