Mirage (Mirage #1)(55)

“Ghazlan is our immediate problem. Though the whole of the Eastern Reach is brewing with dissent.” The woman who spoke was called Kora. Maram didn’t know her well; she was normally stationed at another planetary outpost.

Isidor gestured for her to continue. Kora’s hands moved quickly over her workstation and the image of the Eastern Reach faded and was replaced with a holoreel. Ghazlan’s stone towers were stark against the ocean just behind them. Smoke plumed up into the air, curling its way around the pale blue of the Vathek flags flying from the towers. I held my breath as a small figure climbed quickly up the side of the tower, an assault rifle strapped across his back. There was no sound but I could imagine the screaming—raucous and loud—in the streets below him as he tore the Vathek flag down. The old Andalaan flag, before the occupation, had been white, with a green crescent moon pointing up, and a spray of stars rising up like a fountain from between its two points. White for prosperity and longevity. Green for rebirth and growth. This was not the flag the rebel hoisted onto the tower.

Since the occupation, the flag had been replaced by the Vathek one, and the rebellion had refashioned themselves a new flag. A green full moon with the silhouette of a bird streaking halfway across its surface against a red field.

Green for rebirth and growth. Red for blood. Our blood.

No one had flown the rebel flag since the Purge, almost a decade ago. The bloodshed that followed their surrender was catastrophic, and most of us believed that it was over. There was no resistance to be had against our new masters. Cruel as they were, as hard as life was, they’d won. Gooseflesh rose on my arms as the image of the flag became clearer, as Kushaila letters formed just below it.

The ocean wind picked it up, straightening the fabric so that everyone below could see it. Beneath the full moon in green was Kushaila script.

The blood never dies.

The blood never forgets.

The same part of me that froze when long misshapen shadows appeared in the fields, when I heard the whiz of Vathek fighters in the air, screamed at me now. I had agreed to spy for the rebellion, but while they celebrated their first victory, the Vath were here, plotting their undoing.

How could they—how could we—survive such a thing?

“So far they’ve managed to take Ghazlan and Sidi Walid, a city on a major trade route, and a collection of estates with acres of verdant farmland.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Sidi Walid was a holy city. The first Dihyan temple was built there and it was the last place Massinia was seen.

“They’re peasants,” Galene spoke for the first time, her voice dripping with disdain. “How is this possible?”

“They’re clever,” Kora sighed. “They never hit a place with a large Vathek presence. And it’s two cities, hardly the rebellion we’re worried about.”

“If we don’t crush it…” Isidor started.

“Yes,” Kora agreed. “For now it’s contained to this region. But if they get hold of the entire region? It will become a bigger problem.”

“Why was it not crushed from the start?” Galene insisted once more.

I still hadn’t moved. In fact, I feared to breathe lest I give myself away. They were right; it was only three cities. But no one had succeeded in taking anything back from the Vath in more than twenty years. What they took, they kept.

“We are stretched thin,” Isidor said. “Andala requires a heavier military presence than we anticipated. Between that and the losses we suffered during the second siege…”

“The siege is eight years past now,” the minister of finance said, frowning. “It’s high time we repair the holes in our military.”

“With what? We have neglected the infrastructure of this planet in favor of quashing dissent. And Luna-Vaxor does not have the resources to build us back up. Not in the numbers we need.”

Isidor raised a hand, forestalling the minister. “How long would it take to get the resources we need in place?”

“With droids, and assuming no sabotage? The mines would take six months, the factories three or four. To replace what we lost in the war, a year perhaps. But that doesn’t account for the bodies we will need to man our ships.”

A chill spread through me as they spoke. Was this how our fates were decided? By cold High Vathek directors who were not interested in the planet itself but the resources we might yield? They had said nothing of this world, or Gibra, or even the whispers of Massinia’s rebirth. The rebels would become more than a problem for the Vath, that much was clear. And yet they skirted the issue, as if to speak of it would give it power.

The ministers continued to quibble among one another, citing cost and loss of Vathek life for and against campaigns in reclaiming the Eastern Reach.

“Bomb the coastal cities,” a voice said. It cut through the rising tide of argument as clean as a sharp knife, and as one our heads swung toward the source.

Mathis, king of all, sat at the far end of the table, his broad form leaning back as languid as a lion. None of us had seen or heard him walk into the meeting room, so absorbed had we been in the arguments. Not for the first time, I thought of the story Maram had told me. Mathis had committed patricide to secure his throne; he’d done worse to secure this system.

I was not a child, I knew that the very beautiful could hide evil. But Mathis’s strength, his menace, seemed to radiate from him. He cast a long shadow, frigid and dark; it seemed as though I could feel the chill of it all the way down the table. Even Galene seemed to pale just a little in her father’s presence.