“Capships are moving in, Marshal.”

Adam suppressed a wince.  “Put Theta Leader on speakers and give me audio control.”

“Roger that.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly before Theta Leader’s voice abruptly cut in over the command center speakers.  “—guard is moving in, maybe four ships.  My sensors are saying they’re pretty well-armed, but I can’t get a clear read on the power levels of their lasers.”

“How many total, Theta Lead?” Adam asked.

“Nine ships,” she said.  “Bigger ones are hanging back.  Squadron’s keeping the fighters tied up in the upper atmosphere and low orbit.  Bombers are slipping through, but that’s why Gamma Squadron’s scrambled, right?”  Her breath rasped on the comm as she sucked in a deep breath.  “Sir, what are my orders if these cruisers open fire on the surface?”

The entire room went silent.  Gazes drifted toward Adam from consoles, from sensor screens, expectant.  The whole command center held its breath, waiting to see what Adam Windsor might say in answer to a young pilot’s question.

It’s not like we’ve got much of anyone out there that might help us.

“Split the squadron,” he said.  “Half of you make for the Mission Systems station at Cassini VII.  The rest of you head for New Earth.  Everyone takes recordings of what’s happened here.  You’ve been recording?”

“Yes, sir.  You have to ask?”

“Good girl,” he said, eyes sliding shut or a moment.  “Take those recordings to Mission Systems and the Commonwealth.  Take them to the Wanderers and Argopian and anyone you think will listen.  As soon as those ships open up on us, split.  If they start firing from orbit, there’s not going to be anything you can do to help us.”

Dead silence met him, both in the room and on the comm.  A wave of static passed over the line before Theta Leader’s voice came back to them, quiet and sad.

“Understood, Marshal.”

“Good,” he said quietly, feeling sick but knowing that it was the only responsible order he could give.  There was no hope of evacuation at this point, not with the fleet above and the bombers still active.

They may try to soften us up with a bombardment with more than just their bombers if they think that’ll do them some good.  Then again, the damage to real estate so far has been pretty minimal.

His stomach twisted.  No.  They’re getting ready to send landers and we’re in no position to fend them off the way we’ve got everyone bottled up in shelters.

            Damnation. We’ve managed to doom ourselves without even trying.

They skirted the edge of the woods along the city’s northern border, where the buildings thinned out and began to give way to woods and rocky rises and hillocks.  Lindsay’s heart thudded hard against her ribs as they ran as fast as they dared, staying low and trying to remain well beneath the notice of anyone or anything  flying above them.  The bombers seemed to just keep coming out of nowhere, chased by the meager fighter forces that they’d been able to scramble.

“Hellfire,” Kara cursed, her eyes following a bomber as the dying craft spun off toward the shallows offshore.  “We played at pacifism for too long.  We’re not prepared for this.”

“Uncle Adam and the other Marshals have been trying,” Lindsay said.  “It’s not their fault the Council’s tied their hands.”

“They didn’t try to argue for it very loudly.”

“Not until lately anyway.”  Lindsay smiled grimly.  “They didn’t have anything to back them up.  Spontaneous visions of death and destruction in front of the entire Council…that tends to help their case.”  Her gaze ranged down the treeline, toward the edge of the vineyard.  “We can’t keep to the trees.  We have to leave them.”

Kara nodded.  “City’s like a bloody ghost town.”

“No one’s stupid.  They’re all under cover.”  Except us, and Brendan wasn’t.  He must have been desperate to find the Inspector.  She should have been furious with her uncle for sending him, whether Winston was important to their futures or not.  It was stupidly dangerous to leave cover to find anyone.

And what the hell am I doing?  She suppressed the urge to sigh at herself.  Well, I guess my husband and have the same streak of stupidity in us that makes us do things that are ridiculously dangerous.

Kara squeezed her shoulder.  “Come on.  We can make a run for it now and I think we’ll hit the gap in the waves.”

Lindsay took a deep breath and nodded.  “On your count.”

“Two, one, go.”

They sprinted for the vineyard and the still-smoldering wreckage beyond it.

There was an eerie calm hanging over the city as the women scrambled up into the light of day, like the world before a storm.  Lindsay sucked in a breath, her gaze scything across the landscape.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it might be,” Kara said.  “But they’re hitting hard.”

Lindsay’s gaze flicked up toward the sky.  She could see the ships in the distance and she winced.  “Yeah, and there’s some coming around for another pass.  Come on, we’ve got to move quick or else we’re in trouble.”

Kara glanced up at winced.  “How many do you think?”

“Enough that my uncle’s probably scrambling more just because he knows we bailed on safety.”  Assuming he’s even got fighters left to scramble. All of ours are probably in the air already.

            This is bad.  Really bad.

At least it didn’t line up with anything she’d already seen that summer.  Not exactly, anyway.  It was some small measure of comfort that it didn’t.

But I’m not infallible and I don’t always remember what I’ve seen.  Maybe this was something that Brendan would remember but I don’t.

She suppressed a wince at the thought as Kara tugged on her hand.

“Come on.  We have to move, like you said.”

Lindsay sucked in a breath and nodded.  The pair of women moved away from the shelter, thirty yards away from where the Council House stood, eerily untouched by the bombings.  They skirted the edge of the trees to the roadway, catching an eyeful of the devastation below.  Small craters marked the landscape, the telltale signs of precision bombs dropped indiscriminately, as if their attackers weren’t exactly sure where to hit them.

Except for the fact that they knocked out the transformers, took down the power grids.

“Something isn’t right about all of this,” she said quietly.

“We’ll find out what it is,” Kara said as they scrambled across the roadway and started down the hill.  “After we find your husband.”

Ships whined above them, the sound of their engines leaving her ears buzzing with the sound of their passage.  No bombs dropped from this pass; their fighters chased the bombers, engines screaming and lasers firing.  Lindsay watched them soar above, transfixed for a moment, her throat tight.

“Is this our future?” she whispered, half to Kara and half to herself.  “Is this what we’re meant to suffer?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question, Lin,” Kara said quietly.  “Do you?”

“No,” Lindsay said.  “But I’m damned afraid that we’re going to find out.”

With a shudder, she started to run, leaving Kara to trail in her wake.

Whoever says that hope springs eternal was a bleeding liar.  Hope dies, just like everything else.

— attributed to Ryland LeSarte

19 Decem, 5249 PD

“Where’s Brendan?”

Lindsay forced her voice to stay steady, schooled her expression into a pale, cool mask of calm.  There were other people here besides just her and Rachel.  They didn’t need to see how upset she was, how shaken she was.  No one needed to see that.

His thoughts had gone blank just as she’d reached for him.  Once burned, twice shy.  The last time this had happened, he’d taken a knife to his implant on the return leg of the trip to rescue her parents.  Now, with the ground shivering above and around them, she was worried that it was something even worse this time.

He hasn’t even fully recovered from what he had to do to himself.  Now I can’t touch him and they’re bombing the city and if Brendan’s not with Uncle Adam…

“I sent him after Inspector Winston.”

Her heart sank.  Rachel took her hand, their fingers knitting together.  Her aunt squeezed her hand tightly and Lindsay swallowed hard.  “Where?”

“He was headed to the shore,” Adam said.

Rachel’s eyes narrowed.  “Give me the comm,” she mouthed at her niece.

Lindsay frowned, glancing at the others in the shelter before she handed it over.  Kara was here, so was Mugabe and an array of analysts and aides, half a dozen of them.  Kara raised a brow and Lindsay shook her head, lips thinning.

I don’t like this.  I don’t like any of this.

Brendan, where are you?  Please, please be okay. I can’t do this alone.

“Adam, spit out whatever’s sticking in your craw,” Rachel snapped as soon as the comm was in her hand.  “What the hell is going on up there and where’s Brendan?”

“We’re still trying to figure out who’s bombing us,” Adam fired back.  “Brendan was out trying to make sure that the Inspector and Freder made it to safety and we lost track of him when a bomb knocked out part of the power grid.  We haven’t been able to raise him on comms since.”

Lindsay’s stomach dropped and she pushed to her feet.  Rachel grabbed her wrist and held her firmly in place.

“Where?”

“Somewhere near the Forester’s vineyard.”

That’s all I need to know.  Lindsay tugged her arm free of her aunt’s grip.  “I can’t just sit here.”

“It’s not safe,” Rachel growled, glaring at her.  “You can’t go up there.”

“Watch me.”

Kara rolled to her feet.  “I’ll come with you.  You shouldn’t be up there alone.”

“You shouldn’t be up there at all!”  Adam barked, his voice tinny and small over the comm even though he was shouting.  “Stay put, we’ll find him.”

“Not fast enough, Uncle.”  Lindsay headed for the door.  “We’ll be careful.”

“Rachel, stop her.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Lindsay shot her aunt a tight smile and slipped through the heavy blast door, out of safety and into a world that was suddenly full of danger and death.

Bile rose in Adam’s throat, her words echoing in his ears.

He was on that hill.  Oh hell.

“Marshal?  I’ve got eyes for you.”

He sucked in a breath and turned.  “Where?”

“Patching through from Theta Leader.  They’re climbing up out of the atmosphere for a look at what’s up top.”

His stomach twisted.  At this point, I’m not sure I want that bad news.  “Can you get me audio?”

“Patching through to your headset, sir.”

Adam nodded a moment before the sound of comm chatter filled his ears.  He cleared his throat, then toggled the voice pickup to active.  “Theta Lead, this is Windsor.  What’s our situation in the air?”

“Outnumbered, but not outgunned against the bombers and the fighters, sir,” Theta Leader told him.  The young woman’s voice was a little shaky—this was her first combat experience that wasn’t inside of a simulator.

We’ve got a bunch of untried and untested men and women defending us.  He suppressed a shiver.  “Landers?”

“Haven’t seen any yet.  We’re keeping our eyes open.”

Adam stared at the holographic map of the city, still hovering in the dim of the emergency lights.  His stomach somersaulted as he waited for Theta Leader to say more.  All he could hear was the chatter of her squadron, calling out targets and giving warnings in the background.

“Marshal, we’re getting a call in from one of the shelters.”

He toggled the voice pickup off.  “Tell me you’ve got good news, Maricopa.”

“It’s the Oracle, sir.”

His stomach dropped.

Damn.  That’s not what I wanted to hear.  That’s not what I wanted to hear at all.

“Someone take over with Theta Leader and break in when we’ve got more information.  Get me visuals up on the monitors over there.”  He took a deep breath and steeled himself.  Delaying the unpleasantness wasn’t going to do any of them any good.  “And put Lindsay through.”

“I need eyes, dammit!”  Adam pounded a hand against a console.  “Get me visuals on what’s going on up there.”

They’d lost power in his command center briefly and that had severed the connection between him and the fighter that had been feeding them visuals of the war that had suddenly erupted on the surface.  The generators had kicked in, now, but communications was having an issue reestablishing the connection.

“Sir?”

“What?” he snapped at Tomasi, glaring at the young woman, who cringed under his stare.

“Sir—sir, we lost Commander Cho’s signal, too,” she said, her voice remarkably steady.  Brendan had taken her under his wing while she’d still been in training.  Adam knew she was fond of him.

Damn.  “Reestablish it.”

“I’ve been trying, sir.  It’s not broadcasting.”

That meant one of two things.  Either Brendan had turned the thing off—not likely—or it was too damaged to transmit—a worse thing.

The marshal took a short, quick breath and hoped against hope that it was just the link that was damaged, not its owner.

Linny-pie will skin me alive if something’s happened to him.

“I need eyes,” he growled again.

“Ground scanners are coming back online, sir.”

Thank goodness for small favors.  That’s something, at least.  “Give me a topographical of the city next to the viewer here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Still working on audio and visuals from the squadrons.”

Adam shook his head grimly.  The sooner he could get that back, the more comfortable he’d feel—not that there was anything comfortable about their current tactical situation.

Hell, at this point I don’t even know what our tactical situation actually is.  That’s not a good thing.  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  Be okay, Rachel.  Be okay.

The holographic projector buzzed to life and the lights in operations dimmed slightly for the effort.  Adam grimaced.  The generators weren’t fully warmed up yet and it had been a bloody long time since they’d tested them.

Now would be the exact wrong time for them to fail.  Which means we’ve got a 75% chance of that happening.

            Hellfire.

He stared at the holographic image that slowly came to life, a miniaturized model of the city in light, hovering in midair.

Areas around several of the shelters had been bombed fairly heavily.  One of the wind farms had been obliterated.  The main power transfer station was gone.  When this was over, most of the city would be dark for days, maybe weeks.

“Damn,” he murmured.  “It’s like they knew exactly where to hit us.”  He took a deep breath and stared at Gabriel and Kara Forester’s vineyard.  “What the hell is that?”

“Looks like a bomber went down on the north slope,” one of the techs said.  “I’d know that hill anywhere.  We used to sled on it when I was a kid.”

Adam felt his heartrate increase.  “Tomasi, what was Commander Cho’s last known position?”

She winced.  “He—sir, he was on that hill.

“He was on that hill.”