Damn, she thought.
But she wasn’t wholly surprised.
And she had no doubt they’d be after whatever they could get, Library, all of it–but they hadn’t likely gotten anything. System had taken measures, that fast. They had it set up for Planys, for particular operations inside Reseune, for Strassenberg, for ReseuneSec offices in Novgorod: one System‑level irregularity, and System needed to be reset from Reseune Admin. One code, out of Base One, and it nuked accesses at any other given base until codes were reset.
That had happened, probably at the first probe they made into System. She was ahead of them that far.
She shoved herself up on one arm, and the other, and found the edge of the bed, raking hair out of her eyes and trying simultaneously to ask herself if there was any other thing she needed to think of, if they’d just lost Planys.
There wasn’t anything to do, was there? They’d known they could lose it, that fast, because a Defense installation was snuggled up against it, and Defense installations had guns and a lot of electronics, and they’d probably spent years preparing themselves to crack System.
That part hadn’t worked. She felt good about that.
“Tell Admin,” she said, and Florian called Catlin on com and told her to tell Chloe, while Ari was pulling on her boots. “Tell the Councillors,” she added. That was a new priority on their notification list, but they kept the Council, such as it was, as informed as Admin, where it regarded move’s by Defense. “I’ll be over there. I’ll go talk to the reporters. I’ll take calls from anybody on the ‘notify’ list.” She took a twist in her hair and jammed the skewer in slantwise. Which hurt, but she was in a hurry.
Joyesse showed up. “Coat,” Ari said. “Please.” And, “Florian? How did they do it?”
“There were already Defense personnel inside the labs. Fifty more Defense personnel arrived about midnight local. They took armed possession of the administrative offices and that was that: most people go offshift at 1600.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“ReseuneSec in uniform we’re roughed up,” Florian said as they entered the hall. Joyesse brought the coat and Ari turned and slipped it on. “That’s the last information we have. It may have gotten worse, but they have their standing orders.” Go to plainclothes, offer no resistence, destroy any records you can, those were the instructions. “Physical records they’ve undoubtedly got, undoubtedly some manuals. And the prior codes. They’ll be going over those with every expert they have, looking for some forgotten app they can still get into. They won’t find one.”
“Good. Then that’s gone by the book.” They reached the front door and Theo let them out.
“Catlin is talking with Chloe in Admin,” Florian said, and then pressed the com into his ear, intent on something for an instant. He suddenly stopped walking–and nothing distracted Florian. She stopped, there in the hall, among the paintings.
“Sera,” he said, “there’s a plane requesting a landing.”
Her heart leapt up in hope.
“It’s Defense, sera.” Florian was still listening. “General Awei, Klaus Awei, requesting permission to land, courier jet. Air Traffic Control requests Admin advice.”
“Permission granted,” she said. There was little else they could do; let automated defenses kick in and start something, or let that plane land. Military courier. If it landed instead of shooting, Defense was talking, and talking–that, she could do something with, even if it delivered a threat. “How far off?”
“How far off?” Florian asked ATC, having relayed her prior instruction; and he reported: “Fifteen minutes, sera.”
“Get a bus.”
“Sera, it’s dangerous.”
“The airport has tunnels, if they’re lying.” Her pulse had kicked up, a level of aggression she had to watch in herself, and question her own decisions. “If they’re going to talk, I’ll talk to them.”
“Yes, sera,” he said, and started relaying that information to Catlin and then to the Transport Office, which ran the buses.
BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter v
SEPTEMBER 8, 2424
0932H
The bus had gotten to the Wing One doors by the time they met Catlin there–Catlin carrying a rifle/launcher and Florian with only a small pistol. The two exchanged nods, a signal of some kind, the bus door opened, and Ari started to board. Florian interposed an arm between her and the door, saying, “The plane is coming in now, sera. Wait a moment.”
She stopped, and stood beside the bus, looking where Florian and Catlin looked. In a moment she saw a black dot in the east, across the river, coming in on the course most planes from Novgorod used.
“Landing to the north,” Catlin said as it banked, and it followed that route, rapidly becoming a distinct, swept‑winged shape.
“Gear down,” Florian noted in some relief, and leapt up to the bus deck in two strides. Ari climbed up, Catlin behind her.
“Field gate,” Ari said before she’d done more than grasp a seat back for support. “Onto the field to meet it. Go!”
The driver said, “Yes, sera,” and the bus hummed forward and gathered speed down the drive.
They veered onto the airport road, and Ari didn’t bother sitting down; neither did Catlin or Florian, and the bus wasted no time, heading down to the airport road, past where the crater in the lawn had been…work crews had righted the damaged lamp, earthmovers and bots had restored the area and put back sod, so there was very little but the seams in the new sod to say where the missile had been. The warehouses nearby, which had taken some damage, were getting new facing; those panels were a little brighter than the rest. Reseune didn’t admit its wounds. It fixed things, fast, all back to normal…on her orders, for morale. On principle.
And if Khalid had something to say, and sent some messenger to deliver threats, she’d hear what he had to say. The media could hear it, as far as she was concerned. And it could equally well hear her answer.
“The media can come out to the landing area if they want to,” she said. “This isn’t going to be off the record, whatever it is. We’re not playing that game.”
“Sera,” Catlin said, “you know this bus is no cover against what they have.”
“Reseune itself isn’t cover against what they have.” If they killed her, if they meant to kill her, it was for one reason; to get a new Reseune administration in charge of a new infant Ari–she sincerely believed it; and to get that, if it was war, Khalid would peel back layers of Reseune until they got what they wanted, with missile after missile, with a landing on that broad, bot‑defended shore, and killing anybody in their path.
She couldn’t win a war only on defense. Not against all the hardware Defense commanded.
She got one com call from Councillor deFranco as the bus was passing the gate–likely the landing was being carried on Reseune’s operations channel, not kept secret from the population; and she had someone else simultaneously trying to call her, probably Chavez or Harad. Either Florian or Catlin could have taken that call, but it wasn’t the moment to distract them from their contact with ReseuneSec.
“It’s a General Klaus Awei,” she said to deFranco.
“ Awei” DeFranco sounded surprised. “He hasn’t been Khalid’s.”
In a bleak landscape, thatwas interesting information. “I’m there.” she said, because the plane was stopped, and opening up, and their bus was pulling into its vicinity. “Call the others, sera. Tell them follow this on the news. I’m there. Got to go.”