20th of Arrestre, Continued

Karronido's metal monster put me down when we reached the lift to the Command Tower.

For several minutes, it was just me and the giant hulk of moving steel, flying upward through the mountain.

Strangely, I wasn't afraid. I was more... furious. That wasn't quite it, even. There was a snarl of fury laced up with raw, ragged horror over what was probably happening to NaVarre and Kenoa, all packed under a heavy layer of unshakable numbness.

The metal man wasn't going to kill me. If he was, he would have done it when he found me, which meant the General wanted me alive. I discovered I didn't care.

My legs shook from all the recent running, but I made myself walk out of the lift on my own when the metal man opened the gate, revealing the vast expanse of concrete that was the airship hangar.

The metal man gave me a prod in the side, aiming me in the direction of the huge hangar doors, and then we walked for almost as long as we had been in the lift, crossing the hangar.

I had yet to see any actual fighting, but finally there were signs that something big was going on. The hallways in the Medical Sector had been deceptively empty because everyone had been sent to other places – many of them to the Tower, it seemed. Everywhere, there were guards, officers, and staff rushing about, shouting orders and carrying gear, getting ready to crew the airships. The whole fleet was there, floating like giant, airborne sea creatures over the broad landing platform outside, their shadows casting the hangar in a false twilight.

As we made our way across the platform, I had to dodge teams of yellow-clad mechanics transporting racks of strange melon-sized metal spheres across the pavement.

I craned around as I trudged by, watching them hustle the spheres into the loading bay of an airship docked at the platform. There were hundreds, no, more like thousands of spheres already hanging inside the bay, strung up in row after row, swaying gently with the ship and gleaming in the ambient sunlight reflecting off the roof of the Command Tower.

They were almost pretty, like clusters of pearls, but a trickle of dread crept down my spine. A battle was going on somewhere out there, and judging from the resistance the Coventry was mounting, it was turning out to be a big one. The realization that the Coventry was in a scramble almost made me grin, but those spheres wouldn't be full of ribbons and welcome banners. I was looking at a flying arsenal. My breath stalled and my stomach lurched. Who could survive that much firepower?

Again, the metal man gave me a shove, sending me stumbling toward the right-hand end of the landing platform. One of the airships was moored there, the upper command deck level with the platform, a gangway stretching between an open hatchway on the ship and a boarding gate on the deck.

Up the gangway we went. I balked for a second in the hatchway, only to receive a hard push from behind, and then I was in a rounded metal entry room with two hallways on either side leading off lengthwise along the inside of the hull. A third hallway went straight forward into another section of the command deck, but the next shove sent me to the right, heading aft. I tripped over the hatchway flange in the hallway entrance, but there was no stopping. The metal man prodded me forward again, toward whatever — or rather whoever —waited for me down that hallway.

I heard the General before I saw him, a voice that featured in most of my nightmares calling from the room at the end of the hallway, "Ah. Macca. You found it. Good. Bring it in here."

The metal man delivered a few last nudges as I dug my heels in again. It was like fighting with a moving wall. My feet slid along as he barreled me forward into that control room and across the floor to a chair in the far corner.

"So what is this, Brannen?" The Counselor asked from a nearby doorway, frowning mildly as he observed the metal man sit me forcibly in the seat. "Why send the Mechs after that?" He gestured toward me with a tumbler of pale blue liqueur, then took a nonchalant sip. "Seems a waste of resources. Surely there were better options to be had among the Greenies. Could pick my teeth with that one."

The High General gave me a cool once over. "Insurance," he said cryptically, then turned back to what he was doing: watching his aides place troop figures on a lit-up map table. The aides were following directions given by the listening station operators huddled at a bank of devices and control panels; the operators were in turn receiving communications from somewhere on the ground.

Distracted by what I was seeing, I stopped resisting, and the metal man succeeded in folding me into a sitting position. I stared around at all the glowing displays and toggle lights and screeds of message tape, only vaguely aware that he had left, stumping off through a nearby archway in a partition and disappearing aft of the ship.

This was how they had watched the Icewolf. They had a flying command tower. It was mind-boggling. I swallowed hard, that tang of bile swarming up my throat again.

The resistance didn't have anything close. The Altyran Navy didn't either. How would anyone be able to defeat this if the Coventry made it to the Continent?

The General was deceptively calm, a statue surrounded by the clicking of rollopress machines, rapid operator chatter, and the hiss of tuning sonulator coils.

"Second Battalion reporting ready and in position, Your Grace!" called one of the aides, sliding a large grey block into position on the map table.

Another set a yellow block near what had to be the middle of the valley. "Third Artillery advancing as ordered, sir."

Several other officers came in, then, bringing reports and more staff with them, and in only a matter of minutes a deep, pulsing hum began in the belly of the ship. The departure from the dock was so smooth I would have missed if it hadn't been announced over a squawkbox in the ceiling: "Liftoff at two hundred eight degrees, bearing south by southwest at twenty knots. Commencing climb to a thousand airmeters."

There was the slightest sensation of acceleration upward, a little like being in the Command Tower lift. I leaned forward, getting a look out the nearest window, but there was only a sky full of creamy, billowing clouds rolling by outside; a glimpse of the beginnings of sunset as we swung around to head south.

My gaze flicked back to the clusters of troop figurines on the table. The attack had happened on the south wall. We were heading south. Toward the fighting.

"Your Grace, there's been a development," snapped one of the listening station operators, her voice loud enough to break the surface calm of the command room. She held her earpiece to her head and flicked several toggles on her control panel, looking up at one of the viewing portholes on the wall above her.

Lines raced over it for a moment as she turned a few dials, then the image solidified, showing a broad swath of the valley floor, the cool greys washed out by the light of the setting sun. The Headquarters building sat in the middle of it, glowing white... The focal point narrowed in, bringing the Headquarters into center.

There was a collective gasp from the aides and the staff. The High Counselor lowered his drink, his eyes gone round.

A plume of ink-dark smoke was rising into the air from the southfacing side of the Headquarters building.

Still more smoke drifted from three mangled heaps of metal on the parade ground — all that was left of several Coventry war machines.

"Show me my office," the General barked.

Instantly, the operator flicked another porthole to life, and an image of the General's office swam into view, somehow transported across space and time.

Again there were gasps.

The office was a wreck. There were papers everywhere. The file cabinets had been gutted; the drawers ripped out; contents thrown all over. The safe door was hanging from one hinge, the shelves inside empty. The General's desk had been overturned and torn apart. The only thing that was still intact was the map table, and the light was on beneath the glass, every last one of the General's maps strewn across it.

"What's in the Communications Room?" The General demanded.

A third porthole came on, the focal point swiveling to and fro for a moment before homing in on the aisle running between the rows of desks outside the General's office.

A battle had raged through the Communications Room, judging from the blackened pockmarks riddling every surface. And down the central aisle, heads hanging low, ranged a line of Coventry soldiers and staff, all of them on their knees, all of them with their hands bound behind them.

The sight drew cries of alarm from the girls operating the controls.

In the porthole, several figures clad in dark clothes prowled down the line of prisoners, rifles held at the ready. All of them sported long dark hair pulled back in braids.

A vicious grin began tugging at my lips, elation clawing through me.

"Who is that?" The General asked suddenly, taking a step forward.

"Where, sir?" the operator asked, frowning as she manipulated the angle of the viewer.

"There! Right there," the General hissed, grabbing the control switches from the girl, bringing a dark blur into the center of the porthole. "There. Who is that? Who is —" the General's voice cut off as a tall man dressed in a dark huntsman's jacket came into focus, striding swiftly from the direction of the Minister's office.

This man was dressed in the same rugged gear as the others and carried the same weapons, but there was one striking difference: his hair was bright, unmistakable, silvery white.

The General froze, his only outward reaction a quick intake of breath and a slight jerk of his chin.

As if from a great distance, I heard sounds of anger and dismay as we all watched the Icewolf move slowly down the line of prisoners in the Headquarters.

He did not seem very dead.

My vicious grin faded, elation forgotten. I couldn't move, couldn't even take in a thread of air, some detached part of my brain insisting that if I moved, he would disappear. But he didn't disappear. The operator followed him with the viewer as the man stopped and bent to look at one of the prisoners, reaching out a hand to grasp her chin and lift her head.

Then he straightened and continued on, passing a blonde rollotypist and a tall female guard before stopping again in front of a smaller woman with dark hair.

He was alive.

Numb, I tore my gaze away from the porthole, if only so I could remember how to drag breath into my aching lungs. He's alive. He's alive... He's alive...

My eyes lifted back to that porthole, clinging to the lean, handsome face that had haunted me every moment since Vennos. Whatever doubts I might have once had, they had just been scoured away. There was no mistaking it, no questioning it. I wasn't looking at him from several hundred feet in the air, it was from a few yards away. The Icewolf was alive, and Arramy was the Icewolf.

I should have felt something, but there was only a strange, hollow buzz traveling through my head, my thoughts brought to a screeching halt.

The Icewolf was alive, and he was apparently searching for someone. Someone very specific. A small woman with dark hair.

The General came to the same conclusion at the same time I did. He whipped around to stare at me, his eyes lighting with a flare of understanding that made my blood run cold. A swift flash of triumph crossed his face before he picked up one of the sonulator mouthpieces and lifted it to his lips. "Pilot, bring us within artillery distance of the Headquarters building," he commanded. "Gunnery deck, prepare razing fire."

With a click, he dropped the mouthpiece back into its cradle, then turned on me again, striding over to stand directly in front of me. "What do you know about the Icewolf?"

I tipped my head back to look him in the eye, my grin returning. "Why would I tell you?" I asked in Paradazh.

"Because I'll kill you if you don't," he said. Blunt. Cold.

I grinned a little longer, then looked away. "Not your best line, General. I've heard it before and I'm still here."

I didn't see him raise his hand, but I knew the blow was coming before the back of his knuckles cracked across my cheek, whipping my head to the right, splitting the inside of my mouth over my teeth and sending a burst of copper across my tongue. For a moment I stayed where I was, absorbing the pain. Then I drew myself up straight and raised an eyebrow, pulling a lopsided, bloodied grin. Laughter wormed out of my chest as I looked around at all the surprised, wide-eyed Coventry faces. "You're all going to die."   

AN: 

AHHHHH! He's alive! *gasp* What? You didn't see that coming? Oh, good, I was afraid it would be way too obvious... *cough*

I hope you're having a merry holiday season, for those who are celebrating :) 

And thanks so much for reading. I apologize for any continuity issues that might pop up in these last few chapters as I hammer them out onto the page. Of note: the device Navarre hinted at is not going to be a thing after all. It was too easy. And... I... well... don't know how to do easy... But I'm also too busy at the moment to go poking around in previous chapters to fix things. Please forgive me...