Estranged

Relentless

Aliyah could not behold a view from such a vantage point without being reminded of that day at the Ministry; when every inch of ground had been teeming with the Seven’s armies and Gringe had stood defiant against them. For months she had been at his side as he had plotted the daring course that would lead to this day, and step after step he had crossed off the list as he achieved them. The inevitability of it all; of him.

Standing at the edge of Synthë Corp’s flat roof, gazing upon the sector, the dusking light tinged red by the burning, holo phoenix hovering a few feet above like a candle-topping flame, Aliyah realized that she no longer felt anxious. She only marvelled at Gringe’s sheer will.

“Do you remember when you first proposed parley with him?” Aunt Jebba was next to her, surveying the breath of her sector through unexpressive eyes.

Aliyah nodded. It had been three months ago; a trip through the hidden tunnels beneath Revel Ave—a path Gringe himself must have no doubt taken to his eventual meeting with Aunt Jebba. “You asked me why. Just ‘why?’” Flanked as ever—as she was this evening—by a watchful Germaine, Aunt Jebba had only asked why, but the one word had been laden with so much: why have you returned only now; why is this the reason you have chosen to come; why do you spit in the face of your home all for the leader of its enemy; why him?

Aunt Jebba turned and simply said, “I see it now. He will not rest. Even if all his allies fell and he was all that remained, he would not stop.”

“It could have been troublesome if you were on his wrong side.”

Aunt Jebba chuckled once and returned to examining her sector. “You still care for us.”

“I never stopped, Aunt Jebba. I never did.”

***

Wilda swayed gently in a hammock, staring unblinkingly at the grey ceiling. Time had passed since she and Haylen had returned to Damij Sector. The Eerie Towers in the centre of Doranne was her main base, but there was no way she was leaving RoseField now. That bastard of a District Head had drawn the battle line now. She did not plan on leaving till he was squashed beneath her boots, begging hopelessly for mercy that she would never give. The attack had been utterly unexpected, leaving her thoughts in disarray at the time. Now, however, they had settled, and they brewed dark and vicious. He had gotten one over her. Hell, in capturing Jebba in her stead and regaining Synthë Sector, he had more than gotten one over her; he had claimed a vital piece of the battleground and she was barely even in the game yet.

Still, she stared at the grey ceiling. Still, she did not blink.

A buzz sounded. The door on the far side of the room slid open, revealing a calm Haylen. Too calm. Her brother was most likely dead at the hands of the District Head, and yet she attended her duty ever so patiently and competently.

“Ma’am,” the guard greeted with a nod.

“News?” Wilda asked stonily, turning onto her side to face Haylen.

Haylen shifted on her feet, an unusual show of discomfiture from one so dominant and assuring.

“Speak.”

“Ma’am. The District Head is already on the move for the Irrhyian Sector. They arrive in thirty minutes.”

Wilda went still. Her eyes were dry, itching for a blink. She said nothing. She just stared at the guard.

Haylen took an uncertain step forward as if to approach Wilda. But she remembered her place, stopping and asking instead, “Ma’am…?”

The silence continued. And then Wilda moved: first with a blink that seemed to breathe life into her; and then heaving herself so she sat upright, the sudden motion propelling the hammock into a swing. “How many?”

Haylen sighed gratefully. “Added with the troops on ground in Synthë Sector, about seventy per cent of his forces.”

“He plans to assume control of both sectors before dawn.” And he probably planned to get the mines and farms running before then too—a shiny trophy to lift before the entirety of New Earth tomorrow: look, I have done what they could not for years, and in just one night.

Wilda’s thoughts grew darker and more vicious, and then a truly, wonderfully malevolent idea bloomed in her mind. She would let him win his trophy. As she too would win hers. “Fancy a quick trip, Haylen? But first, a notice to the rest of the Seven.”

***

Comm in one ear, Whylan interfaced directly with the control room. “The troops are already on the move,” he announced, jostling slightly as their truck coasted over uneven road.

Wilda—who Gringe assumed had been somewhat shaken by her near-escape—had not long before requested that each of the remaining Seven—barring Lady Synthë, of course—send over a fraction of their men to Damij Sector for her protection. And despite the fact that the order meant that their own defences were reduced, the other members of the Seven had obliged, knowing fully well that if Wilda fell, they all did.

“How long till we arrive?” Gringe asked, watching as Scott scraped a whetstone across the edges of his knives methodically, the soft grate of each stroke taking a hissy metronome.

“What do you reckon?” Whylan replied with a subtle challenge in his tone.

Stuck in the back of the truck since departing Synthë sector, they had had no view of the route to their destination. But Whylan had glanced at his MiraLink and knew: they were close enough that Gringe might be able to hear.

And he was. Way beyond the swishes of Scott’s sharpening, far past the steady hum of the truck’s engines, across a stretch of space, no ordinary person’s senses could possibly reach, Gringe could hear the bustle of panicking people. “I’d say eight minutes.”

“Spot on, boss. Spot on.”