Page 16 of Reformation
The young woman bit her lip. “Two of the four exits through the Wall have suffered severe damage, ma’am. We’re working to clear them, but in the meantime, that leaves only two exits deemed safe enough to move people through.”
“What about the safe houses themselves? What’s their status? Are they intact?”
“Secure and so far undiscovered, ma’am.”
The safe houses were actually caverns carved out of the cliffs that surrounded the Box and extending out toward the ocean. They were equipped with rudimentary generators and amenities and were large enough to hold up to ninety percent of the current population of Pandora for a short period of time. Once they’d been big enough for everyone, with room to spare, but Pandora’s growth had outpaced their security measures.
Jezria shook her head.Foolish. Foolish, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Now they had to focus on surviving long enough for the cavalry to get there.
Ha.
“Push the evacuees, Miriam, we need them to move faster.”
“Doctor Reynard is overseeing the transport of the mobile hospital unit, so once that’s done, she’ll be—”
“Belay that. Move the people first, the machines later.” The room quieted as people glanced at Jezria, shock and anger on their faces.
Steven was the one to bring it up, of course. “Forty-two percent of the population requires at least biweekly medical treatments from the hospital. We need to move the machines to help keep people alive.”
“It won’t do us any good to be surrounded by machines if we haven’t saved the people who are meant to be using them. And I can’t guarantee that a rescue effort will be mounted in time to spare us the effort.”
“Of—of course it will be!” Glory be, she’d actually struck her imperturbable aide dumb. “The Alliance must have put together a fleet response to this by now. At top speeds, they should be here in thirteen standard days. It’s fast, but surely they won’t waste time arguing about procedure when we’re under attack.”
Jezria shook her head. “This is no ordinary attack. Plasma cannons? A literal rain of fire?” There was no pirate fleet in the universe that was this well-equipped. “No. This is meant to be a punishment, to make an example for others in the Fringe to fear. Our colony is a thorn in the sides of many of those in power. I can easily imagine them taking advantage of our current state of affairs.”
“But Garrett Helms is on Olympus!” Miriam protested. “He’s one of us; hissonis a natural. Surely he’llmakethem send ships to help.”
Oh, sweet naïve thing.“Garrett is only one man, and one man with many weaknesses. I have no doubt that he’s doing as much as he can to help us, but.” Jezria turned compassionate eyes on the hopeful young woman. “I don’t think we can count on any assistance reaching us in time to prevent Pandora City from falling. Medical supplies are certainly a necessity, but they come second to moving inhabitants out of the direct line of fire and into a place where their life signs will be undetectable to the enemy. Understood?”
Miriam nodded, subdued. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Get the generators working and have one of the engineers do a power assessment. If it looks like we’ve got a surplus to work with, then they can begin moving the smallest and most portable emergency medical supplies in there. I wantall signals on low for now, though. Having a secret underground base does us no good if we don’t keep it secret. Now.” She turned to another tech. “What are the numbers on killed or missing colonists?”
“Twenty-eight on the Eye assumed KIA,” the young person—Zane? Zare? Jezria was too tired to remember—said grimly. “Three shuttles in orbit there, all nonresponsive. Nine crewmembers total, also assumed KIA. One shuttle in transit down, nonresponsive, crew of four missing but presumed dead. One shuttle outside the Box doing a training run, two crew, with verified ion impact. I think we’re getting a ping from that one, but it’s just the emergency transponder. There’s no proof that anyone on the shuttle is alive.”
Jezria frowned. “A training run?”
“Pilot training. It’s—oh.”
Steven took a look at the data, then sighed heavily. “It was Jonah Helms. He logged a session with Lacey Chambers, an easy run. They never even went out of visual range of land.”
“But there’s a ping?” Jezria pushed. “You’re sure?”
“We can’t prove he was shot down, but the shuttle has definitely run into trouble out there. There’s a ping, though.”
“Hmm. Keep an eye on that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jezria folded her hands and tried to look inscrutable, but her mind was racing. This issue with Jonah … it changed things.
Garrett Helms, née Caractacus, was certifiably incapable of leaving things alone where his husband was concerned. If there was a way for him to be alerted to Jonah’s status, then he had been. It was now possible—just slightly more possible, but Jezria would take any edge she could get—that Garrett had had a fire lit under him with the clear and present peril to his husband.
Howthat would change things, Jezria couldn’t say, but the deep grief it felt like she’d been carrying inside of her ever sincethe attack began seemed to ease a little bit. Garrett was a wild card.
Wild cards could change everything.
Chapter eight
