“Hells yeah I’d do that. If it keeps me from ducking a firing line, I’d beat her ass like a drum. Keep cutting.”
Mulaghesh keeps watch. The metallic walls of the statue yard reflect the light a little too well for her tastes, bouncing off and sending rays scattered around the yard. Both of them keep ducking down as beams strafe over their heads. Mulaghesh turns and looks up through the fence and up the slope to where Rada Smolisk’s house sits in the trees below the cliffs. It’s about five hundred yards up, by her guess. She can see one cheery yellow window burning among the trunks, and the chimney, of course, is belching up merry gray smoke. But it’s not your average wood fire, is it? thinks Mulaghesh.
Then she spots a few sparks of light to the right at the same elevation as Rada’s house. She shields her eyes against the other strobe lights to see a band of soldiers, perhaps five or so, walking along the road to the polis governor’s house.
“Shit,” says Mulaghesh. “We’ve got company. Soldiers on their way to Rada’s house.”
“I’m almost done here. How much time?”
“Twenty, ten minutes away. Maybe.”
“Then we’ll have to book i—”
She’s cut short as Mulaghesh drops down and clamps a hand over her mouth. Signe’s eyes widen and look at her, surprised. Then Mulaghesh shakes her head and nods backward, behind the mounds of earth.
At first it’s quiet. Then they hear it: footsteps, slow and uncertain.
Mulaghesh takes her hand off of Signe’s face and pulls out her carousel. She squats down low and readies her aim.
For a moment, nothing. Then a beam of light surges out of the darkness and falls on them.
Mulaghesh almost shoots. It takes a lot of training not to, but she’s more worried about giving away her position than anything. She waits for the owner of the light to say something, anything, identifying themselves—but they don’t. There’s just a long pause.
Then a voice: “Uh…CTO Harkvaldsson?”
Signe lets out a breath. “Damn it all, Knordstrom!” she says. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
The beam lowers. Mulaghesh blinks until she can make out a thickset Dreyling guard with the SDC insignia on his breast standing among the dirt mounds. “Oh. Uh. Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“Well, obviously, I am!”
“I see. Can I ask…Uh, what’s going on? I’m hearing reports of Saypuri troops storming the harbor….”
“Yes,” says Signe grimly. “It seems General Biswal has gone mad with power. He’s looking to arrest me. This will be a serious diplomatic incident, I’m afraid. Do not report back that you saw us, and I recommend you usher all Saypuri troops away from this part of the yard. Am I clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And one more thing. Find my father and tell him to meet us up at Rada Smolisk’s house, up the hill.” She points through the chain-link fence.
Knordstrom looks where she’s pointing. “The, uh…the polis governor’s house?”
“Yes. We’re to have an emergency rendezvous to discuss the situation. Tell him that. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Now hop to it.”
Knordstrom, despite his ample bulk, hurries away through the piles of dirt.
“That was smartly done,” says Mulaghesh. “I hope like hells he gets Sigrud over here.”
“Me, too.” Signe clips through the last of the chain-link fence, and Mulaghesh kicks it open. The two crawl through, the bits of wire biting at their shoulders and backsides, then stand and sprint away.
The hill stops being a hill and starts being more like a cliff, with Rada’s house sitting above. “Why are soldiers coming in the first place?” asks Signe as they begin to climb.
“Standard protocol,” says Mulaghesh, breathing hard. “First thing you do during a security threat as regional governor is secure the safety of all other Ministry officials. I just never thought that I’d be the threat to the polis governor.”
Signe looks up along the cliff. “It’s a straight climb up the rest of the way,” she says. “Do you need any help?”
“I’ll manage,” says Mulaghesh. Then, quieter: “Maybe.”
They climb, and climb, and climb. Mulaghesh doesn’t say so, but it’s extraordinarily difficult for her, trying to compensate for her left arm. More than once she’s certain she’s going to topple over and plummet down to the streets below. She’s so focused on not falling that she’s shocked when something soft strikes her shoulder. It takes her a moment to realize it’s a rope.
She looks up and sees it dangling from Signe’s dark form above. “Tie that to your belt,” she says. “I’ve got it tied to mine. I’ll steady you.”
“So I can pull you to your death, too?”
“I’m bigger than you,” says Signe. “I’ll be fine.”
Tying the rope to her belt on the side of a cliff one-handed is a tall order for Mulaghesh, but after a few minutes of fumbling around in her pants she manages it. She gives Signe a thumbs-up and the two of them start their ascent again. She has to hand it to her: Signe is bigger than her and much better at this than she thought.
Finally they get to the top of the cliff. Signe vaults over it, then turns, lies down, and reaches down to Mulaghesh. “Here. Give me your hand.”
Mulaghesh looks up to see a beam of light shoot through the air just above Signe. They’re close, she thinks. Too close. We were too damned slow!
She hurriedly begins untying her end of the rope. “Signe! Get away! Get down, they’ll see you!”
“Just jump up and grab my hand!”
“Signe, you—”
“Just do it already!”
Mulaghesh jumps up. Her entire body fills with terror as she’s suspended over a precipitous drop for one blistering moment.
Her fingers touch Signe’s. At first she’s convinced it won’t work, that her grip will pass through and she’ll go tumbling down the slope. But then Signe’s fingers clutch together, seizing Mulaghesh’s hand. She then leans down and hooks her elbow into Mulaghesh’s left arm, above her false hand.
Then everything goes bright as a beam of light falls on them. “Halt!” cries a voice. “Freeze!”
Neither of them speaks. Signe pulls Mulaghesh up, though their progress feels agonizingly slow.
“I said freeze!” cries the voice. He sounds worried, agitated. Mulaghesh can see that Signe’s rifling is very visibly strapped to her back. That’s bad, thinks Mulaghesh.
Mulaghesh kicks at the cliffside and pushes herself up and over. She tumbles over the edge and rolls away from the light. Signe tries to follow her, but she’s still recovering and moves just a little too slow.
A shot. Mulaghesh hears Signe cry out. Mulaghesh rises up onto a knee and draws her carousel.
Even in this moment, when she’s being fired on and she’s aware her comrade has been hit, she’s still painfully aware that these are her own soldiers, her own colleagues and brothers and sisters—and, as an officer, her own responsibility. So she fires three shots up into the trees above them, high but not too high—just enough that they seek cover, fast.