"We head back to the nearest outpost as fast as we can. Try to find our people before our attackers find us." She knocked the dust from her clothes. "Come on."

Lith wasn't sure how the Colonel was going to negotiate their way back without any equipment. Equipment? They didn't even have any hats to shield them from the early afternoon heat. Or food. Or water. The sun was so bright, it eclipsed the telltale signs of the ever-present ionic storms, bleaching the sky to the palest blue.

She dropped her gaze, watching the air shimmer hotly above the large rocks, and grimaced. The Colonel led the way in front of her. The woman was unstoppable. Their vehicle had just been attacked, overturned and transformed into a brick of high-value sc.r.a.p, and she hadn't even paused for more than a few bracing breaths.

They had been walking steadily for twenty minutes when she heard a sound behind her. She spun around and almost collided with the barrels of several weapons aimed right at her. Her eyes widened. She was about to give a shout when something caught her just behind her ear and everything was enveloped in a quick blackness.

Cheloi felt the coolness before anything else and knew she was underground. There was no other environment that combined chill and moisture the way a subterranean room did. The right side of her head ached and it was only when she tried to touch it that she discovered that her hands were tied behind her back. She was on her side.

She blinked open her eyes. Thankfully, it was dark. The only illumination came from outside the room, diffuse lighting that slanted yellow beams through an open doorway. She tipped herself onto her back and took a few deep agonising breaths, moving her elbows apart so the small of her back rested on her clenched hands. It wasn't a comfortable position but afforded her a better view of her surroundings. She appeared to be in a storeroom, surrounded by columns of roughly-stacked boxes that towered over her.

Wouldn't it be ironic, she thought, if after all she had gone through all these years, she got crushed by a box of rebel supplies? She recognised the sc.r.a.ps of Menon writing visible on the sides. Years of Fusion training, the most fiendish and underhanded plot against the Perlim Empire, all destroyed by a crate of bearings. She would have laughed if her face didn't hurt so much. As it was, only a few coughs emerged from her dry and raspy throat.

There must have been someone outside waiting for sounds of life, because two hulking figures shuffled into the room soon after. With the light behind them, she couldn't make out any features, only their tall broad forms. They grabbed her by each conveniently placed elbow and levered her upright then dropped a small thick bag over her head.

The feeling was instantly claustrophobic and Cheloi fought it, shaking her head from side to side, but the movement, on top of the pain, was disorienting, and she only succeeded in stumbling to her knees. Her feet pinched at the floor and throbbed in protest. Her bare feet. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had taken her boots too.

Her guards were not patient. They dragged her along a quiet corridor and she had to take a series of half-jumps to finally get ground under her soles again. The fine gravel felt like the same kind of soil as HQ's. Or perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. How long had she been unconscious? Was she still within the Nineteen's boundaries?

In any case, that was balance solved. Next on the list was self-control. Ruthlessly, she tamped down the overriding waves of anger and the desperate urge to escape. She needed a clear head now more than ever before. When her breathing calmed, she heard faint conversations emerging from doorways she pa.s.sed. Not just one or two conversations, but at least half a dozen. She wondered if she was in the rebel equivalent to her own headquarters at the Nineteen. The guards descended stairs, causing Cheloi to stumble again, her feet jarring against the rough stone.

Where the h.e.l.l was Lith?

Whose doing was the tipper strike? Was it a lucky hit or had she been lured into a trap? She instantly dismissed Vanqill as a suspect. She had more or less turned the Nineteen into his personal playground and he was having far too much fun to betray her now.

Koul. The obvious choice but, again, she had no evidence to back up that supposition. Still literally in the dark, all she could do was wait and see how the situation was going to play out.

They kept going down. How deep was this place anyway? She was thirsty, disoriented and hurting.

She could have coped admirably with all three afflictions. After all, she'd been in several situations similar to this during her career. But the addition of Lith to the equation threw her equilibrium completely. Where were they keeping her? What had they done with her? What were the chances of her being set free? Theoretically at least, a release shouldn't be out of the question. Cheloi started a.s.sembling the plausible excuses in her mind.

She's only a junior officer. No, she's not my regular driver, merely a temporary replacement from the canteen crew. I can't even (laugh) remember her name.

But a thick tendril of fear wrapped itself around her spine. She didn't know what she would do if anything happened to Lith.

Finally, they approached their destination. She stumbled up one step, a heavy door was flung open (Flung? Not sliding? Primitive, no electronics, an ancient warren of converted irrigation tunnels perhaps?) and she was thrown to the floor. Unlike the storeroom, this floor was smooth and she slid along it on her side until something hard and boot-shaped stopped her. She grunted and her hood was removed by another set of hands.

Tiles. The smoothness she had traversed was glazed tiles. They even covered the lower half of the walls. That was not good. Cheloi knew what tiled rooms meant. When she looked around, taking in the row of naked lights above her and the drainage hole in the centre of the floor, her worst fears were confirmed.

f.u.c.k irrigation tunnels. Welcome to the interrogation room.

The man standing in front of her was of medium height and stocky build. Even the loose clothing he wore, covered by a sleeveless cowled cloak, couldn't hide his impressive musculature. His skin was the colour of stained weathered timber, almost as dark as his hair and eyes. He had thick lips, the lower one protruding, and asymmetrically placed eyes. One of them was also significantly larger than the other, both of them staring balefully at her.

Cheloi, her hands still tied behind her back, struggled to her feet. She was taller than the man in front of her but that meant nothing. It was plain from the way he stood, motionless yet br.i.m.m.i.n.g with leashed energy, that she was facing a person every bit as professional as she was. Her private odds of surviving this particular adventure plummeted.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked. His voice sounded like gravel churning in a barrel.

She shook her head, although she had a fair idea.

"I'm Drel. I'm Menon leader of this part of the continent."

Short and ugly, Rumis had told her. Well, he certainly was that. She remained silent, although her internal eyebrows rose at his words. She thought that Drel only commanded the rebel territory within the Nineteen, yet here was the man himself, claiming a significantly larger jurisdiction. Either he was lying or her own data were sorely out of date.

"Our Intelligence says you're the Butcher of Sab-Iqur and commander of Territory Nineteen. Senior Colonel Cheloi Sie of the Perlim Ground Forces. Is this correct?"

"Our Intelligence"? Not "informants" or "friends"?

"Yes, I'm Cheloi Sie." The information was so easy to verify, it wasn't worth the breath spent on a futile denial.

His expression didn't change but she heard the shuffling of the guards' feet behind her, smooth sc.r.a.pes along the glazing.

"Thank you. I hadn't expected such quick confirmation."

"Where's my driver?" Cheloi demanded, moving straight to the attack.

"You mean the other young woman? She is being held somewhere else, not far from here."

"If you harm her, Drel," the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

An unholy gleam lit his eyes.

"You're in no position to make threats, Senior Colonel," he remarked. "However that doesn't mean I'm not amenable to negotiation."

She stared at him balefully. "What kind of negotiation?"

Drel laughed, a sudden explosive sound that echoed off the shiny tiled walls. "The Butcher, negotiating in my work room?" He opened his arms in a sweeping gesture. "And they told me you were ruthless, Senior Colonel. Impervious to blandishments of any kind." He sobered, the grin disappearing from his face in a flash. "If you give me the information I want and you can convince me that your driver is merely that-a driver-then I may just let her go in a prisoner exchange and kill you quickly." He paused. "Believe me, it's much more than you deserve."

"And what information might that be?" she asked.

He smiled slightly, stretching a small cut on his bottom lip. "Troop movements. Strategic plans. The usual."

There was only one answer to that and, despite her personal feelings, Cheloi had to make it. She smiled back at him, showing her teeth. "Throw yourself into the abyss, Drel."

His mouth widened once more into a grin. "You first, Senior Colonel."

Chapter Eleven.

Day 1,532 of the War: "I strongly disagree!"

Rumis was unaware how loudly he was speaking until, in the sudden silence that followed, he looked around the Tactics Room and saw heads hurriedly bowed in studied inattention. The room was bathed in blue light emanating from the myriad displays that lined its circ.u.mference. To his side, one of three large clear rigid panels displayed the Nineteen, the territory now expanded so it filled the screen. Flashing points of different hues highlighted Perlim and known rebel positions. In front of him, Grakal-Ski glared. Rumis was just as happy glaring back.

Koul flushed but his voice was tight with anger. "You'd do well to watch yourself, Major. An adjutant is easily replaced."

"Speaking of replacement, I think your a.s.sumption of command is just a little premature, Colonel." Rumis tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice but failed.

"As is your grasp of reality, Major. The Nineteen is too valuable for us to leave leaderless while you scurry around looking for conspiracies that don't exist."

Rumis would have attacked the b.a.s.t.a.r.d then and given it a good try at pounding him into the ground. It was only his training that held him back. Still, he felt his body thrumming like a high-tension wire.

"It's entirely reasonable for me to begin an independent investigation into the circ.u.mstances leading to Colonel Sie's disappearance," he began stiffly.

"Just as it's entirely reasonable for me to take command of the territory in the meantime."

Rumis gritted his teeth. "I have already found discrepancies regarding the communication the Colonel received the night before last."

Was it really less than two days ago? Rumis felt he had aged years in those intervening hours. After almost three years of being at her side, losing the Colonel was like losing a part of himself. He thought they had grown to be friends as well as colleagues. He trusted her implicitly. And now, to find that her skimmer was destroyed and both she and Lith were missing? It was unthinkable. Such things happened at the front, were expected at the front, but not to the Colonel. Never to her. She was invincible.

"I tracked the message back to Green sector, but Sub-Colonel Vanqill denies ever sending such a request."

"Maybe the rebels jacked into our comms net." Koul's voice was emotionless, but he was watching the younger man intently.

Rumis nodded, conceding the point.

"Yes, that was my thought as well," he mused. His eyes flicked up to the other's face. "Until I discovered that the encryption protocols were updated only last week. Even the most motivated rebel can't crack our codes that quickly. Unless they had help."

Where was the Colonel when he wanted her? She was the one with the cool provocative eyes and dark steady voice that could manipulate Koul until he was a spluttering idiot. In contrast, his own frantic questions made him look a b.u.mbling child. If it had been he who had gone missing, he was sure she would have had Koul shackled and drawn tight against something uncomfortably sharp by now. That was her style. Meanwhile, he could only use a cudgel instead of a scalpel and hope it was good enough.

Both gazes locked on each other. Rumis's words, implicit with accusation, hung between them.

Koul was the first to break the blinkless stare. He scanned the room then jerked his head to a doorway that led to a private meeting room. "In there. Now."

Rumis went first, stiff with simmering anger, circling the room with a frustrated excess of energy. Koul followed, locking the door behind him before whirling around.

"How dare you!" he growled, his pale eyes flashing. "Your statements out there were tantamount to accusing a command-level officer of treason." A tic worked at his jaw. "If you want to commit career suicide, Major, I suggest you do it in private and preferably without taking the name of the Ground Forces down with you. But while you're under my command, note that I will not have my authority, and that of the sector commanders, undermined in public."

"What's the matter, Grakal-Ski?" Rumis taunted, taking a step to the circular table between them. He clenched his fists and rested them on the metallic surface. "Losing your nerve?"

"I could have you court-martialled for this, Swonnessy."

"Yes you could. And wouldn't it start looking like a viable conspiracy then?"

Koul's face reddened. "You dare accuse me of complicity in the Colonel's ambush?"

"You've resented the Colonel from the moment we set foot in the Nineteen," Rumis shot back." I've spoken to the other officers here. You were just waiting for Colonel Samnett to make a misstep so you could take over as territory commander."

Koul leant forward, mirroring Rumis' posture across the table.

"Yes," he hissed. "Samnett was a fool. And yes, I was expecting to be offered command after he died. But the Colonel proved to be every bit as efficient as Samnett wasn't." His pale gaze bored into Rumis. "Do you honestly believe I would sabotage someone who makes me look so good?"

He paused, letting his words sink in. "Active service in the Nineteen under her command almost guarantees a promotion upon transfer. Or, to put it in terms you're more likely to understand, being a.s.sociated with Colonel Sie is as useful to my career as it's been to yours, Major."

Rumis blinked. That was one angle that hadn't occurred to him. He had always thought Koul was aching for command, furious with anything and anybody that stood in his way. In fact, he had been confident of another attempt on the Colonel's life the moment she survived the first one and the pale angry officer in front of him always at the top of his list of suspects.

But he couldn't deny the obvious. It was true the Colonel made people like him and Koul look good. He already had several commendations that he would have never received under another's command. And on his recreational trips down to the Five, there was always a commander or two who made half-joking suggestions to him about a possible transfer with prospects of promotion.

The Colonel herself encouraged study, urging him to take the sub-Colonel's exam within the next two years. He was young for such advancement, he knew that, but the backing of the now legendary Senior Colonel Sie was no trivial thing. He had even started harbouring ambitions to be the youngest sub-General in the empire. All such thoughts were thanks to his present commanding officer. Her command, her head for tactics, her intuition for logistics, washed over the entire territory, tinting everybody with success. Had Koul realised this too and managed to repress part of his fierce ambition in order to ride on the Colonel's reputation? Was it so difficult a thing to believe when he was doing the same thing himself?

"Vanqill got in touch with me this morning," he said quietly, the anger slowly draining from him. "One of his comms technicians was found last night on the outskirts of Sab-Baqdil, with her throat cut."

"Eliminate the village," Koul answered without missing a beat. "The only reason a Perlim officer approaches a village alone is if she's taking bribes from a rebel sympathiser stationed there. This sounds like a cla.s.sic damage-control strategy by the local guerilla force."

Rumis took a breath. Yes, it sounded plausible. Why else would a communications officer be so far away from safety? And on her own?

No.

Colonel Sie had always told him to trust his intuition and right now, it was yelling in his ear. The explanation Koul gave of bribes and money changing hands in Sab-Baqdil sounded rational, but something about it was too convenient.

What if, despite Koul's protestations of innocence, he somehow was mixed up in the disappearance of the Colonel? What if he then wanted to get rid of the evidence, meaning the only other person who knew of a fraudulent message sent from Vanqill's sector?

Rumis wavered. Both lines of reasoning made sense. Koul had clear motive to get rid of Colonel Sie. But the story of infiltrators and collaborators in Sab-Baqdil was also feasible. Unless he himself took command of the entire Nineteen and diverted resources to ferreting out any speck of evidence, there was no way he was going to get closer to what had really transpired. And how could he do that with Koul and a whole cadre of sector commanders outranking him?

"The patrols we sent out found the Colonel's vehicle," Rumis said.

"And?"

"There was hope that they were trapped under the canopy." Although they probably would have roasted in such an oven. Rumis wasn't sure whether he was disappointed or relieved when the squad leader told him the vehicle was empty.

"We found their tracks," he continued, after a long pause. "But they disappeared a few hundred metres from the skimmer. If they headed for the nearest hill, there's no evidence they made it there." He wondered if his expression mirrored the bleakness he felt.

"I understand your loyalty to the Colonel, Major Swonnessy," Koul said gently into the silence. "In your position, I'm sure I'd feel the same way. Perhaps we both need to take a step back. Regain some equilibrium. Forget what happened just now in the Tactics Room and start over."

What was the alternative? A mutiny? For an officer like Rumis, that was tantamount to slitting his own veins. And with most of the Nineteen's commanders either friends or acquaintances of Koul's, success was slim. Besides, the Colonel had been gone barely two days. There was still a little time left to wait. To hope.

Rumis stared at Koul for a long moment. Then, lowering his head, he nodded.

"This is a bit earlier than I was expecting. Is something the matter?"

"You could say that." She hesitated before leaning back in the chair, and did so gingerly. "I've been captured."

"By the rebels?"

"None other than Drel himself, the continent's rebel leader apparently."

Copan's eyes narrowed. "The new rebel leader? How did you get caught?"

"Now there's the question." Laisen rubbed her back against the chair. "My skimmer was. .h.i.t by a tipper while heading for a rendezvous. We were captured not far from the wreck. It all seemed a little too well practised to be an accident but I'm still thinking that one through."

"What have they done to you? Are you hurt?"

"Drel turned me over to a couple of guards who lost family at Sab-Solin," she said with a tight smile. "They've been...less than gentle."