Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,88
hell.
I glance across the table and find General Iral’s eyes fixed on the same spot, shimmering in the light of the projection. My heart swells before I can stop it.
Gods of all systems, I think. I’m in over my head.
Iral gestures to Rana. “Our best hope of restoring the former empire is to hold the center.”
He collapses the projection until we’re looking at the entirety of the former Archon territory. Tosa System is nothing but a pinhead at its core. Long vectors meander in the vast dark between worlds, and it takes me a moment to recognize them for what they are.
“Our scouting so far has isolated these pathways as the routine patrols for dreadnoughts throughout the former empire,” Iral says, tracing his finger along one of the glowing threads. “But these are essentially public record. There are more ’notties in the black than these, and it’s those ones that have the most potential to sink us before we start. If we had a way through that mess, we might stand a chance of reclaiming the capital and then expanding outward. We have the resources to launch that kind of campaign.”
He wipes aside the map and starts pulling up data. First the ships—hundreds of carrier craft stationed in orbit around the planet, thousands of fighters, a veritable armada with platinum trim curling across their hulls. Then the personnel—thousands and thousands of displaced Archon citizens who have answered their general’s call and trained for the single purpose of retaking the empire.
For a dangerous moment, I imagine a life lived among them. A life where I got out on those refugee ships, where I never felt the abandonment that tore out my love of the Archon Empire. A life where my purpose was always clear.
But it would have been a life without Gal, and that makes it incomprehensible.
He sits at my left, his fingers fidgeting as he nods along. When the general falls expectantly silent, Gal tries his best to draw a deep breath without looking like he’s steeling himself. “So you’re saying you could mount an assault right away if you had intel that could get you past Umber dreadnoughts?” he asks, sounding out each word like he’s stringing them along a tightrope.
“?‘Right away’ is optimistic, but…soon, yes,” Iral confirms.
“I’m not sure if anything I know could help,” Gal says, “but I can give you everything I can think of and let you be the judge of that.”
I take a steeling breath of my own. No matter what, Gal can’t give Iral information on dreadnoughts’ weaknesses. Those ships form the core of Umber’s defense—not just in the Archon territories, but throughout the empire. Handing them over to Maxo Iral might give the general the power to punch a hole clear to the Umber interior.
I may be in over my head, but the Umber heir has it light-years worse.
* * *
—
The meeting ends, mercifully, after nearly an hour of Gal tiptoeing around information the resistance likely already knows. It’s enough to establish good faith, but not enough to get Archon birds in the sky.
Yet.
When we leave the conference room, we’re greeted by Sims fumbling with his earpiece and trying not to look caught off-guard by our sudden reappearance. “Your schedule’s clear for the rest of the day,” he tells us. “I switch off to my other shift in a few hours, but I can show you around in the meantime. You guys are pilots, right?”
Gal grimaces, I nod, and Wen nods even more enthusiastically.
Sims grins. “I’ll take you down to the hangars. Personally I couldn’t fly if you put a gun to my head—my nerves can’t take the pressure—but I think we’ve got a few things you might get a kick out of.”
“What is your specialization?” Gal asks as we’re escorted into the elevators.
“Demolitions,” Sims replies with a shrug.
We emerge from the administrative building to find the summer heat and the base operations in full swing. The air is thick with humidity, and the familiar noise of firing engines rumbles toward us from a distant runway.