“I know,” Lydia whispered. “The Senate must have summoned them.”
“To help?” Brennan asked, confused.
“Bren”—Lydia shook her head—“they’d have had to cut those orders weeks ago.”
Brennan swallowed. “You’re saying that the Senate is in on it?”
“Some of them, yes.”
He pushed the right stick forward, pumping the pedals to match, and banked the skimmer away from the assembled forces of the Imperial legion. In moments they were out of sight, and the skimmer was running low to the ground and a lot faster than even he felt comfortable with at that altitude. Still, Brennan hesitated with launching the light sails, since his skimmer wasn’t equipped with the stealth tech of military aircraft. Once their sails went up, he knew that he and Lydia would have effectively sent up a flare.
Need to run as long as I can. I might be able to get out of their range before they spot us.
Just a little longer.
The fighting had intensified around the Cadre wing. Now that the invaders had apparently accomplished their primary goals, they were moving in force against the biggest remaining threat to their actions. The volume of fire from the embattled sections of the wing was truly impressive, particularly considering that it was being mounted by very few volunteers.
Most of the Cadre personnel had already evacuated the wing, scattering to the winds. You didn’t serve the Cadre for long without learning to have fallbacks—and backups for your fallbacks.
William Everett walked unhurriedly away from the sound of fighting. He had orders of his own to complete, and then if he were lucky he’d be ready to vanish into his own little bolt-hole.
An explosion behind him told him that the defenses had fallen. He didn’t look back. William stepped into a large room filled from one end to the other with gleaming metal boxes, half as tall as he was, each of them whirring with restrained power and guided intent. He walked down the length of the room, pausing only to attach small devices to each of the boxes in turn.
At the far end, William stopped and pushed a seat out of the way as he activated a projection interface and sent a few quick commands into the main computer system of the empire. There was only so much he could do from the Cadre systems, of course, but he could make things a little more difficult for Corian and the Senate.
He could also make things a little easier for himself, since he was about to become an outlaw and all anyway.
The door behind him was kicked open and men stampeded through the doors, running toward him. They stopped well out of his reach, weapons leveled on him as the officer in charge stepped forward.
“The Cadre have been disbanded, by Imperial edict. Surrender yourself and your weapon now, or I will authorize lethal action.”
“Emperor Scourwind is the Cadre’s most ardent supporter,” William said, still working without turning around.
“The Scourwinds are no longer in control of the empire. Stop what you’re doing and turn around, or we’ll fire!”
William entered his last command and straightened up, turning slowly with his hands visible.
“My oath is to the emperor,” he said. “If Edvard Scourwind is no longer the emperor, then my oath goes to his heir.”
The men relaxed a little as he showed no weapons, and the officer actually lowered his sidearm.
William shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Amateur.
“Surrender your weapon. Slowly.”
William reached down, slowly, and tapped the blaster on his hip. “This one?”
“Your weapon. Now.”
“Ahhh”—he breathed out slowly—“that one. Sorry, never going to happen.”
“Then you die here.”
William locked eyes with the officer and smiled. “You talk too much.”
The room exploded, engulfing them all in flames as the bombs he’d put on every computer mainframe in the room detonated on his command, taking the identities of every Cadre officer in the empire with it.
Trees were whipping by mere feet below the skimmer as Brennan scanned the skies for any sign of military flyers.
“I can’t risk it any longer, Ly,” he said. “I need to set the sails now.”
“OK.”
He thumbed the firing studs on the rockets, launching the projectors into the sky. Redeploying sails in flight was tricky business, something only daredevils tried. Luckily, the prince was a noted daredevil.
The light sails snapped into place a thousand feet over their craft, just as they were skimming treetops. The instant he had tension on the lines, Brennan hit the winches, bringing in the line and dragging the skimmer up into the skies again.
“Keep an eye out,” he said over his shoulder. “Let me know if you see anything coming our way.”
Lydia nodded, not that he could see it, but he knew his sister well enough to know she’d done it anyway.
Spotting military skimmers wasn’t easy. They used light sails in the nonvisible or sky-matched spectrum and didn’t leave contrails like reaction craft. And considering the paint scheme most of them used—a neutral gray underneath and earth tones from above—spotting them by eye was a distinct challenge.
As he gained altitude and speed, Brennan started to breathe a little easier.
Flying was the one part of his life he’d felt real control over. When he was at the sticks of his skimmer, there was no one who could tell him what to do, how to act. He was free.
Freedom was, perhaps ironically, something a scion of the Scourwind blood didn’t get to enjoy very often.
“I don’t see anything,” Lydia said from behind him. “I think we’re OK?”
Brennan twisted slightly in place, turning to look out behind them. The smoke was curling up in the distance, blacking out the skyline of the capital.
“No, Lyd, I don’t think we’re going to be OK for a long time,” Brennan said as he tightened up the lines, bringing his skimmer up into the first wind layer.
Corian walked through the debris, stepping casually over bodies as he made his way to the front of the room.
“Disappointing” was all he said aloud.
“The Cadre elected to destroy their records rather than let them fall into our hands, sire.”
“Yes, it was a risk,” Corian said. “We never had enough assets inside the Cadre section to secure their mainframes. How many Cadre can we confirm dead or captured?”
“None captured. Perhaps fifteen dead? No more than that.”
Corian laughed bitterly. “Fifteen. And now they’ve gone to ground. This will get bloody.”
He turned and walked out of the Cadre computer mainframe room, shaking his head.
“So very damn bloody.”
The city was looming in the distance as an old, ramshackle skimmer skirted the edge of the detection perimeter. It was a wind craft that had seen better days, and in fact barely seemed to hang in the air behind ephemeral light sails.
“I see major damage to the city and the palace, my lady.”
Mira Delsol sighed as she worked the controls, bringing the cobbled-together skimmer around so it wouldn’t trip perimeter security.
“So we’re too late.”
Gaston nodded from where he was standing on the deck, observing the capital through powerful lenses. “It would appear. The damage appears days old at least, perhaps longer, and the Caleb Bar is holding position over the city. It is not flying the Scourwind colors.”
Mira nodded, thinking hard. “New plan. I know a few drop sites and secure communications systems. We’ll go to ground, see if we can figure out exactly what happened. I’m not going anywhere near the capital until I have that information and a plan.”