"Praise God," Bruen mumbled. He settled into a chair,
obviously exhausted. The hideous gash on his forehead made Kaylla wince.
"You should go rest, Magister," Kaylla murmured. To several Initiates, she added, "Put the Magister on antigrav and take him someplace safe."
"I'm fine!" Bruen rasped, trying to pull his head up and look alert.
Staffa turned, a sympathetic smile on his lips. "You've done enough for now, Magister. All that's left is to await their next move. We will need your mind keen for that. Go. I'll make sure you're apprised of any developments."
Bruen glanced back and forth between Kaylla and Staffa, and saw no give. "Oh, all right." And he allowed the Initiates to take him away.
Staffa sighed, shaking his head as the old man disappeared down the passage. "I pray I'm so vigorous at his age."
"Do I hear a certain softness in your voice, Lord Commander?" Kaylla asked gently.
He shook himself and looked around. "He's quite a leader. I wish I'd known him before now. Getting back to business, what about deep space comm? Can we get communications to Itreata or Rega from Makarta?"
"No, that link was cut when the Kaspa tunnel was bombed. What did you have in mind?"
Staffa settled himself at the table, hugging himself as he thought. "I had hoped to get a message to Skyla. I've been worried about the Companions. I'd hate to have them surprised by Rega. If I could get a message to the Itreatic Asteroids, Skyla would. "
Her image flooded him. If only he could hold her, look into those magnificent blue eyes again, and feel her arms around him. His soul had felt whole during that one short moment in the warehouse in Etarus. Now death stared at him from every shadow in this mountain trap, and that one moment of tenderness would have to last him forever. Skyla, Skyla.
"What's wrong, you look like hell," Kaylla recalled him dryly.
"Thinking of Skyla. I've been so busy. haven't had time to—"
"Lord Commander?" an Initiate — a blond young man—
called as he ran into the room. "Lord Commander! We've got them. They're drilling, sir. Tunneling!"
"Where?"
Kaylla pulled out a large flimsy. The youth looked at it, tracing the tunnels on the diagram before jamming his finger down on a spot. "That's where we
picked up the first vibrations. Looks like they're headed for this little side tunnel."
Staff a ran his fingers along the route. If they hit the tunnel, one way would take them into a large gallery marked Study Center. The second direction led down into the bowels of the complex. Staffa traced out each of the lower accesses.
"Perfect. Sinklar Fist, you and I do think alike." Staffa turned, looking at the young man. "How long until they breach that tunnel?"
"Depends on the size of the adit they're drifting. The larger the bore—"
"Minimum time for a small hole?"
"Five hours at a guess." The young man shrugged helplessly, expression nervous. "Depends on if they're using a counter bore or a radial sectioning—"
"Come on, we need an engineering crew. We've got to block the end of the tunnel leading into the Study Center. We've got to make it look real good, you hear?" Staffa left at a run.
Commander Rysta Braktov paced angrily around Gyton's bridge. Her officers — intimates through the years, all of them — knew her posture, knew her ire. They kept their heads bowed to instruments, all except the first officer who slumped slackly in the command chair, worry-cap covering his head.
The main bridge monitor framed Sinklar Fist's young face. In the background a mountain could be seen illuminated by spotlights and flares. The place looked eerie in the artificial light. Machinery could be heard through the pickup.
"Why not let me blast that rock into powder?" Rysta growled. "Safer that way, no danger to our people."
"Because we can't be sure of the final results and we won't get any prisoners," Sinklar told her, weird eyes leaving her with a spooky feeling. "What if this leader of theirs, this Bruen, is alive and healthy in Kaspa? What if there are more assassins like Arta Fera prowling the Empire? Minister Takka wants to break the Seddi and eliminate their threat. To do that, we need some of the ringleaders — like Bruen — who will divulge important information."
"And for that you'll waste the lives of your troops in their warrens?"
"I have a way to minimize risk. I want those caverns swept so none of the Seddi can possibly escape. The only way to make sure is to comb and sound every square inch of that rock to be sure none have hidden away with a mining machine that can bore out later."
"Very well," Rysta acquiesced blandly. "I await further orders."
She glared at the bridge comm after it went dead, her gnarly ringers tightening — as they might around a neck.
"Why is he fooling around down there," Rysta grated to no one in particular. "One salvo of crust-busters, and that whole mountain would tumble in on top of them!" She smacked a chair back with a hard hand and glared at the screens, "As if Tybalt cared for prisoners!"
"He's a madman," First Mykroft interjected from the side.
Rysta gave him a hair-curling glare.
"Oh," Mykroft promised. "I'll get him eventually. Jessant-de-lis or no. Tybalt himself may back him for the moment, but Sinklar Fist is too brash, too wild. He'll trap himself in the end. and my time will come."
"Comm First?" Rysta asked, ignoring Mykroft's ranting. "You get that message off to fleet yet?"
"Yes, Commander. Went top priority, direct to the Minister of Defense."
"Top priority!" she hissed. "And that cheap cocksqueeze, Ily Takka, is halfway to Rega by now — and in my ship to boot!" She smacked the chair back again. "It's time I got out of this miserable job and got me some pretty boys to relax with on Rega. That black-haired bitch will have my throat cut before I know it."
In the glaring white spotlights, MacRuder checked his troops: the finest of the First Division. He playfully pounded an anxious man on the back, then shot a quick joke at a grim-faced young woman as he worked his way down the line. Around them the night pressed down, a bitter chill in the air. Clouds
had blotted out the stars, and the wind bore the damp scent of rain.
In the background, the generators puttered and the grinding howl of the mining machine poured from the square hole that slanted into the mountain. A round tube that housed a mucking screw pumped crushed rock out into a tailings pile. Beyond that, the sound of heavy ordnance could be heard as other Sections of the First mauled the Seddi cliff below.
Three Sections — almost six hundred men and women— flint-hard veterans of the Targan campaigns. One or two, like himself, dated back to that first drop. They had all become his responsibility. He alone would be inside during the last battle, linked to Sinklar by a slender cable for communications as they wound through the Seddi warren. Mac flushed with pride as he looked at his command where they stood shoulder to shoulder.in fresh new battle armor, polished helmets and blasters gleaming in the blinding lights.
"Well, this is it, people," he told them as he finished his inspection. "We break the Seddi and we're off to Rega. You know the Minister of Internal Security thinks we're pretty hot stuff. Well, she's making sure the whole stinking Empire knows it!" / hope!
They belted out a cheer.
"All right, we're going into the hole. That racket you hear is our friends and comrades in arms battering the outside tunnels, soaking up Seddi attention. They've been pounding the mountain pretty hard to keep the enemy's thoughts elsewhere while we cut the tunnel.
"Now, listen, you scum, comm won't work thugh solid rock. We've only got line-of-sight except for the cable, you hear? So keep cool if your set suddenly goes silent. It doesn't mean you're the only living being left on the planet. Now, the next thing is to. "