Chapter 31
MORE CAREFUL THAN ever to avoid being followed, Brander made his way to the ruin. There were only a few of the Sentinels in the gathering room, and he merely nodded as he went straight to the Raider’s quarters, although the man was not there. He wanted the privacy. He commandeered two lanterns and placed them on a table, then went to get his box of tools and parts and other bits of various things that he had accumulated.
He barely remembered the days when, as a boy, he’d had shiny new kits to assemble, or models to build. Now that aspect of his mind was occupied trying to make scattered and sometimes battered fragments into a functioning whole. Or, in rare cases such as this one, taking apart something new and unknown and trying to figure out how it worked, with an eye to replicating it somehow.
That they had absolutely no equipment with which to do that was something he didn’t let stop him. Because they never knew what they might get hold of next.
He had the weapon mostly disassembled and was lost in studying the various pieces intently, a glimmering of how it worked beginning to form, when a voice jolted him out of his concentration.
“You’re getting too comfortable in here,” the Raider said.
Brander turned, scowled at the scarred, helmeted figure who had stepped into the room through the hidden tunnel entrance.
“You think I did not hear you coming?” He had, in fact, although he only realized it now. He just hadn’t reacted, still focused on his puzzle. He had become too comfortable here.
“Just because the Coalition has not yet realized we are here does not mean they never will.”
“Contention valid,” Brander said, conceding the obvious.
The Raider’s gaze shifted to the table. “Progress?”
“I’m getting the idea of how it works.” He straightened, turned to face his leader and friend. “Were there more of these?”
“I do not think so. It was boxed, by itself, and I think it was being carried by the highest rank aboard. There were no other boxes like it. Perhaps it is a prototype.”
Brander frowned. “Do you not think they will deduce who took it?”
The Raider shrugged. “There were many there, and some were grabbing other things that spilled out after the crash.”
Brander’s mouth quirked. “But only you grabbed the box that happened to contain this?”
“I told you. It fell at my feet. The box broke open. The men in the aircab were dazed, and too concerned about themselves to notice. And it was addressed to Paledan.” He studied Brander for a moment. “I gather it is functional?”
Brander let out an oath he didn’t often use. He saw it register, and the Raider frowned.
“This,” Brander said, all trace of amusement or banter gone, “changes everything.”
He explained his test firings, the rock, the tree, the brollet, and what had happened. How he had later tried various combinations of things, and how it only destroyed what it hit, leaving something next to it, even touching it, unharmed. Most of all, the silence with which it had all happened, and the absence of debris or residue afterward.
“It’s fairly short range, but it obliterates the target. Completely. You could take out an entire patrol one at a time, and if they were spread out enough, they would never know what hit them.”
“Silent?”
“Utterly. Not even a whisper except for the debris settling on the boulder and the tree.”
“And the brollet?”
“Gone as if it had never existed. Not even a tuft of fur left.” He grimaced. “Eirlys would be angry with me.”
“Eirlys,” the Raider said, “loves her creatures, but she understands the cost of war.”
Brander saw the furrow of his brow, knew he was thinking of the danger his little sister was now in, knowing his secret. He tried not to think of it himself.
“Just the same, I’ll keep this from her if you don’t mind.” He shook his head. “Just think of it. Not even a body left behind to betray your presence with this . . . obliterator.” He pointed to the largest piece of the weapon he’d taken apart. “I believe this is the energy coil. I can see how it’s powered, but I have no idea what it produces to have that effect. But the housing, the sights, the grip,” he added wryly, “are all, of course, planium.”
“We’ve indeed given them the weapons to destroy us,” the Raider said.
“And probably destroy a great many other places,” Brander agreed, feeling as grim as he’d ever felt. And as close to wondering if they should just give it up, and resign themselves to living under the Coalition yoke forever.
Or at least until the planium ran out. The Coalition would likely abandon Ziem at that point, as no longer useful. The only remaining question was, would they just leave, and leave whoever had survived until that point alive, or would they blow the planet to bits?
He didn’t realize what his expression must be until the Raider spoke. “Do not wander there, my friend.”
“It is hard not to.”
“It is harder,” the Raider said grimly, “to live under their boots. Believe me on this.”
Brander studied him for a moment, thinking of the impossibility of this man masquerading as the beaten, cowed, crushed Drake Davorin. For, despite the helmet and the mask, that was the true disguise.
“You walk the hardest path of any of us,” he said softly. “Doubled.”
“It’s nothing, compared to the sufferings of the people of Ziem.”
“It, and you, are everything to the people of Ziem.” Brander cut off the denial he knew was coming. “And because of that, no one would begrudge you any joy to be found amid all this grimness.”
Brander saw his gaze narrow sharply. “What exactly is that intended to mean?”
“Only a wish that you, of all people, take something for yourself amid all this. Especially,” he added, “when it would also mean joy for someone else important to me.”
He saw the flicker in the Raider’s eyes. In a lesser man, he would have labeled it yearning, but the Raider was not a lesser man, and he quashed it quickly.
“There is no—”
“—place for that in war. Yes, so you’ve said. And yet . . .”
The Raider let out a sigh Brander knew he never would in front of anyone else. Except perhaps the very person they were discussing without acknowledging it.
The Raider was staring down at the pieces of the weapon when he said grimly, “A joy likely to be so brief and come to a painful end is not something to wish on anyone.”
“She long ago decided it would be worth any cost.”
The Raider’s head snapped around and he found himself under icy scrutiny.
“She is my cousin,” Brander said with a shrug, unintimidated by the stare that cowed many. “She tells me things.” A brief smile flitted across his face. “Often without meaning to.”
The Raider still said nothing. Brander watched him for a moment before going on. “She suspects, you know.”
To his surprise, the Raider winced. And Brander belatedly realized he’d never seen the man betray so much as in these few minutes. And that worried him. No one man could be expected to carry what he carried, on both fronts, forever.
Even this warrior who had never wanted to be one had limits, and Brander was afraid he might have finally reached them.
HE KNEW BRANDER was worried. If he was honest, he also knew it was not without reason.
“You cannot go on endlessly, my friend,” Brander said. “Even the Raider needs respite.”
Brander didn’t know the half of how weary he was, but there was still only one answer. “There is no time for that.”
“You must take time,” his friend warned, “or your body will see to it. Strong as you are, you can only push so hard.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course. And it won’t be a problem if your body decides it’s had enough in the middle of whatever this big operation you’re planning is?”
“I am fine,” he repeated with emphasis.
But his second would not be dissuaded. “Look, the way Kye’s been working, you’ll have your map within the next day or two. Surely you can rest until then.”
He let out a compressed breath. “You want me to rest while she works into the dawn hours?”
And who ordered her to?
“She’s tougher than either of us would like to admit,” Brander said.
“She is tough enough,” he agreed, knowing it was true even as it warred with the urge to keep her safe, protected.
“Yes,” Brander said, his tone suddenly very pointed. “She is tough enough for just about anything.”
The Raider’s jaw tightened instinctively, but he knew the words were nothing less than the truth. He looked at the man who had stood by him through it all, from childhood through the devastation of his father’s assassination, his mother’s suicide, and all the wearying years since. And when he turned to go, he stopped him. “Brander.”
His second turned back. He owed him this honesty, he thought. This, and much more.
“She doesn’t suspect.”
“But she—”
“She knows.”
Brander stared at him. Then he let out a long, low whistle. “You told her?”
He stopped the words with a shake of his head. “Not yet. But she . . . guessed. I’ve stalled her. For the moment.”
“It won’t last,” Brander warned him.
“I know.”
“You can trust her with this. She can keep a secret.” His mouth quirked upward. “I know this firsthand.”
“I do not want her to have to. It is bad enough that Eirlys knows.”
“I wish you luck then. You will need it, my friend.”
“I know.”
He headed for the door, then turned back again. “She is tough enough.”
The Raider let out a compressed breath.
And said for a third time, “I know.”