Tom Dowd - Burning Bright

"How far off can you remote pilot it from?" Kyle asked her.

Ravenheart smiled and shook her head in mock disbelief. "You are sharp, Teller, I'll give you that. With the deck we have here, and with the minor damage to the drone-"

"It's damaged?"

"Slightly. It apparently hit something while Soaring Owl was trying to launch it. Probably the sides of the bay or the cover doors. Anyway, with that and everything else factored in, our guess is about a kilometer and a half for any reliability."

"Just at the edge of the blast radius."

She nodded. "Just beyond it, we hope."

"What's your timetable?"

She looked back at the display. "I hope to detonate within the hour."

“That is good,” Seeks-the-Moon said suddenly. "It is beginning."

Nearly everyone in the room turned their attention to him. He was staring off in the direction of the power plant, and to Kyle he looked wan and drawn.

"You feel something?" Kyle asked.

The spirit nodded. "Power is being drawn away from here, everywhere, into there," he said. "I can feel it; I am weaker."

"How soon?" asked Ravenheart.

"Soon."

"Then we have little time." Kyle turned to Ravenheart. "I want to get the people out."

"What?"

"As many as we can, just before the bomb goes off. There are buses there. We can use them to carry people away." Before Ravenheart could answer, he turned slightly and addressed the others in the room. "Any idea how quickly they're taking the buses inside?"

One of the troopers, a short woman with dirty-red hair, said, "There were three other buses here when the one we were following arrived. It got in line, and about a half-hour later, just before you got here, one pulled out from inside and the other pulled in to take its place."

"Going in is suicide," said Ravenheart angrily.

"I didn't say we'd go in," Kyle told her. "I don't like it, but from the look of things and from what Seeks-the-Moon senses now, and the fact that it seemed to him that there were many, many more spirits inside the building, I think you're right."

"Then what?"

"The buses outside. Few seem to be guarding them. If we hit them hard and fast we could gain control of the buses within the space of a few minutes. There's plenty of room to turn them around." Kyle shifted his attention to the others in the room. He noticed that the trooper who had been watching in the hall was standing in the doorway listening. "If we do this right, we could get us and the buses clear before the bomb goes off."

"They'll come after the buses," Ravenheart said. "And the bugs'll tear them apart."

"But what will they do?" Seeks-the-Moon asked. "What will happen when the bomb detonates?"

Ravenheart turned toward him, scowling. "The buses will be sardine cans in a microwave."

"No," said the spirit, evening his tone. "What will happen to the spirits when their queens are dead?"

Her face blanked. "I don't know."

"Nor do I."

"What have they done in the past?" Kyle asked Ravenheart.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you've destroyed hives and nests before. What happened to the spirits when the queen died?"

She frowned and looked away for a moment, thinking. "It depends on which kind they are. Roaches don't care. They really don't have queens. Same for flies and beetles and the others that have 'nests' rather than hives. The true hivers, with real queens, they usually go nuts and either mill around the queen's body or start attacking each other. I think the ants tend to do that"

Kyle nodded. "Then we have to hope it's true hivers chasing the buses."

"You're insane," she said. "I can't jeopardize the mission doing this."

"You won't be. The drone'll be airborne and the clock will be ticking. No matter what happens, the drone goes in and detonates. Freeing the buses and targeting the drone aren't related; the drone mission won't be compromised, no matter what happens to the bus mission."

"I can't give you any of my people," Ravenheart told him evenly. He could see, though, that she was fighting to control her anger.

"I'd like your help," he told her, "but I don't need it. I can do this alone."

Now her eyes widened and she shook her head. "You're truly insane. There's no way you can do it."

"I'll bet I can."

She pointed at him, and Kyle could hear the edge in her voice. "You aren't thinking clearly. The only reason you want to do this is because you think your wife and daughter were on that last bus. What about the other two buses, Kyle?

"Assuming you take out the guards quickly, assuming there aren't too many inside the buses that we can't see, and assuming that you don't immediately attract the attention of the billion or so bugs that are in the fraggin' building, what then? How are you going to drive all three buses?"

"You're right about me not thinking clearly, and I'm glad I'm not," Kyle retorted. "I'm glad I haven't become some emotionless robot ready to kill maybe thousands but too cowardly to save maybe a hundred."

Her eyes lit up and she stepped closer, jabbing at him with her finger. "Don't you dare tell me-"

Douglas' voice from the doorway cut her off. "I'll drive the other bus."

There was silence as Ravenheart, startled, turned toward the ork trooper who'd just entered the room. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"I'll drive the other bus," he said. "We know we can save those people. We have to do it."

Ravenheart was furious. "There's too much risk! I won't allow it. The destruction of the hives has to come first. There's no other alternative."

"I’ll drive the third bus," said Sergeant Vathoss from where he leaned against the wall.

Ravenheart spun to look at him. "What?" she all but screamed.

"What we're doing is something terrible, and awful, and necessary," he said to her. "But I won't kill those people, people who can still be saved, just because it's risky for us to try and save them. If we don't try, what's the fraggin' point? We destroy hives to save people. Well, Captain, I got bad news for you-the people on those buses are literally the people we're doing this for. That's the chip truth."

Ravenheart began to slowly look around the room, and Kyle did the same. It seemed most, if not all, of the Knight Errant troopers had come in or were standing in the hall within earshot. Many looked fearful, yet were nodding at the sentiments Sergeant Vathoss had unexpectedly voiced. The consensus was evident.

Ravenheart closed her eyes and shook her head violently. "You're all fraggin' glitched," she muttered, but she looked and sound very, very tired. "All right," she said, turning to Kyle. "Let's do it."

"The wacker is," Anne Ravenheart said as they stood alone in a large, loft-like warehouse space some blocks away from the insect hive, "that we don't even really know if the nuke will hurt them."

Kyle nodded, but said, "I'm pretty sure it will. We're talking about one hellacious blast of energy."

"Conventional blasts don't harm them," she countered. "No real mystic, human impetus behind them. No emotion, no energy."

"You're right, but a nuclear blast, despite the way it's achieved, is one of the most primal effects you can get. If they're immune to that, we'd be better off at ground zero ourselves."

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so." She looked around the space quickly and then back at Kyle. "You sure this is a good idea? One or two of the little bastards is bad enough, but close to a dozen…"

He laughed. "Why do I suspect you'll never have children?"

Ravenheart mocked a flinch. "Ugh. Fraggin' right. I just don't have the tolerance for them."

“Then let me do all the talking. You just echo it to your brood.”

"Deal," she said. "I'll guard you first."

Kyle nodded and took a few steps away from her, turning as he did. With that slow spin, he shifted his senses into astral space. It was warm and cool at the same time, and he felt the careful radiance that flowed from Anne Ravenheart's aura as well as his own. The rest of the loft space was peaceful and quiet. That would soon change.