Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service (63 page)

‘Don’t be foolish. I’m meant to be looking after you.’

‘Duncan isn’t here and you’re neither my brother or my keeper, Carter Carnehan. You can turn around and leave, but if you choose to go through with this, I’m going to be your shadow.’

Carter looked in desperation at Kerge. ‘Sweet mercy, take her back and let me get on with what I have to do.’

‘I can hardly do that while I am also accompanying you… if only to moderate the worst of your people’s behaviour.’

Carter shook his head in fury, but he had realised he couldn’t create more of a scene without alerting the traitors he hunted. ‘Come then, damn it, and the stealers take you as they find you.’

Annoying Carter was good sport, if hardly a taxing activity, but Willow soon had other things on her mind. They passed into near darkness. There weren’t many lanterns pinned along the walls, wasting power, not with so few workers to benefit from their light. This passage’s surfaces hadn’t been flattened off, and crags and outcrops tried to trip Willow up, both her hands held out in front of her in case she smashed her skull into an overhang. They advanced in complete silence, Carter in front and the gentle sound of the gask’s breathing behind her. The passage reeked of urine and other less salubrious things. Willow had no trouble believing the things that people said happened down here during the dark of night. After five minutes of edging and half-feeling their way forward, the end of the tunnel grew lighter. Someone had brought a mobile lantern, low voices echoing softly as they talked. It was a long way from the rest of the station and there was no good reason for people to be furtively gathered ahead. Willow felt the fear rise tight in her belly. How fiercely would such schemers fight to stop their secret being revealed? At least she would emerge from the darkness, the conspirators’ night vision adjusted to their lantern’s illumination. And Willow would have the element of surprise on her side. The tunnel curved off to the right, an intense yellow light beyond. Carter halted and Willow and Kerge stopped behind him. She followed Carter’s lead and edged around the corner to see what they faced. Just as Carter had predicted, Owen and Anna were inside an oblong-shaped end-chamber, sitting on empty supply crates. A couple of old hands Willow vaguely recognised, senior Weyland men, and a woman who, to her regret, she knew all too well. Hoary old Kassina Hedgepeth, the sorting line’s bad-tempered overseer. All of these people were billeted in different barracks. The only thing they had in common, the fact they had survived while the majority of the slaves taken alongside them had long since perished. Willow noted two pickaxes propped against the wall. They were com­fortable here, they felt secure. The group were too far away for Willow to overhear their conversation properly, but words drifted to her as echoes as the conspirators talked animatedly, hands waving, casting quick shadows on the ceiling from the lamp in their centre.

‘Too busy — stealing.’

‘Going — to — caught.’

‘— to act — now.’

‘I told you,’ whispered Carter. ‘Does that sound like a knitting circle in there to you? We’ll get the truth out of them. Rush them when I move in.’

How many times had these secret meetings been held? Willow felt sick that people she trusted could betray their own countrymen with such ease.

Carter rushed in yelling, his club connecting with the gut of the nearest seated man, sending him sprawling off the empty supply crate. He converted the momentum into an upper cut, catching the second old hand under the chin with a fierce crack that left the man toppling towards the lantern. Willow sprinted towards the two pickaxe handles even as Carter felled the first conspirator, grabbing one and tossing the other towards Khow. She didn’t know which of them looked the most uneasy about wielding a weapon, her or the gask, but at least the weapons weren’t in the hands of the people plotting inside here. Anna, Owen and Kassina leapt to their feet, startled, the look of shock on their faces at being discovered telling its own story.

Carter waved his club in the direction of the remaining three plotters, stepping near the last man standing… Owen Paterson. ‘I know what you are and what you’ve done, and I’m here for a reckoning.’

The two women retreated to the walls of the chamber. The fury Carter was in, he might give them a taste of the club, too. Willow blocked the tunnel exit, just in case they ran for help.

‘That’s too bad for you,’ said Owen.

‘You think?’ Carter drew his makeshift bludgeon back, ready to fell the conspirator. ‘I’m the one holding the club.’

‘But that’s the thing, you’ve brought a club to a gunfight,’ said Owen, nodding towards Anna Kurtain.

Willow groaned. The transporter pilot pulled a Vandian pistol out of her slave’s tunic, its barrel wavering between Carter, Willow and Khow. It looked old and rusty, just the kind of hand-me-down that the imperials would pass to their more trusted collaborators, but Willow didn’t doubt for a second it was still serviceable.

Anna pointed the pistol at Carter. ‘Move back and drop the club!’

‘I’d suggest you obey her,’ said Owen. ‘You wouldn’t be the first person she’s killed in the sky mines to protect me.’

Willow gasped. So, the rumours were true. There really were collaborators on the station, keeping an eye on operations and making sure any trouble was brutally crushed before it spread.

Reluctantly, Carter let the club fall to the floor and stepped protectively towards Willow. Kassina Hedgepeth advanced on Willow, seizing the club from her hand before snatching Kerge’s too. Then the humourless old overseer stepped back, leaving a nice clear field of fire for Anna. ‘They know about you, Paterson. Put a bullet in their heads and let’s roll them off the roof before we’re missed for our next shift.’ She looked with contempt at Carter. ‘Everyone will think he leapt off, anyway.’ She pointed at Willow. ‘Lady Muck here, mooning after this fool, maybe she jumped off after him. And nobody will miss the gask – he’s twisted, not even common pattern.’

Willow glared with loathing at the overseer. ‘He’s more human than you are.’

‘This is unnecessary,’ said Kerge, even his normally reasonable voice sounding strained and uncertain.

Anna’s arm straightened, getting ready for the killing shot. ‘None of you can leave here alive.’

‘Get it over with,’ snarled Carter. ‘I’ve had all I can stand of your traitors’ stink.’

Willow shut her eyes. She wasn’t sure whose hand reached for whose first, but her fingers were finally curled around Carter’s. Far too late for either of them.

Major Alock examined the map on the folding table, Grand Duke Bragin sitting on his mobile throne, twitching and squirming, while the soldiers who had carried him in front of the command tent hovered vigilantly by his side. As always, the ruler’s damned hounds followed the man like a moving carpet, leaping up at officers’ legs and urinating against the vehicles’ armoured sides. Normally his sedan chair would have been carried around by slaves, but nobody in the regiments of Hangel trusted the gads to stay loyal – not even as water and ammunition carriers. The crews of the armoured force and infantry accompanying them were solely Hangel. Out on the plains the engines of the waiting lines of armour lay switched off, troops stretching out canopies as shade from the relentless sun.

A junior officer pointed to an area of the map with his swagger stick. Swaggering was something that seemed to come naturally to Hangel’s army. It remained to be seen how well they would fight. ‘This village is where the scouts tracked the gathered tribes.’

Alock exchanged a glance with his own lieutenants. ‘And you are certain the escaped Weylanders are still with them?’

‘They’re parading Jok around as though he is a siege cannon that will bring them victory.’

‘He is a dirty old thief,’ said Alock. ‘And I don’t care what twisted people he belongs to. When I’ve chained each of his arms and legs to a tank, I’ll see how well he heals after he’s been ripped apart.’

‘You will not need to,’ hooted the grand duke. ‘My diviners have foreseen his end. He and the other foreigners will be obliterated in a fiery explosion. The gad village burnt to the ground. The plains filled with fleeing gads! Victory is certain! My armoured squadrons are unstoppable!’

Alock grunted. He didn’t put much faith in the ravings of the demented, tortured witch-doctors Bragin kept caged like parrots. Trundling the prisoners out and drugging them so heavily they had all died. There had been hell to pay for that error. Those creatures would have said anything to keep the grand duke happy before rolling around their cage floors in agony and expiring.
Of little matter
. After this battle, the grand duke would have many more shaman prisoners to play with and amuse him during his idle moments. Major Alock glanced over at the tank squadrons, each vehicle mounted with massive cannons, metal ramparts filled with riflemen. Infantry regiments drawn up in the shadow of the vehicles they flanked. There were hardly any troops left in the city, but that was not a problem. After the cull, there weren’t many gads left either. The price of slaves was going to rise in the coming weeks, and if Alock and his troopers played their cards right here, they would take enough trading flesh in the aftermath to make them all rich men. It would make up for losing one of Benner Landor’s money chests to the so-called ‘Jok’.

‘Divide the armour into three columns,’ advised Alock, tapping the village on the map. ‘One large force in the centre, two supporting columns on either side. Let the centre column drive forward and engage those too slow, drunk or stupid to retreat. Then the two supporting lines will advance and close around the fleeing warriors, cut them off, and slaughter the tribesmen from all sides simultaneously. If the tribes crack early, form a line and crush them as they retreat.’

‘We should engage from a distance, instead,’ said a Hangel general. ‘Form an arc in front of the village and bombard them until they break.’

‘Break and
scatter
,’ sighed Alock. He didn’t need a diviner to tell this buffoon had come up through the ranks as an artilleryman. ‘If the natives are routed and you are not prepared, your descendants will go to their graves still facing hit-and run-attacks by guerrillas. The witch doctors’ prophecy is a blessing, not a curse. It has actually made your enemies stupid enough to muster and face Hangel’s regiments. Arrowheads against steel armour and repeating rifles. The imperium has given you the blue prints and steel for
mobile
weaponry. You have not cast accidentally-travelling cannons; you should never fight your next war with the tools of the last one.’

‘Who are you to lecture me?’ protested the general, his ruddy self-satisfied expression vanishing.

Alock drove his fist into the table. ‘These are aggressive weapons. They are used to drive and smash. Caution only favours the enemy. So attack, attack, attack!’

Grand Duke Bragin’s dogs started barking and running in circles at the excitement. ‘Yes, that’s the spirit. The gads back in the city gave us no trouble, and my men were on foot, not protected inside my new steel fortresses.’

‘With respect, Your Majesty, these are warriors of the gad,’ said the general, ‘protecting soil they believe to be holy. No soldier that has experience hunting them through the grasslands would ever underestimate their talent for warfare.’

‘Holy soil!’ screeched the grand duke. ‘Let us consecrate it, then, with their blood. Destroy them. Crush them. Let the Age of the Seven Suns end mangled next to their corpses, let it end crushed beneath our tracks. We shall strike as the Weylander has suggested. Go back to the squadrons and bring your engines to life.’

Alock left the gathering with his troopers, the hounds’ barking disappearing behind him. It was hard to tell who the biggest lapdogs were among the dilettante rankers. Hangel’s fighters had cut their teeth smashing slaves’ faces into the ground, and that was easy work. Not the standard he had trained to. But the grand duke had the tools and numbers to do the job, and to the major that was ultimately all that counted.

‘What about the pastor and his people?’ asked a lieutenant.

Alock tilted the rim of his hat up. ‘They’ve proven too slippery. I’m growing bored with life on the road. Screw an interrogation. I don’t care if God is personally sending angels to whisper the emperor’s plans in Father Carnehan’s ear each night. The pastor can take his secrets to the grave. Find them. Kill them. Bullet or blade, no difference to me.’

‘I enjoy the simple plans,’ said the lieutenant.

And so, in truth, did Alock. Brutal, but effective, as long as you possessed the might to drive it through; like the joyous sound of running a sabre through a man’s chest. Forgoing his prisoners’ interrogation meant abstaining from their torture. He would have enjoyed the opportunity of making each of the troublesome expedition members really
feel
their deaths. The major listened to the call of engines rumbling into life across the plain. A concert to his ears, and this was just the beginning of the first movement. What a glorious trade. Killing was all the major existed for. He just didn’t seem capable of feeling much else. The feeling of power as his victims begged for life, bringing him for just that brief second the power of a god with control over life or death. And in the end, it was always death. Because nobody in power paid good money to keep their enemies alive.

THIRTEEN

THE STONE GARDEN

Duncan passed below an arch in the hedgerow, beyond which Princess Helrena was meant to be resting. Inside the part of the castle’s grounds called the Stone Garden, after the ancient circle of standing stones that formed the centre of the ornamental park. Duncan was close to the edge of the cliff. In the distance he could hear waves breaking against the rocks. A regular crashing rhythm intermingled with the crackle of the lightning fence – great steel spikes as tall as church spires exchanging vaulting spikes of electricity between each other. Ready to fry any assassin or rioter who made it over the outer battlement, past the guard posts, and navigated the mine field beyond that. Even here in the gardens, you were always reminded of the defences protecting the Castle of Snakes. When Duncan had first arrived as a house slave, he had thought those precautions paranoid. Now he had seen a little of the nature and number of the enemies Helrena and her family faced, he knew it was merely what was necessary. He wondered again why he had been unexpectedly summoned to see the head of the house. The princess should be far too distracted to waste time with him. There was meant to be some grand gathering of Helrena’s allies convening later to discuss the emperor’s deteriorating health and how best to prepare for the struggle for the throne. But there was a part of Duncan that no longer felt curiosity, or much else at all. He was just going through the motions. It was as though a grey veil had been drawn over his life, eliminating every vestige of colour and brightness. It didn’t matter what young Lady Cassandra ate now – the food Duncan tasted for her might as well have been ashes in his mouth. Poison would have been a welcome distraction. What was the point of Duncan now? Before his capture, he had been dedicated to making a new life with Adella, proving he could be someone outside his father’s shadow. Showing he didn’t need all that wealth and power. What a joke! Instead, he had ended up stranded at the other end of the globe, drawn into the lethal intrigues of foreigners, and with the woman he had thought was his life throwing him under the carriage’s wheels to save her own skin. If there was a bigger fool in all the nations, then the world was far too large for Duncan Landor to bump into him.

He’d reached the heart of this place. There was the stone circle the garden had been named after, ancient black monoliths brooding and scarred by the ages. A large circular aviary the size of a house had been raised behind the stones, with Princess Helrena in front of it. She was on a folding seat with an easel in front of her, painting one of the birds. Duncan checked around. There appeared to be no bodyguards present. So, this is where she came to be alone with her thoughts. Not much use to Duncan: he wished his thoughts would stop chasing him. Towards the back of the gardens a concrete dome rotated on a steel disc, its clanking noise catching Duncan’s eye as four massive barrels tracked something flying near the castle’s air space. He pitied anything that tried to kill Helrena Skar here, inside her territory.

‘Do you sketch and paint, Weylander?’ asked the princess as he walked within earshot.

‘Not one of my talents,’ said Duncan.

‘A pity. In the empire, it is regarded as an essential part of nobility. We master weapons, strategy, politics and combat alongside such arts as poetry, illustration and calligraphy. Even flower arranging. It is considered a mark of refinement.’

‘I’ve got a flower arranging tip for you,’ said Duncan, pointing to the rear of the formal gardens. ‘Your woodland aspect would look a lot better if it wasn’t overlooked by quite so many gun emplacements.’

‘Your insolence has been absent of late,’ said Helrena, placing her brush down by the easel. ‘Normally I would applaud, but your maudlin demeanour has been noted by my daughter, and it is now infecting her. Cassandra is normally far more resilient, which means, I suspect, that she likes you more than she should.’

‘Cassandra reminds me of my sister, Willow, when she was younger,’ said Duncan. He was too diplomatic to say her better parts. Being raised amidst the snake pit of imperial politics, it was a miracle the young noblewoman hadn’t crumbled under the strain.

Helrena stepped aside. She had painted a green bird inside the cage, flashes of brilliant red in its plumage. ‘Paetro tells me your dark mood is because of the woman, the one we sold to my cousin.’

‘Sold her? You should have made her a full citizen. She earned it.’

‘If you live long enough, everyone will betray you,’ said the princess.

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘You don’t want to believe it, but part of you knows it is true. It is something my mother used to say to me. It proved all too prophetic in her case. She was poisoned in a hospital’s delivery room by the friend she asked to attend the birth.’

‘I was told your mother’s death was not proven as murder.’

Helrena stood up from her seat in front of the easel. ‘No, never
proved
. You do not kill a wife and unborn son of the emperor with impunity, even if you are Circae; even when my father has so many children and concubines. But I doubt it was any coincidence that following my mother’s funeral, my mother’s “dear friend” rose far and fast among circles of influence controlled by Circae.’

‘This place,’ said Duncan. ‘This city. There’s too much power and wealth here. It twists and distorts everything. Lives and values alike. Nobody should have to leave the world like that. I told Paetro you’d be better off taking Cassandra and fleeing for the provinces.’

‘You lack the experience of my life to judge.’

‘I had a taste of it at home. Not on the same scale as the empire, but a taste of it all the same. Money and influence; everyone fawning over you because of who your parents are. Your jokes are funnier, your decisions are better than anyone else’s – however stupid. I was planning to leave; just up sticks and take myself and Adella somewhere far away, another league nation, one of our neighbours. I would have walked away and not given what I’d left behind a second glance.’

‘There is no country so barbaric or so far from the imperium that it is not within range of our ships,’ said Helrena. ‘You of all people should know that. Those who would destroy my house would celebrate if I fled… before exploiting the opportunity to settle old scores far away from my forces and friends. There are some things you can never run away from; you just have to turn and face them.’

‘Another of your mother’s sayings?’

‘Something Cassandra’s father used to say.’

And from what I’ve heard, it got him killed as well
. ‘And here was me thinking
I
was the slave here.’

‘You are,’ said Helrena. ‘And as the mistress of the house, it is my duty to make sure you do not wither away from a broken heart and distract my daughter from her education.’

Duncan shrugged, sadly. ‘There are a lot of things the owner of slave can command him, but “be happy” isn’t one of them.’

‘Let us see,’ said Helrena. She pushed Duncan down onto the chair and kissed him with the kind of ferocity that should have been reserved for combat.
Maybe this counts
? ‘Be happy!’

He drew back on the chair, shocked, his eyes casting around for the guards that would give him a beating for such a gross breach of caste protocol. ‘I could be executed for that.’

‘On the contrary, the road to execution lies in refusing to obey me. A few years ago I came to the conclusion I did not need the complications that arise from nobles of the upper-celestial ranks mistaking a physical union for a political one. I trust the decade’s difference between us does not wilt your desire… I prefer to take my sport with younger, more vigorous lovers. Do I really need to command you to your station?’ She ran her hands down his trousers. ‘No, it would appear not.’

‘Back in Weyland, this is what they call catching someone on the rebound.’

‘Your people have such a barbaric turn of phrase.’ Helrena undid the ribbon from her elaborate pile of hair, her fingers reaching behind his back and tying his hands together. ‘But then, I suppose you used to strut around as a brutish barbarian lord among your people. I think I will need to protect myself from you.’ He tugged at the bindings, but whatever knot she had used, his hands were well secured; there would be sailors in the Lancean Ocean envious of her talent. Then she drew her dress up and took Duncan as her seat. ‘So, Duncan of Weyland, you are
on the rebound
? I think with right encouragement you shall bounce back admirably.’

Duncan had no choice but to look at her as she dragged her fingers through the hair at the back of his head. ‘What if I told you I didn’t think this was going to make me any happier?’

She kissed him hotly on the lips, before whispering in his ear. ‘Do I look like that would make the slightest difference to me? I am quite selfish that way.’

By the time Duncan had been finished with, he had to admit, the imperium possessed interesting techniques to compel a slave away from misery. At least for a little while.

Duncan waited with Paetro outside the Castle of Snakes’ largest hall. This was the focus of the conference being hosted for the house’s allies. Lady Cassandra had been allowed to sit in on the preliminary discussions as part of her tuition, but the hour approached when the main meeting would start. No doubt she would be particularly prickly when she had to turn to her dry lessons with Doctor Horvak instead. At the moment, Cassandra was inside, listening to the raised voices Duncan heard arguing. He couldn’t discern any details, but then he didn’t need to. The tone spoke volumes. Self-regarding opportunism dressed up as politics. The corridor outside had filled with dignitaries and their bodyguards. They had been deprived of their ranged weapons and carried short-swords only, but Paetro still appeared ill-tempered with so many strangers allowed into the castle at the same time. He saw threats in every shadow.

‘The airfield must be reaching capacity,’ said Duncan.

‘That it is, lad,’ said Paetro. ‘But there’s one amenity our “honoured guests” won’t find inside the castle that I wager they’ll have in theirs.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A chamber with a harem. And a wise man might ask why that was.’

‘Maybe because silks, perfumes and cushions wouldn’t suit this place.’

‘I’m merely passing the time, is all; chewing the fat. Aye, it’s hardly for old Paetro to gainsay the mistress’s commands, except to point out that in this house, the position of consort tends towards a shorter term than the role of food-taster.’

Duncan shrugged. ‘The role of a slave here seems to involve obeying commands.’

‘Princess Helrena needs to spend more time in the fencing hall, sharpening her combat skills. Not jawing with these celestial-caste aristos… or any
other
distractions.’

‘She’s sharp enough as she is.’

‘Do you think so? There’re rumours that Circae intends to have one of her allies issue a challenge against our mistress. As soon as they can manufacture a casus belli that satisfies imperial law, it’ll be sabres or pistols inside an arena. You mark my words.’

‘Would the fight be broadcast on the screens?’

‘That it would, lad. The lower castes are mad for it, the chance to see their rulers’ blood spilled in the sand. Two houses going at each other. The biggest riots always break out in the losing district; it’s almost a tradition here.’

‘Why do they run the broadcasts, then?’

‘Draining the boil, lad, draining the boil. You control when trouble breaks out, scoop out the worst offenders with riot tractors, and haul in hardy “volunteers” for the legion on the side.’

‘You served with such men?’

‘Best fighters we ever fielded,’ grunted Paetro, before turning his attention towards a soldier walking up to them. The guardsman bowed, passing Paetro a read out from the castle’s radio room. Paetro read the orders and snorted. ‘Lady Cassandra’s visit to the new power plant this evening has been cancelled… teething problems. I wouldn’t want to be the overseer across there. Find Hesia and tell her she can run some helo maintenance after all.’

‘What if there’s a delivery from the kitchens?’

Paetro jerked a large thumb towards the doorway into the con­ference, soldiers with rifles standing at attention on either side. ‘Nobody’s interrupting them for food. Head back to the doctor’s laboratory when you’re done. It’ll be science, history and supper for the little Highness, in that order.’

Duncan turned and was about to obey when he saw Helrena sweeping down the passage, exchanging greetings with the crowd of nobles. It was hard to tell who the visitors were more obsequious toward: the princess, or the deadly head of the secret police, Apolleon, trailing by her side. If Duncan felt awkward around Helrena, she showed little of it, acting as though nothing had passed between them.
That’s probably because for her, nothing has
.

Helrena brushed past Duncan as though he wasn’t there. Unfortunately for him, the pallid, foppish Apolleon showed no such compulsion in avoiding toying with her servants. ‘Ah, our sturdy young sky miner. Still keeping Lady Cassandra safe, I trust?’

‘Such is my duty, sir.’

‘Indeed. And very
diverting
it must prove for you.’ The way the head of the imperium’s secret police rolled the word around his tongue, he might as well have been an audience applauding inside the Stone Garden. He clasped Duncan a little too warmly on the shoulder and moved off. The false bonhomie meant Duncan was greeted as a duke while leaving him feeling as insignificant as any slave in the capital. That was a definite knack, a skill not easily acquired. You had to work at it. Duncan sighed and left to locate their helo pilot, Hesia.

All afternoon the Castle of Snakes’ passages had been packed with staff busily working – looking after visitors and their entourages, making sure that every corner of the castle was presentable. Duncan headed for the domed hangars overlooking the airfields. Their hangars joined the complex’s eastern side like massive concrete toadstools, sheltered from the sea by a line of defensive towers and bunkers. Duncan could hear the air-slicing thump of helos still landing outside. More of the nobility that suckled on the house’s mining wealth, arriving to argue about carving up the larger pie that would become available along with the imperial throne.
Damn, but it’s busy
. Visiting pilots escorted in the direction of the military canteens, ground staff dragging cables and equipment pods out, servants waiting to guide new arrivals through the maze of concrete tunnels and guard posts. Duncan moved out of the way as a vehicle hauled a large steel fuel tank past, slowly manoeuvring through the crowds. Someone wanted visiting aircraft to be able to take off promptly. It was a fine idea, growing even more attractive to Duncan when he spotted who had just landed outside. Baron Machus! Helrena’s cousin swept through the hangar accompanied by a full retinue of advisors and soldiers. And the current favourites from Machus’s harem to flaunt his virility in front of his fellow nobles… Adella at the back of the prince’s entour­age. As Adella passed through the hangar she was talking with the pilot Duncan had arrived to see.
What’s the devious bitch up to now? How does she know Hesia
? As Duncan watched, Adella passed what might be a brooch to Hesia, and the pilot pocketed it. He didn’t think he could stomach talking to Adella again, not now he knew that her luxurious dress had been paid for in Weyland blood. Duncan and Carter’s blood, too, for all she had known at the time. He ducked behind a parked helo, ignoring curious looks from a pair of mechanics in brown boiler suits delving inside its engine panel. Duncan observed Adella trail the group. Machus and his retinue disappeared down a passage, and then Duncan headed for Hesia. The female pilot had stopped in front of a helo, talking to its ground crew. It was one of the bigger aircraft, with twin rotors on top, designed to lift a company of house troops. He went up to her and pulled the woman aside.