The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [15]
“The weather is certainly a bit aberrant,” Doveror said gravely.
“Aberrant!?” Eska almost grabbed Doveror by the neck ridges. “‘Aberrant’is a few extra centimeters of rain per year. The first hailstorm in the recorded history of this continent is not ‘aberrant.’ Thunder intense enough to shatter our allegedly unbreakable windows is not ‘aberrant’! Someone is attacking us, and I want to know who.”
Coram fixed his commanding officer with a dubious glance as the turbolift doors opened. “Attack? That seems unlikely, sir.”
Eska stepped out of the lift into the large room. Consoles lined three of the walls, and a large round desk sat in the center. The fourth wall was taken up with a viewscreen. Currently on that screen was an image of the capital city, which was a chaotic jumble of snow, sleet, freezing rain, hail, and wind. “Weather patterns don’t develop like this naturally,” Eska said, pointing to the viewscreen, “and they certainly don’t develop out of a cloudless sky.”
One of the glinns sitting at the main operations table said, “Sir, we’re picking up—something in orbit.”
Eska threw his towel angrily at Doveror, who fumbled to catch it, and approached the table. “Define ‘something,’ Glinn.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, sir,” she said. “We can’t get a firm fix on it. It’s probably a ship, but—” Her eyes widened. “Sir, it’s firing on the orbital defense satellites!”
“Return fire!” Then Eska frowned. “Why didn’t the satellites challenge that ship immediately?”
“Not sure, sir—best guess, the indeterminate readings were too anomalous for the computer to register as a threat. Honestly, sir, I probably wouldn’t have bothered reporting it to you if not for everything else that was happening—and because the weather changes matched when the reading appeared in orbit.” She peered at her display. “Sir, all orbital defenses are down!”
Eska was about to say that that was impossible, that one anomalous reading shouldn’t be able to take out six satellites, but he was interrupted by the shaking of the entire room. Loose items fell to the floor, and several people followed the objects. Eska was not among those, as he gained purchase on the edge of the center table even as his footing was momentarily lost.
When the ground settled, he turned to the glinn. “That was a lightning strike, sir,” she said in a very small voice.
“That was lightning?” Eska obviously needed to revise his estimates on what was impossible.
“Yes, sir.” She peered down at her console, then looked back up at Eska. “The subbasements are still structurally sound, but the infrastructure of the aboveground portion of the building is compromised.”
“Evacuate the building immediately.”
“Sir, I don’t think they’ll be any safer out there. The winds are now at two hundred—”
Eska’s head swam. “They’re still safer in the open than inside a fifty-story building that’s about to collapse!”
“Yes, sir.”
He whirled to face Coram, who was now at a communications console. “Get me Evek!”
“Waiting for his reply now, sir,” Coram said in a surprisingly calm voice. It made Eska realize just how hysterical he was starting to sound.
Eska turned to the viewscreen. People, both civilians and Central Command soldiers, were running out of the building. You could tell the difference only by what they were wearing, as they all had the same panicked look as they dashed about madly. The building itself was quite literally a shell of its former self. Its roginium superstructure was all that was left—the transparent aluminum had been blasted away, as had the plastiform that made up the interior walls.
If this place is collapsing, Eska thought with horror, then the rest of the city’s buildings will be dust before this is over. And we have no defenses…. Eska silently cursed whoever was responsible for not assigning any ships to Nramia. He could hear whichever idiot Central Command bureaucrat it was now, going on about how the orbital defenses were more than sufficient