The Mixtec grunted noncommittally. His face was dotted with tiny green flecks of drying woundgel. "Fleet executive authority does not extend to the medical branch, save in an advisory role, Chu-sa. You can't order me to do anything."
Hadeishi suppressed a ghoulish laugh. "Nor can you restrict my authority, save by rendering me unconscious. This argument is pointless – here, I do nothing but take up space and your time. On the bridge, I can improve matters for all of us."
"Perhaps." The Mixtec sighed and made a hand motion indicating the acceptance of fate.
The gui-ni called for one of his corpsmen and keyed the bed to detach itself from the captain. "The primary bridge is either destroyed or unreachable," the Mixtec said conversationally. "Hayes and Jaguar were processed through here about six hours ago. Command and control has shifted to the secondary. I believe Smith-tzin is now acting duty officer."
A corpsman kicked over and took hold of the railing on the edge of the bed. "Kyo?"
"The Chu-sa needs to get to secondary control. Make sure he doesn't overexert himself while you're moving him." The doctor nodded to Hadeishi. "This man will take you there."
The Chu-sa nodded, still very weak and was happy to lie still, head back, while they detached the various tubes and sensors connecting him to the medical bed. He tried to muster the strength to ask if senior lieutenant Patrick Hayes and ensign Three-Jaguar had been 'processed' alive, dead, or crippled, but failed. The effort of holding back tears, of showing the dignity proper to a Fleet officer, was enough to exhaust the tiny store of energy left to him.
So many ghosts cling to your soul, the air whispered. Like the ship herself, only a tattered hull, filled with indistinct voices. Do you hear them calling your name?
Hadeishi curled his arm around the corpsman's shoulders and let himself be removed from the bed.
Near the Train Station
The Streets of Parus
Mrs. Petrel limped to a halt, biting back an exhausted wheeze. Her thigh and hip stabbed with pain every time her foot came down on the broken concrete sidewalk. The three Imperials had come to the edge of a traffic circle where one of the grand avenues cutting through the tightly packed buildings intersected a spray of lesser streets. A jumbled pile of broken runner-carts had been pushed from the main road, making an impromptu barrier between a series of shops and one of the ancient trees lining the boulevard. There was broken glass and scattered dribs and drabs of cloth, plastic toys and sheets of charred pypil everywhere. Two of the shops were gutted, black holes in the face of the building.
"Ah now," Colmuir said quietly, coming up to her shoulder. "We've surely come the wrong way…"
The traffic circle ahead was crammed with vehicles – imported Imperial trucks; the flat, angular shapes of Jehanan troop carriers; even the hulking shape of an Aganu medium tank – and there were literally hundreds of native troops milling about. The rumbling engines filled the air with the stink of methanol and diesel. Most of the soldiers were squatting on the sidewalks, tails wrapped around their long feet, passing bottles and bhang-pipes from claw to claw. One of the troop carriers had its rear compartment open and four Jehanan mechanics were banging around in the engine, cursing and muttering at ancient machinery. Two short-horns pushed a cart past the soldiers, offering grilled spiced zizunaga on wooden tines. The clang of their advertising bell was nearly lost in the general murmur. None of the soldiers seemed interested.
"Do you see the building on the right?" Mrs. Petrel gasped, leaning her hands on her thighs. Oh my god, I hurt inside. I think I've ruptured something. "It's a hotel – a very expensive Jehanan hotel – where the kurbardar Humara makes his residence when he is in the city. There is a suite of rooms on the third floor…" She paused, coughed, hand over her mouth, listening with growing irritation to the smooth, self-satisfied voice chattering in her ear. "…which my husband and I once visited for a dinner party. The – uhhh! – commando who took the prince was wearing a regimental insignia from an elite battalion under Humara's command."
Colmuir grunted, looked askance at Dawd, who shrugged, just as worried as he. "So you think they've taken the lad in there? T' drag before the general and gain their honor for a braw captive?"
Mrs. Petrel nodded weakly and forced herself to stand up straight. The tree afforded her some support and her hands pressed against the crinkly bark with relief. "Humara will be ecstatic to have the prince in his claws. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the boy call on the Imperial troops on the planet to surrender."
"Ha!" Dawd smiled in grim amusement. "I'm sure Tlacateccatl Yacatolli will immediately send forth a noble envoy to the sound of drums, trumpets and whistles when he hears the news! He will have some choice words to say about such a turn of events… Doesn't Humara know the Mйxica don't believe in surrender, or in ransoming captives? The colonel is more likely to demand the boy be sacrificed, as was done in the old days!"
Colmuir nodded in agreement. "But we can't let the lad languish. He's our responsibility and he's no legal captive until the battle's doon." He pointed with the muzzle of his Macana. "There'd be a service way in from the back?"
Petrel peered at the front of the hotel, noting the garish, gilt-embossed balconies were now draped with blankets and reinforced by rows of sand-bags. Machine-gun barrels snouted from the lower windows. The main doors were wedged back, allowing entrance into the building, but again there was a redoubt of sand-bags draped with camouflage netting in the entryway. The carpets in those dining rooms will be ruined, she imagined. Very pretty they were.
Voices were whispering to her again, and Greta turned slightly to keep her earbug away from Dawd, who was staring at her in a puzzled way.
"There is a delivery entrance in the rear," she said, as if remembering. "But not directly behind the front doors of the hotel – it's offset behind that dun-colored building. There are – there will be – guards, but not so many as in front."
"Right," the master sergeant said, eyeing her with suspicion. He produced a slim little comp from a thigh pocket. The device made a creaky sound, but lit at his finger-press. Colmuir tabbed up a map of the city and popped through several views before finding the street intersection. Once he'd oriented himself, the Skawtsman peered around the corner and checked out the adjoining streets. Wisps of hazy smoke drifted among the buildings. To the right, a shop selling imported Imperial toys was still burning, spilling a cloud of dark gray ash out into the avenue. The sun had mounted past noon, but in the thick, polluted air down in the city, with the air reverberating with the distant bang and crash of explosions, the hour felt very late.
"Back a block," Colmuir announced, "and over one and we can get into that service access."
Dawd nodded, offering Mrs. Petrel a hand and then they crept back away from the barricade. As they moved, two of the spyeyes drifting above the woman darted off ahead, letting Lachlan's controllers spy their path for unseen foes.
A wide loading dock stood at the back of a particularly rundown-looking building. Three Jehanan soldiers with modern rifles slung forward at their hips stood in the shelter of an overhanging awning made of wooden slats. Coils of yellowish smoke drifted above their heads as they passed a bhang from claw to claw.
"That's the place…" Colmuir waited for the reptilian heads to turn and then signed for Dawd to leap-frog past him to a square-linteled doorway on the opposite side of the of the tiny lane. The younger Skawtsman dodged past, taking a long step over a pair of water-filled ruts worn into the cobblestones by the passage of generations of runner-carts. The master sergeant watched for any sign of alarm until Dawd was ensconced in the shadows of the doorway, automatic pistols in either hand.