I don't…wait a moment. He looked off-screen, listening to one of the Analysis section technicians. Then he nodded, turning back to Itzpalicue. We've an ident on the attacking system, mi'lady. Albanian work – the latest version of their Seitaj IV battlefield countermeasures system – usually sold to mercenary brigades working the Rim. Good – very good, really, for a backwater like this – but we'll be able to keep comm up for the duration.
"Unless whatever neutralized our comps happens again." Itzpalicue swung up into the back of the truck. One Arachosian was in front, a brace of pistols and his Macana on the seat beside him, while the other rode with her in tepid darkness. The surprised chill of losing all contact was fading, but a tickling, unpleasant feeling of things being badly out of joint replaced her initial alarm. "A battlefield ECM system like that would only be useful against a modern opponent. Against the Empire."
True enough, Lachlan replied. But whoever brought in the Seitaj knew they'd be fighting some kind of Imperial troops. Only surprising they managed to get it on-planet without anyone noticing. They must have some mercs running the gear – quick-trained natives wouldn't be able to mount an attack like this.
"Pertinent," the old woman nodded sharply. The truck shuddered into motion under her and rolled out onto the street. "Dispatch a report to the Mirror. Whoever provided this equipment needs to be dealt with. As for the Seitaj itself, my Arachosians will find and destroy it soon enough…"
Lachlan signed off and she leaned back against the jostling side of the truck, frowning in thought. Something is out of place. They launch an escalated attack…three surprises now…near-modern arms, this comp neutralizer and modern countermeasures to try and level the field of combat. Do they have more in hand? She laughed softly to herself. We didn't need to meddle at all! Yacatolli and Hadeishi will have quite a time putting these lizards back into their bucket! Now wait… Something about the presence of the Seitaj nagged at her. A system like that is useless against troops fighting with sword, shield and lance. Did someone know an Arrow Knight regiment was coming here or did they expect us to equip the native princes with modern weapons?
The old woman scowled, fingertips tapping on her cane as the truck shook and jostled around her, engine rumbling, speeding through the streets of Parus. Rain-heavy clouds began to blot out the sun as the afternoon advanced.
The Fane of the Kalpataru
Deep Within the House of Reeds
A succession of sharp popping sounds rippled across the vault. The banks of floodlights hanging from the wooden scaffolding flickered and died. Darkness engulfed the Jehanan soldiers scrambling to react to Gretchen's mad dash across the floor. The durbar blinked, suddenly blind.
"Lights!" he shouted, edging backwards, claw out to find the cover of the generator housing. "Get some lights on in here, you fools!"
His wild, panicky voice touched Anderssen's ears as a long, muffled huuuummmaaa. For her, the air was still thick and impenetrable – the glorious radiance of the shining black arc was failing, swallowed by the air, by the stone dome overhead, by the inert marble of the floor – but its influence still pervaded the vault. Ghostly forms thronged around her – both the Jehanan workers in the distant past as they cleared away the shockfoam from the kalpataru, and those in the present, who were cowering wherever they could, fearful of being struck by a stray bullet.
She turned, the delicate shining curve of the divine tree drawing her eye.
The boiling green void was dimming, the vast array of sharp angles collapsing, softening, the buckling vortices of space and time folding back in upon themselves, the half-open gate disintegrating as quickly as it had begun to form.
Gretchen saw: A jagged stone plunging from the sky, white-hot with atmospheric friction, spearing into a green mountainside with a burst of flame. Spindly-looking trees toppled, blown down, and the stone – hissing and popping – lay inert at the bottom of a crater.
Tri-lobed grass grew with dizzying speed, violet-colored fern-trees lifted themselves from the ashes. Millennia passed. The forest was swept away by fire, then renewed, over and over again. The sun darkened. The violet-leafed saprophytes failed and were replaced by hardier species that could live on the slowly dimming radiance of Bharat.
Gods raged in the heavens, splitting the clouds, fighting among themselves. Cities rose, glittering, on the plain below the mountain and then failed, wiped away by the relentless pressure of time. Still, the sun continued to dim. Slowly the forest darkened as the implacable hand of circumstance winnowed the weaker species away.
Something came pacing in the nighted forest – a shining chitinous creature with long bifurcated legs and shimmering wings bearing a glowing eye – in the radiance of the eye, the mossy stone was ablaze with light. The Jeweled-King plucked it from the heather and carried it away.
The stone sat alone in a blue-green room, undisturbed until slender machines descended from the roof, poking and prodding, examining the striations in the jagged surface. Then the stone split, falling into three equal portions. Behind glassite windows, the jewel-colored insects chimed in horror as a single glistening dark seed was revealed.
The seed split and split again, unfolding into a sharp, jagged arc of darkness which lifted towards the sky…
Anderssen wrenched her attention away from the distant past. Furtive images of burning cities and vast armies of insectile creatures warring upon one another for custody of the dreadful arc slipped away from her awareness.
The vault was aglow with shifting, subtle patterns. Gretchen turned with enormous effort – everything seemed frozen, but now she realized her perception of time was drastically altered. Something was approaching her – a cylindrical bullet, corkscrewing through the heavy air, leaving a twisting trail of disrupted gas behind it – and she dragged her head out of its path.
The Jehanan durbar was caught in mid-lunge, lurching towards the freshly punctured fuel-cell generator.
Technicians were scattering, claws over their heads.
One of them was crouched by the entrance, beside the dead generator, hands placing packs of blasting gel and triggers into a metal carrier bearing the Sandvik logo. Gretchen saw him, perceived a shining glide path in the air between her and the back of his scaly skull, felt the heaviness of the cutting tool in her hand.
Breathe, she commanded herself, struggling to wrench her arm back. Let yourself breathe.
A dry, acerbic voice cut through her thoughts – Clarity is the enemy of action, Green Hummingbird said mockingly – and the illusion of elapsing time snapped violently back into synch with her perception.
The bullet snapped past, spanging away from the glossy metal. Gretchen thumbed the cutting tool to life and pitched the heavy rod in one desperate motion. Malakar was hooting wildly, her pistol blasting again and again. The durbar rolled behind the generator, his own automatic blazing back at the stuttering flashes of the gardener's weapon.
Ducking low, Anderssen spun and scrabbled wildly across the floor. "Malakar, go go go!"
The old Jehanan flung the empty pistol away and scrambled towards the hole.
The cutting tool clipped the Jehanan technician on the back of his head, hissing plasma-jet searing the side of his face, and bounced away into the auditorium beyond the broken wall, still spewing flame. Crying out in terrible pain, the technician jerked to the side, mashing the trigger pack in his hands down into the container of cutting gel. There was a sharp, hot spark.
Gretchen threw herself into the crevice, cracking her shoulder against the marble, and immediately had her nose smashed by Malakar's wildly lashing tail. "Ahhh! Move move move!"