Brendan swore and hit the dirt as the ground bucked beneath his feet with that first impact.  He rolled onto his back just in time to see unmarked fighters of unknown extraction screaming above him, chased by a pair of Foundation fighters hot on their tails.  He spat out mud and cursed.

Calm down.  You didn’t see this shit in her visions, did you?  No.  That means this is unexpected.

It also means that we really couldn’t predict it.  He rolled to his feet and after a few stumbling steps was moving at nearer to top speed again, not wasting the breath to give voice to the litany of curses that echoed inside of his skull.

Who the hell is attacking us?

Doesn’t matter.  You need to find Winston and you need to find him now.

The ground shuddered again as another set of bombers made another run, another pass.  The reports of the Foundation fighters’ gattlings echoed even at a distance and Brendan shivered.  The rounds would chew through just about anything.  He knew.  He’d seen the weapons tests.

The vineyard was within sight, now, but he saw nothing, saw no one.  It was achingly empty.

What if I was wrong?  What if they’re not out here, what if they went another way?

            What if…

He swore viciously and kept running.  No, they must’ve come this way.  Maybe they’ve already made it to safety.

It was a nice thought.

Brendan could no longer keep track of where the bombs were falling, where the ships were above his head.  All he could hear was the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as he pitched toward the shelter at Gabe’s café.

Then the sight of a bomber spiraling to the ground eclipsed his view of the world ahead of him and he stopped knowing anything at all.

Breath burned in Brendan’s lungs and his vision blurred.  It was a long way from base down to the shore—a few kilometers, a long way for someone to be running full-tilt, especially someone who had barely recovered from major trauma and a following series of surgeries.

The sirens were still going, but they wailed at a city that was all but empty of bystanders; its population had sought safety only a few minutes after the first blast of sound.  In a city with as many psychics as Nova Spexi, it was somehow easy to know the difference between a drill and a situation where the danger was very, very real.

Fighters screamed overhead, arcing upward through the atmosphere, toward the approaching ships that Brendan knew were heading for orbit.  He hoped that they’d avoid some kind of orbital bombardment, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that might have been his and might have been hers told him different.

Things were about to get very, very messy.

Very, very quickly.

He wanted to throw up but there wasn’t time for that.

His feet hit the last stretch of ground between the main road and the shore.  Bile burned his throat and the world was quiet—for now.  All he could hear was the sound of his heart thundering in his ears.  His vision was starting to double as he skidded to a halt on the gravel that marked the boundary between grass and sandy shore.

No one here.  I didn’t pass them on the way.  Where the hell did they go?

He cleared his throat and spat to one side, catching his breath as he looked up and down the beach.

They couldn’t have gone that far, could they?  Frederick couldn’t have, not very quickly.

“Hell,” he breathed, shaking his head.  Gabe’s.  They would have headed for Gabe’s.  It’s the nearest shelter.

Brendan sucked in another breath, pivoted, then resumed his run, heading toward the vineyard, though is legs felt like they’d turned to lead somewhere between the shore and the grass.

The first bombs began to fall twenty yards later.

“Too many, sir,” Brenner said, his voice choked and hushed as he reported on what he was seeing beyond the atmosphere.  “There’s too damned many.  They’re running completely silent—not even broadcasting any IFFs.”

“Can you patch us through some visuals?”  Windsor asked one of the technicians nearby.  “I want to see what we’re up against.”  He cleared his throat and then spoke to his pilot again.  “Brenner, I need a rough count and a shot in the dark on the classes of ship we’re looking at.”

“They’ve deployed two squadrons of bombers so far,” he said, the comm crackling and distorting his voice.  “A carrier, three frigates, two heavies.  We’ve got nothing but the orbitals and one of the frigates is closing on the nearest one.”

Windsor grimaced and cut the voice pickup on his headset again, turning to Tomasi.  “Try to raise the Mission Systems installations.  Make sure they’re still in one piece.”

“And if they’re not?” she asked, her expression slack even as she started to try to bring up a line.

“Then we start beaming the feed of whatever the hell’s about to happen here back to their corporate HQ live and let them avenge the loss.”  His stomach soured as the words left his lips but he knew as well as everyone else in the room that there wasn’t much else they’d be able to do.  “If they’re in one piece, tell them to stay the hell out of this until the enemy’s gone.  Then they’re welcome to sweep in and help pick up the pieces.”

A carrier, three frigates, and two heavy cruisers.  Someone’s here to make a damned point, aren’t they?

He turned to the first tech he’d spoken to.  “Do you have visuals for me?”

“Working on it, sir.”

Windsor nodded slowly and toggled the voice pickup back to active.  “Have they spotted you yet, Brenner?”

“I don’t think so, sir.  Are you scrambling some backup for me?”

“We’re getting intercepts in the air to deal with those bombers,” Windsor said.  He could hear his flight controllers getting two squadrons lifting from this base and another pair at two other bases elsewhere on-planet.  “Hold position unless they’re going to see you.”

“And if they spot me?”

“Run like hell,” Windsor said softly.  “It’s all you can do until your backup makes it there.”

He swallowed bile.

We need some kind of bleeding miracle right now or else everything the Foundation’s built over the years dies here today.

Trust no one, even those you think are your friends.

— attributed to Ryland LeSarte, date unknown

19 Decem, 5249 PD

“Is it far?”

“No, not far.”  There was pain etched on Frederick’s face as they moved away from the shore.  His leg was on fire, painful in ways that he hadn’t experienced since the early days after his injury.  Winston was concerned.

Of course he’s concerned.  There’s air raid sirens going off and he’s letting an invalid direct him to safety!  Of course he’s concerned.  I’d be concerned if I were him.

If there was a way to easily direct the boy toward Gabe Forrester’s place, he would have, but Frederick suspected that Winston would have gotten himself lost somewhere in the tangle of vines in the vineyard between the beach and the café.

“I don’t understand why this would be happening,” Winston said, his words half a mumble and half a growl.  “Why the hell would people hate all of you so damned much?”

“It’s the fear, not the hate,” Frederick said through clenched teeth.  “I’m surprised that you didn’t start piecing it together before now.  We symbolize something that’s terrifying—and we represent the possibility that man isn’t infallible and might have to make some kind of damned effort and sacrifice something in order to keep on living.”  He shot the young Inspector a quick, wry smile.  “Of course, there’s also the fact that we’ve got more psychics here per capita than anywhere else in the Commonwealth.  People don’t like the idea of folks in their heads, hearing their thoughts—never mind that it doesn’t quite work that way for most of us.”

Winston grunted, looking down the pathway ahead.  “Through those hedges?”

“That’s the vineyard,” Frederick said.  “Through there and down the hill.”

The whine was rising, too loud and wrong for the sound to be just the air raid sirens.  Frederick risked a glance back in time to see two of the Colony’s fighters scream overhead high above, heading back toward base at a quick clip.  He swallowed bile and shook his head quickly.

“This is about to escalate badly.”

“How do you know?”  Winston asked.

“Because that pair of wingmen isn’t running toward a fight, they’re running home for refuel and reinforcements.”  Frederick swallowed again.  “I’ve seen it before.”

Winston looked like he was about to ask where, then shut his mouth.  “Right,” he said.  “We need to move faster, don’t we?”

“Absolutely,” Frederick said, feeling sick.  He straightened slightly and started to move faster, ignoring how much his leg hurt and trying not to consider what he was doing to already permanently damaged muscles and tendons, knowing that the only thing that mattered right now was making sure that the young man with him survived whatever attack was coming.

It’s not too much farther now.  He swallowed again, mouth sour with fear and nausea.  He hadn’t faced something like this in decades.

I got used to the lack of fear.  Now that it’s back again, now that the danger’s back, I’m about to freeze like I did the first time I set foot in a war zone.

A glance sidelong at the young man with him was enough to know that Winston’s thoughts were paralleling his own.

This was the crucible, and either they’d come out of it alive, or they were going to burn.

Brendan matched his smile, eyes sliding shut as he reached for Lindsay.  He felt her surprise as their minds touched, then relief flooded through him—relief that wasn’t his, but hers.

Where are you? She wondered at him.

On base, at Ops with Marshal Windsor. Is Rachel with you? Where are you?

            He saw through her eyes for a brief moment—they were in the shelter secreted in the caves beneath the Council House, and she wasn’t alone.  He caught a glimpse of Rachel, Mugabe, Marshal Rose, and a few others with them.  Safe enough, Lindsay’s voice whispered in his thoughts.  We were waiting for Kara to get here when the sirens started.  Is it bad?

Brendan glanced toward the displays.  We’re not sure yet.  Sent the lead on the CAP to be our eyes.  Sit tight and I’ll give you the all-clear when it’s safe.

Be careful.

He smiled.  Always.

Windsor was watching him when he came back to himself.  Brendan drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “They’re both safe,” he reported.  “They’re in the shelter beneath the Council House.  Marshal Rose is with them.”

“What about Freder?”  Windsor asked, then winced slightly, casting a quick glance around.  Though Frederick Rose’s survival was something now known to some of the Council and to Inspector Winston, it wasn’t common knowledge and they were still aiming to keep it that way—despite the man’s daily peregrinations.

No one seemed to have heard the question—and if they had, they ignored it.  Brendan frowned.  “I didn’t catch a glimpse and she didn’t say.  I could—”

“No,” he said.  “No, that’s not necessary.  I’m sure he’s found his way to shelter, too.  The Inspector?”

“Don’t know,” Brendan said. “But he usually—”  He stopped and swore.  “He goes down to the shore every morning to look at the ocean.  It reminds him of when he was growing up.”  He started heading for the door.

“Where are you going?”  Windsor called after him.

“To find the inspector,” Brendan said, already halfway to the lift.  “He doesn’t know enough.  He’ll get himself killed and then where the hell will we be?  Someone in Parliament will find a way to blame it on us.”  He held up his link as he climbed into the lift.  “I’ll be on comm.  Yell if you need me.”

Brendan’s heart thundered against his ribcage as the lift doors eclipsed his view of Windsor’s horrified expression.

This is bad and I’m not going to make it in time, am I?

            Well.  I won’t know until I try.

The lift hit the top ground level and he bolted out of it as soon as the doors sprang open, ignoring the startled looks of the staff officers rushing around.

There won’t be much time, either way, depending on what their plans actually are, how many they’ve sent—enough that it tripped the alarms, enough that they’re probably trying to hide their numbers.  He swallowed bile again.

How long can you keep up a dead run, Cho?

            As long as it takes.

“Who the hell are they?”  Adam Windsor snapped as he strode into his command center with Brendan on his heels.  They’d been going over revisions to training protocols when the alarm had been sounded and Adam, knowing he hadn’t requested a drill today, had known instantly that something untoward was going down.  Trailing in his angry wake, Brendan kept his mouth shut—though only for the moment.

Tomasi jerked around from her position next to one of the consoles.  “We’re not sure, sir.  They’re not broadcasting identities.”

“Bring up the sensor plot.  What are they looking like?”

“Nothing identifiable, sir,” one of the other techs said.  “There’s two dozen of them, mixed sizes, no fighters that we’ve been able to identify.”

Two dozen ships.  Brendan swallowed bile.  Was this the invasion he and Lindsay had seen?

He shuddered and Windsor glanced at him.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Brendan said.  “Just that there’s two dozen unidentified ships out there and we don’t know who the hell sent them.  Do we have birds in the air yet?”

Windsor cast a questioning glance at one of the techs.  The younger man swallowed hard.  “The CAP is on its way to intercept,” he said.

“Bad idea,” Brendan said, heading for the console where Tomasi stood.  “Give me a line.  Who’s got the CAP?”

“Captain Brenner,” she said as she got him a headset, handing it over quickly.

Brenner.  Brenner was a sharp pilot, a veteran of the Commonwealth Military, an expiate like him and so many others.  He’ll know how to get a look and then pull back.  “Who else?  Experienced, or otherwise?”

“Otherwise, sir.  Last month’s graduating class.”

Brendan grimaced.  That makes this slightly more problematic, then.  He took a breath and toggled the comm to active.  “CAP Lead, this is Home, come in.”

“Reading you Home.  It’s about to get messy.”

“So I’m seeing,” Brendan said, turning to stare at the sensor plot that Windsor was examining as if it held the answers to every question in the universe.  “Look, tell your wings to hang back.  We need to know what’s incoming and the sensor plots aren’t helping.  We need visuals.  Can you do that?”

“With my eyes closed,” Brenner said, his voice crackling over the comm.  “Are you scrambling the squadrons?”

Brendan grimaced.  “Hopefully, we won’t have to.  Get the visuals and hopefully this turns out to be just one really scary drill.”

The look Windsor gave him said that he hoped against hope that this would be just that—but that he wasn’t counting on it.

Neither was Brendan.

“Good luck, Lead.”

“Roger that, Home.  Starting my climb now.”

Brendan nodded, even though Brenner couldn’t see it.  He handed the headset back to Tomasi.  “Keep an eye,” he told her quietly.  “And let me know if he runs into any trouble.  Sound the alert and get as many birds in the air as we can—here and at the other bases.  Have them screen the cities.”

I’m giving orders and my commanding officer is in the room.  What the hell is wrong with me?

When he turned, though, Windsor was smiling.

“Anything else, sir?”  Brendan asked, hoping his voice didn’t betray how unsettled he suddenly was.

“I think that’ll do it for the moment,” Adam said softly.  “Ping your wife.  Make sure she’s safe.”

Brendan swallowed and nodded.  “And yours, sir?”

Windsor gave him a weak smile.  “Rachel will be where she’s needed, one way or another, whether I like it or not.”

“Why?”

Winston took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to gather his suddenly storming thoughts.  “There’s a lot of pressure, for one thing,” Winston said softly.  “Knowing that she trusts me that much, more than she trusts anyone else.  She sent me out here alone to find the truth.”

Frederick leaned back slightly, tilting his face toward the sky for a moment, cane tapping lightly against his instep.  “The truth,” he echoed softly.  “That’s a thing that’s often lost in the galaxy today.  Few enough care what’s true, even though the truth holds more power than lies ever could, though lies are powerful and insidious.”

Winston stared at him for a moment.  “Are those your words, or…?”

He shook his head.  “The philosopher Edan McLeod, I’m afraid.  I read a great deal of his work when I was a much younger man.  I’m not sure how much of it I actually believed.  Some, I suppose.”

“What was she like?”  Winston asked abruptly.  “The Inspector General, before she was Inspector General.”  Before she started thinking you died.

A wistful smile touched Frederick’s lips.  “You want to know about Sephora?  Of all the things you could have asked me?”

Winston shrugged.  “Seems like no one really knows her.  Everything happening here, I’ll eventually figure it out without asking you a thousand questions.  But about the Inspector General…no one can really tell me much more about her than the man who taught her most of what she knows.”  Maybe that’ll give me more insight into what’s going on in her head—why she’s sent me of all people out here, why she’s so determined to get to the truth.

A silent shiver worked its way up his spine.  When did I stop caring as much about the truth as she apparently does, I wonder?  His lips thinned slightly and he stared at the shore.  “I thought all I cared about was solving the mysteries,” he said softly.  “Making things right.”

“You said that, yes.”

Winston snorted softly.  “How wrong I was.”

“Were you?” Frederick regarded him with a long, curious look.  “Are you certain?  The question about Sephora drives at a thirst for knowledge, a need for truth.  The fact that you’re here signifies that you’re more than a little curious, more than a little driven to uncover the truth, mysteries.

“I don’t think that you’ve given up on solving the mysteries or finding the truth, Mr. Winston.  You’re just starting to realize that the scope of all of it is far, far greater than you ever dared imagine.”

Winston shuddered but nodded.  Something whined in the distance, a noise he tried to ignore. “Tell me about the Inspector General.”

Frederick smiled.  “Bright, driven woman, Sephora Damerian.  She and my wife got along well enough, and I thought her husband was fascinating.”

Winston blinked.  “The Inspector General’s married?”

“Of course.” Frederick’s brows knit.  “You didn’t—Mr. Winston, she’s married to Benjamin Israel.”

“The director?”

Frederick nodded, smiling faintly.  The smile faded.  Frederick cocked his head to one side, listening.  The whine that had been making Winston’s ears twitch was growing louder.

“What is that noise?”  Winston asked.

“Air raid sirens,” Frederick said, almost absently.  Then he was on his feet, tugging on Winston’s sleeve.

“Come on,” he said, voice quiet.  “We need to get to a shelter and quickly.”

“Are we under attack?”  Winston asked.

“I don’t know,” Frederick said.  “But I’m afraid that we’re about to find out.  The nearest shelter is at Gabriel Forester’s café.  Follow me.”

“Who would be—”

Frederick skewered him with a hawk-eyed gaze.  “Who would be attacking us is part of why you’re here, Inspector.  Now move.”

Winston shut up and tucked himself under the older man’s arm.  “You direct,” he said.  “I’ll make sure we get there in one piece.”

[Apologies for the short entry this week.  I am trying not to let the combination of allergies and a cold kill me.  I figured that something was better than nothing at all.]

Sometimes, the destination is all that matters.

— attributed to Ryland LeSarte, date unknown

 19 Decem, 5249 PD

Winston stared at the water for the third day in a row, seated on a rock near the shore.  Commander Cho would join him soon, as the man always did.  He had seen more of the colony’s workings, come to understand more about how the Foundation functioned, in a few short days than he ever had over the course of his life.

Though I’m afraid that I haven’t learned everything that Inspector Damerian wanted me to figure out.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of salt and sea.  It didn’t smell dirty here like it did on New Earth, didn’t smell strange and rotten.

“I understand that you’ve been out here every morning,” a voice said from behind him.  Winston turned, blinking.

Then he turned away to hide his sudden attack of nerves.  “Yes,” he said, forcing him voice to be steady as he addressed Frederick Rose.

“I suppose there probably aren’t many unspoiled places left back on New Earth,” Frederick said as he came around the rock to seat himself alongside of Winston on the slab of tumbled basalt.  “Have you ever been to New Lawrence Sound?”

“I was born in Peterstown,” Winston said quietly.  “I grew up on the Sound.  But I can’t ever remember it being like this.  The latitude’s a little further north for the Sound, but still.  That doesn’t really explain why this is so beautiful and the Sound…isn’t anymore.”  His lips thinned.  “Even in the pictures my grandparents had from when they were young, it doesn’t look like this.”

“Something to be said for living with the land rather than just on it, huh?”  Frederick smiled faintly, following the young man’s gaze out over the water.  “No one will stop you if you want to come back here after you’ve made your report to the Inspector General’s office.”

Every muscle tightened and Winston felt his heart give a strange double-beat.

“Is that what happened to you?” he asked without thinking.

What did you just say, Tim?  Holy shit, what did you just say to him?

For his part, Frederick Rose smiled.

“I wish it had been that simple, Inspector Winston.  I wish I had been that simple.”  The smile faded.  “I knew too much, saw too much.  That frightened people with connections, powerful people.  They tried to silence me and they very nearly succeeded.”

“But they didn’t kill you.”  Winston looked at him, his guts churning.  “You didn’t let them win.”

“Didn’t I?”  Frederick smiled faintly.  “They won the battle, but they’ll not win the war.  I made myself that promise a long time ago.  It’s a promise I intend to keep.”  He exhaled softly and shook his head.  “What about you, Inspector?  Are you fighting your own war?”

“I don’t know,” Winston said softly.  “I used to think that I joined the Inspector General’s office to find the truth or to make a difference or something noble like that.  Now I’m not so sure.  Now maybe I’m starting to wonder if I don’t mind getting dirty as I try to dismantle conspiracies and mysteries.”

“That’s the mark of a good investigator,” Frederick said.  “And Sephora asks for the best.”

Winston shivered.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No,” Winston said softly.  “I do.  That’s what scares me.”