Page 59 of Warrior’s Mate

Chapter 11 — Separation

The lower grain tunnels had been built for machines, not frightened families.

Their ceilings were high enough for cargo haulers and the floors broad enough for two automated transports to pass side by side, but the emergency lights had never been designed to comfort children. They cast everything in flat blue-white bands: faces, dust, the pale grain residue along the walls. Every sound traveled too far.

Maelis moved at the front of the first civilian group with a handheld route display in one hand and a registry terminal strapped against her chest.

"Keep household units together," she called. "If you lose sight of someone, do not stop in the main lane. Move to the wall and signal a marshal."

Behind her, more than a hundred people moved through the tunnel in uneven clusters. The security teams Kaiven had assigned were distributed among them rather than bunched at the front. Maelis had insisted on that. Armed people at the head of a column made commanders feel protected. Armed people embedded through it protected civilians.

The distinction no longer required explanation to Kaiven. That thought stayed with her for several minutes before she realized she was using him as a measure of normality.

Her comm remained connected to the military channel he had authorized. She could hear fragments of the northern withdrawal whenever interference eased.

"—third section fall back—"

Static.

"Daratu to Talon support, mark the ridge—"

A burst of weapons fire swallowed the rest. Maelis kept walking.

She would not call him. She had promised herself that before entering the tunnel. If he had information she needed, he would send it. If she had information he needed, she would do the same. Anything else was fear pretending to be communication.

A little boy beside the wall stumbled, and Maelis caught his shoulder before he fell.

"You all right?"

He nodded too quickly.

"Where is your family?"

He pointed behind him. "My mother is with my sister. She hurt her ankle."

"Then slow down. They won't leave without you."

He looked at the long column ahead. "How do you know?" Maelis glanced at the registry terminal against her chest.

"Because I have their names."

It was not the whole truth, but it was enough to make him breathe again.

They reached Junction Seven eleven minutes ahead of schedule. Maelis sent the first households toward the upper freight cut while the med team stopped to stabilize three injured evacuees. The tunnel here intersected with an older processing level, long abandoned after the Exchange modernized its grain handling systems. Her grandfather had once brought her down here to show her the first sorting machines installed in Wasaytu. At eight years old she had thought they were enormous.

Now she was grateful for every meter of obsolete infrastructure no military survey had bothered to classify as strategically important. A security officer approached. "Registrar, we're getting heat signatures above the eastern shaft."

"How many?"

"Unknown. Could be civilians. Could be Sargans."

"Seal it."

"There may be people trying to reach us."

Maelis looked toward the shaft indicator. Three hundred civilians were moving through this junction. Opening the eastern access could save whoever was above it. It could also expose everyone below.

There had been a time, earlier that morning, when she would have expected a military officer to make that choice and resented him for it afterward. Now there was no officer close enough. The choice was hers.