Missing Elements (The Lament Book 3) (19 page)

It took a bit to hammer out all
the details, but they agreed to hold the event at three, meaning that she had
to get all the people into place by two-thirty. That would make for a tight
time frame, but she decided to do it. Just having something like that set up
would make it safer and more special seeming. She hoped it worked that way, at
least.

Before she left, walking with
Clark, Mara, Bards Clarice and Kabrin and Tuvin, she explained the idea,
quietly.

No one said much about it
however, either too tired from all the dancing or too worried about what the
next day would bring. She was exhausted, herself. Still, as soon as she could
get away from everyone, she washed her old black clothing carefully, hanging it
to dry. All of it, since it was either covered with clay or dried sweat. That
meant she was sleeping in the nude that night, waking every ten minutes,
fearing that someone would come in and attack her while she was vulnerable.

Even the radio didn't make a
sound. Not until morning, when light was coming through the window of her room,
if dimly. Before true dawn.

"Emergency. Anyone, please
respond. Emergency! This is The Remote. Repeat, this is The Remote. We're under
attack! Please respond!"

Pran was still bleary eyed and
sleepy headed, but ran, stumbling, across the room. The cold air woke her, her
arms and legs instantly showing gooseflesh.

"This is Lincoln, I hear you
Remote. Give a report?"

"Lincoln? Thank God! We're
deflated, due to a storm, and bandits are trying to cut the lines. We're
currently just outside of Clemet, near Oaktree, the Captain and First Mate have
gone to hold the doors. We need help! There must be twenty of them out there.
If they set the bag on fire, we'll roast alive in here!"

"Understood. I'll set up
aid. Keep calling and try to find out if anyone is in the area. Who is
this?"

"Apprentice Shipman Lars,
ma'am."

"All right, Lars. Keep
making those calls, and don't worry too much. Bandits will want your goods, and
if they set you on fire they get nothing." She didn't know if that was the
case, but it sounded better than her screaming about his impending death. She
even sounded relaxed and confident.

"Right. Yeah. I'll see to
it."

"I'm clearing the channel
then. Stay near the device."

Then, after pulling a blanket
from the bed to wrap up in, she padded into the house, shouting.

"Emergency! The Remote is
under attack! Get Bard Clarice!" She was ready to keep screaming for a
while but after the first round, a man repeated her words, shouting, which got
Clark and Mara to come out of their rooms, dashing down the hallway. Pran followed,
repeating what Apprentice Lars had said.

"I told him to keep trying
to summon aid, but I doubt anyone will get there in time. There was no mention
of a Guardian being on board." Which at least meant no Judge. They'd
almost certainly have a Doctor however. Plus crew, who all had lives that might
be lost as she listened, helplessly.

That... It was a feeling that
she'd lived with most of her life. Even when she'd tried to do things to make a
difference, to improve her world or that of other people, Pran always carried
that with her. The feeling of being too small. Too weak, to do anything that
would ever make a difference. She
had
though. In little ways, and not
all that often, but a few times she'd done things that showed she wasn't
totally lost in the world. Hadn't she?

Nothing too major, but she'd gone
into an alley to fight a rapist, and that had saved Meridith, the victim of the
crime... half a rape or more. It might have even saved her life. There was no
way to prove that however.

With the attack of the tech-cult
people on The Lament, the downloads as it turned out, she'd saved lives, hadn't
she? That was a known thing. She'd heard the people talking herself. Only, now
that she thought about it, they hadn't said they were going to kill the crew or
anything. They even had people on board. Like Michael Morse. The man who'd
created the world that they all lived in.

Wanting to sigh in frustration,
Pran realized that she might have simply been killing people that were a lot
more innocent than she'd thought. Not that it had felt like there was any other
way at the time. That might be the best she could do in life. Just bumble along
hoping that people were really in need of her help.

Well, if nothing else, she'd done
some laundry, and entertained a few people along the way. Thinking of that she
looked down, as a still awake High Bard came running down the hallway, from a
direction nowhere near her own room. It seemed there was the regular party
going on, elsewhere in the giant place.

Pran didn't wave to her, using
both hands to keep the bed cover wrapped tightly around her.

"This way. There's an attack
on an Airship. The Remote. They're trying to fight, but it sounds dire.
Bandits, if Lars has it right. The Shipman on the radio."

Then she turned and scurried. It
wasn't a full run, so everyone kept up with her easily enough. They didn't even
look at her funny, having no clothes on. It wasn't really needed, she was
willing to bet, but when they got to her room, well down the long wood floored
hallway, she called out, dashing to her bathroom.

"I need to get dressed. It's
on channel eight." The voice was still repeating a distress call, but as
she got into the other room, the door still open, she heard a woman speaking
over the box.

"This is The Clementine.
Come in Remote."

There was more talking then, so
she didn't close the door, just pulling on the still very damp and cool
clothing she had hanging on the wall bars. They were meant for towels, but had
worked well enough for her purposes. Gooseflesh puckered the skin on her arms
and made her head bristly, hair all on end from the cold, but there was no time
to stand and shiver.

Except, really, there was. The
honest fact was a thing that the lady, who was the First Mate of the Clementine
if she were being honest, explained to the boy. Without ever really doing that
in so many words.

"Understood Remote. We're
coming. Our ETA is... Seven hours. Can you hold the ship that long?"

There was dead silence, or nearly
so. In the background Pran could make out the sound of loud pops and screaming.
Some shouting, too. Not the words themselves, but the noise and din of a battle
going on. It seemed pretty real to her then.

Lars sounded freaked, but finally
replied.

"I... Don't think so. I
should go and... Fight, I guess. Seven hours? Hurry." Then the line went
silent.

There was a button on the talking
part of the device that had to be pushed, in order for it to allow sound to
travel into the world, however that worked. If the boy, who was a man and not a
child, no matter what he sounded like, had run off to help, that's what would
happen. It meant they had no way to get new information however.

Hopefully they could hold out, or
win the fight. Pran doubted that would happen. It forced a wave of self-doubt
to rush over her. It was cold. A clammy feeling that reminded her that she was,
and always would be, small, helpless and alone. She shook a bit, and wrapped
her arms in front of her, worried for those people so far away. Ones she didn't
even know and couldn't do a thing to protect. If she were there, things would
have been different.

The idea took her for a second,
and visions of heroics popped into the front of her brain, but then faded
nearly as fast as they came in. What would she have done really? Grab an air
rifle and shoot at the attackers? Poorly, if she were going to be honest.
Apprentice Lars would do just as well at that as she would have. Possibly
better, if he'd been a hunter or target shooter before taking his current
training.

Now if Mara and Clark where
there, or even
Zeke
, things might well be different.

That thought got her to blink.

"Um... Clarice? Do you have
people on The Remote?" The idea was hazy at best, since not all of those
old time tech people from the System were fighters either, but if a few were,
it could help. Maybe.

"On most of the ships. Why?
Do you think we're behind this attack? That isn't the goal, as far as I know.
Not even the Firmament would try it. Going to war with the people we want to
help makes no sense. Killing those people would just turn the rest of us inside
still against them. The politics wouldn't work for that." She sounded both
certain of that information, as if merely speaking a truth, and worried at the
same time. It showed too, as she glanced at Mara and Clark, waiting for them to
accuse her and those like her of anything, as long as it was bad.

Both Guardians looked at her
though. Curious, rather than upset.

Pran was still holding herself,
thin arms folded over her middle, trying to hold in what heat she could. It
wasn't doing much to help, but she had to try.

Shaking her head, her teeth
chattering, Pran cleared her throat.

"But if they
can
do
something, and aren't to prevent being found out-" That didn't get the
obvious pointed out, which was that no one was at the radio anymore, so it wouldn't
matter.

Bard Clarice didn't even try to
talk to Lars again. Or anyone in the room, just walking to the wooden box, the
polished outside of it barely gleaming in the light of the gas lamp on the wall
that had been set to light when they'd come in, it's blue flame hissing into
the still dark morning. Instead, she slipped her hand to the left hand side,
and pushed on a panel there and then pulled the piece up, exposing a different
set of control knobs, as soon as Pran walked around to look at what she was
doing.

She turned one of them, and the
sound from the radio changed. Then she tuned the thing, moving past all of the
voices that spoke to one another.

Without explaining, she finally
started to talk again, her voice sounding strange. Tight and anxious, in a way
that Pran had never heard from the lady.

"This is
one-seven-three-one. Repeat; this is one-seven-three-one." She stopped,
and a rather formal voice came across the device, sounding male and
uninterested.

Bored, really.

"Go ahead, one-seven-three-one."

"We have a problem, just on
the outskirts of Clement. Just south of Oaktree. A civilian airship is under
attack. This appears to be a criminal matter, but the local authorities are
requesting aid for The Remote. That's the name of the airship. Do you
understand?"

"Ah.... No, I can't say that
I do. Are we involved in this? How would they even know to
ask
about our
help?"

Pran blinked, wondering if the
man on the other end of the device was stupid, or just so wrapped up in his own
little problems that he'd missed the part about an attack taking place? Moving
in next to Bard Clarice she half growled at the man on the box.

"Pay attention! There's an attack
on a grounded airship. Our people can't get there in time and this is a chance
for you people to show that we aren't all enemies. Don't sit there being a
moron, get whatever help you can out and save those people!" Then she
remembered the whirly winged craft that she'd seen once, and what Clark had
said to her, about wasted energy. It was a real point too, given everything.
This had to be done right. "Try to do it using some of that new technology
that uses very little energy. We have a meeting tomorrow, about a peace treaty,
and showing that you both can and
will
help now might be
important!"

She knew that her voice was too
worried and didn't have a clue what the man could even do, or if he would, but
Clarice cleared her throat and started speaking again.

"That could be effective, if
we can pull this off. What do you have available?"

There was a pause, but finally a
low laugh came.

"In something fast,
and
low energy? Bee drones. I can send a pod to that location. It will take...
Fifteen minutes? Do you want the attackers alive? If so I need to get off of
this thing and make sure we have up to the minute satellite data."

Whatever that was. Pran moved
back in, pushing Bard Clarice, her boss, out of the way a little. The older
woman's finger was still on the control speaking button however.

"Do it. Try to take the
attackers alive, if possible. That way we can find out who they really
are."

If she could think of this as
being a trick to make the old time people seem like friends, when they really
weren't, they probably could too. Worse, that would be brought up, unless there
were people to put in front of a Judge about the whole thing.

The voice from the device seemed
professional, even if she had sort of been calling him names. That was just
stress speaking though. He was probably smarter than she was, or he wouldn't
have whatever his job was.

"Copy that. We'll do that
now. I'll report back to one-seven-three-one when the mission has been
accomplished. Out."

Bard Clarice did her own pushing
then, her face still worried seeming.

"Out."

Then the woman glanced at Pran,
hard.

"Try not to do that again.
At least until you learn the correct codes. It's bad enough if I accidently
start a war. If you do it... Well, that's the sort of thing you don't want
people singing about, isn't it?"

Pran nodded at the woman, since
that was a real enough point.

"Forgive me. I overreached
there. I just..." She looked at the wooden talking box and waved.
"We're too far away to do anything ourselves. What's the use of having
something like that, if you can't help anyone?"

That got a slow nod from Clarice,
but Clark shook his head.

"Pran... It isn't our job to
help everyone, all the time. People need to protect themselves. We're just here
to make sure they get a chance to do that."