Schree's Rest (A Cat Among Dragons) Read online

  As she undid her layers of scarf and hood, the big male bellowed, “Rori, got company. Big mammal, knows trees.”

  “Tell him to tell Daesarae to take a pine and stuff it up his elimination orifice,” a voice called back. The soldiers’ eyes bulged but Rada pretended she didn’t hear the comment. A wiry Azdhag in a blue coverall and wearing a pink mourning scarf appeared from around a corner. “I’m Rorik of Tarlek. What can I do for,” he stopped, looked up, and farther up. “For you Commander Ni Drako?”

  “Well, I’d like some of this as paneling,” and she reached out to stroke the beautiful wood showing between the stones in the wall. “But since that would mean pulling down your offices, I need some information instead.”

  “The timbers date to the Relocation and I’d hate to lose them,” Rorik agreed. “Buhla, is the break room open?”

  “Yup. This way,” and the supervisor led the visitors into a comfortable room, sweeping some file readers out of sight as he did. Rada suspected the top files were not copies of “Timber Harvest Quarterly” and “WoodsWorld,” but kept her grin to herself and found a seat on the end of a sturdy bench. “Tea or broth?”

  “Broth please, and don’t stay on your feet if you don’t want to.” If they were going to treat her as an equal, then she’d return the favor, despite her troopers’ unhappy looks and noises.

  Rorik flopped onto a second bench as the soldiers found places. “You need information, Commander?”

  “Yes. I regret having to ask, but I’m investigating the crash last sixt and as you know, Flight Sergeant Leeshi, the pilot in command, belonged to Tarlek Lineage. Is there anything about him I should know, any problems he may have been having that the family knows about?”

  Rorik and Buhla swirled their forefeet in identical negations. “None, Commander,” Rorik assured her. “Tarlek Lineage and all of Schree’s Rest are having problems with Daesarae, but not Leeshi personally. He’s my brother’s son, and we told him to stay clear of politics until he finished his duty term. Was a good lad. We’ll miss him.”

  “Had a knack for spotting colored woods,” Buhla added.

  Rada had lowered her shields and felt nothing but honest sorrow from either Rorik or Buhla. Well, drat, that’s not what I wanted to hear. She’d hoped for some emotional distress or feud or other distraction.

  Rorik swirled his tail. “Since you are here, Commander Ni Drako, can you fill us in on Court politics?”

  “Anything specific?”

  “Is Daesarae petitioning for more timber lands? His harvesters are encroaching on land assigned to Schree’s Rest, even inside our borders, and when we challenge them, they say the Crown is going to transfer the land and so they are just doing surveys.” He didn’t bother trying to conceal his anger.

  “The last schedule for the Planetary Council and Imperial open petition days included nothing from Great Lord Daesarae other than a notice about his youngest daughter’s mate-gift price.”

  Buhla snorted and Rada caught a glimpse of what might have been a rude hind-foot gesture, if he’d had a functional hind foot. “We’ve asked Lt. Teelkan to tell us if his people notice illegal logging, even though the Defenders can’t do anything about it. Can they?”

  Rada swirled her left hand. “Not unless you formally petition the Throne to have a peacekeeping group added to the base here. It can be done, but you will have to pay half of their expenses.”

  “Not worth it,” Rorik grunted. “I’ll tell the city council, but they won’t want to pay. And begging his Imperial-Majesty’s pardon, most of the time we rather like being ignored.”

  That makes two of us, Rada thought. “I understand, Rorik, and I will mention your border problem to the Prince Imperial if I get a chance.”

  That evening Rada and Bisteel planned a flight. “All the way to Watch Point Six, my lord?”

  “No. I want to intercept Blackwing Four’s route here,” and she pointed to a closer point. “That leaves us with enough fuel that if the weather turns bad, we can get to TreeView with a safe reserve.”

  The two pilots worked separately, then compared their figures to see if they had missed anything. Rada pointed to a line on her wingman’s flop screen. “No, my fuel burn will be higher because of the armament weight.”

  “Oh.” Bisteel ran the numbers again. “Is this high enough?”

  “Yes. How bad is the weather forecast for tomorrow?”

  The green-blotched pilot called up the data. “If you are planning an instrument flight, my lord, not bad except for the temperatures. Visual is not recommended due to intermittent snow showers.” He tipped his head to the side. “This is very close to the weather during Black Wing Four’s flight.” Rada waited as the lieutenant put the pieces together. “We’re recreating Black Wing Four’s flight.”

  “Correct.”

  They entered Black Wing Four’s flight track just before midday the next day. Instead of close formation, Wings Two flew in a loose trail position behind Rada. She concentrated on visual navigation and looking around while he monitored their track and the instrument readings. Trees, snow, and more trees covered the ground, interrupted by a few tracks and a river that led to a snow-covered lake. The horizon blurred into the clouds and on more than one occasion Rada had to remind herself not to go with what the seat of her breeches told her. The two aircraft had been airborne for half an hour, flying at low cruise power, when Rada saw movement.

  “Weak side, two marks, low,” she reported.

  “Affirmative.”

  Rada toggled the visual on her targeting system and zoomed in on three logging vehicles. Two of them bore Lineage Daesarae’s markings and she rolled her eye. They were not even trying to hide their identity, even though her chart said the area lay well within Shree’s Rest’s land. “Wings Two, confirm that we are still outside Daesarae lands.”

  “Twenty qliqs at the closest, Wings One. I have two more tree cutters, weak side, three marks.”

  Rada twisted her head until she could see the second crew. “In sight. Remain on track, Wings Two. Wings One will rejoin.” She reduced power and banked, dropping as low as she could go and still be safe and legal. She felt her mouth spreading in a snarl under her oxygen mask. She did not like poachers of any kind. Rada shoved the throttle forward just before she crossed over the loggers, shaking them with her exhaust and accelerating. She pulled back on the control stick and the Night’s Claw screamed up and over as she rejoined Wings Two.

  Neither pilot saw anything else unusual until they approached the point where Nigh Wing Four began descending to join the Schree’s Rest approach. “Wings One, Wings Two is losing my outside nav.”

  Rada activated her combat displays. “We’re being jammed. On me.” She turned back to the south and west.

  “On you. Wings Two.”

  As Rada tracked the signal, warning lights flashed and a recorded voice urged, “Nav signal compromised, revert to internal nav. Nav signal compromised, revert . . .”

  “Oh shut up,” she told the computer, taking her hand off the throttle long enough to kill the voice. She selected an air-to-ground missile and initiated the targeting sequence. “Arm four,” she ordered. Green lights appeared on the display.

  Rada switched to the military general broadcast frequency and civilian emergency frequencies. “Anyone receiving this broadcast, this is Commander Ni Drako. Cease and desist jamming, repeat, cease and desist jamming immediately or you will be shut down. Repeat, cease jamming or you will be shut down.” She’d warned them, had warned anyone in the area, and if they failed to obey, it was on their heads.

  Now she could see the familiar outline of an old-style portable jammer and Rada flew over the facility in warning. “You have ten seconds to cease jamming and power down or you will be shut down, over.”

  She heard a burst of static but the signal remained on. Rada banked hard into a climbing turn, Wings Two in tight formation with her. They rolled out and turned again. The targeting solution appeared on her visor. This
close, she set the targeting to visual, shifted her head very slightly until the three marks aligned, and pulled the trigger. Night’s Claw shuddered as the missile launched and Rada followed it with her eye. She had time to see reptiles scattering from the jammer’s housing before the missile hit. The jamming stopped.

  “Back to Schree’s Rest, Wings Two.”

  “Schree’s Rest. Am negative sat-nav, Wings One.”

  Rada frowned. “Understood.” She was too. Well that’s a pain in the ass. What had Daesarae’s people done to the equipment, she wondered. That model should not have taken out her instruments once the signal broadcast ceased. I wonder. If Black Wing Four and lost the horizon and began leaning on his instruments, he could well have lost control if he tried to engage the autopilot per standard approach procedure, especially if something went wrong with the internal nav and he no longer had sat nav back-up. She’d never be able to prove it, but Rada’s gut told her that she’d found the answer to the mystery.

  Rada and Bisteel downloaded their planes’ data recordings and sent them to the Palace as soon as they landed at Schree’s Rest base. After hurried consultation with Defender Korli and Minister of War Lord Shu, Rada cut short her inspection tour and returned to the Palace that night, a portable nav computer stuffed between the top of the instrument mounts and the bottom of the canopy.

  She found Shu and Korli waiting in her quarters, along with Prince Scheelk. “Your Highness, Great Lord,” Rada acknowledged, dropping to one knee.

  “Rise, Lord Defender,” Scheelk ordered. “I will be brief. Your report is damning. Daesarae had no call to have such equipment on his lands. And I want to know what happened to your navigation system.”

  “As do I, your highness. Several safety circuits appear to have failed on both aircraft, suggesting a feedback and overload. That jammer should not have done that, even when it was factory new.”

  Defender Korli raised his tail slightly. “Lord Mammal, I can mobilize the base at ThreeTrees. They are closest to Daesarae.”

  Both Rada and Prince Scheelk swirled their forefeet. “It sets a bad precedent if we were to act without a proper hearing including other Great Lords,” Scheelk warned.

  “And if I were to seize Daesarae’s armaments, I’d have to go through every other holding and take whatever the Defenders found. I do not want to do that.” She knew damn well that Beerkali had armored vehicles in various states of functionality, and that other Lineages kept heavy weapons. She’d prefer to keep turning her blind eye to those “antiquarian collections.”

  Lord Shu tapped his talons on the floor tiles. “Daesarae will be here in two days for the next Court session. I can arrange a private gathering where the matter of his equipment and territorial ambitions can be discussed.”

  Scheelk gestured his assent, adding, “This fight between Lineage Daesarae and Schree’s Rest has been going on since the Great Relocation. Tradition is vital to the Empire, but enough is enough.”

  Lord Shu’s preparations proved unnecessary. Great Lord Daesarae stormed into the waiting area outside the lesser throne room, rose onto his hind legs, found the Lord Defender and charged up to her, his two largest bodymen close behind. “You! What do you mean by threatening my people and destroying property without provocation or cause?” His bellow drew the attention of everyone waiting for the doors to open.

  Rada tipped her head back so she could see his eyes as he loomed over her. “After hearing rumors of timber theft, I needed to confirm that the people cutting trees twenty qliqs within the Schree’s Rest borders had proper identifying marks on their vehicles. They did not. And jamming aircraft navigation and communication systems is an act of war, great my lord. What if it was the first step in an invasion attempt? After repeated warnings the jamming did not stop, so I acted to protect civilian air traffic.”

  Lords Blee and Ro-diit gave Daesarae speculative looks. As Daesarae inhaled to snarl an answer, Ro-diit inquired, “Signal jamming, Lord Defender?”

  “Yes, great my lord. Someone on Daesarae lands targeted my flight with a navigation jammer. It is probable that the jammer also affected an earlier flight, contributing to a crash that killed five Defenders.”

  “The crash that took the life of Zhi-king’s third son?”

  At Ro-Diit’s words, Daesarae dropped back onto all four feet. Rada could almost see the impact of the thought striking him: if he pushed the matter, he could be held culpable for the death of another noble’s offspring. “Ah. You were on an accident investigation flight, Lord Defender?”

  “Yes, Lord Daesarae.”

  “It is good that the jammer failed to cause more problems,” Prince Scheelk observed, walking up to the group. They bowed and he continued, “The damage to the Defender aircraft’s electrical systems is serious enough as it is. Enough so that there is some speculation that ‘foreign’ parts had been added to the antique equipment.”

  “Indeed? I have not read the latest report, your highness.” Rada knew there had to have been something very strange about the jammer. That or the lowest bidder had struck again when it came to the Defenders’ on-board navigation equipment.

  If Daesarae could have paled, he would have. Instead he made a hissing-choking noise and shifted his weight backwards, as if preparing to flee. “Fascinating, your highness. I had no idea such a thing was on my property.”

  Rada couldn’t resist poking the greedy lizard. “It could be related to the timber thefts, great my lord.” As he twitched, she cautioned, “They could well have been trying to hide from your border patrols as well as from the Defenders and others. Have you checked to see if you are missing any timber?”

  Prince Scheelk met the eyes of all the watching nobles before informing them, “His Imperial Majesty had expressed some concern about falling tax revenues due to resource wastage and border disputes, to the extent that he is considering at least a partial re-survey of the northern landmass, in order to confirm all current lineage holdings and their boundaries.”

  Somehow Rada managed to hide her glee at the dismayed twitching and tail rustling that followed Scheelk’s words. The opening of the throne room door forestalled further discussion. Rada stepped aside to let her superiors enter first. Heh. How many people have expanded their holdings onto crown lands, I wonder? At least eight of those walking past her, if she read Azdhag body language correctly. She did wish that Daesarae could be charged with something, but if the crown chose not to pursue matters, then she could not. Win some, lose some. She rumpled her tail in a shrug before taking her place with the other mid-ranked nobles.