Page 32 of Warrior’s Mate

"I don't know."

A woman near them overheard and started crying. Maelis wanted to tell her it would be all right. She did not. Promises mattered too much today to spend them carelessly.

Instead she called Baret.

"Shift all eastern evacuees off the public roads. Use service routes only."

"Some families won't leave without their vehicles."

"Then tell them they'll lose the vehicles."

"Maelis—"

"Tell them."

She ended the call. Kaiven studied her.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing."

"You sounded like an officer."

"I'll recover."

A burst of gunfire came from outside. Kaiven moved instantly, pushing civilians behind the grain barriers. Maelis followed. Three district security officers ran through the doors.

One was bleeding from the shoulder.

"Sargans at the east vehicle yard," he said. "They're not holding ground."

Kaiven crouched beside him. "What are they doing?" The officer swallowed.

"Taking people."

The room went silent as the implication moved through everyone who had heard the report. The Sargans were not holding ground; they were taking people.

Kaiven's gaze found hers across the hall. There was no disbelief left now. Only calculation.

"How many transports do we have?"

Maelis answered immediately. "Locally? Enough to move maybe twelve hundred at once if we use agricultural freight."

"Population in exposed zones?"

"More than eight thousand."

"How many shelter safely in place?"

"Depends what the Sargans know."

"Assume they know everything."

That was the first truly military thing he had said that frightened her. Maelis brought up the service network.

"Then we don't move everyone."