The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [20]
‘If this is the first stage in erasing evidence,’ Kao Chih said, ‘then we got here just in time.’
‘Just so.’ Qabakri glanced up the mountain slope and down to the dusty plains. ‘We should continue this indoors, for the sake of caution.’
Once inside, past a narrow tunnel and a heavy security door, Kubaczyk and Qabakri sat around a table with the datatablet propped beside them. The captain and Qabakri discussed the locations of the main groups of the Va-Zla while one of the Pyreans brought out maps of the colony districts. These were image-captured by Kao Chih’s displays then quickly passed through a graphicker system that created an amalgamated schematic suitable for field use. By now, more troopers had arrived by Marauder and Kubaczyk decided that he had sufficient strength to move against the gangsters.
The Suneye Monoclan might be the supreme industrial power on Pyre yet they were happy to allow a criminal faction like the Va-Zla to move in and run various kinds of vile activity. On his last visit, Kao Chih had heard of their ruthless cruelties and brutish greed. Now however, faced with well-armed and trained soldiers, they put up a poor fight. There was still a hard core, the Kiskashin leaders, who barricaded themselves into a warehouse then ranted and raved over a comm link about the vengeance that the Vox Humana would bring down upon themselves.
‘I warn you,’ the Va-Zla leader had said. ‘The Suneye Monoclan will not stand idly by while you defile their domain. Wherever you go or how far, their relentless and righteous anger will hunt you to the edge of the galaxy and beyond. The Lords of Suneye never abandon their property!’
After which they suddenly burst out of the warehouse, guns blazing, only to go down under the weapons of the Vox H troopers, bloodily slain to the last.
After that, the evacuation proceeded with remarkable smoothness, some hitches, a minimum of argument and controversy (although there were a few minor aggravations when officials in Tangxia thought they were being passed over for supposedly better quarters aboard the Nestinar). Most of the time Kao Chih was in constant contact with Qabakri, helping direct aid to the old and the sick, as well as the hungry and the weak. Some of the images that crossed his screens deepened his anger towards the Suneye thieves.
Population totals for the districts were vital when it came to reckoning boarding numbers for the transports. The reckoning for Yaotai was roughly 4,400, Tangxia about 9,100, and Shibei 10,158 (according to a wizened old census taker). The provisional estimate was 23,700, which all three transports were capable of sustaining with space to spare. The Nestinar was larger than the Marzanna but had wider boarding gantries, allowing for a smooth embarkation mostly free from complications and bottlenecks. And as fate would have it, throughout the whole operation three pregnant women went into labour while waiting in line and another did the same during the ascent to orbit.
In the event, both the Marzanna and the Nestinar made two pickup runs, transferring some to the troopship Viteazul. This left the Viteazul more than two-thirds full with over 11,000 colonists and the other two loaded almost to capacity, with a grand total of 24,082. And from the arrival of Kubaczyk’s Marauder to the departure of the last colonists aboard the Nestinar, the entire evacuation took nearly fourteen hours. By the bleached light of a cold, hazy morning, Kao Chih stood leaning against the black hull of a Marauder, watching the Nestinar’s gantries retracting and its ports sealing as the suspensors came online. The antigrav helices drew in air and dust and grit with a sharp rushing sound. Then the ship rose, jet thrusters manoeuvring, sending it on its ascending trajectory. Minutes later it was a dot dwindling in the high distance.
Kao Chih then looked about him at the rounded barren hills, the mountain’s stony slopes, and the gaping entrance to the colony’s now vacant tunnels. Belongings of every kind lay scattered on