Chapter 4 — Twelve Hours #2
Her grandmother had eaten supper while children finished lessons and farmers shut down harvest machines. Maelis had gone home, washed the dust from her hair, and complained to her brother over a late meal that military officers could make a crisis out of a crooked storage manifest.
Twelve hours. If someone had known there was danger—
"What action was ordered?" Kaiven asked.
"None for civilian districts. Strategic command called it low-confidence intelligence."
"And the communication anomalies?"
"Only started surfacing this morning."
"Who controls the defense relays handling the diverted traffic?"
"I don't have access."
"Who does?"
"Kaiven."
The way Hessantu said his name answered the question before he did. Kaiven's face hardened. "Consortium coordination?" Maelis stared at him.
The Consortium maintained interoperability nodes linking allied defense networks. Everyone knew that. They were supposed to make it easier for worlds to warn one another, easier for fleets to coordinate, easier for civilians to receive emergency traffic when local systems were damaged.
They were not supposed to sit between Farseek and its own people. Hessantu's reply was barely audible.
"Some of them."
Kaiven closed his eyes for one heartbeat. When he opened them, the hesitation was gone.
"Send me whatever you can."
"I'll lose my access."
"Send it."
Another pause.
"Already doing it."
The connection terminated. Maelis looked at Kaiven.
"You're disobeying the order."
"No."
She lifted a brow.
"I'm not initiating a civilian alert."
"Very careful."
"I am initiating a readiness test."
Understanding came quickly. Maelis moved to the district console before he finished speaking.
"Which shelters?"
"All of them."
"If we call it a test, people will take their time."
"Then don't tell them it's optional."
She glanced over her shoulder. He had already opened the military operations channel.
"Captain Daratu to Wasaytu district emergency services. Begin immediate readiness verification. Staff all designated shelters, medical staging points, and local transport hubs. Bring reserve communications online."
A dispatcher answered, startled. "Captain, regional hasn't issued—"
"This is a district readiness exercise under Brigade authority."
Maelis heard the emphasis in his wording: this was an exercise, a readiness test, anything except the alert or evacuation order neither of them had authorization to give.
Enough to move people into position without violating the literal wording of the order. She almost smiled.
"You do know how civilian systems work," she said.
"Don't spread that rumor."
She began sending activation messages. Shelter supervisors acknowledged, school administrators checked emergency rosters, and medical teams reported to staging areas.
At the agricultural exchange, loaders were told to keep three heavy transports fueled and clear. Nothing about the morning visibly changed. That was the frightening part.
Outside the operations floor, people kept buying fruit, children stayed in lessons, and farmers continued working the fields as if routine itself could hold the day together.
But beneath normal life, Wasaytu began to brace. Maelis pulled up the family registry.
"Why that?"
"If this becomes real, I want current household locations."
"We already have district population records."
She gave him a flat look.
"Of course you do."
"You're about to tell me they're wrong."
"They're not wrong. They're slow."
She showed him the gap between official residence records and the exchange's daily activity system: seasonal workers, elderly relatives staying with family, children assigned to different schools during harvest, temporary medical placements, and farm crews sleeping near remote fields.
"If we have to move people, addresses aren't enough. I need to know where they actually are today."
Kaiven studied the data.
"Can you compile it?"
"Yes."
"Do it."
The word came out as an order. Maelis's eyes narrowed. He caught himself.
"Please."
"Better."
She turned back to the display, and they worked for another hour, then another. The delays worsened.
At 1126, an outlying cooperative stopped answering. At 1143, it came back online and claimed nothing had happened. At 1208, a school message arrived with a timestamp from forty-three minutes earlier. At 1231, Maelis found a distress packet embedded in routine agricultural traffic.
She opened it. The message was incomplete.
...unidentified craft... eastern approach... no authorization code... requesting...
Then nothing. Kaiven read over her shoulder.
"Origin?"
"Small settlement near Rethan Valley."
"Distance?"
"One hundred eighty kilometers."
"Contact them."
She tried the civilian channel and got no response. Kaiven switched to military frequencies, but those returned nothing either.
Then the message disappeared from the queue. Maelis stared at the empty line.
"I didn't delete that."
Kaiven's voice had gone quiet. "I know." She searched the archive. No copy. No receipt.
The distress packet seemed to have vanished as completely as if it had never existed. Kaiven opened his terminal, only to find the secure military network refusing the connection.
He tried again and failed. On the third attempt, regional command appeared for less than two seconds before the screen dissolved into static, and Maelis looked toward the window.
The sky was still blue.
"Kaiven."
He followed her gaze. For a moment the eastern ridge was empty; then a bright point appeared above it, moving too fast for a shuttle.
It flew too low for normal orbital traffic and crossed the sky without sound. A second point followed, then a third.
The station alarms began to howl.