Skyblaze (3 page)

Vertu moved her foot, touching the floor
stud that locked the partition, and brought the handgun out of the
console.

''Is this an order, a robbery?''

The handgun . . . she'd fired it twice, the
day she'd bought it, wondered if it would still work after all
these years.

She drove on, knowing the cab's protection
was meant for urban dangers, civilians . . .

''No, ma'am,'' Danil said. ''Just that
things may be out of hand towards the end of the trip . . .''

She barely spared him a glance as yet
another route blinked out as impassable.

''I drive to Low Port, sir; a riot there is
nothing new.''

No sooner the words were said than she
regretted them, for Tommee, who by now held a firearm in his
undamaged hand, began singing something in loud Trade about Low
Port Tramps . . .

They were now just two
blocks from the exit point, she and her fares, with Fereda behind,
and several more cabs still continuing on in train. The city around
them was darker than it should have been, the streets becoming
crowded with what might well
be
a riot, with people of mixed station standing on
the walks, and cars left idling on the side of the street, with . .
.

The road in front of them erupted,
scattering rock and road against the windshield.

''Grenades,'' said one, in the back, but by
then she'd stopped the cab and unlocked all the doors.

''We're out!

That was to her, no doubt,
and the two able soldiers
were
out, dragging Tommee with them, and the cabs
behind were disgorging their passengers as well.

Vertu saw her daughter's car begin to move
-- she'd not had a casualty disembark, after all. On the sidewalks
the soldiers were forming up.

''Anti-armor, get out of there!''

Vertu looked up, and there before her,
perhaps three cab-lengths away, stood a man, an ordinary Liaden,
well dressed and calm. He met her eyes, his face perfectly
composed, as he brought a tube to his shoulder, pointing it toward
her, no -- toward Fereda's cab! There were sounds she knew were
guns, sounds she knew was small arms fire --

Her cab lept forward under her command,
Tommee and his comrades scattering as she aimed it for this calm,
ordinary man. It was satisfaction she felt, in the instant that he
changed his stance, and moved the tube, acquiring her cab as his
target.

Vertu slammed the controls forward; the cab
roared --

All around was brilliance and sound. The cab
was lofted, tumbling backwards, restraints flashed into being,
holding her tight and safe.

The odors were incredible, immediate. Dust
covered her. The cab was wedged at an unfortunate angle, but around
her the sounds continued. The windscreen was a spidernest of crazed
glass, the whole car shaking with the force of Fereda's pounding
against the door. With her were Vertu's last fares, the soldiers,
with Tommee, who had not fallen down.

The door was jammed. Trussed tight in safety
tape, there was little Vertu could do to aid in her own rescue. One
of the soldiers took Fereda's place, another pulling her back with
a gloved hand on her shoulder. There was a scream of tearing metal,
and the door -- was gone.

Vertu had time to blink the dust out of her
eyes, before the crash-tape retracted and she fell into her
daughter's arms.

''Mother!''

''Daughter, I am well.''

''You could have been killed!''

''So I could, and you! A moment!''

Amid the chatter of gunfire and larger
sounds, Vertu snatched her gun from its holder and returned to
Fereda's side. Around them, the riot was a war zone; the soldiers
gathering in positions against whatever enemy there was. The man
with the tube, there he was, leveling it again, this time at her
--

There was time to shove Fereda behind her;
to raise the gun, to see his face, his anger and his intent --

''Whoa, now! Civlins!''

Something struck her in the ribs with enough
force to knock her from her feet to the ground, and Fereda atop
her.

A very tall man stood above them, gun
leveled.

The explosion deafened her, disoriented her.
Fereda went limp, and she feared -- but no, it was only the shock.
They shoved against each other, untangling and grasping at arms and
shoulders, climbing to their feet, staring again at a street in
disorder, and --

Tommee!

The Liaden with the tube
lay like an empty bread wrap, bloody back and side to them. Tommee
was forward of his position, fallen after all -- swearing,
swearing,
surely
swearing in his peculiar Terran and in Trade, his legs -- his
foot, too far away from the rest of him . . .

He saw her -- saw them -- made a grimace
that might have been a smile, saw the direction of her gaze, and
followed it.

For a long moment, he looked at the red ruin
of his leg, at the disconnected foot in its overlarge boot. He
raised his head and met her eyes.

''Ma'am, thanks for the ride. 'preciate.
Reallydo.''

The soldier's face, already ashen and
staring upward, went pale and then bright as shadows flashed out of
the day and color washed out of everything.

Vertu looked to the light above her, above
them all, and there in the sky over the city there was a dancing
lance of purplish light, and another and perhaps more; and a boom
like a thousand thunder strikes at once washed over her. Her eyes
involuntarily shut against the assault of sound and light, and then
she opened them, looking up to find the source, but there was no
source now, just a blazing brightness in the sky. She thought it
was done, but another lance of light fell upon the city, and
another until at last the sky was full of sudden cloud and
billowing smoke. The skyblaze was done now, but the world and the
people still shook in aftermath.

*

''Dere's a Kindal Decent Wyman comn
streetedge . . . cah checked . . . .''

The news came from a guard with a comm set
in each ear, who stood nodding and scanning, nodding and scanning
--

Vertu looked up from the comfort of the gun
and leather, the sounds coming together oddly, with almost as much
meaning as ''somebody ought to do something . . .'' and for the
same reason -- it meant something to another, and she needed to
respond. She was sitting on the curb, drained of energy, with blood
still wet before her, in the street, strange clouds and a lingering
scintillant light behind the smoke still rising from the
strikezone.

This guard was not one she'd carried to the
battle zone -- this one was female, not quite as large as Tommee,
with a multigun in open readiness -- and she had only the barest
distinguishable Terran, no Trade nor Liaden.

The words came again, this time perhaps
aimed at Fereda, who leaned against her whole cab behind the
shambles that had been the Delm's Own Cab, but Fereda had not
heard; was not listening, as Vertu could see with a quick glance.
The girl stood with a gun grip perilously showing from her jacket
pocket, staring into the sky where the flash had taken color from
the world and where now rose a column of darkness unsullied by the
light of the setting sun.

Fereda had been crying, which was unseemly,
but the mercs had the dignity not to notice, which gave Vertu a
relief far beyond reason. That gave her strength enough to look
into the guard's eyes as she stood awaiting an answer, and replay
the sounds she had uttered, seeking a sense which was suddenly
plain.

''Chim Dal dea'San, Clan Wylan,'' she said,
speaking as clearly as possible.

The guard blamed the headset for a
miscommunication by tapping at it seriously -- but again she
nodded, and used her chin to point toward the MidPort end of the
road, which was now unblocked of the half dozen cabs still
mobile.

''Yesm gots it, and 'mander Higdon gives
goheath foyah, pair.''

Translation this time was easier. Vertu
moved her hand to show that she had gotten the message,
understanding that they were to go now. The gun and belt were heavy
in her hand, but she had tried to give it back several times, and
was every time refused. Tommee had been clear as they gathered him
up --

''No'm,'' he said, ''I'm f'surgery, an' got
my backups. You had this, we'd all be better off. You take it, my
gift. That's mine own, an' I give it to you, f-- for your care.
Pleased to be alive, ma'am, an' you taking on anti-armor! You'd
make merc if you wanted! I'll sing your song, I will.''

They'd known what to do, his comrades, and
she'd felt helpless as they'd used belts and tubes and collected
what obvious parts of his legs as they could, and bore him away.
The Commander had come by a few moments later as she was still
clutching her daughter to her, the two of them perhaps weeping into
the privacy of the other's shoulder. His face was clean but the
uniform had been busy; there was blood -- perhaps even Tommee's
blood -- on his sleeve.

How someone could be businesslike under
these mad circumstances she did not know, but he had been, and she
returned it as best she could.

''You have my card and you have my thanks.
Smitty told me you sent your cab against anti-armor, and saved his
life. By the rocks, you could have been killed! Good work, ma'am.
I'll make it good -- you understand? A new cab; repairs. You have
my card. Get to me with a bill, hear?''

He'd attempted a bow, gave it up, saluted,
and was gone. His aide also refused to take Tommee's gun from her
-- ''Ma'am, he knows it might be the last thing he gets to give if
you have my meaning, and you took damage for him. He's a newbie and
his paycheck and his sidegun, it's what he owns. If it was me, I'd
keep it and sleep with it under my pillow!''

Vertu sighed, made sure of her grip on the
leather belt that held Tommee's gift, and walked unsteadily over to
the cab, and her daughter leaning there. It had not escaped damage,
this second of Wylan's three vehicles -- there were holes stitched
down the driver's door, a shattered window, a list to one side that
spoke of blown stabilizers.

A bill, she thought wearily. For a new cab,
and repairs.

Tomorrow, she would bill Higdon's Howlers
for the damage they had caused her. For now . . .

''Fereda,'' she said, extending a hand to
touch her daughter's pale and soot-streaked face.

The girl blinked as if she suddenly came to
her senses from a swoon, stepping sharply away from her cab, away
from Vertu's hand.

She turned her back, arms crossed tightly
over her chest.

Vertu gasped, heart stuttering at the
violence of the act -- worse than any she had witnessed this day.
Worse even than that flash which had dazzled everyone and
everything, more violent than the ground-shake, more violent than
the noise when that arrived.

Heart-struck, Vertu drew a careful breath
and exhaled. Surviving that, she drew another breath . . . and a
third.

The leather was real in
her hand, and she had to do,
now,
with what was real now.

There was a stain on the belt, and the gun
was twice as heavy as her own, the one that Fereda held in such low
esteem as to pocket it so clumsily that it might fall out. But it
was hers, this gun. A gift, for her care. That was real.

The fighting had been short and sharp; she'd
shot once or twice with the gun Fereda had, not because she knew
who was shooting but because they were shooting at her, or her car,
or her daughter, or bloody Tommee . . .

She did not look at the street. Instead, she
paced forward until she faced her daughter, trying to ignore the
dark clouds overhead and in her daughter's visage.

''Fereda dea'San,'' she said to set face and
distant eyes, ''we shall leave here together. On the morrow, if the
planet is still here, we shall sit and speak together, telling over
my errors.''

Her daughter shied away from the offered
hand, but she began walking through the dust toward the end of the
road, Vertu dea'San Clan Wylan, the Delm Herself, threw the gunbelt
over her shoulder, and cinched the strap, walking as firmly as she
could, stride for stride with her daughter.

This world, it made no sense any longer.

Tomorrow -- tomorrow, she would do something
about it.

* * *

Port City, Surebleak

The wind whipped by
, the now familiar sound rushing down the narrow
side-streets becoming a brief moan before becoming a continual
rattling
susurration
of air, grit, and weather. Her well-used coat
wrapped as tight as the seals allowed, Vertu dea'San forged ahead
into the morning, the dim light of the promised dawn aiding her
very slightly as the day's snow began with a gust and a
swirl.

The coat was a regretful purple color, with
a collar imitating any of five different animal pelts, none
convincingly. Despite its age and aesthetic deficiencies, it was
warm, hung well on her, and swept the path she walked without
impeding her Liaden-length stride. Her tall-peaked hat was
hand-knit and accidentally color coordinated with her coat, with
purple symbols of good luck splashed around the red-orange that was
so often seen as winter colors here.

The hat was pulled down over her ears and
tucked into the collar wrapped with the heavy ugly purple and
orange scarf, which was also hand-knit locally. The hat peak was
stuffed with an extra pair of light gloves in the top pouch, while
her so-called wind gloves were still in her pocket, where their
bulk warmed her hands and helped disguise her size, and perhaps her
capability.

Being no-nonsense, she tried as much as
possible to put aside the recognition that this morning might well
be the coldest morning she'd experienced in her life, just as she'd
put it aside yesterday. The boots did as advertised, being the most
expensive of her recent acquisitions, and the only certifiably (as
much as anything might be certified on Surebleak!) new ones. Her
other outer clothes were used and comfortable, for she'd bought
early, having whiled her time in the long lines by listening to the
chat of those who were native. The wisdom of the natives was also
to buy clothes somewhat large, for oversize became the perfect size
when layered and layered again. The boots, of course, were harder
to layer, but with them she wore thick socks -- and had been glad
of both on the first morning that the mush in the street tripped
her -- mush gone stone hard and jagged on the overnight.