Chapter 109: Breakthrough
“Sometimes the worst thing to happen is the best thing.”
—Spence Raffier, philosopher
The work was fast-paced, but Zaina’s strength and stamina kept it from being terribly arduous. After about three trips back and forth she no longer needed to follow anyone to know where she was going; now.
They went back and forth for a few hours, removing the rubble while the temple was painstakingly dug out. Zaina watched the others at their jobs—many unmarked were working on the scaffolding lining the mountain face, drilling and picking away. As she went to wipe the layer of sweat from her forehead, she missed the cooling system in her lancer armor.
A low buzz came from her pocket—her vis-screen. It only did that for communications marked as emergencies. The moment the next opportunity presented itself she resolved to step away to check.
Maybe it’s Xyrthe with some news. Probably not good.
Of course, working with so many people on a closed circuit, that privacy seemed unlikely. There was always someone coming or going as they desperately tried to keep pace with the others. Zaina noticed a rhythm to how each group was inter-connected—the drillers tried a little harder, the drillermechs dug with more vigor, the shoveler worked a little faster, and the clearers had to increase their pace to keep up. Every hour was a little faster, each group giving and taking from each other as needed—every once in a while the digging team would pile up rubble faster than the clearers could take it out, at which point the machines went noticeably slower until the other group caught up. Then, the clearers would completely wipe every pile and have nothing to do, making the digging team work faster to keep them busy. It was a beautiful, intricate dance that could only be performed by people who had worked on it together long enough to perfect its intricacies and navigate its imperfections.
Every so often, Zaina’s pocket would buzz, maybe every ten minutes; each time it did snapped her out of the dance. The buzzing vis-screen was a reminder of reality—that she was an infiltrator, a lancer; that Deonago and the Sivanya Enclave were teetering on a knife’s edge, a ready wellspring for conflict. She kept looking for her moment, but before she could slip away she’d fall back into the dance. Then, another buzz.
She sighed. Here I thought I’d get more information out of being on the dig team.
Another few cycles went by. How many times had Zaina filled up the same wheelbarrow, trod along the same path, and dumped it over the cliff? She lost count somewhere around what felt like eternity. At the four-hour mark, everyone stopped for a break; Zaina only knew it was the four-hour mark because Geramad announced it after everyone had a few minutes of rest.
“All right, guys! Let’s get back to it! Four down, four more to go before we break again! Let’s move, double time! See those piles? We’re close! We’re real close!”
They hopped back to it. Before Zaina hustled back to fill up her wheelbarrow, another buzz went off in her pocket. She sighed. I need to slip away somehow. But I can’t be seen.
Wracked with anxiety, Zaina made her way back up the mountain path. Something had to be really wrong for Xyrthe to be messaging her this much, and Zaina had a feeling she knew what it was. She hoped it was anything else, but for now, she had to seem like she wasn’t beginning to panic.
Relax, Zaina. No one knows you’re freaking out.
She tipped the wheelbarrow over the edge, then pulled it back, stepped out of the way, and wiped some sweat from her forehead. The routine was suddenly and violently interrupted by an ear-splitting crack and some heavy, crunching thuds, followed by an eruption of raucous cheers. Zaina’s head, like everyone else’s, turned toward the dig-site—a pillar of smoke twisted into the air.
Every other marked immediately dropped their wheelbarrows and ran toward the site, whooping and cheering the whole way. Zaina’s stomach turned.
That doesn’t sound good.
With everyone gone, she had a spare moment to finally check her vis-screen.
Oh, shit. Twenty-two missed messages.
Zaina’s heart sank on reading the very first one, and it only got worse from there. ‘Zaina, Rymar’s gathering his forces. All of them. He’s going to attack.’
‘They’re almost all assembled. They’ll be leaving the city within the hour.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Are you alive?’
‘Check in.’
‘Please check in.’
‘Are you getting any of this?’
‘You need to warn the enclave.’
‘They’re coming. I’ll do what I can but it won’t be much.’
‘They’re coming.’
‘They’re coming.’
‘They’re coming.’
Zaina gulped. Fuck.
She turned toward Deonago—pillars of smoke were rising from that side of the forest, too.
Fuck.
Without another thought, Zaina sprinted toward the dig-site. She had to warn the patrols—she had to warn Sivanya.
Everyone was gathered around Tog’s tent, some eighty people in all; low murmurs filled the buzzing crowd. Zaina slowed to a walk as she approached and shot a glance toward the temple—breakthrough indeed. The exposed face of the temple had tripled in size; a small chasm filled the gap between the plateau the dig-site stood atop and the mountain itself.
Zaina joined the crowd—they listened to a comms unit in the command tent, which blared echoes of the frantic screams and loud cracks and pops audible from the forest’s depths.
There was a voice that was distinctly Sivanya’s shouting, “Fall back! Fall back! Tog, do you read?”
“I read, Siv—”
“We’ve got a code one! This isn’t a patrol, it’s an assault force! Prep the dig-site like we planned. This is it—aah! This is the big one!” The line went dead.
“Sivanya?” Tog asked, worry seeping into her tone. “Sivanya, do you read?”
The line came back for a moment, then flickered out. Then it roared back to life, mirroring the distant sounds of explosions and gunfire. Sivanya was shouting, “Hurry, go! Fall back—”—a buzz of static cut her off—“—heavy losses—”
The line fell silent and stayed so. Tog took a deep breath and then addressed the group, “Okay, everyone, listen up. Now, I know we’re all here either because we don’t want to or can’t fight, but the time has come to step up. The unmarked are coming to wipe each and every one of us out. But we won’t make it easy for them.”
The crowd stirred with excitement, both positive and negative, as Tog continued, “I can’t promise any of us will survive to see nightfall. They’re coming here to kill us all! Us, decent people who stayed out of their way. If that doesn’t make your blood boil, make you want to fight, nothing will! I know you stand before me, laborers, miners, machiners, but believe this—they’ll kill you all the same, so fight all the same! We’re going to prep the dig-site for the coming attack, so follow my instructions to the letter and we’ll stand a chance of holding these bastards off. Breo—take your team and go to the pods. Get everyone there here. Kara, you take yours and go to Rasmus’s weapon depot—bring everything back. Tagalan, you and your machiners are going to move every piece of heavy equipment we have to exactly where I specify, got it? And Geramad, you and yours are going to coordinate with the machinists moving whatever’s in the way, out.
“Now, the last task is the most dangerous, so I’ll ask for volunteers—we need to send at least two people to back up the patrols and help as many of them as possible get back home.”
Zaina immediately raised her hand. “I’ll go.”
Geramad looked at her with an admiring expression and raised his hand. “I will go, too.”
Another, a young woman with oversized overalls, raised her hand. “I’ll go, too.”
“Are you all certain?”
The trio nodded their heads.
“Very well. Go. Tanqo, you take Geramad’s place getting the area clear.”
Tog turned her attention toward coordinating the dig-site’s defense, ordering the drillers and shovelers to form a defensive line. As everyone else ran off, Zaina, Geramad, and Bloqeli shared a quick, understanding glance—they probably weren’t going to survive this—and ran into the forest.