Valiant Dust

19

Meknez, Gadira II

In all, Hector’s landing party captured twenty-four combat flyers in twelve containers, plus five containers filled with bombs, missiles, and heavy automag darts for the flyers’ onboard weapons systems, and three additional containers full of contraband small arms and ammunitions. It was enough to start a good-sized war, Sikander decided—which, when he thought about it, was exactly what someone was trying to do. It took hours to inventory the arms, but by noon Sikander decided that they’d done everything they could in Meknez. Time to turn it over to the locals—and perhaps get something to eat and a bit of sleep.

The chirping of his personal comm unit interrupted those pleasant thoughts. “This is Lieutenant North,” he answered, stifling a yawn.

“Mr. North, this is the XO,” said Peter Chatburn over the link. “Are you finished there?”

“Yes, sir. The local police forces say they can handle matters from here. What do you need?”

“We’re recalling the shore party. There’s something unusual going on up in Tanjeer, and major riots have broken out all over the city. We may need Ms. Larkin’s force to evacuate more private citizens from the city’s offworld district. Is the shuttle flyable?”

“Petty Officer Long says so, sir. He pulled a couple of damaged boards and it checks out for nontactical maneuvering.”

“Very well, then. Get back up here quick, Mr. North. There’s a lot going on.”

Sikander glanced around. Angela Larkin stood with her hand to her ear, evidently receiving the same recall notice from Hector’s comm techs. A short distance off, Captain Zakur was busy with his own comm device, speaking rapidly in Jadeed-Arabi. If he’d received the news about riots in the capital, he would be heading back to rejoin Ranya’s protective detail … and that suggested a different course of action than returning to Hector. Whatever was going on, Ranya el-Nasir was likely to be in the middle of it.

Sikander believed in listening to his intuition. The moment the thought crossed his mind, he made his decision. “With respect, Mr. Chatburn, I would like to remain planetside and rejoin the amira. You may need a pair of eyes close to the situation.”

“That is not an option,” the XO replied. “Everything we’re looking at up here suggests heavy fighting in a matter of hours. We don’t need the added responsibility of worrying about your safety while Gadira burns.”

“I think it may be important to stay close to events and keep you posted on the Gadirans’ concerns,” Sikander replied. “In my estimation, it’s worth a small risk. Oh, and Chief Reza will be with me. I won’t be alone.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Sikander formed the impression that Chatburn took a moment to talk it over with the captain, which was confirmed when Elise Markham’s voice came onto the comm unit. “Very well, Mr. North,” she said. “Watch yourself down there. And if I order you to return to Hector, I expect you to do so at once. Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. North out.” Sikander ended the call. Of course, he assumed that his invitation was still good, but given the fact that Aquila had just provided the Royal Guard with actionable intelligence and intercepted a major arms shipment, it seemed like the sultan’s officers wouldn’t object to his continued presence.

He quickly conferred with Larkin and Chief Trent, confirming that they’d received their orders to return to Hector. Then he hurried over to Captain Zakur, who was stowing his own gear in the flyer they had taken from Socotra. A temporary walking cast encased his lower right leg, but the big Gadiran paid little attention to his injury. “Do you have room for two more, Captain Zakur?” Sikander asked him.

Zakur straightened and gave him a measured look. “You are not returning to your ship, Mr. North?”

“It seems events on the ground are more interesting today. I’d like to stay somewhere close to the amira and observe developments.”

“It may be dangerous,” said Zakur. “The amira flew back to El-Badi two hours ago. I am going straight to the palace, and you must know there are very serious riots in the capital.”

The palace? What in the world possessed her to head for such an obvious target? Sikander wondered. But as he thought about it, he decided that he could guess at her reasoning—symbolic actions had value. Sultans who fled to safe and distant refuges in the face of danger were not likely to keep their thrones for long, but a show of personal courage might reinforce wavering loyalties. He wished she had told him her plans, but it wasn’t as if she needed his permission to be Amira Ranya Meriem el-Nasir. She did what she thought was right.

On the other hand, Captain Markham had very probably not anticipated that he would immediately head for the middle of the rioting when she granted him leave to remain on the planet. It might be for the best if he neglected to bring that to her attention now. “I understand,” Sikander told Zakur. “Perhaps we can find a way to help.”

The Gadiran thought it over for only a moment. “Very well, then. I cannot promise that you will have access to the amira when we arrive, but I have no objection if you wish to come along.”

Sikander and Darvesh tossed their bags into the flyer’s cabin and racked their weapons inside. Sikander took the pilot’s seat, and began to warm up the engines. As soon as Zakur and his remaining Royal Guards took their seats, Sikander lifted off, and pointed the flyer’s nose toward the distant capital. Figuring that speed was of the essence, he configured the vehicle for high-altitude flight and climbed to twenty thousand meters, taking it supersonic.

Even at the flyer’s best speed, the flight from Meknez to Tanjeer was not short. He ate a small snack and caught a twenty-minute nap over the southern arm of the Silver Sea in the middle of the flight, compensating at least a little for the late night and early morning he’d just had. Sikander made sure he was back at the controls a good five hundred kilometers from Tanjeer. Beside him, Tarek Zakur’s face grew sterner as the minutes ticked by. He seemed to be working with at least three different comm channels, trading rapid-fire orders in Jadeed-Arabi that exceeded Sikander’s limited vocabulary in the language.

Sikander waited until Zakur seemed to be between calls. “Should we continue toward the palace?” he asked the Gadiran officer.

“Yes, as quickly as possible,” Zakur told him. “There is heavy fighting near El-Badi. You should assume you may be landing under fire.”

“The insurgents are that close to the palace grounds?”

“They are, but the street fighting is not what concerns me,” Zakur replied. “There is an unidentified column moving on the palace from the west. Apparently a large force of regular troops debarked from seaborne freight carriers docked in the cargo port. They deployed light armor and air cover while the Royal Guard dealt with widespread riots in other districts.”

“A coordinated attack with the urban insurgents?” Darvesh asked from the backseat.

“Or opportunism,” Zakur answered. “The commander of the palace garrison has tried to summon reinforcements from the Royal Guard bases on the outskirts of the capital, but there seems to be some trouble in getting them out of their barracks.”

“That is beginning to sound like a coup,” Sikander said. “Who is behind it?”

“One or more of the beys. They maintain private armies, and they can afford mechanized formations. The Caidists don’t have any heavy forces.” Zakur allowed himself a grim smile. “The traitors might not be as clever as they think, though. The sultan left last night for the Khalifa Palace to visit his daughters. He is in Toutay, not Tanjeer.”

Ahead of him, Sikander caught the first distant glimpse of the brown smudge of Tanjeer. Even at this distance, he could make out thin black plumes of smoke drifting into the sky. He glanced over his shoulder. “Darvesh, contact Hector and tell them what’s going on. I’d better pay attention to the flying.”

He heard Darvesh relaying the report to Hector, and took a moment to acquaint himself with the defensive systems of the Gadiran flyer. He also did his best to dredge up any recollection of tips for avoiding enemy fire. When Petty Officer Long had flown into Tanjeer’s spaceport for the sultan’s garden gathering, he’d descended to just a few meters above the ocean and slalomed back and forth on his approach. Good enough for him, good enough for me, Sikander decided. He put the flyer into a steep dive, bleeding off altitude.

The maneuver brought him to sea level about twenty kilometers from the palace; he could clearly see its golden domes and spires above the low cliffs. Doing his best to keep up his speed while zigzagging sharply, Sikander streaked over the long, rolling swells. Navigation markers and small working boats flashed by under his wings; distantly he noted more plumes of smoke rising from Tanjeer’s business district, and streets barricaded with abandoned ground cars or heavy transports. It looks like a war zone out there.

“Where should I land?” he asked Zakur.

The Gadiran monitored various vid feeds on his dataslate. “Head for the south terrace and land on the lawn between the palace and the ocean. The palace landing pads may be under observation.”

“Understood,” Sikander replied. He kept his speed up and altitude down until the last possible moment, coming in below the level of the twenty-meter cliffs that marked the seaward edge of the palace compound. Then he killed the flyer’s speed, flaring and powering its braking thrusters as he popped up over the edge. He eased forward over the gardens and verandas, and didn’t immediately see any patch of ground that seemed especially good for a landing. Sikander settled on a narrow strip of green between two arbors and rotated the flyer sideways as he dropped down.

He managed to knock down one of the arbors with the rear fuselage of the flyer, but the vehicle settled on its struts more or less evenly. “Er, sorry,” he said to Zakur.

“Think nothing of it,” the Gadiran replied over his shoulder as he opened his hatch and scrambled out. Sikander, Darvesh, and the remaining Royal Guards followed suit.

The instant Sikander got out of the flyer, he realized the seriousness of the situation in the capital. The smell of smoke was heavy, and the sound of gunfire—the distant popping of firearms, the shrill whine of mag weapons, and the occasional muted whump! of an explosion—rolled over the palace grounds like an approaching thunderstorm. He could hear crowd noise, too, the angry roar of many people gathered together not too far away. As bad as the situation in Sidi Marouf had been a week ago, the current troubles seemed to be an order of magnitude worse. Darvesh shot him a look of warning, but said nothing. This was the sort of situation he was supposed to keep Sikander out of, after all.

Sikander and Darvesh followed the limping Captain Zakur into the palace. Inside, the marble-floored hallways echoed with the shrill crackle of voice comms and people shouting urgently. Pairs of Royal Guard sentries manned post after post within the building, looking angry and tense. Sikander glimpsed palace staff hurrying to hide various treasures, removing pictures from the walls and small statuary from display stands. Are they expecting El-Badi to be looted? he wondered. That certainly did not seem to be a good sign.

They took several quick turns, and then entered a very modern-looking command center hidden in the middle of the palace. Large vidscreens loomed on every wall; Sikander saw images of riots breaking out in Tanjeer’s downtown areas, angry crowds surging along the boulevard just outside the palace grounds, armored scout-cars advancing slowly down a deserted street. A dozen Royal Guard officers and orderlies manned the room, all of them talking at once.

This looks familiar, Sikander decided. The Aquilan consulate was fresh in his mind, but he remembered observing other protests from the security center in his father’s palace at Sangrur … when Devindar came home, after the attack. That’s what this reminds me of. The night was hot—

—and humid. Sikander sleeps little. Near dawn he grows restless, and goes down to the palace’s command center to see if there is any news of the investigation. Nawab Dayan is there, watching the vid feeds from several different cities at the same time. Dozens of dragoons and civilian police crowd the room, filling the room with a tense buzz of activity.

Somehow Nawab Dayan notes Sikander’s approach without glancing away from the displays. “How are they?” he asks.

“Mother and Gamand are both sleeping,” Sikander tells him. The danger is over—he knows they will both survive, although Vadiya North will require extensive reconstructive surgery for her ruined face, and Gamand is in for months of difficult physical rehab to regain the full use of his arm. In fact, his mother will never look quite the same again, although Sikander doesn’t know that at the time.

“The nationalists could have killed us all,” the nawab says.

Sikander’s gaze falls on a news feed showing the site of the attack. The crawl at the bottom of the screen puts the death toll at seventy-three. The sheer shock of the attack is wearing off; now that he is no longer in the middle of the carnage, he is beginning to piece together exactly what he’d seen. “Good God. Who would do such a thing?”

Sergeant Reza of the nawab’s dragoons answers Sikander. “The Sons of Palar are claiming responsibility for the attack, Nawabzada.” That is the terrorist branch of the Kashmiri Liberation Party. Most KLP members stop just short of advocating open revolution or acts of terrorism, but the radicals call for more direct action against Kashmir’s aristocratic classes and their Aquilan patrons. Sikander can guess which faction is dominant this morning.

He shifts his attention to the vid displays his father is watching. They show the nawab’s soldiers descending on nationalist agitators all across Jaipur, and the KLP taking to the streets in protest. He recognizes one scene in particular: the administration building of the university in Ganderbal. A number of soldiers surround the building; he wonders what’s going on.

“Father, you must stop this madness!” Devindar hurries into the command center, angrily gesturing at the vid feed from Ganderbal. Sikander turns in surprise: He hadn’t realized that Devindar has returned already. His brother is bandaged on the side of his face and across his left arm. Sikander starts to welcome Devindar, but Devindar ignores him and confronts their father. “No one at Ganderbal is a terrorist!”

“If no one at the university is a terrorist, how is it that three of your fellow students set upon you with knives?” Nawab Dayan replies. “And why is Professor Howell barricaded in the chancellor’s office with a bomb? The matter seems clear enough to me, Devindar.”

“Dr. Howell had nothing to do with it,” Devindar says. “You are making a mistake.”

“Parmad Howell spent six years in prison before you were born because he was convicted of terrorist acts. He’s spent the last twenty years radicalizing any students stupid enough to listen to him.” Nawab Dayan folds his thick arms like a battlement across his chest. “After today, no more. Professor Howell can explain his incitements in court.”

“You can’t criminalize dissent!” Devindar snaps. “You are acting exactly like the tyrant the KLP says you are!”

Dayan North turns away from the vid displays, his eyes flashing dangerously. “The Ganderbal police inform me that there are eight or ten students holed up in there with Howell. I wonder whether some of them are friends of yours, Devindar.”

Sikander glances over at Devindar, and their eyes meet. The dark look in Devindar’s face tells Sikander that his brother is wondering the same thing. Devindar has made no secret of his attraction to the supposedly less radical elements of the KLP for four or five years now … but for the first time Sikander wonders where his loyalties lie.

Devindar does not answer Nawab Dayan. He straightens his shoulders, holds their father’s gaze for a moment, then turns and strides out the door without looking back.

Six hours after the argument in the command center, Sikander boards the warp liner for High Albion.…

That was the moment the breach between Devindar and Father became irreparable, Sikander reflected. His father hadn’t allowed Sikander to return to Kashmir until he’d graduated from the Academy. It was four and a half years before he saw either of them again. By then, everything was different.

Darvesh tapped him on the shoulder. “The amira,” he murmured. The Kashmiri sergeant nodded at the far corner of the room. Ranya stood there, arms folded as she watched the chaos unfolding on the screens. Her olive Montréalais-style skirt suit was probably the closest she could come to being in uniform.

“Of course,” said Sikander. “Thank you, Darvesh.” He dismissed the old memories, focusing on what was going on around him this very moment, and followed Tarek Zakur across the room. The two of them joined Ranya by the displays.

Ranya glanced around as they approached. “Captain Zakur, you’re back! And I see you brought Lieutenant North, too.”

“He insisted, Amira,” Zakur answered. He bowed, then took a sudden interest in one of the vid feeds nearby.

“Concerned for me?” Ranya asked Sikander with a small smile.

“Well, yes,” Sikander replied. He nodded at the chaos on the vidscreens. “I wouldn’t have left you on Socotra if I had realized that all this was about to break loose.”

“I wouldn’t have headed off to Socotra in the first place,” Ranya replied. “Then again, I succeeded in confusing Bey Salem’s forces. A squadron of flyers carrying his soldiers landed at the villa an hour ago, looking for me.”

“Salem el-Fasi?” Sikander asked. “Is he the one behind the troop column moving in from the port?”

“His troops are hanging back for the moment, probably hoping the mob outside our gates will break in and overrun the palace. But yes, el-Fasi just issued a global broadcast to the effect that he has been forced to step in and restore order.” Ranya pointed at a screen showing a slow-moving aerial view from rooftop height, following the progress of troops riding light armor. Her face tightened, and for an instant Sikander caught a glimpse of the anger and anxiety she kept carefully hidden. “He spent years insisting he wanted nothing more than to protect me and telling me what a great man my father was. I knew there was a whiff of rottenness to all that attention he showered on me.”

“I am sorry, Ranya,” he said. He studied the image of el-Fasi’s column, working through the pieces of the puzzle. He’d assumed that local involvement in the Oristani Caravan’s arms smuggling was more or less incidental. After all, it seemed likely that the Dremish agent Bleindel would have selected the spaceport and freight-handling services that best suited his needs for moving contraband into Gadira without attracting too much attention. But if this Bey Salem was in position to move on the palace today, he must have known what the Caidist sympathizers in Tanjeer planned to do days in advance. That suggested coordination between the bey and the rebels.

The dark look on Sikander’s face caught Ranya’s attention. “What is it?” she asked him.

“Is there any chance that Salem el-Fasi is secretly allied to the insurgents and Caidists?”

“It’s almost unthinkable. He made a vast fortune partnering with offworld business and modernizing our industries, which put many of the urban extremists out of work.” Ranya nodded at the images of the el-Fasi forces. “Look, you can see there that insurgents are harassing his soldiers. They are angry with the sultanate, but they hate the beys and what they stand for.”

“Then this isn’t about the Caidists, and it isn’t about an el-Fasi coup,” said Sikander. “It’s about Dremark taking control of Gadira. They’ve been supplying arms shipments to insurgents through el-Fasi’s ports with one hand, and preparing el-Fasi to overthrow you with the other.”

“Dremark?” Ranya looked at him. “All the arms our soldiers have recovered from rebel caches have been of Cygnan manufacture. Why do you think Dremark is involved?”

“I ran into the Dremish consul in the warehouse at Meknez. Well, to be honest, he did his best to run into me. He almost flattened me with a heavy ground transport.” Sikander smiled grimly. “I’m afraid he escaped, but I got a good look at him as he drove off. It was definitely Bleindel.”

“Otto Bleindel?”

Sikander glanced at her. “You’ve met him?”

“He has been working with Salem el-Fasi, passing himself off as a trade representative.” She thought furiously for a moment. “God is merciful! That explains everything. The Dremish manufactured the crisis so that Bey Salem could launch a coup. And once he takes power…”

“… they’ll negotiate with their puppet for whatever they want in Gadira,” Sikander finished her thought. The Republic of Montréal might not be willing to commit thousands of soldiers to an effort to pacify the insurgents and prop up the el-Nasirs, but the Empire of Dremark had no such reservations. They only needed a plausible reason to intervene. The real question was what part the Dremish cruiser and troop carrier in orbit were intended to play, and whether or not anything could be done about it. “Damn. I need to tell the captain.”

“Protesters are massing by the east gate,” one of the guards announced, listening to a headset. “Lieutenant Imamovic reports that his platoon is taking mag-rifle fire from snipers hidden in the crowd. He requests instructions.”

Ranya hurried to peer over the man’s shoulder at the console he was watching. Sikander followed her; the screen showed one of the gates leading into the palace grounds. A thin line of Royal Guards—these men wore dappled sand-olive camouflage, not the black-and-scarlet dress uniforms worn inside the palace—sheltered behind a barricade near the fence, rifles at the ready. Outside, a mob of hundreds, perhaps thousands, shouted and shook their fists. A constant shower of rocks and debris sailed over the fence, pelting the palace grounds.

“Do not fire on the crowd,” Ranya ordered. “Nonlethal defenses only. I won’t have this turn into a massacre.”

“Amira, that may not be up to you,” Captain Zakur said, standing close behind her. “If the crowd breaches the gate and you are still here, we will have no choice but to employ all means necessary to defend your person. You should think about moving to a safer location.”

“If we surrender the palace, then Bey Salem will be happy to liberate it for us,” said Ranya. “El-Badi is a crucial symbol of the sultan’s power. We cannot allow it to fall into his hands.”

“If we allow you to fall into the hands of the Caidists or el-Fasi’s forces, the status of the palace becomes irrelevant,” Zakur said. “Please, consider—”

“Intruders on the grounds!” One of the guards monitoring another set of security feeds slapped an alarm button and pointed. “Sunrise Park, sector three! They drove a ground car through the fence!”

Zakur spun around to study the camera the guard pointed at. Sikander couldn’t make out much more than a stalled-out ground car—more of a truck, really—with smoke spewing from its engine compartment, and a rush of protesters. Some waved pistols or combat rifles, but many were armed with nothing more than sickle-shaped swords or curved daggers. The Gadiran captain keyed his comms. “Reserve platoon to Sunrise Park at once!” he ordered. “Seal that breach!”

Some of the attackers staggered and dropped as Sikander and Ranya watched, struck by fire from the palace defenders, but more streamed in to replace them. One small group found a spot by a barricade and set up a heavy autorifle, opening up on the Royal Guard’s positions. Sikander could distantly hear the shrill stuttering sound of the weapon echoing down the hall. It stood as a chilling reminder that he watched events taking place just outside the palace, not a feed showing some far-off disorders.

A flash of light flickered across another screen. A moment later, Sikander heard a loud rumble, and the floor beneath his feet trembled slightly. He looked back, and realized that the east gate—the one so many people had been crowded near—no longer existed, blown into a tangled mess of twisted metal. Scores of bodies littered the street. A bomb, he realized. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then bystanders slowly began to pick themselves up off the ground. Some remained too dazed or injured to move, but others seized whatever weapons were close to hand and surged toward the gap. “Dear God,” he murmured.

Zakur turned to Ranya. “Amira, I beg you: We must go. We do not have enough men to defend the palace grounds against the mob. All we can do is buy a little time.”

Ranya nodded slowly, still shaken by what she saw on the screen. “Very well.”

The Gadiran officer took her by the arm and steered her out of the center, as more Royal Guards joined the entourage. Sikander and Darvesh followed in their wake. They hurried through more parts of the palace he hadn’t yet seen, and emerged in a spacious garage filled with a dozen or more ground cars and flyers of varying degrees of luxury. A large landing pad stood just outside the garage doors, occupied by three military flyers; beyond those, the parklike palace grounds looked down on olive groves and outbuildings. Once again the roar of the angry mob rose in Sikander’s ears, along with the constant popping of gunfire.

The Royal Guards ringed Ranya and moved toward the nearest of the flyers—but a sudden burst of small-arms fire erupted in front of them. Sikander caught sight of armed men in mismatched working clothes scuttling under the branches of the olive grove before he threw himself to the ground. Captain Zakur pushed Ranya down and covered her with his own body, while the other guards returned fire. Mag-rifle rounds chirped and whined as more men opened up. “Get some covering units into the air!” Zakur shouted at his troops.

Sikander rolled behind a large planter, and drew his pistol. He’d left the mag carbine he’d carried in the raid at Meknez racked behind the pilot’s seat in the flyer on the south terrace. A pair of Royal Guards ran into the rebel fire, heading for the parked flyers. Bullets struck around them, but the two reached the combat flyer and scrambled into the cockpit. A moment later, the engine hummed to life, and the autorifle turret below the flyer’s nose kicked into motion, swiveling to find a target. Two blurred silver streaks shot out from the shadows of the grove and slammed into the side of the flyer—antiarmor rockets, screaming across the landing pad with deafening roars. The flyer exploded, hurling pieces of fuselage and landing gear across the field and knocking everyone to the ground, Royal Guard and insurgent alike.

Sikander picked himself up, his ears ringing. Now what? Maybe there were no more rockets ready to fire on the remaining flyers at the palace landing pad—and maybe there were. He didn’t know if he would be willing to risk his life on that gamble, but they clearly couldn’t stay where they were.

Darvesh shook his shoulder. “The flyer we came in might be a better option, sir,” he said.

“I agree.” Sikander raised his voice and shouted at Zakur. “Captain! The south terrace!”

Zakur glanced over his shoulder, and nodded. He tapped the soldiers near him on their backs, and called out hurried instructions to the rest of his group. Half the group laid down a furious barrage of fire, lashing every conceivable bit of cover in sight with bursts of mag-rifle darts. The rest of the men got to their feet, doing their best to keep their bodies between Ranya and the insurgent riflemen, and then ran back into the garage. Sikander and Darvesh sprinted after them.

They raced back through the palace. Sikander caught the distinct chatter of gunfire echoing through the marble halls, and realized that somewhere in the sprawling building insurgents were already on the loose. The thought was not remotely reassuring, and he breathed a sigh of relief when Zakur burst out of a door onto the terrace with its pools and sweeping view of the sea. The flyer they’d arrived in remained parked on top of the unlucky arbor.

This time, one of the Royal Guards headed for the pilot’s seat. Sikander happily presumed the fellow was rated as a combat pilot, and settled for piling into the back with Ranya, Darvesh, and four more guards. The pilot lifted off before he’d finished strapping in, and raced away from the palace by dropping over the cliff’s edge and heading west across the bay.

Ranya gazed back at the palace through the rear window. To Sikander’s surprise, she did not have a scratch on her, although she’d managed to lose her shoes in the race through the palace. She took several deep breaths, then looked at Zakur, in the copilot’s seat. “Where are we going, Captain?” she asked.

“We are still considering options, Amira,” Zakur replied. He had a bad cut on his scalp that was bleeding freely, but he ignored it as he scanned through the flyer’s comms again. “At the moment I simply want to get you out of the area.”

“Head for Toutay,” she said. “The sultan will need our help.”

“I don’t think that is a good idea,” said Sikander. Ranya gave him a startled look, so he continued. “Bey Salem needs the el-Nasirs either captured or dead for his coup to succeed. For that matter, the Dremish would prefer Bey Salem to be the only thing resembling a planetary authority for them to deal with. It won’t take them long to figure out no one is left at El-Badi, so it seems to me that going anywhere near your uncle might be the most dangerous thing you could do right now.”

Captain Zakur nodded in agreement, his face set in a hard scowl. “Lieutenant North is correct, Amira,” he said. “We should keep the royal family dispersed if possible.”

“Then where should I go?”

“Some place where you’ll have the ability to communicate with loyal forces and maintain command, but your enemies won’t be able to find you,” Sikander said. Hector, perhaps? Would Captain Markham be willing to extend an offer of refuge, or not? He couldn’t even begin to imagine what sort of diplomatic headaches that might lead to … but perhaps a different ship might be a better choice. “You told me that Shihab is equipped with a modern comm suite and defensive systems. Where is she now?”

“She departed Socotra early this morning, right after the amira left,” Zakur replied. He pulled out his dataslate, and studied his reports. “Yes, she’s about halfway between Socotra and Tanjeer. It’s as secure as any other option at the moment, and we can meet her at sea.”

Ranya thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “The Shihab will do. Take me there, please.”

“Yes, Amira.” Zakur nodded to the pilot, who banked sharply and turned the flyer away from the coast, heading out over the Silver Sea.

Sikander glanced out the window at the gleaming white walls of El-Badi, quickly falling behind them. He wondered whether the palace would still be standing the next time he saw it, and whether Ranya would be safe anywhere on Gadira today. Salem el-Fasi’s forces or Caidist insurgents probably didn’t have the means to locate or attack her if Shihab stayed well out to sea, but what about el-Fasi’s Dremish friends? If he was right about their intentions, then it was only a matter of time before Dremark moved in force. And what does Captain Markham do then? Just how far do her orders extend?

Ranya noticed his silence. “What is it?”

“I hate to leave under these circumstances, but I can’t stay on Shihab,” Sikander told her. “I think I need to get back to my ship.”