Valiant Dust

9

Tanjeer, Gadira II

Five days after the garden party, Ranya el-Nasir gazed out the window of the luxury flyer, daydreaming as the golden cliffs and dazzling waters of the coastline east of Tanjeer passed by below. Nador was eight hundred kilometers behind her, a little less than an hour of flying time; she leaned back in her seat half-asleep, her mind drowsily sorting through the discussions and events of the whirlwind state visit to Gadira’s second-largest city. But just as she began to actually doze off, Sultan Rashid brought her pleasant languor to a very sudden end. “I think it is high time that we found you a husband, my niece,” he said.

Ranya couldn’t have awakened any faster if her uncle had pushed her into a pool of icy water. “Uncle, I am not sure—” she began.

“Allow me to finish, Ranya.” Sultan Rashid smiled benignly and cut her off with a broad gesture of his hand. He reclined in the comfortable seat across the narrow aisle from her. “I have been giving this a good deal of thought lately. You are twenty-four years old now, and Gadira expects princesses of the royal house to do their duty to the dynasty. And more to the point, my brother would have wanted a grandchild.”

The route of the sultan’s luxurious transport happened to pass just a kilometer or two above some of the most magnificent desert landscape on Gadira, but it seemed that Sultan Rashid had more on his mind than the view. Ranya paused to gather her argument. She had no time or interest for husband hunting at the moment, but she didn’t want to hurt her uncle’s feelings—or, worse yet, spur him into some grandiose plan to helpfully interfere in her romantic life. She settled on the most honest answer she could give him. “I simply don’t feel that I am ready for marriage yet,” she finally said. “I’ve been so caught up in my duties that I haven’t even met anyone that might be a suitable match.”

“And that is in part my fault, my dear.” Sultan Rashid shook his head. He was less than twenty years older than Ranya, but he’d developed the manners and studied indolence of a much older man. He was already fat enough that his doctors constantly urged him to moderate his diet, but Rashid had a sweet tooth that could have shamed a ten-year-old. “You are a beautiful young woman, but you have the mind and temperament of your father. I have relied on you as I might have relied on a son, instead of allowing you to blossom as a daughter. It is not fair to you.”

“It’s what I wanted, Uncle.” This topic came up every few months, and it seemed that every time it did, her uncle sounded as if just a little more of Gadira’s chauvinistic ideas had seeped into his way of looking at the world. Years ago she had found it endearing; now it was becoming tiresome, although Ranya did her best not to show her annoyance. If nothing else, she was fond of her uncle. “As you say, I have my father’s temperament. I wasn’t meant to spend my days as a palace ornament.”

“That you have made clear to me more than once. Nevertheless, Yasmin and I have been talking, and we have come up with a plan of sorts.”

Ranya frowned. This was something new. Her uncle had never gone beyond making simple observations about her eligibility for marriage, and he rarely consulted with his wife on anything. Extremely shy, Sultana Yasmin disliked the capital and the public routine of the palace. She and her two daughters spent most of their time in the Khalifa Palace, a highly secluded fortresslike retreat high in the mountains above the picturesque town of Toutay, a couple of hundred kilometers from Tanjeer. It wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that Rashid and Yasmin were estranged from each other, since as far as Ranya knew there was no real disagreement between them. But Rashid seemed content to allow his wife to enjoy her seclusion, and it didn’t seem likely that the sultan and sultana would ever produce a male heir for House Nasir. For now, Gadira’s elites maintained the polite fiction that a crown prince would be born in due course, but in all likelihood the throne of Ranya’s father would eventually pass to any of a half-dozen distant cousins who had had the foresight to be born with a penis … unless Ranya happened to find the right marriage.

So that is what this is about, she decided. Her uncle was worried about establishing a clear line of succession. “A plan?” she asked cautiously.

“It seems to your aunt Yasmin and me that there are not many suitors of your station on Gadira,” Sultan Rashid said. “As the daughter of a planetary sovereign, you should most properly be married to the son of a royal house of similar rank. So we have settled upon the idea of sending you on an extended visit to the core systems of the Caliphate. You can begin by making your hadj to Terra. Then you can undertake studies at any of the proper schools, and attend various royal courts. We have relatives in the Caliphate worlds willing to sponsor you, and introduce you to men of suitable rank. I think three years should be sufficient.”

“Three years?” Ranya felt a flutter of panic at the idea. While it was true that she was not likely to find a husband on Gadira, she didn’t particularly want a husband at the moment. She had friends and interests at home that she did not wish to leave … and she was also very concerned that no one else in House Nasir could replace her in the administration of the sultanate’s affairs. The Montréalais would see to it that Sultan Rashid did not fall, but what kind of world would she come home to? “Uncle, I am not sure I can afford to leave Gadira for three months, let alone three years. The Caidist troubles grow worse every day. They demand the full attention of our house, and I can be of great help to you.”

Sultan Rashid reached over to pat her arm. “My dear, there will always be troubles. I cannot ask you to delay your own happiness forever simply because we can’t look past the challenges of the day. And no one is indispensable—it will be good for the rest of us to take on some of your burden.”

Ranya did not answer immediately. She glanced out the window again, gathering her thoughts; the coastal mountains faded into the dusty haze behind the aerial motorcade, while the multicolored sprawl of Tanjeer’s fields, orchards, and outlying districts passed by two thousand meters below. She felt that she was a good deal more indispensable than her uncle realized, but Rashid could be surprisingly stubborn if openly defied. Besides, a part of her was not entirely opposed to the idea. She hadn’t ever left Gadira, and the opportunity to see dozens of new worlds tempted her. She could think of a friend or two who would come with her if she asked; it might be something of an adventure. But not right now, she decided.

She glanced back to Sultan Rashid. “When do you want me to go?” Her uncle had a habit of coming up with grand ideas, but then forgetting about them when something else caught his attention. In the time between this conversation and the day she was supposed to leave Gadira, the whole idea might slip his mind.

“It may take some time to finalize the arrangements,” Rashid answered. “I have taken the liberty of sending messages ahead to some of our offworld relations—the Birkols of Tau Ceti, the al-Firats, Shah Norouzi of Khorasan III. We won’t see any replies for a month or two yet. But I see no reason why it shouldn’t be later this year.”

He means well, Ranya reminded herself. It grated on her to learn that her uncle was laying plans to float her around the Caliphate worlds like a fly fisherman trying to hook a prize catch. And the fact that he’d already sent letters ahead meant that for once Sultan Rashid was putting one of his grand ideas into action. She might not be able to evade this offworld tour after all, and of course, she would be expected to return with a husband, or at least some good prospects for one. She wasn’t completely inexperienced with men—the more permissive quarters of Gadiran society turned a blind eye to affairs carried on with discretion, and even a princess was entitled to some privacy. But opportunities for serious relationships, as Rashid observed, were more than a little limited for Ranya. She knew next to nothing about the process of catching a husband.

“Later this year?” she said, still trying to grapple with the thought. “I will give some thought to passing my responsibilities along to a replacement. And finding some companionship for the trip.”

“That’s the spirit.” Sultan Rashid beamed. “I had the good fortune to make a similar journey as a young man, when your grandfather was still sultan. Oh, I wasn’t looking for a wife at that point, but I had the opportunity to visit dozens of worlds and see wonders that I could not have imagined before I left Gadira. We live on one small planet, Ranya, but there is a much greater universe out there. You can’t truly understand that until you see it for yourself.”

Ranya glanced out the window again, wondering how much she would miss her home. She dealt with offworlders every day, and she knew that many of them privately considered Gadira to be a miserable and backward system indeed. The contrast between the sprawl of Tanjeer’s squalid suburbs, now passing beneath the sultan’s skycade, and the white walls of El-Badi Palace, with its surrounding gardens and parks, certainly offered little to be proud of. There were cities in the core worlds of the Coalition that were a hundred kilometers across, skyscrapers like artificial mountains, orbital palaces, markets where the goods of a hundred worlds were bought and sold … What was that?

Five thin smoke trails suddenly leaped into existence from the tree-covered expanse of a large cemetery just off the flight path of the sultan’s flyer. Ranya happened to be looking out the window at the very moment they launched, so she saw them before anybody else. Pure surprise froze her for a half second as the weapons streaked up from the ground; the exhaust plumes looked like gray daggers reaching up for her. Then she found her voice. “Missiles right!” she screamed.

Lieutenant Colonel Raoul Yusir, a highly experienced veteran, had the honor of serving as the sultan’s personal pilot. The position was perhaps the most prestigious assignment in the entire Royal Guard, and he’d fought his way through months of competitions and training to win the post. Today that rigorous selection process proved its value—the instant Ranya shouted her warning, Colonel Yusir slammed the throttle to the stops and dove down and away from the threat.

The luxury transport’s inertial compensators did their best to accommodate the violent maneuver, but even so Ranya was thrown against her window. Her uncle grunted in surprise as he flailed sideways against the restraints in his seat. When Ranya got her bearings again, the missiles were almost on top of them.

Smoke trails—rockets, not induction motors, she noted with an oddly clinical interest. Years of familiarizing herself with the sultanate’s military aid from Montréal had its benefits. Cutting-edge ground-to-air weapons were hypersonic missiles with gravity induction drives. They wouldn’t have left any smoke for her to spot, and would have hit the sultan’s skycade in the blink of an eye. Metallic hydrogen rockets or more primitive chemical propellants powered older weapons. She watched the first of the rockets swerve suddenly to one side to follow one of the escort flyers. And they’re guided, too! That almost certainly meant they were offworld arms. Plenty of industrial facilities on Gadira could manufacture an unguided rocket, but building a seeker head was another matter altogether.

The question abruptly ceased to be of merely clinical interest when the first rocket reached the Royal Guard flyer escorting the sultan’s transport. The weapon detonated in a powerful blast that ripped one engine off the escort and peppered its fuselage with lethal shrapnel. The stricken flyer—four Royal Guards, men who’d been around Ranya all of her life—tumbled end over end toward the crowded city streets below.

“Hang on!” Colonel Yusir shouted as he wrestled with the controls. The oversized personal flyer that served as Sultan Rashid’s transport was armored and equipped with defensive systems for just such a situation, but it couldn’t outclimb surface-to-air missiles. The pilot instinctively dove to get the transport on the deck as fast as he could and use ground clutter to break the missile lock. Of course, that meant throwing the transport toward the streets below in a reckless power dive. Ranya looked forward, saw the ground rushing up, and screamed again despite herself.

Behind the sultan’s transport, a second missile clipped another one of the escort flyers. This one survived the hit, just barely; it veered wildly out of control and wound up making a hard landing in a vacant parking lot two kilometers distant. The third missile never locked on to anything; in his excitement, the young insurgent who’d fired it had neglected to activate the seeker head before launching the weapon, although no one in the sultan’s skycade saw where it went or learned why it missed. The two remaining missiles established a good lock on the sultan’s transport, and they streaked after the diving and twisting vehicle despite Colonel Yusir’s desperate effort to escape.

Only fifty meters behind the sultan’s transport, the third flyer in the escort squadron dove headlong into the path of the oncoming missiles. The brave Royal Guardsman piloting the craft could not intercept both weapons, but he traded his life and the lives of the other guardsmen with him to stop one missile streaking toward the royal transport.

It was almost enough.

The last missile exploded just above the sultan’s transport, shredding the vertical stabilizer and blasting shrapnel through the engines and the cabin. Shrieking wind and the sound of tearing metal filled the cabin as a dozen fist-sized holes suddenly appeared in the ceiling, with bright blue sky showing through. Ranya felt a hot searing sting crease the nape of her neck, and missed decapitation by a matter of centimeters. Sultan Rashid was hit in the left arm and shoulder; an aide sitting just behind him was killed instantly by a piece of shrapnel that struck between his eyes. The engines failed with a burst of sparks and flame, and the transport dropped sickeningly as alarms wailed in the cockpit. Ranya screamed again. And this time Sultan Rashid and the two Royal Guards who were still alive in the damaged transport cried out as well.

The sultan’s transport glanced off the side of a water tower, digging a ten-meter gash across the tank. The impact threw the heavy flyer into a violent horizontal spin, wrenching Ranya from one side to the other as blinding bursts of daylight and black shadow strobed madly through the cabin. Then the sultan’s flyer smacked into the street below, crushing a pair of parked ground transports and hurling debris in all directions. She heard screeching metal, shrieking alarms—and then nothing, as merciful darkness rose up and claimed her.

Some time later—seconds, minutes, she could not tell—she came to back to her senses when she felt someone fumbling at her restraints. Her neck stung, her back ached, and her mouth was full of the metallic taste of blood. Numbly, Ranya reached up to push the hands away. “No,” she mumbled.

“Let me help you, Amira. We must get you out of here, there is a serious risk of additional attacks.”

Ranya opened her eyes, and found herself looking up at Captain Tarek Zakur. Blood splattered his singed tunic, and his face was grim with anger. “What happened?” she said. Blood trickled from her mouth. “Where are we?”

“The transport was shot down. We’re in Tougana, about three kilometers from the palace.” Captain Zakur gently moved her hands aside and unfastened the seat restraints. “Are you hurt, Amira?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“Come with me, please,” Zakur said. Without waiting for her answer, he pulled her upright and somehow maneuvered her through the twisted wreckage of the cabin to the door. Then Ranya found herself outside, standing in the street beside the broken transport.

She saw that the sultan’s flyer had landed hard on its belly and skidded two hundred meters or more along a residential street before a large tree had stopped it. Several medical techs clustered around the nose of the vehicle, where Colonel Yusir and his copilot appeared to be trapped in wreckage. The two surviving flyers of the escort had landed in the middle of the street, bracketing the crash site; two more now orbited overhead with gunners manning heavy autorifles perched in their doors. Several ambulances and firefighting vehicles were already on the scene, their bright red and blue lights flashing, and the wailing sirens of more on the way echoed through the city. Everywhere Ranya looked, soldiers of the Royal Guard swarmed over the scene, their faces full of fear and anger. Scores of bystanders stood outside the cordon or watched from their front doors or windows.

What a nice neighborhood, she noticed. Why did we decide to land here? Then she realized that she was not making sense, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. Clearly she was not at her best. It was hard, but somehow Ranya forced herself to focus on what was going on.

She steadied herself on Captain Zakur, ignoring everything else except for his face. “The sultan?” she demanded.

“He is injured but alive, Amira,” the guard captain replied. He glanced at a medical transport that rested alongside the wreckage of the royal transport; Ranya saw a number of medical techs clustered around a stretcher there. She pushed herself away from Zakur and hurried over to the side of the stretcher.

Sultan Rashid groaned and shifted, his arm encased in a pressure sleeve and bloodstained wound dressings taped to his bare shoulder. Small cuts and abrasions marked his face, but his eyes were alert. He looked up at her as she reached the side of his stretcher. “Ah, good,” he murmured in a weak voice. “I was worried for you, my dear.”

“I am fine, Uncle,” she said. “Don’t concern yourself about me, save your strength!”

“I do not mind that they tried to kill me,” he murmured. “After all, they killed Kamal, and Grandfather, too. But I could not stand it if something happened to you, Ranya. Enough is enough. If it’s a war the Caidists want, we will give them one.”

Ranya had difficulty in following Rashid’s words, but she managed to organize her thoughts with sheer effort of will. “The insurgents are trying to provoke you, Uncle. Don’t give them that power over your actions.”

Rashid spat a mouthful of blood onto the stretcher. “I am provoked,” he snarled—perhaps the first time in her life that Ranya had ever seen him truly angry. “Trust me, my dear, I am very much provoked. And our enemies will be sorry indeed for it.”

Captain Zakur appeared by her side, and set a hand on Ranya’s arm. “Please, Amira, we must get the sultan onto the med transport,” he said. She allowed him to draw her away from the stretcher; the medical technicians immediately lifted Rashid up and into the flyer. “One will be here for you in a matter of moments.”

“But I’m not hurt,” Ranya told him.

Zakur shook his head. “That is for the doctors to say, Amira. You have a cut on the back of your neck, and another one on your leg. And you probably have a concussion, too. Please, this way.”

Ranya put her hand to the back of her neck and felt that it was warm and wet. When she looked at it, her palm was covered in her own blood. “Oh,” she managed to say. Captain Zakur just managed to catch her when her legs gave out.