Morgan's Choice (15 page)

Governor Fohrai sat at the end of the table
with his cabinet colleagues around him. A number of other
politicians and prominent civic leaders were also gathered; the
deputy mayor of Electra, replacing the mayor who had been killed
when the tower that housed his office was destroyed and the mayors
of some of the other larger cities, the heads of the police and
fire authority and the health service. Gupta, big, belligerent and
flamboyant, sat opposite Ravindra. Lace frothed at the cuffs and
throat of a red jacket, matching the streaks of red amid the glossy
black hair that hung around his shoulders. It seemed to be the
height of fashion but the man looked ridiculous. All the senior
Vesha sported lace and bright colors, in sharp contrast to the
military officers and, indeed, the Mirka civilian authorities.

“Welcome to my home, Admiral.” Gupta’s bow
was too shallow. “You are a little late, it seems. Even when your
fleet is within our system, you still can’t stop an attack on our
cities.”

Ravindra stared at him. Was that smile a
little too gleeful? A little too triumphant? Certainly the contempt
rang loud and clear. “Space is a very large place,
Sur
Gupta. The attacking ships were
gone before we received a signal from this planet telling us of the
assault.”

“The point is, you couldn’t stop them and all
of us have suffered as a result.”

Ravindra’s lips smiled. Damn his insolent
hide. “You’ve been most fortunate,
Sur
. I expect your house’s position on this island helped
protect it. I note that you were here, not in the city as you would
normally be at the time the attack took place. The workers in the
Shuba districts on the mainland were not so lucky.” He glanced down
at his notes. “At last count, five thousand killed, fifteen
thousand homeless and still rising.”

Gupta sat upright, chest swelling in
righteous indignation. “I do not have to account for my time to
you, Ravindra. But I was here because my wife was ill. You think I
haven’t been damaged? The blast and fires destroyed my town house
in Electra, flattened it. And my office and one of my factories. It
will take me years to recover.”

“
Sur
Gupta, Admiral, please,” Fohrai said, holding a
fist in the air. “We have more pressing concerns than laying
blame.”

“Of course.” Ravindra held Gupta’s gaze until
he looked away. “I have deployed troops and equipment to assist and
support your people in rescue and recovery, as well as clean- up
operations.”

He went through the list; how many, where,
what equipment. One or two people asked for additional resources.
Lindar made notes and Ravindra agreed to do what he could. He
detested this; detested arriving too late, detested feeling
impotent, especially with that smirking clown opposite him
virtually admitting complicity.

“We appreciate your help, of course,
Admiral,” a sour-faced woman sitting beside Gupta said. “But what
do we do next time? Will you leave a fleet to protect us?”

Ravindra touched her image on the panel.
Lisper Wintari, Vesha, mayor of Chesson, resplendent in an orange
costume, orange ribbons in her hair. “I wish I could,
Suri
Wintari,” Ravindra said. “But
we do not have enough ships to leave a fleet in every
system.”

She pursed her lips. “So you’re saying you
can’t protect us? Surely you can leave a couple of warships, at
least.”

“
Suri
, you were attacked by a fleet of ten ships,”
Ravindra said. “Even a large warship is vulnerable to attack from
so many vessels.”

“We need our own fleet, that’s the answer,”
another man said. Another Vesha mogul, Hordon Zaffra.

“Don’t you know your history, Zaffra?” Gron
Teed, Mirka, minister for planetary security, placed his hands flat
on the table and leaned at the speaker, brows lowered. “If we go
down that course, the Union will disintegrate. It’s happened
before.”

Zaffra dismissed the remark with a flick of
his fingers, within an ace of rudeness. “That was centuries ago.
We’ve come a long way since then.”

“On this planet, yes.” Governor Fohrai raised
his voice and the others subsided. “Fifty years or so ago,
Esterlina tried and failed. You might remember they had to call the
Fleet in to restore order.”

Ravindra allowed himself a tiny smile.
Esterlina had self-destructed, torn apart by rival armies—paid for
and led by the wealthiest Vesha. They’d all bought Mirka officers,
of course, but the Vesha retained strategic command themselves.

“That’s all irrelevant for now, isn’t it?”
Gupta waved a hand, sending the ruffles at his wrist dancing. “I’m
sure we’re grateful for whatever small help the Fleet can give us.”
He caught Ravindra’s gaze, his intent obvious in his sneer.

Ravindra resisted the impulse to lean across
the table and throttle the man.

At last the conference was over. Ravindra
strode out to his shuttle, Fohrai at his side. “I’ve organized for
you and your senior staff to stay at the Hotel Rajasthan, up in the
mountains. It’s a lovely place, the food’s good and I’ve organized
women,” the Governor said.

Women. Ravindra’s mind filled with golden
skin, mercury eyes, her body hot beneath his.

Chapter
Seventeen

Morgan waited until she knew Ravindra’s
shuttle had left before she crawled out of bed. She kicked herself
again. What had possessed her? Yes, well. The answer to that was
simple enough. She couldn’t deny she’d enjoyed the sex. Every
moment. Very much. Stupid stupid stupid. And what would happen when
he came back? Maybe he’d be as embarrassed as she was. But somehow
she didn’t think that was how his mind would be working. He’d want
more and she couldn’t afford that. She could deny it to herself
until she was blue in the face but she was at least a little bit in
love with him. She enjoyed his company, looked forward to the
nights in his quarters, missed him on the rare evenings when he was
absent. Stupid. How had she let him get under her skin like that?
It could only end in pain. Hers.

She had to keep busy, think about something
else, go and work.

Morgan found Hanestran in his workshop,
his battle armor ready to put on, supervising collection of
equipment. Well, now. This might be interesting.

“Are you going down there, SenComm?” she
said.

“Yes. We’re to scan, look for evidence.”
Hanestran checked an equipment case offered by one of his
techs.

“Evidence of what?”

“Who was responsible.” He flicked through the
contents of the case.

“Can I come?”

Hanestran stopped and straightened. “I don’t
know…”

“
I can be useful.” She gave him a sideways
glance.

“I know.” He looked pensive, gave a nod and
waved the hovering tech away. “You’d be very useful, but—”

“Admiral Ravindra won’t mind. I asked him
last night if I could go down to the planet. It’s been months since
I breathed unfiltered air and walked on ground.”

Okay, she hadn’t asked, but if she’d thought
of it she would have. But surely Ravindra wouldn’t mind. She was
fairly certain he trusted her by now. And she could be useful. A
portable set of very sensitive scanning equipment.

Hanestran dithered, almost swaying from foot
to foot. “I should check with him.”

“He’s gone. Oh, come on, SenComm. Please.”
She leaned toward him, begging.

His chest heaved as he sucked a deep
breath. “You’ll need armor.”

Fantastic. “Order me some. I’m ready to go
whenever you are.”

****

The shuttle descended through uniform cloud
cover and jolted into rain. Electra lay below their ship, a strange
mixture of flattened debris surrounding intact buildings, some of
which still pierced the clouds.

“Either they were terrible at pattern bombing
or they picked their targets,” she said to Hanestran, who sat
beside her.

He grunted. “Let me just say that mess on
the ground over there used to be the Governor’s palace and that
untouched tower over there is the interplanetary trade center.” He
flicked up a ‘before’ image and overlaid it so she could see. The
Governor’s palace had nestled in one of the few garden areas of the
city. Smoke still curled up from the blackened mess surrounding the
remains of the building. Certainly everywhere else the bombardment
had been selective. A block destroyed here, next to a relatively
intact block there. So maybe not a pirate attack. Was that the
implication? And if not pirates, then what?
Bunyada
?

The shuttle swooped lower, affording
Morgan a closer look at the buildings. Interesting architecture,
not like anything she’d seen before. They’d used a lot of
transparent or glittery material in their buildings. Shards of it
winked and glistered in the roadway and even in the drizzle, the
standing walls reflected light. This place must have been really
something before the attack. An amazing city of glittering cones
and pyramids, multi-colored shards that soared into the sky amid
flatter, less exotic domes and cubes stacked together. Horizontal
layers of crystal in shades of blue and green and cream towered
into the smoky air, while reds and ochres predominated for the
lower cubes and domes and for the streets themselves.

“Did they land anywhere?” she said.

“
Yes.” Hanestran pointed at the graphics.
“The markets were hit, many killed. They took consumables. And one
Vesha prince’s house was raided, many valuable articles taken. The
story is they realized our fleet had appeared in the system and
they took off relatively empty-handed.”

The story, but not necessarily the truth.
“What are we looking for?”

“SenComm Prasad wants me to check what’s left
of the military headquarters for anything we can find in the
systems to identify the attackers.”

The pilot maneuvered along deserted
streets, some covered in a macabre jigsaw puzzle of colored pieces
mixed with the detritus of destruction, others steep-walled,
striped canyons where undamaged structures lined the road. The ship
landed beside a rectangular pool in a paved square. A tall
building, pockmarked but intact stood close by, its shape reflected
in the pool’s still water. The image wavered, distorted as the
down-draft ruffled the surface.

Morgan climbed out into fine drizzle.
Rain. You never got that in space. Or that stink. The sooty,
chemical odor of melted duraplast vied with the rank smell of burnt
flesh. The stomach-churning stench caught at her throat, choked
her.

“Better activate your helmet,” Hanestran said
while the rest of his team alighted.

Good idea. Morgan pressed a button in the
armor and the helmet concertinaed out of its packing around her
head. Cool air flowed in and she fought down the nausea. This
wasn’t going to be fun. “Where to?”

“Down there.” Hanestran waved a hand at the
ruins of one of the nearby red and ochre blocks, blasted and
battered but with three walls still standing. He set off, picking
his way through the debris.

Morgan followed more slowly. Funny how
things don’t look so bad from the air. And then you get down there
and realize. There would be dead people. Working with the military
she’d become used to death, she knew it happened but she’d never
become accustomed to the horror of shattered bodies. A group of
soldiers stood around a heavy lifter straining at a huge piece of
fallen green crystal. The masonry lifted, revealing a blackened
corpse still trapped underneath. Her mind shrank at the sight of a
mangled torso and an arm, bloodied and broken, burnt fingers
clawing at the ground. Her stomach spasmed. Bile burnt her
throat.
Don’t
be sick in your helmet. Don’t be sick in your helmet.

A hand fell on her shoulder. “Are you all
right,
Suri
?”

Morgan looked up into concerned blue eyes.
“Yes. Fine.” She breathed in hard through her nose, fighting back
the nausea.

“
Let’s go.” Hanestran sounded normal but
his face was tense and angry. He led the way into the headquarters
building with a purposeful stride.

She trailed into rooms where ceilings had
collapsed, where hardly a window remained unbroken. The bodies may
be gone but the bloodstains remained, brownish streaks on tumbled
chairs, spatters on keyboards, reminders that not long ago, living,
breathing people worked here.

“Looks like the place got a direct hit from a
missile,” said one of Hanestran’s team as he followed the track of
the projectile through the building with his eyes. “With respect,
Senior Commander, I doubt it’s very safe.”

“Probably,” Hanestran said. “But we don’t
have time to wait for engineering to secure the place for us. We’ll
just have to do our best, as carefully as we can.”

Morgan picked her way through the shattered
equipment, polling for interfaces as she went. Her heart bounded
when she heard a crackle. Fragments rained down on her upturned
helmet. A settling piece of ceiling. No, this certainly wasn’t
safe. And it was a crashing waste of time. “How do you expect to
find anything here?”

“
The main computers will be down in the
basement,” Hanestran said. “I’m looking for stairs or something.”
He looked around him and took a step closer to her, lowering his
voice. “And please,
Suri
, formality
is required in this situation.”

Morgan bowed. “
Srimana
.” There was always that fine line, wasn’t there,
between familiarity and formality. She’d have that with Ravindra,
too. Even more so. Only she wouldn’t. It wouldn’t happen again.
No.