CHAPTER 13
“This isn’t on any of the plans.”
Mira snorted, amused at the very idea, but didn’t turn to look at Lydia as they stepped into the concealed lift and the doors closed.
“Wouldn’t be much of a secret cache if it were, now would it?” she quipped.
“I suppose not,” Lydia conceded, exchanging glances with her brother.
They went down four hundred feet in a few seconds. The doors opened and they stepped out onto a familiar metal surface. Brennan made a noise of surprise.
“This looks like the palace.”
“Same metal,” Mira said as they walked down a rough-hewn corridor, rock on all sides save the floor. “It’s everywhere, roughly three to five hundred feet under the empire, depending on where you’re standing. Deeper if you’re on a mountain, shallower in some low-lying regions.”
“But … it’s naturally occurring? I thought …” Brennan scowled, honestly not knowing what he thought.
“Of course not. It’s an alloy and it’s been worked,” Mira said, stopping in front of a large vault door. She brushed a section of air and a projection interface appeared in front of her. She quickly began entering data.
“Who worked it? The empire?”
The Cadrewoman laughed. “The empire doesn’t have the ability to work this metal, child.”
Brennan glared at her when she called him a child, but he’d been condescended to enough during his palace days to ignore it and let her keep talking.
“Or at least, we didn’t have the ability.” Mira shrugged, shutting the projected display and standing back. The vault door groaned as it began to pivot, dust shaking from the walls and ceiling as it opened. “Still, even with what we can do now, the whole empire working as one couldn’t have placed that much metal that deep under our feet. So to answer your question, we don’t know who put it there. It was here before we were.”
“Why weren’t we told about this?” Lydia asked softly.
“‘We’ as in you two, or ‘we’ as in the rest of us?” Mira asked, amused, glancing at the other two quiet teens standing in the back. “Most people don’t know because it doesn’t matter. It’s never technically been a state secret. It’s just largely irrelevant. We don’t know how to cut the metal. We can’t even scratch it for the most part, and it’s perfectly seamless. The empire has people working on it, trying to figure out where it came from and all that … but the research mostly dead ended before either of you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye.”
“Dead?” Lydia felt mildly outraged by that. “How can it be dead?”
“How many holes can you dig and find the same thing before you run out of ideas?” Mira said as the big door finally swung open. She lifted a hand, waving to her men. “All right, you lot … go shopping.”
Compared to the hangar up top, the room inside wasn’t particularly big, but it was large enough and seemed stocked from floor to ceiling. The crew of the skimmer quickly and professionally began breaking all the supplies down and packing them back up for transport. Mira walked the teens in and paused by one large stack of cases.
“Are you all interface rated?” she asked.
Lydia and Brennan nodded instantly, while Mikael and Dusk hesitated a bit before nodding as well. Mira noticed but continued.
“We’ll get you rated,” she said after a moment, breaking open the case and handing two pieces of a small broken emblem to each teen. “Projection armor. Join the emblem and seat it on your body somewhere. Most of us choose the shoulder or chest. Even if you’re not rated, this will stop blasters and give you a chance to escape.”
She dropped one in each of the teens’ hands, noting with amusement the wide eyes of the two who so obviously had no idea what they’d stepped into.
“As I don’t know either of these two,” Mira went on, gesturing to Mik and Dusk while looking at Lydia and Brennan, “I have to assume you picked them up either during your escape or after?”
“After,” Lydia answered. “Just recently, at the camp.”
“Ah.” Mira nodded, understanding. “Well, we’ll drop supplies there. I know of people who are looking for you both.”
Lydia and Brennan both stiffened at that.
“Not those people,” Mira chuckled. “William Everett is scouring the empire for you.”
“Will?” Lydia smiled suddenly. “He made it out?”
“Most of the Cadre did, as I understand it,” Mira said, “with instructions to go to ground and stay there until they got new orders. The surviving leadership didn’t want to chance a real guerilla war that had the potential of tearing down the empire before it was over. Can’t say that I really agree, but what’s done is done.”
She picked up a carbine and looked at the quiet teen duo. “You know how to use one of these?”
Mik nodded. “Our dad had a flecher. Same thing, right?”
Mira snorted and tossed him the weapon. “That’s a different breed from your daddy’s flecher, kid, but it works the same. It’s a gamma carbine. Don’t point it at anyone you don’t want to die a horrible death. It’ll burn big nasty holes in damn near everything except people. You don’t want to know what it’ll do to people.”
Mik caught the weapon awkwardly, nearly fumbling his hold, but finally getting a grip on the carbine and cradling it in his arms. “Why give us these?”
“You’re hanging around these two,” she said, jerking a finger in the direction of the twins, “and these are rough times, kid. Shoot me or mine with it, and I’ll see you hung up by your entrails. Got me?”
He gulped, then nodded.
“Not that I’m going to let you load it anytime soon, but get used to carrying it.” She looked them over, a sardonic grin on her face. “I need to oversee the looting. Stay close and don’t get in any trouble … and I mean you two.” She finished her statement with a scowl in the twins’ direction.
Lydia and Brennan gave her a look they’d practically patented during their previous life, a combination of affront at the accusation and complete innocence that would have fooled anyone not acquainted with them or as naturally suspicious as Mira had recently become.
She just gestured between her eyes and them, indicating that she was watching them, and then headed off to oversee some of the more deft requirements of the looting.
There was a silent moment before Mik and Dusk both turned toward the twins, faces a combination of high curiosity and severe annoyance.
“Who are you two?” Mik spoke first, being the brasher of the two. “Sneaking into the depot was one thing, but …” He just gestured around.
Lydia sighed. “Sorry. We intended to deliver the food and water and probably be gone before anyone asked that. We’re …”
“Lyd … ,” Brennan said warningly.
“Please, Bren,” she scoffed. “It won’t be that hard to figure out. Even if they can’t, anyone they tell would work it out in a second. So there’s not much point hiding it now.”
Brennan sighed but said nothing, indicating that he objected no further.
“Hello,” Lydia extended a hand. “I’m Lydia Scourwind. This is my brother Brennan.”
Mik took her hand on reflex, before being frozen dumb in shock.
“Scourwind?” Dusk asked softly. “Really? Then why are you hiding your identities? Your father—”
“Is dead.”
Brennan’s flat delivery brooked little more comment on the subject, but Lydia closed her eyes for a moment.
“The rumors of a coup are true,” she said. “We don’t know much, but we know that our father died that night … as did our older brother. We’ve been running ever since.”