Page 52 of Lies That Bind
A siren blared from somewhere a few floors up, and the instructors walked over to us. “Practice is suspended until further notice. Empress, you are probably needed in the command center.”
Right. Because I was a student but also the leader of this nation. My friends gave me some fearful looks as I followed our instructors out the door, where Commander Ledger was waiting in the hallway.
“It was a direct hit. I’m still waiting on a damage report, Empress,” he told me as I joined him in making quick strides to the command center on this floor.
“Maxim got my letter,” I stated.
The commander nodded. “Yes, he did.”
Soldiers barreled past us, yelling orders through the halls.
“I’d rather him angry than quiet,” the commander said. “I like predictable people.”
It was a fair point. Maxim doing nothing in retaliation since I’d killed his father was unnerving.Thiswas familiar territory.
We entered the command room. Elaine was there wearing a fresh uniform with her new admiral pin. Caruso was there as well. Commander Ledger and I made four.
“I’ve tripled the guard staff around your sisters back in Riverine,” Elaine said as I walked in, and I nodded, feeling relieved. If Maxim did try to honor his word, then my sisters might be in danger. Though, I slept better knowing they were in the little, unassuming house with the giant willow tree.
I didn’t really know what we were supposed to do. Talk about the damage? Retaliate immediately? War meetings were the final step in my father’s training with me, and I hadn’t had many of them.
“I say we send a message back so that this new leader knows we aren’t going to tolerate the things his father did the last few decades. A change in power is a good chance to gain a new front in the war,” Admiral Caruso said.
Commander Ledger nodded. “What do you suggest?”
Caruso pulled out a map of Luska and pointed to a new inked-in area. “They have a new military base close to the Wall, probably where they are launching from right now. I say we hit them there. Hard.”
Ledger raised one eyebrow. “And how did you get this intel on their new base? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Caruso glanced at Elaine. “Confirmed sighting by one of our own.”
Elaine must have seen it when she was spying on Maxim. Good, she reported it to Caruso.
“Colt has a flying Talanagi creature now. We could drop another payload on it,” the commander said.
I shook my head. “They’ll be watching the skies like crazy, expecting that after what we did to the Red Palace.”
“She’s right. We should either launch it over the Wall or send in an elite ground team to rig it to blow,” Elaine said.
As they went back and forth over which way was the best way to blow up their new military site, I found myself wondering if this was all war was. Back and forth, back and forth. They bomb us, we bomb them. A hundred years later we can barely remember who started it. I’d grown up in war; it was all I knew. My father had a very strict opinion on peace treaties.
‘They’re for the weak. And they don’t last forever. The only thing that lasts forever is if you control everything.’
In my father’s mind, if a country attacked us, he wasn’t happy until he was ruling over that country. And I understood that. I did. But I also wondered what the world would be like without war. What it might be like to rule over a country in a time of peace.
“What do you think, Empress?” Commander Ledger asked me.
“Let’s launch a counterassault from here. Our men on the Wall can shoot down any interference to hopefully get it to its target. If that fails, we send in a ground team.”
He nodded. “I agree.”
Caruso and Elaine agreed as well.
“I recommend you stay down here for the next forty-eight hours. No going topside,” the commander said to me.
‘Onyx and I will stay nearby, but out of harm’s way.’Liana read my mind as I was about to ask him about our creatures. The smaller creatures were down here with their bondeds, but the larger ones had to stay topside.
“Two more days down here?” I questioned.
