Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (13 page)

“My cabin. Only place to put you, since you weren’t supposed to be here. Looks like that dog saved your life. And … well, I guess you saved
ours,
didn’t you?”

Mira looked at him, remembering everything. The
Wind Star
exploding, Landships crashing, White Helix consumed in fire.

“Not all of us,” she said.

Dresden studied her soberly. “You saved your share.”

“I also caused it all, didn’t I?” At the end of the day, it had been she and Holt, their quest to rescue Zoey, that had brought the Assembly here, and it had been she and Holt who had embroiled the Wind Traders in this whole mess. “You must hate me.”

“Hate’s not a very useful emotion,” Dresden replied. “And it isn’t your fault everything went to hell. No one was working together out there, you saw it. There was no real plan. We were doing our thing, Helix were doing theirs, and we all forced out those silver walkers of yours. Everyone was so sure they didn’t need anyone else. It’s a hard lesson.”

“How many ships did we lose?”

“I couldn’t say.” He set the book down and lowered his feet to the floor. “The four armed ships that survived are here. So are maybe two dozen of the regular fleet.”

Mira was aghast. That was
thirty
ships! “What happened to the rest?”

“Scattered when the gunships hit. Most are missing. The White Helix too, though a few Arcs, or whatever they call their groupings, have trickled in. Right now? We’ve lost two-thirds of the fleet.”

Which also meant two-thirds of the White Helix. Two-thirds of their supplies. Two-thirds of any hope of reaching the Citadel and Zoey. They’d had an army when they left, and in less than a day she’d managed to lose almost all of it.

“Doesn’t mean they’re all destroyed,” Dresden continued, sensing her despair. “Another problem was we didn’t set a rendezvous, assumed the fleet would move together but those Raptors shot that plan to hell. They’re out there, somewhere, scattered to the winds.”

Mira felt the beginning of dread form in her stomach. “Did the
Wind Rift
…?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “If I had to guess, though, I’d say Olive got through. They were headed south, after all, away from us, and she’s a hell of a skipper.”

Another realization hit Mira then, a particularly unpleasant one. “He thinks I’m dead,” she whispered.

“You don’t know that.”

“He thought I was on the
Wind Star.
It was one of the first Landships to go down. He would have seen it.”

“Well, then he’ll be real happy to see you, won’t he?”

Mira shook her head. “You don’t understand, he’s lost everything so many times.” A deep sadness was welling up inside her. Not for herself, but for Holt. “I have to get to him. I have to find—”

“You can’t.” Dresden stopped her and she looked up in anger.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do, I—”

“From what I gather, getting to San Francisco’s pretty important. You go after him, you forfeit what you’re doing here. You lose the fleet, the White Helix go their own way, and those Assembly seem to me like fair-weather friends at best.”

“I could send word. A message.”

“How? You think a Wind Trader runner’s just gonna stroll in the front gate of
Faust
? They’d be killed on sight.”

He was right, and it made her insides hurt. Finding Zoey was what mattered. She and Holt had stated as much to each other, but still, the thought of him, believing what he believed, the pain. And there was more than that, she had to admit. There was who he was with.

Ravan.

“You made a deal, darling,” Dresden continued. “A bargain, a big one. So did he. Those types of bargains, there’s no walking away from. And where he’s going, there ain’t no following, trust me.”

Mira cradled her head in her hands, and willed herself not to cry. Not in front of Dresden, not now.

There was a knock at the door. “Come,” Dresden commanded.

Parker opened it. “Conner’s convening. Says they’re going to head out in an hour.”

The words snapped Mira from her self-pity. “Head out where?”

The look Parker gave her was full of just the kind of scorn she expected. “West, of course. What you wanted, isn’t it?”

“
West?
” she asked. “But the fleet? We have to—”

“Conner says we leave them, they’re better off on their own.”

“I
need
those ships! That’s not the deal!”

“Well, that’s what’s happening,” Parker replied sharply, turning back to Dresden. “Captains are assembling outside.”

Dresden nodded, got to his feet as Parker left. Mira stared up at him, stunned.

“What’d you expect?” he asked.

“You can’t let this happen,” Mira begged.

“Me? This isn’t my fight, what do I care? Sooner this is over, sooner I get back to making profit, that’s how
every
Captain out there feels.
You’re
the only one that feels any different. You see what that means?”

Mira did. No one was going to help her.

“You wanna take this thing all the way?” he asked pointedly. “Start acting like it.”

Dresden exited the room and Mira looked down at Max. The dog stared back with a vaguely judgmental look. “I
know.
”

She got up, fighting the waves of dizziness, and Max followed her up and onto the deck.

It was the first time she had really gotten to look at the
Wind Shear
since her frantic arrival on board, chasing after Max. It was one of the more striking Landships she’d been on, and she remembered it from that time, months ago, when Dresden helped them escape the Assembly at the river trading post.

The vessel had eight massive wheels, four on each side, two pairs of which came from some giant construction vehicle, while the middle were custom constructions of wood and steel, meticulously fashioned and shaped. Her decks had been assembled from a variety of repurposed wood, as well as train and boat parts. Two of her masts were formed out of polished and smoothed airplane wings, big ones, maybe even from an airliner. The whole thing was a hodgepodge of parts, but somehow it all blended together into a giant, beautiful, cohesive craft.

The sun had almost set behind the hills to the west, and its last dim rays streaked across the sky. From there she saw what was left of the Wind Trader fleet. Less than thirty ships were parked everywhere around them. Workers scrambled up and over them, plugging holes, fixing lines and breaches. Every ship seemed wounded.

Mira and Max followed Dresden toward the gangplank. As they did, she looked behind them, to where they’d come from. In the far distance, to the east, in the fading light, she could see something rising into the sky. A thick column of black smoke. Something about it was ominous.

“What’s that?” she asked

“Currency,” Dresden replied tightly without looking back. “It’s burning.”

*   *   *

MIRA WALKED BEHIND DRESDEN
through the Landships, continually having to stop and urge Max to keep up. The smells from a campfire, some small, scurrying creature, the sounds of hammers against ship hulls: it was all fair game to the dog.

To the west, there was something odd. Something just visible.

A perfectly straight beam of light that shot upward until it disappeared into the stratosphere. It almost looked like a Gravity Well from the Strange Lands, but, of course, that was impossible.

“What’s that?” Mira asked.

Dresden answered with a note of amusement. “Figured you’d know, given it’s where you’re headed.”

It took a moment for the words to connect, but when it did, a chill swept over her.
“The Citadel?”

“Deep in the heart of San Francisco. You’ve never seen it?”

Mira shook her head, staring at the imposing beam of light in the distance. “No.”

“Huge, makes even the Presidiums look like scale models. Has some kind of energy flowing out of it from the top, no one knows what the hell it is or what it does.”

“How many miles are we from San Francisco?”

“Four hundred, give or take, and you can
still
see the thing. That’s how big and bright it is. Another two hundred miles and you’ll see the structure itself, long before you see the ruins. It’s … impressive. In a terrifying kind of way.”

Mira stared at it as they walked, through the sails of the huge ships. There was something eerie about it, seeing it that far away, but as they moved, the sounds of argument pulled her attention. One of the voices she recognized, and with the recognition came a relief. At least
he
was still alive.

“We are not leaving without my people,” Dane said, his voice heated.

“No one says you have to,” Conner replied. “I’m saying my
ships
are leaving; whether or not you’re on them is up to you.”

She dragged Max’s nose out of a cooking pot and rounded the side of the
Wind Mark
and saw the crowd gathered there. A dozen Wind Trader Captains, and a dozen White Helix Doyens.

“If you leave, I have no way of finding them,” Dane said.

“What would you do if you could?”

“Fight.”
Dane’s voice was fire. “Find what remains of that army and destroy it.” The Helix behind him all nodded, a similar eagerness in their eyes.

“And we’re expected to help you in this suicide … why?”

Dane stared at Conner in disgust. “They destroyed your ships. They killed your people.”

Conner nodded. “And I would let that go, so as to save the
rest
of my people.”

Mira looked back to the beacon in the distance. It marked more than just where she was headed. It marked Zoey, and she felt a surge of frustration and sadness, knowing she was staring right at her, but she still had so far to go.

“You have no honor,” Dane continued, taking a step toward Conner, “and you’re—”

“Dane, stop,” Mira said. The confrontation halted, everyone turned to her. When Dane saw her, his eyes widened.

“
Mira?
I thought…”

“I know, it’s a long story.”

“They’re trying to leave,” Dane told her, almost pleadingly.

“There’s no ‘try’ to it,” one of the other Captains spoke up. “Once my ship’s landworthy, I’m going to finish this contract and be done with it. We all are.”

“Mira,” Conner said. “Going back to fight those things is—”

“Suicide. I agree.” Dane started to argue, but Mira spoke over him. “Even at full force, with every White Helix warrior still alive, do you
really
think you have a chance against that army?”

“Honor demands—”

“Is that
really
what Gideon taught you? Is that what the Keystones say? How does dying to avenge a loss help free Zoey? You remember
her,
don’t you? The reason, supposedly, all of you came with us? Or was that just the most convenient thing to believe at the time?”

Dane stared at her heatedly, but said nothing.

“I’m sorry the battle didn’t go the way you wanted,” she told him. “We’ll figure out how to do better, but getting yourselves killed doesn’t help anything.”

Dane took a long moment before finally responding, and when he did, his voice was calmer. “No. It doesn’t.”

Mira nodded. “Let me speak with Conner, I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

Dane looked from her back to Conner, clearly torn, but he moved away without saying anything else, followed by his Doyen.

“Thanks,” Conner said. “Glad to see
you
at least understand the—”

“You’re not heading west,” Mira said as sternly as she could. Dealing with Dane had been the easier of the two. She had to seem strong now, more than ever. Wind Traders were professional deal makers, they could see through most people’s bluffs. “I told him you wouldn’t help in another attack
right now,
but you
are
going to help find the other ships and the rest of Dane’s men, and you’re going to start doing it at first light.”

The Wind Traders stared at her like she had lost her mind.

“That’s insane,” the British-accented Captain spoke up angrily. “You don’t get to dictate how we carry out our contracts! The arrangement was to get
you
to the west coast, and that’s—”

“No,” Mira interjected. “It wasn’t. My understanding of Wind Trader Commerce Law is that every aspect of a contract must be honored, down to the letter. Dresden, is that right?”

Dresden tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. “Yep.”

“We have our problems right now,” Mira kept going, “I understand that, but I made a very specific arrangement with you, and that arrangement was
agreed
to. White Helix weapons in exchange for two weeks of
full control
of the Wind Trader fleet.”

“Mira—” Conner started.

“We are on day
two
of those fourteen days, and I am in
command.
Not you.
That
is the deal. If I give the order to run every single Landship into the ocean you’ll do it without question. I’m sure that stings, but I’m sorry to say that is the reality.”

She let what she was saying sink in, looking from one Captain to the other, then back to Conner. The more she spoke, the more strength she felt.

“We aren’t going west. We’re going to find the missing ships and the missing White Helix and
then
we will go west. You have until the morning to make whatever repairs you need. At that time someone will present to me plans for a search pattern. Are there any questions?”

The Wind Traders stared at her, no one said anything.

Next to her, Dresden gave Conner a wry look. “Lady’s got a point.”

Conner glared back, but didn’t dispute him. “Twelve more days. Then that’s that.”

“That’s that.” Mira forced herself to hold Conner’s stare, then the Wind Traders were leaving, mumbling among themselves. Dresden remained a moment, studying her with amusement.

“What?” Mira asked.

He just shrugged. “Nothing. See you on board.”

Dresden moved off and when they were all gone, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Max was still under her, considering her with a look that seemed decidedly unimpressed.