Aftermath - Ann Aguirre [5]
“We should look for survivors,” I say at last.
We ready our weapons in case the Morgut sent a ground team—yet why would they? They can continue the blitz from above. The missiles aren’t toxic, so the natural beauty will rebound in time—and by then, they will have claimed the lush, tropical paradise, a replacement for their own dying world. Once they establish a foothold on Venice Minor, fighting them will be more difficult. For all I know, they might breed fast enough to compensate for the troops lost in grimspace, and then we’ll be back where we started—with no solution in sight.
Still, I power up my laser pistol, wanting it charged and ready in case we run into trouble. Silently, Hit does the same. We move through the burning graveyard with the scent of smoke and scorched metal in our nostrils, compounded with a chemical burn that makes breathing difficult. There’s no telling what might be in the air, but I don’t have any air scrubbers handy. The little ship we departed in offered no special equipment, and there’s nothing left intact here on the ground.
“Any movement?”
Grimly, Hit shakes her head, continuing to pick a path through the wreckage. It looks as if we’ve lost all our ships. How many dead? So far, we see no signs that anybody survived the attack. As far as I know, my mother didn’t have an emergency bunker. Nobody would reckon that a necessity on Venice Minor.
My timing was off. I didn’t get there fast enough. They’ll find some way to blame you for this, a cynical little voice says.
I shake my head, trying to silence it. The Conglomerate isn’t like Farwan, I tell myself. If I’d been here, I only would’ve died with them. No help in that. But maybe it would’ve been better for me. More than most, I know the pain of surviving.
There is an awful gravitas in standing at ceremony after ceremony, listening to a holy man intone words that are supposed be comforting but instead merely remind you that you’ve been left behind.
Not this time, I tell myself. You’ll find them.
In slow, stealthy movement, we complete our circuit of the perimeter. No bodies, but I recognize the stench of burned meat. It lingers in the air; people become ash in a white-hot instant. They rain down on us in the aftermath, clinging to our skin and hair, the dust of the ones we loved drifting in ladders of light. This is a wound too grave for weeping, a silence of the soul burned black as a night without stars.
.CLASSIFIED - TRANSMISSION.
.SUCCESS.
.FROM-EDUN_LEVITER.
.TO-SUNI_TARN.
.ENCRYPT-DESTRUCT-ENABLED.
From the tone of your last communiqué, I believe you have become anxious about my safety. That is . . . unusual for me. I am not accustomed to anyone noticing whether I disappear or run silent, as is sometimes necessary. Tarn, my work is, as they say, often best done in the dark.
At any rate, I am pleased to report success at last. It took nearly all my guile and expertise to interest the gray men in a mutually beneficial arrangement, as they had found much to occupy them since Farwan’s fall. They required convincing that it was not less complicated to hunt whomever they choose—with little or no authority to stop them. But at length, I reminded them that hunts sanctioned by an operational governing body carry no repercussions. They do miss that autonomy, and they are willing to talk terms with the Conglomerate. With judicious financial finagling, you can afford them.
Attached, please find the coordinates for a meeting that will permit the gray men to commence seek-and-destroy on those Morgut vessels that survived the carnage above Venice Minor, and the subsequent grimspace disaster.
For your other remarks, I respect a man who is capable of owning his moments of self-doubt. Mary knows, we’ve all had them, questioned our course, or whether we deserve the boons life has bestowed upon us. I think no one could